Making Music makes you Smarter -Learning to play the piano helps develop:
Creative thinking, Concentration, Self-confidence and Self estimate, Hand-eye co-ordination, Memory skills. Goal setting, Time management skills, Self excretion. The desire to achieve excellence. The ability to understand and use symbols in a new context.
Endless hours of piano practice can be the bane of a child’s life – but there might be an added benefit of sticking with it. A study has found that learning a musical instrument as a child could keep you sharp into old age.
Pensioners who had piano, flute, clarinet or other lessons as a youngster, did better on intelligence tests than others. And the longer they had played the instrument for, the better they did.
University of Kansas researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy said: ‘Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of ageing. ‘Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older.’
Dr Hanna-Pladdy said: ‘Based on previous research and our study results, we believe that both the years of musical participation and the age of acquisition are critical. ‘There are crucial periods in brain plasticity (versatility) that enhance learning, which may make it easier to learn a musical instrument before a certain age and thus may have a larger impact on brain development.’
How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice?
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