Why Learn Music?

I love the piano.

It is really a wonderful expressive outlet for me. I enjoy playing the songs that I hear on the radio. I enjoy playing nursery rhymes for my children, and see their eyes brighten up when they recognise the songs. And I enjoy the satisfaction gained from learning and performing music.

So, the piano, to me, is an instrument for musical expression, much like the voice, the violin and the guitar for other musicians.

I believe that it is innately human to want to make music, because no societies have ever been found to be without music!

Based on my interactions with parents, I've no doubt that many Singaporean parents believe in the benefits of a music education for their children. Many would like their children to enjoy music, sing, dance, and being immersed in musical moments.

Generally, young children need little coaxing to participate in music making - it just seems natural to them. My kids love to listen to songs, sing and dance along. Sometimes, they stand very still and listen to the songs intently.

This enjoyment is reason for a musical education - that irreplaceable feeling one gets from experiencing music! :) They enrich the quality of our children's lives.

Music and Brain Research

With advances in technology, more scientific research have also suggested relationships between music study and brain development. One of the first researches was the highly publicised 'The Mozart Effect', when F. Rauscher found a small and temporary improvement in a spatial test after her subjects listened to classical music - no guessing what her subjects listened to.

There was much hype after that, and led to the popular press to make claims that music learning improves academic achievements, makes one cleverer, etc. You can see such claims on some Baby CDs and so on.

More recently, it was reported that musically trained children performed better in memory test correlated with other skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and intelligence . The study was led by Dr Laurel Trainor, professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University, Canada, and Director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. It measured over one year, the changes in brain responses to sounds in four to six year-olds. (Sci-Tech News, 20 Sep 2006. You can read more here.)

Another study by Dartmouth music psychologist Petr Janata found that music prompts greater connectivity between the brains left and right hemisphere and between the areas responsible for emotion and memory, than does almost any other stimulus (from Science, 13 Dec 2002. You can read more here - but you need to first register free with Science Online.)

My Views

It's certainly good to know what music study can do to one's mental capacity! :)

But to say music learning causes one to excel in mathematics, etc. is like saying, hey, let's test you in Mathematics to see how good your music lessons have been.

Learning everything has its own spin-offs. So does music learning. I believe the musically trained students do well in the various areas is because of the certain qualities are also developed while learning music - that of perserverance, self-disciplined, concentration.

I've no scientific proof, but this is what I observe of children who have been learning an instrument. They tend to be more self-disciplined, perhaps from having been consistently practising on their instruments! :)

This may be a generalisation, but correct me if I'm wrong - they tend to perform better in school too, and generally have a more positive attitude towards schooling.

Your Views

Do leave your comments and let me know if you agree or disagree with this one! :) If you've found this article useful/not useful, pls leave a comment too! Thank you!

In my next post, I'll talk more about why learn the piano. Watch this space!