The Benefits Of Playing The Piano

Learning an instrument can be one of the most gratifying and rewarding sensations on the planet. The piano is a beautiful instrument that virtually everyone can identify with. Some of the greatest composers in history were able to play the piano including Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. While you may never be considered a great composer, you can still develop a love for music on a higher level through instruction – and this provides you with incredible benefits throughout all aspects of your life.

I’ve been writing and teaching music for a total of more than 25 years and I’ve learned that patience is a virtue and that there is a common language between musicians – and this is something that I have grown to value. I hold a diploma from Music for the Media and have played the keyboard in several different bands throughout North England.

The benefits of leaning and playing the piano are significant. Children and adults alike can learn how to play and it’s a gift regardless of the age. I have taught students of all ages and have seen how the benefits translate in various areas of life beyond being able to play some incredible music.

 

Educational Benefits

It’s not simply about learning where to place your fingers on the keyboard that makes learning the piano so beneficial. When you play the piano, you learn dexterity, agility, and you learn how to read music. Once you learn how to read music, you are fluent in a universal language that doesn’t change depending on the country you visit and that means that you are capable of communicating with anyone, anywhere you go.

When you learn how to read music, you will be able to play any song on the piano – and the ability to read music doesn’t really change when you switch instruments. This means that by learning how to play the piano now, you set yourself up for being able to learn other instruments down the road. You could easily learn other instruments within percussion and string – and this allows you to transition to guitar, drums, and many others with an ease that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

Everyone wants to do better in school and it has been shown that learning the piano can actually help students dramatically. This is because it teaches a higher level of discipline. When you are considering piano lessons for your children, consider that students who learn an instrument generally score much higher than those that don’t in standardized tests. The University of Texas and the University of Georgia have conducted studies that show considerable correlations between the number of years studying an instrument and the academic achievements within subjects of language arts, science, and math.

Learning to play music can actually change the brain. This means that beyond benefitting from learning how to make beautiful music, you can add more neural connections within your brain. This helps to improve the overall level of human communication. People who have taken multiple years of piano instruction are said to have better speech and language skills, higher levels of memory and attention, and the ability to convey emotions in a more vocal capacity.

Children with disabilities can benefit from music lessons as well. This is because it can help with hearing, especially over background noise. This is because the brain is primed to hear and understand speech in a higher capacity when there is a lot of noise within the background. Children who struggle hearing in noisy environments can see a marked improvement by learning an instrument. The neural processes are improved and that can help with hearing problems and even with developmental dyslexia because the neurons are making more connections within the brain.

It has also been shown that people who take piano lessons can have a larger vocabulary – and that one’s reading ability can dramatically improve. Music training tones the brain like physical training tones the body, which allows you to develop your mind in a way that nothing else can.

Patience, coordination, and dedication can be learned – and these are skills that can benefit you throughout like. It’s not just about getting the good grades in school. It’s also about being able to reach a level of success throughout your life. These benefits can help you throughout your career so that you can ensure that you are able to perform well within your office and beyond.

The studies continue to show incredible benefits of students who learn an instrument in the classroom. When you want to make sure that your children are able to perform the best within school, piano lessons can be just what they need.

It’s not just for school-age children, however. Adults, too, can benefit from the lessons. Wouldn’t you like to be able to hear your friends when you are in a large crowd with a lot of background noise? Wouldn’t you like to have a higher level of memory and attention? These are all benefits to learning the piano because it changes your brain for the better and helps more neural connections to be made. It’s one of the best hobbies that you can have because of the educational benefits that it offers.

 

Personal Benefits

Music has a way of keeping you young at heart and this is of the utmost importance. While you can look to see how learning the piano can help to develop a person’s education on multiple levels, there are plenty of personal benefits that can be gained as well. I’m always surprised to hear about new research on how learning the piano has been able to help groups of people – and this just makes me prouder to be a piano teacher.

Piano lessons can actually help to prevent age-related troubles in hearing. Research has shown that older musicians do not experience again within the auditory cortex of the brain that traditionally leads to hearing loss. By taking lessons, you can help to prevent these changes within the brain later in life – and maybe never have to rely on a hearing aid.

