6. MIT: Music Lessons Help You Learn Languages
In one of the most interesting conclusions in music education literature, MIT has this to say about the effect of music lessons on learning languages:
Researchers have found that piano lessons have a specific effect on kindergartners’ ability to distinguish different pitches, which translates into an improvement in discriminating between words.
What an unbelievable conclusion! Learning music and hearing pitches in various registers translates directly to hearing words and language in a new and unique way.
5. Childhood Music Lessons Offer Some Long-Term Brain Protection Into Late Adulthood
An “oldie-but-goodie” National Geographic article from early 2014 suggests that music can have significant improvements in your brain and even help protect it in later adulthood from memory loss.
Why does it do this?
According to the article, the prevailing theory is that making music creates neural connections in the brain that would otherwise be absent in a non-musically-trained brain.
Because of these neural connections, a compensation effect can take place into adulthood where a decline in memory will lessen because of these added connections.
4. Music Lessons Literally Makes Your Brain Larger In Physical Size
A recent article published by Inc.com, citing a University of Montreal study as well as other studies, tell us that music lessons augment the size of the brain.
One particular area of the brain, known as the corpus callosum, is shown through brain scans to be larger in musicians than non-musicians. The corpus callosum is responsible for your “left brain” and “right brain” to communicate effectively with each other.
The same article points out something interesting; the brain boosting industry has become a multi-billion dollar conglomeration of companies hawking supplements, games, and other questionable activities for boosting brain power.
What if the answer to a better brain simply lied in music lessons? Something to think about.
3. Helps You Fight Distractions
A study from 2016 by Belgian researchers found that music helped children ages 9-12 ward off distractions.
This particular study measured 32 music students and 31 non-music students in a head-to-head observation of “cognitive inhibition.” Essentially, this means the ability to inhibit yourself from paying attention to distractions and irrelevancy.
Unequivocally, the music students scored higher than the non-music students. The researchers postulated one reason music lessons may help fight distractions is because of the concentration required to perform music.
Music is a social art, and it requires intense listening to other musicians, syncing rhythmically with other instrumentalists in an ensemble, focusing on the gestures and movements of a conductor, and even intently creating a composition. Students who don’t have to do music at a young age may never find a good reason to fight off distractions.