Saturday, September 8, 2012

Music: More Than Meets the Ear


What an exciting week at Chrysalis Piano Studio! It’s great to see all the students coming prepared and even better to hear the beautiful music that they are playing!

 But, did you know that there may be more benefits to playing piano than the amazing music students make?

 Several research studies confirm that playing a musical instrument has been definitively shown to improve test scores. Several longitudinal studies support this. Dr. James Catterall of UCLA led a 10-year study which involved 25,000 students which showed that music-making students not only performed better on standardized tests but also in reading proficiency exams. Likewise, high school students involved in music score higher on both the verbal and math portions of the SAT when compared to their “non-musical” peers (College Board Test Scores). Music students receive more academic honors and more A’s and B’s as grades than do their non-musical peers (U.S. Department of Education).

 According to Dr. Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a neurologist at Emory University School of Medicine, “learning to play an instrument requires years of practice and learning” which is believed to create neurological connections in the brain which help compensate for the decline in cognition as people age.

 Other benefits of learning to play and understand music include the proportional math involved in music that is required for higher level math computation. Music has also been shown to enhance spatial thinking. It goes without saying that the discipline that is involved to learn to read and play music is beneficial to overall academic achievement.

 WOW! How exciting for all music students everywhere!

 Keep up the incredible work that you are doing at Chrysalis Piano Studio.

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