Turns Out Your Mom Was Right
Music students at TPA were asked what of value they were taking away from their semester of music study. Answers included dictation, live performance, music theory, and music appreciation. It turns out, though, that studying music may have other benefits of which the students themselves are unaware. A comprehensive longitudinal study concluded that "Music improves cognitive and non-cognitive skills more than twice as much as sports, theater or dance." So it turns out your mom was right to make you take those lessons as a kid!
Research continues to accrue that studying a musical instrument has long-term benefits, including:
- Improved reading and verbal skill
- Mathematical and spatial reasoning
- Better grades
- Raising IQ
- Helps learn foreign languages more quickly
- Makes a better listener
- Slows effects of aging
- Strengthens motor cortex (having to do with movement)
- Improved working memory
- Improved long-term memory for visual stimuli
- Better management of anxiety
- Enhanced self-confidence and self-esteem
- Increased creativity
For more detail see here. The mechanism seems to have something to do with activating processes in the brain in ways not approached by other activities.
All of our students at TPA have the opportunity to benefit from excellent music instruction--even though they may not know what all those benefits are!