Thinking in Music, Inc. is an Arizona-based non-profit organization whose goal is to create and promote affordable offerings that help develop thoughtful and skillful minds. Several years ago we began development of , a curriculum for developing cognitive skills in young children and based on research showing that active participation in the arts can enrich us intellectually, emotionally, and socially.

The program is dedicated to

Edith Morse Milender

who understood that music is a powerful instrument

to help children learn how to learn

and whose vision gave life to this project.

Thinking in Music, Inc. was founded by Sumner Milender, a retired businessman and graduate of Harvard College and Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. Mr. Milender has a lifelong interest in music and education. At age 65, he was appointed an Adjunct in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he worked with Project Zero and Professor Jessica Davis. Upon retirement to Tucson, Arizona, Mr. Milender was inspired to use music and art as the engines of a new program for elementary age children. The result was the formation of Thinking in Music, Inc. and the publication of Arts for Critical Thinking (for children in the early elementary grades) and (for pre-school children).

The original lessons and current activities were created and written by Dr. Martin F. Gardiner of the Center for the Study of Human Development at Brown University in Providence, RI, and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA. Dr. Gardiner was educated at Columbia University (physics), Stanford University (electrical engineering), and the University of California, Los Angeles (brain research). His musical training includes work at these universities as well as at the Kodály Institute in Keskemedt, Hungary. Dr. Gardiner studies connections between musical and visual arts learning and broader academic, personal, and social learning. He was lead author of an article in Nature showing the impact of musical and visual arts training on broader learning. Please see our Research page for a list of his work.