The Top Ten Benefits of Learning to Play a Musical Instrument
Learning to play a musical instrument helps adults and children alike to appreciate a wonderful form of artistic expression.
The music itself is enough reason to get your children into music lessons if you can.
Learning to play a musical instrument has so many benefits – whether it’s building your confidence, enhancing your memory or widening your social circle.
Here are ten reasons why you should consider taking up an instrument as soon as you can!
1. Playing an instrument could make you smarter
Many studies show a correlation between musical training and academic success, in both children and adults. Learning to play an instrument stimulates the brain, improving functions like memory and abstract reasoning skills, which are essential for maths and science.
2. Improving your social life
Playing an instrument can be good for expanding your social circle. This is because joining a musical group at any age encourages you to develop relationships with different people. At the same time, it also builds skills in leadership and team-building while showing the rewards of working with others.
3. Helping to relieve stress
The important point about music is that it helps to keep you calm and relieve stress, having a unique effect on your emotions while even being known to lower heart rate and blood pressure. It is said that slow classical music is often the most beneficial but if that type of music is not your scene, any type of music will be helpful, slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the levels of stress hormones.
4. Giving you a sense of achievement
Playing and succeeding at a musical instrument can help to give you a sense of pride and achievement. Think about you pleased you will be when you have been struggling with a piece of music for some time and then it all falls into place perfectly.
5. Building your self confidence
Yet another benefit of playing an instrument is that it helps you get comfortable with self-expression. When children begin to master their instrument(s), they will tend to play to a few audiences, starting with their music teacher or parents, and branching out to groups of other pupils and concert audiences. Playing in public can help children feel more confident playing an instrument, helping to build their self confidence.
6. Improving your patience
While there are no shortcuts to learning to play an instrument, adults and children alike can benefit from the patience needed to achieve. The more effort put into something, the better the result can be.
7. Helping to improve the memory
The researchers carrying out studies have found that learning to play a musical instrument can enhance verbal memory, spatial reasoning and literacy skills. The advantage of playing an instrument is that it makes you use both sides of your brain, strengthening memory power.
8. Helping to improve discipline and time management skills
Realistically, learning to play an instrument is not a skill that can be mastered overnight as it takes time and effort While adults will usually be acutely aware of what is required, children might need encouragement and understanding that if they want to be good at something, they’ll need to put in the hours and organise their time effectively.
9. Playing music increases creativity
Practising and perfecting a piece of music benefits the creative side of your brain by putting your own stamp on it while injecting some of your personality into the music.
10. And finally, playing music should also be fun!
It is very important that learning to play a musical instrument should be enjoyable for the learner. At the same time, playing music actively engages and stimulates the brain - and this in turn can make you feel happy and occupied.
And there are so many different musical instruments to choose from. There is sure to be one that is just right for you!
SOURCES:
Playing a musical instrument increases blood flow in the middle cerebral artery - PubMed (nih.gov)
Written by Jane Chitty
Jane writes for Healing Natural Oils, a producer and retailer of high-quality, all-natural treatments for a variety of conditions as well as a range of beauty products. Apart from writing about those various conditions, she also covers general health, environmental and other subjects of interest. She has lived in Kenya as well as Cape Town, South Africa and spent time in San Diego, USA. She now lives in Somerset, England with regular visits from her far-flung children and grandchildren. She is a keen gardener and enjoys growing fresh fruit and vegetables with her husband on their joint allotment. As a result, there is something available to use in the kitchen virtually all year round. Her regular posts can be found on our blog.