Remember when you were younger, and you just got home from school? The only thing you wanted to do was eat, watch cartoons, play video games or run around outside with your friends. Well, the world is cruel, and your parents had other plans for you. They forced you to take music lessons many times a week while your friends got to have fun. Well, its time to drop the childhood resentment and start thanking your parents for the head start. Most people don’t know how to sing or play an instrument, so here are some reasons why you are ahead of the academic curve.
There have been numerous studies on the benefits of being introduced to music as a child. Why do you think children are able to speak so quickly when it can take the average COLLEGE student years to learn a basic form of another language? When you are young, your brain has higher levels of activity in your frontal lobe, particularly the executive functions. These functions remember small details, organize tasks, plan accurate actions and make you pay attention to the more important information. When you integrate the practice of music, you are giving those functions more problems to solve, thus making you more cognitive. Now all those after school music lessons don’t seem so pointless, huh?
If you didn’t LEARN TO SING or play when you were younger, don’t worry; you still have plenty of time. Think of it this way, have you ever tried writing or brushing your teeth with your less dominate hand? Seems difficult, but when you keep at it, your dexterity and coordination increase. It’s the same concept as learning to play an instrument. Your brain has been trained to solve tasks that are familiar to you, but if you introduce the hand/eye coordination of reading sheet music while playing an instrument, your executive functions will be thrown into overdrive. There are proven correlations between students with higher GPA’s that play instruments compared to lower GPA’s of students that don’t.
At times, musicians get labeled as lazy, but the reality is it takes hard work and dedication. Playing an instrument doesn’t have to turn into a career, it can be enjoyed as a hobby or a cerebral workout. This might sound cliché, but one of the greatest minds in history, Albert Einstein, played and enjoyed the violin regularly. He is QUOTED in saying, “I often think in music. I live my dreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” Music is coined as the “universal language” because every person, country and culture around the globe perceives music in similar ways. The notes on a page are the same for everyone, which is why music is so unique to humanity.
Whether you’ve been playing for years or you just started, the benefits of strumming a guitar or pushing the keys of a piano transfer not only to better academic standings but to psychological health as well. Simply put, it’s a skill that makes you smarter and happier.
