All the benefits of learning to play an instrument

That our children study music It has more benefits than we believe. Training to acquire these skills has positive effects on both the development of intelligence and motor skills.

This is explained by a study conducted by the University of Vermont entitled "Can playing pieces of Tchaikovsky improve brain activity of children?" This work has analyzed closely 230 children between 6 and 8 years to try to find the relationship between the practice of some musical instrument and some positive alteration in his cerebral cortex.

Positive alteration of music in the cerebral cortex

The authors were pleasantly surprised to see that their theory it was correct. When analyzing the cases in which the children played a musical instrument, they could verify that there was indeed a positive alteration within the cerebral cortex. Specifically, in the area responsible for people's motor skills.


According to the authors, this alteration is explained if we take into account the coordination between mind and hands to be able to play a musical instrument. The practice of these activities favors that senses such as sight and touch are combined in an impressive way to get that simply look at a score and seeing the note that must be executed, the fingers already know how to stand.

Playing a musical instrument also has positive effects in the mental and emotional fields. According James Hudziak, director of this work, this practice favors "the working memory, the organization and planning, the processing of emotions and the inhibition of aggressive impulses". This neurologist sums up his study in one sentence: "practicing daily with a violin can help a child with psychological disorders more than a child. pill bottle".


Playing an instrument makes you smarter

Another work published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows an investigation in which a six-year-old child was taught to play an instrument during a period of 15 months.

By the end of this process, these children had experienced changes in their brain structure. The areas for process information they had grown and the neural connections in these areas worked much better than before beginning this investigation. In fact these improvements had occurred only months later of having started this therapy.

After completing the study, the researchers discovered that these children had improved language skills, memory, behavior or spatial intelligence (fundamental in tasks as complicated as solving a mathematical operation).


Damián Montero

Video: How playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins


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