How Piano Playing Boosts Brain Power

  I had always been told that playing the piano was good for the brain and BELIEVE ME, I needed all the help I could get!  After researching just a little, I was amazed at how MUCH proof there was of SUBSTANTIAL benefit to be gained from playing piano or other musical instruments.  I’ve tried to summarize what I found because I think this is SO important that if you don’t already play piano, you investigate the possibility of starting, if for no other reason than its incredible brain-enhancing qualities.  You will see improvements from Executive Function (organization, multi-tasking, and concentration, among other things) and blood flow in the brain, to decreasing depression and increasing communication in young children.  Below, I’ve discussed a number of the findings I discovered.  Check them out and remember, you’re never too old to learn!

1.     Research shows that children who learn to play a musical instrument actually do experience structural changes within their brains, and the more they practice, the greater the growth.  A researcher, Gottfried Schlog, studied a group of children for two years who were either studying NO instrument, or were either learning piano or a stringed instrument.  The initial brain scans were all essentially the same across all the children.  However, at the end of the two-year period, brain scan results were significantly disparate.  Those children who had worked and practiced a musical instrument showed markedly increased brain size, especially in those who practiced consistently and considerably.  I know it is rarely fun to practice and it’s not particularly “enjoyable” to be a strict parent.  However, this is one of the wonderful proofs of the benefits of playing piano.

2.     Learning a Musical Instrument Improves Our Verbal Memory and Literacy – Amazingly, researchers have shown that musical ability relates to reading ability.  Learning to play a musical instrument builds auditory working memory, which helps with the “rhythm aspect” of music, as well as stronger reading skills.  Dr. Nina Krauss published a journal article in Behavioral and Brain Functions called, “Subcortical processing of speech regularities underlies reading and music aptitude in children”.  I realize that’s a MOUTHFULL but what it means is that having your child or YOURSELF learn to play the piano will help you academically.  Dr. Krauss explains, "Both musical ability and literacy correlated with enhanced electrical signals within the auditory brainstem. Structural equation modeling of the data revealed that music skill, together with how the nervous system responds to regularities in auditory input and auditory memory/attention accounts for about 40% of the difference in reading ability between children. These results add weight to the argument that music and reading are related via common neural and cognitive mechanisms and suggests a mechanism for the improvements in literacy seen with musical training."  These are very technical descriptions but the bottom line is that with consistent, not excessive, but substantive time investment, you can, not only delight your world with music but expand your brain potential.

3.     Young Children Who Take Music Lessons Will Smile More and Communicate in More Superior Ways – In 2012, a study from McMaster University proved that even toddlers prior to walking and talking could greatly benefit from music lessons. These children were given interactive music lessons and demonstrated both early, as well as stronger communication skills, such as smiling, pointing to specific objects, and waving goodbye.  They also responded more quickly to efforts to calm and soothe them. This research, conducted by David Gerry and Laurel Trainor, studied one-year-old babies and their parents that participated in interactive music classes showed much more sophisticated brain plasticity (or Neuroplasticity) because of their exposure to music.

4.     Studying Music Lessons from Early Childhood Strengthens and Builds Brain Plasticity Throughout a Person’s Life – There is evidence that musical instruction works positively to support brain activity during the whole lifetime of an individual, even beyond the actual study time.  Research from August 2012 by Nina Kraus found that older adults who studied a musical instrument as a child, even if they hadn’t practiced it for years and years, still had a faster brain response to a speech sound than those who never played an instrument at all. Brain Plasticity or Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to grow and adapt, or deteriorate at any age.  Activating the pliancy at this young age plays an incredibly strategic part in the development or decline of the brain, and in shaping our very specific personalities.  With age, the brain changes in ways that compromise hearing.  Most older adults will have a delayed response to rapidly changing sounds, so that speech is difficult to interpret. Musicians who have practiced a musical instrument throughout their life often avoid these cognitive deteriorations. This research suggests that early musical training works positively throughout all of life to affect how the brain processes sound.

Gavin Bidelman, a post-doctoral fellow at the Rotman Research Institute (RRI) at Baycrest Health Sciences in Canada, concluded, "Musical activities are an engaging form of cognitive brain training and we are now seeing robust evidence of brain plasticity from musical training not just in younger brains, but in older brains too."

5.     Musicians Trained from Childhood Have Excellent Multisensory Processing Skills – It is generally understood that professional musicians have specialized skills.  However, these skills are most often thought of as focused in only Music.  However, as recently as November 2013, researcher Julie Roy of the University of Montreal discovered that these skills are not LIMITED to Music Theory but expand into areas that include Geometry, rhythmic design, and multi-tasking auditory and visual inputs simultaneously.  In a press release Roy described the research saying, "The ability of the nervous system to integrate information from all senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, self-motion, and taste—is critical to day-to-day life, but even more important for some specific pursuits.  High-level musical ability requires a variety of sensory and cognitive abilities developed over the course of years of training.  Recent research has revealed that long-term musical training improves the brain’s ability to adapt, and shapes brain regions involved with audiovisual processing."  This same research, led by Julie Roy, found that musicians have an augmented ability to consolidate and harmonize sensory information from their otherwise separate senses of hearing, touch, and sight.  In order to accurately ascertain if musicians could, in fact, differentiate between various sensory inputs, Roy’s team used an audio tactile task where study candidates heard a series of quick beeps, and, at the same time, felt a vibration on one of their fingers. The candidates were, however, only asked to answer questions about the vibration on their finger.   Musicians were consistently able to correctly identify a “single” finger vibration.  Non-musicians, however, were successfully tricked into reporting multiple vibrations because they HAD heard multiple beeps. The research concluded that trained musicians are better able to discriminate or integrate the information from a range of senses with heightened differentiation and stronger targeting to its ultimate destination and purpose.

