Whatever Are Piano Lessons For?
August 23, 2011 § 2 Comments
This question was posed to me by a parent many years ago and I have been trying to answer it ever since. Is it just my imagination, or does studying music actually improve your life? Do you get smarter, live longer, will you be better adjusted or happier if you play the piano?
This fall, families everywhere will be wondering whether to stretch the calendar and the budget to include piano lessons. Many parents recognize the need for arts study to counterbalance the academic emphasis in most schools. But when it is time to get in the car and write the checks, it is easy to wonder whether it is worth it all.
Don’t get me wrong, music for me is first, last and always its own reward. But I have noticed that pianists tend to be quite bright. Do they start out that way or does piano study somehow help things along?
Our friends The Scientists have recently set aside their investigations into pathology to study how we learn and how to improve it. The next time I have to justify piano lessons, I will have some real answers instead of just opinions. I will be posting a whole slew of articles on the benefits of music study. Here’s one to start off the fall piano lesson season:
How Music Training Primes Nervous System and Boosts Learning A review of many research papers on the effects of music study reveals music study improves listening, speech processing, attention, memory, vocabulary, reading. So anecdotal evidence that piano students do better in school is supported by some real data. Children with dyslexia, in particular, benefit from music study because it strengthens brain function in areas that in which they are weak.
Piano Connections: The Studio of Megan Hughes 
Good article! I like the way you affirm the intrinsic value of the pursuit of music, first, before going onto the “fringe benefits” which are nonetheless also of great value and concern in contemporary society.
Thanks for reminding me to put the real stuff first. I often suspect I get too involved in the other stuff, because of the tendency for non-musicians to think we’re just goofing off when we’re involved with music. After all, it’s called “playing”, isn’t it? So it can’t be real, right?