A new poll shows that two-thirds of children make music as younger generations pick up music more.

There is hope for the future of music in children. New research has found that over two-thirds of young people aged between seven to seventeen are actively playing music.

Youth Music and Ipsos Mori took a poll of over 1000 children to ask them about their relationship with music. The love for listening to music is as high as ever with 97% saying they had listened to music in the past week. However, the most notable figure showed that within the previous week 67% of the children had taken part in “some form of music-making activity”.

What makes this finding even more significant is the fact that the same survey in 2006 found that only 39% of the youngsters polled had played in active role in creating or playing music. This is almost double the uptake in less than 15 years.

Out of those who have said they made music, 44% said they had been singing compared to 17% in 2006. 30% of those said that they had played an instrument and of those 39% had been teaching themselves, the most common instrument being the piano. 11% had made music on a computer and less than 10% rapped or DJ’d.

Digital apps have likely played a large part in the uptake in music with social apps like TikTok where users mouth along to music. The report’s authors say: “While there may not be a lot of music involved, the app encourages young people to be creative, autonomous and hone their performance skills, often in highly humorous ways.”

Youth Music CEO, Matt Griffiths opens the report saying: “While we might have online access to more music than ever before, we still can’t afford to go to that festival, be a regular gig-goer, rehearse with a band or afford to buy that instrument we’ve always wanted. And if we’re at school it’s getting increasingly more difficult to access music in the curriculum where its importance is in many cases being downgraded.”

The report found that children with lower incomes were more likely to be taking an active interest in music. The report recommends that “public music education funds should be targeted towards those who face greatest barriers to access”, and “those involved in supporting young people’s wellbeing should give greater consideration to the role that music can play, and how young people’s passion for listening to music and their everyday creative lives can be interwoven with wider strategies to support good mental health.”