Learning how to play music can help to relieve stress. In a world where anxiety and depression are common, being able to sit down at the piano and play can help to relax you – and this means that you are going to be happier and healthier for it. When you are able to reduce stress at a molecular level, which studies have shown that music can do, you can even improve your immune system.

Can learning the piano really help to make you healthier? According to the Loma Linda University School of Medicine, the answer is yes. Playing a musical instrument can help to reduce stress within your molecules. When that happens, you can have a strong immune system and that allows you to ward off cancer, disease, and other illnesses so that you can be healthier all year long.

When you are playing the piano, you can reduce your stress, improve your mood, and even prevent job burnout. This is because you are focusing on something other than work. You are giving yourself over to the music. Once you know how to play the keyboard, you may even be able to find some friends or co-workers that know guitar and drums so that you can have a few rock sessions throughout the week – and all of you can prevent job burnout together – and make some incredible music at the same time.

If you’ve had a rough day at the office and you are fortunate enough to have a piano (or even a keyboard) in your home, you can sit down and begin playing. You use parts of your brain that you don’t ordinarily use by focusing on reading the music and having your fingers in place across the keys. This shuts off some parts of your brain and opens up others. It’s a form of relaxation and allows you to take a deep breath from the weight of the world. It’s a great way to relax and those around you will be entertained while you relax. It’s more productive for your brain and it’s important to have a way to turn your mind off periodically. Whether you play rock, blues, jazz, or another genre is up to you.

It should come as no surprise that piano lessons will also improve hand-eye coordination. You will be learning how to use both hands across the keyboard to make the various notes and combining them in order to create music. As you learn to read music, you can become more advanced with your hand-eye skills and that can lead to improvements when playing video games, typing, playing sports, and much more. There are various surgeons in the world that attribute their surgical skills to learning to play the piano.

Fine motor skills are developed through playing the piano. Nimble hands are going to be able to move across the keyboard much more efficiently – and as they say, practice makes perfect. Many people like to make up excuses and say that only dainty hands with long fingers can play the piano. This is not true. I have taught hundreds of people how to play the piano and the truth is that any hand is capable of playing – it is simply about developing agility within the hand movements.

 

The Overall Benefits to Piano Lessons

You have now seen all of the educational and personal benefits to learning the piano. Piano lessons are for anyone and everyone, regardless of age, gender, disability, race, or size of hands. If you have a passion for music and you want to improve your cognitive skills, prevent hearing loss, reduce stress, and provide an overall improvement to your well-being, learning the piano is something that you should do.

Whether you get the lessons for yourself or your children, you can look forward to these benefits amongst many others:

- Increased coordination

- Improved fine motor skills

- Higher level of dedication

- Reduction of stress

- Improves neural response

With all of these benefits, it’s hard to ignore how learning to play the piano can change your life for the better. Sight reading provides your mind with a workout that you cannot replace and this can be taught alongside of learning the keys of the piano. It allows you to take your love of music to a new level by learning how to play the music and even how to create new music so that you can offer something more to the world.

When you know how to play the piano, you will also find that your social participation can increase. People will often flock to where music is being played and you can meet some amazing new people when you know an instrument. It’s a great way to start up conversations and introduce yourself to new opportunities. As you meet other people who know the piano and other instruments, it can also be a way of expanding your knowledge as well as your appreciation for music.

You may never be the life of the party, but you could because the piano can provide music for people to dance to and you can be the one creating the music. As long as you have access to a piano, you can sit down and be the music maker. This is a benefit that many people forget about. Yes, you can improve your grades and yes, you can be healthier and happier, but what about the genuine gift of being able to make music with your fingers? You can bring happiness to others when you play and grab ahold of any sheet music to play something fantastic for a crowd.

There is nothing but benefits to learning the piano and I have already been able to experience these benefits for myself along with seeing them in my clients. When you would like to learn how to play the piano and experience these benefits for yourself, I look forward to the opportunity to be your teacher. 

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