CMAP will be working with approximate 60 students each summer and teaching them how to play the musical instruments, color guards, and dance. Results supported the hypothesis that music training leads to gains in phonological awareness skills. The effect isolated by contrasting gains in music training vs. gains in control was small relative to the large variance in these skills (d = 0.2). Interestingly, analyses revealed that transfer effects for rhyming skills tended to grow stronger with increased hours of training.

The Cincinnati Music and Arts Program has encouraged open communication between the parents, schools, and the students to include everyone in the strategy of problem solving and prevention. The goal of Cincinnati Stars Marching Band is to collaborate with families and communities to help build successful young men and women with a great future. The Cincinnati Music and Arts Program is a nonprofit organization working toward a vision where all teens and young people of the Over-The-Rhine area will be able to live their lives free of alcohol, drugs, teen pregnancy and violence. Giving the children in the Over-The-Rhine, the West End, and Cincinnati area a place to play musical instruments, drums, and dance all at the same time will allow the children not to become targets for gang violence, murder, or the police during the summer season and after school.