Well I never!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18412409

This quote in particular:

"Ms Rabinowitch told BBC News: "Music might be a tool, a really nice welcoming medium for enhancing the mechanism for empathy in children.""

...because it doesn't have any intrinsic value as just music, obviously

I don't know about empathy, but the power of music to reinforce group values certainly has a few precedents, savoury and otherwise, down the years.

indeedy.....Henning Wehn's take on that one.

(he's worth listening to in any case, though his singing isn't up to much: he has a few home truths for his British public, as well as managing to take the mickey out of his own nation's characterisitics.....)

Well, can't it be both of those things?

The link to the article saying every school pupil (in Bristol) will have music lessons now that the government has poured ?1m pounds into it made me groan. i've been hearning this story for the past thirty years. It's usually not made much difference, because those who didn't want to (or thought they didn't want to) wouldn't take it up (or wouldn't put anything into it if it were compulsory) and they're probably the ones who would benefit most if only they knew it.

Of course it can - I was being facetious. Clearly I need to put a line in my signature...

Sorry, did I miss something? Or does music have other values as well? Or has the person who made this statement never learnt to MAKE music. When you just listen, that might be true, but making is quite a difference and not intrinsic at all.