Many people worldwide play a different range of instruments as it provides leisure and an activity in a person’s life. Additionally, it allows them to focus on something or can, for some people, take them on journeys and allow them to forget about their life that they are living now and just enjoy themselves. For others, it may just be a hobby, or an enforcement as a parent, so that their child can set goals and have targets, meaning that they may have a more positive and determined attitude towards work. Additionally, it shows them how to get through rough/hard patches and how work and determination pays off in the end. Musical instruments are very important in people’s lives and it is recommended for children of young age to start learning one. It is a fact that 7 out of 10 children say that they play a musical instrument and a further 85% say that they have or used to play one. This is a staggering figure. But what does playing a musical instrument do to your brain?
Actually, musical instruments are very influential inside your brain. A neuropsychologist said,
“Music reaches part of the brain that other things can't… It's a strong cognitive stimulus that grows the brain in a way that nothing else does and the evidence that musical training enhances things like working memory and language is very robust.”
There is much evidence to suggest that musical instruments increase your verbal memory, literacy skills and can also enhance your working memory overall. This is because they increase the grey matter volume in many of your brain regions that strengthen the long-range connections within them. This then,in turn, improves your cognitive performance.
For many years people have been trying to find a way to improve the short- and long-term memory in humans’ brains and this is a very effective way.
After having undergone an investigation into the different brain structures between musicians and non-musicians’ scientists found that musicians had a bigger bundle of nerve fibres in the brain as a result. This, then improves their movement and hearing. What the investigation also found out is that the changes are much greater if you have learnt the instrument in the earlier stages of your life. It found that people with moderate music training had a sharp progression of speech sounds and this would be a long-lasting benefit as they are less likely to get age related decline in hearing. It can also protect them from dementia.
Not only does the does musical instruments enhance your working memory it also increases the blood flow to your brain; helps people to recover quickly; reduces your chances of getting depression and stress as it can be seen as very therapeutic and calming meaning that you are more happy in yourself.
Now we know that instruments can help your brain but what else can they do?
Playing an instrument can improve your social life as it encourages you to develop relationships with new kinds of people. For example, if you join a band or an orchestra. This can then improve skills like team building and leadership as you have to work as a team to make sure that you can all work together and make the sound as best as possible. It can also give you a sense of achievement, especially when you've been through tough times or are struggling in different areas. This is very comforting for some people.
Furthermore, it can improve your patience because to learn an instrument is hard and time consuming. You may find that you want to give up or that you are not improving but with patience you see your success and progress.
Overall, playing an instrument is a very good thing as it can make you, in the very long time slightly smarter as when you play the instrument it stimulates your brain improving functions like memory and reasoning. A quote from Einstein said “Life without playing music is inconceivable to me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most of my joy in life out of music”. This quote is this quote actually quite scientifically correct and shows that music doesn’t just affect your brain but can teach you many life skills and can provide happiness and comfort.
