With gratitude to Bena Kallick, our advisor and mentor.

Music Shapes the Way We Think and Feel

Music drifts through our daily lives the way light slips through blinds. Quiet, constant, and easy to overlook. It hums in grocery stores, pulses in elevators, fills the space between us on the subway. Most of the time, we barely notice. But when we stop, when we choose one song, silence the noise, and really listen, music transforms.

A breath slows. A memory surfaces. A question arises that we did not know we were carrying.

Music moves from background to guide.

Listening: Habit of Mind and Habit of Life

The habits we practice shape the lives we create. Over years of performing, teaching, parenting, and leading school districts, we have noticed that the habits music strengthens are the same ones we need in daily life. This may be especially true in a world that rewards speed more than stillness.

Here are four Habits of Mind (Costa and Kallick, 2008 and 2014) that music naturally cultivates:

1. Responding With Wonder and Awe

A few months ago, Sara played the opening of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto for a room of middle school students. When the first chord sounded, you could feel the air shift. No one moved. Then, from the back row, a student whispered, “It sounds like the sky breathing.”

That is awe.

Awe is a self-transcendent emotion, the sense that something is larger or wiser or more mysterious than we can name (Keltner and Haidt, 2003). Music is one of the most reliable sources of that experience.

Awe softens the analytical mind, expanding the emotional one. Reminding us that we are part of something larger than ourselves, whether that is family, history, humanity, or simply the quiet beauty of being alive.

2. Listening With Understanding and Empathy

Music is a tonal analogue of emotive life (Langer, 1953) expressing towards what language can only gesture.

When a high school jazz ensemble that Sara once coached finished playing Coltrane’s Naima, they did not speak. They simply looked at one another, eyes soft and a little amused, because they had just shared something beyond words.

They were not listening for their own part. They were listening to each other.

Empathic listening is like that.

In music.

In conversation.

In families.

The phrasing of one influences the phrasing of another.

3. Thinking Interdependently

For all our earbuds and endless playlists, music is deeply communal.

At a Mozart for Munchkins concert, a toddler might clap wildly off beat, a violinist adjusts without hesitation, and a parent catches our eye with a knowing smile. This is exactly how it should be.

It is messy.

It is joyful.

It is interdependence in motion.

Bena Kallick reminds us, “Listening together is one of the purest forms of working together.”

Listening shapes the habits of your life.

Synchrony matters more than perfection. The ability to adjust to another person’s timing, tone, or need is the essence of both ensemble playing and healthy community.

4. Remaining Open to Continuous Learning

New music stretches us. Gamelan, gospel, K-pop, Bach, folk traditions, lo-fi beats, a melody made up by a child. Each expands our sense of what beauty can sound like.

Leading a classroom or a business or a school district requires the same openness. As leaders are often reminded, you do not play every instrument, but you do listen for balance.

Curiosity is not a personality trait. It is a practice. Music keeps that practice alive.

The Brain Leans In

Even a few intentional minutes can shift our state. When we listen to music we love, the brain reward circuitry becomes active and releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter tied to motivation, pleasure, focus, and meaning (Levitin, 2006).

That surge of reward is why a driving bass line can move us before we have time to think, why a whispered lyric can undo us, and why rhythm can make a long walk feel effortless.

In* Resonant Minds* (Bloomsbury, 2025), we write about how music recruits emotion, movement, and cognition all at once. You can think of it as an internal orchestra tuning itself toward coherence. What begins as sound becomes regulation, reflection, and sometimes revelation.

When we listen with intention, the nervous system organizes. When we listen together, our bodies synchronize.

Music turns attention into connection. And connection into growth.

A Simple Practice: One Song, Full Attention

Choose one piece that lasts between three and seven minutes. A few that work well:

Peace Piece by Bill Evans

Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy

Ocean Eyes by Billie Eilish

*Spiegel im Spiegel *by Arvo Pärt

Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns

Before: Silence notifications. Sit in whatever position feels natural. Set a gentle intention: I am here to notice.

During: Stay curious. Notice rhythm, breath, pulse, texture, and any memories or images that arise.

After: Name one musical detail you heard, one feeling you experienced, and one shift you notice now. For example, you may feel calmer, clearer, or more energized.

If you are with a partner, share those three things. You will hear the music again, this time through someone else’s experience.

Small Ways to Make It a Habit

Micro pauses: Use one song to mark a transition, such as work to home or caregiving to self-care.

Mood match and shift: Start with a track that matches your current state, then choose a second track that gradually guides you toward where you want to go.

Embodied breaks: Let a rhythmic groove invite movement. Walk, sway, or stretch.

Community rituals: Begin a meeting or class with one minute of shared listening. Close with one word that the music evoked.

These Habits Matter Now

In a culture saturated with speed and commentary and constant output, listening builds the capacities we need most: curiosity, empathy, collaboration, and openness. Music strengthens those capacities gently, consistently, and beautifully.

When sound moves from background to foreground, it becomes a teacher. It shows us how to notice. How to relate. How to soften. How to choose our next note with care.

Today, choose one song. Give it your full attention. Let it teach you something about emotion, about connection, about each other.

The habits we practice in listening become the habits we carry into life.