Your whole brain is involved while playing music – frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital. All parts of your brain are simultaneously working together to make sure you press the correct piano key at the correct loudness, strumming the correct guitar string at the right time in the song. While you play an instrument you are analyzing the song – texture, melody, contours, timbre and then piecing it back together. Playing music also requires mathematical skills, reading skills, listening skills and fine motor skills all at the same time. Can you imagine how busy your brain must be while playing an instrument? It’s completely underrated how much work is required to play an instrument.
While you’re playing a song your brain is also making memories and connections between your fingers, the song and the instrument. Muscle memory is developed by default after countless hours of practicing the same song over and over again. Muscle memory eventually becomes “auto-pilot mode” when you play so that you can focus on other things during a performance such as volume, tempo, and the overall feeling of your music without having to worry about playing the correct notes in their correct order. The muscle memory you develop is also something you will not be able to forget 10-15 years down the road. It becomes ingrained, it becomes unforgettable.
Music can help with cognitive deterioration.
Alzheimer’s and Dementia is the deterioration of the brain. There is a loss of connections between neurons which eventually lead to the death of the nerve cells, and to a loss of brain tissue. While learning an instrument it creates new connections between neurons, and reinforces old ones. Learning how to play different songs require different connections. All these new links between thousands and thousands of neurons require space which can lead to an increase of brain matter.
Music is being used as a therapy with patients who suffer from cognitive diseases because music promotes and stimulates all parts of the brain. And it has been quite successful. Music can bring back speech, motor-skills, and lost memories. Music has also shown to improve social skills and their self-confidence. These are the results with only listening to music, imagine if people with early onset cognitive deterioration were rehabilitated by being taught how to play an instrument. Of course, as the disease worsens and the neurons and syntactic connections aren’t being made quick enough to void the disease, learning an instrument may be too difficult of a task. Which is why it should be used as a preventative method. It is better to prevent that to treat a disease.
Music is indeed one solution, but it is also a lot more.
Music is powerful. It provokes emotions and memories. It energizes you during a workout and it comforts you during the hard times in life.
Even while you’re relaxing and enjoying music your brain is taking apart the music and analyzing it. Essentially, music is a way to give your brain a workout and playing an instrument is an even harder and fuller workout for your brain.
Your brain is a muscle. If you work out your muscles, they become stronger and it becomes easier and quicker to do the things you want with less struggle. You mind will become sharper and quicker at tasks.
Learning how to play an instrument has countless of benefits. It enhances your reasoning, reading and comprehension skills. It can teach you patience and determination. It sharpens your concentration and teaches you discipline. It enhances listening, and reasoning skills. It can also improve your mathematical and logic skills. Music is also fun, it can be a way of bonding with others and sharing experiences.
Music is undoubtedly powerful. It can prolong the longevity of your mind, while also being fun and entertaining.
As a music major, I am of coursed biased and I can list many reasons as to why picking up a musical instrument is one of the best things you can do for yourself. It will feel hard at first, but isn’t that how everything feels when you’re learning it for the first time? Don’t give up.
Scientific References:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0753332294901724
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=273208&fileId=S1041610200006190
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0027241
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/129/10/2528