First, music serves a particular domain of experience - the aesthetic. The musical aesthetic experience involves the perception of meaning through aural images rather than through the medium of written language, discourse, mathematical formula, or other forms of expression. The development of one's aesthetic sense has been shown to enhance the quality of life both during the school years and throughout later life. Its importance as an avenue to self-realization has been affirmed by psychologists, researchers, and teachers.
Music is important, then, in and of itself.
Second, music and the other arts are representations of the highest thoughts, achievements, and aspirations of humankind, and in them much of a culture's customs, values, and beliefs are embedded. Music and the other arts are thus an important and unique communication of a culture's heritage. Finally, because of the way the mind comprehends music, it can influence the development of the higher cognitive processes in ways not possible in other subject areas. Students who do not receive sensory stimulation such as that provided by music and the arts have been likened by educational researchers to youths who have sustained a degree of brain damage. Study in music correlates closely with increased creativity and critical and divergent thinking, important skills not only for developing self understanding but also for the present and future work place.