6.     Taking Music Lessons from Early Childhood Improves White Matter Connectivity – Wow!  Yet ANOTHER ridiculously complex scientific term.  Should I REALLY care about this?  YES!  Yes!  YES!  “White Matter” is PART of your brain.  You know in “Young Frankenstein” when Igor goes to the Brain Repository to pick up the Creature’s brain?  They all look like grey Jell-O but if Dr. Frankenstein sliced into one, MOST of the inside would look WHITE.  THAT is the White Matter, and it’s where your brain actually LEARNS and FUNCTIONS.  White matter acts as the Communication Center for messages between the various brain regions.   Amazingly, a research study from February 2013 by Concordia University psychology professor Virginia Penhune in collaboration with Robert J. Zatorre in the Journal of Neuroscience purports that when children under seven study playing a musical instrument, it has a pretty profound effect on the development of their brain, and the younger that child began to study music, the more profound the brain connectivity benefits.  This also means that musical training leads to greater connection and translation between the brain regions, and intensified White Matter in the Corpus Callosum (a nerve bundle connecting the left and right motor regions of the brain).  Albert Einstein learned to play the violin from a very young age and it is believed his music learning was the reason behind the extraordinary White Matter connectivity he had between the hemispheres in his brain.  Additionally, this study postulates that studying music, especially between the ages of six and eight, appears to be particularly powerful in affecting brain development and the production of long-term changes in brain structure and motor abilities.  Dr. Virginia Penhume said, “Learning to play an instrument requires coordination between hands and with visual or auditory stimuli. Practicing an instrument before age seven likely boosts the normal maturation of connections between motor and sensory regions of the brain, creating a framework upon which ongoing training can build."

7.     Musical Training Increases Blood Flow in the Brain and Allows an Individual to Utilize Both Sides of Their Brain – Every normal brain has two hemispheres or sides, the left brain and the right brain.  Most of us have heard that “Left-brained” individuals are the lovely math geeks or science wizards; they are all about logic, facts, figures, black and white.  While “Right-brained” folks tend to do almost flighty, artistic, living in a fantasy world.  In May of 2014, Amy Spray and Dr. G. Meyer from the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Liverpool conducted a study that showed that even a very limited exposure to musical training could amplify blood flow to the left hemisphere of the brain.  These researchers believe that music and language share common brain pathways.  "It was fascinating to see that the similarities in blood flow signatures could be brought about after just half an hour of simple musical training. This suggests that the correlated brain patterns were the result of using areas thought to be involved in language processing. Therefore, we can assume that musical training results in a rapid change in the cognitive mechanisms utilized for music perception and these shared mechanisms are usually employed for language."  Specifically, the Left Brain is utilized for musical form, reading, tempo and rhythm, and sequencing, whereas, the Right Brain processes melody, intonation, emotion, loudness, and musical intervals.  When a student combines these activities, especially when the students sings and play, both sides of the brain are accessed simultaneously.

8.     Musical Training Improves Executive Function – Executive Function is how our brain organizes information and figures out what to act on, and how to act on it.  It is composed of approximately eight different areas:  Impulse Control (learning to think before you act); Emotional Control (learning to control your feelings); Flexible Thinking (being able to adjust to unexpected things); Working Memory (Having a repository of common, key information, like name, address, & phone number); Self-Monitoring (Being able to evaluate your own behavior); Planning and Prioritizing (Organizing goals and planning steps to achieve them); Task Initiation (Learning to take action when ready); Organization (Keeping track of things physically and mentally, such as how to pop microwave popcorn or tie your shoes).  A study from Boston Children’s Hospital in June 2014 connected musical training with improved executive functioning across all ages. Senior investigator Nadine Gaab, PhD, of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's reports, "Since executive functioning is a strong predictor of academic achievement, even more than IQ, we think our findings have strong educational implications. While many schools are cutting music programs and spending more and more time on test preparation, our findings suggest that musical training may actually help to set up children for a better academic future."

9.     Musical Training Thickens Gray Matter in the Brain, Brainstem, Cerebellum, and Throughout the Spinal Cord -  So, I know we’ve already talked about White Matter but THAT doesn’t “matter” here…sorry, I couldn’t resist.  It IS important to understand the difference between “White” and “Grey”, at least so you will know how much benefit you’re getting from studying voice and piano!  I pointed out above that White Matter is a kind of “Communication Center”, relaying messages to various areas in the brain.  Grey matter, also called substantia grisea, includes areas in the brain that supervise muscle control, and sensory perception such as seeing, hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision- making, and self-control.  A study performed in December 2014 from the University of Vermont determined that musical training could help children in seemingly unrelated ways such as controlling their emotions, lowering anxiety, and helping them better focus their attention, all by thickening the Gray matter in the brain’s cortex.  This study, published in the Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, was said to be, "the largest investigation of the association between playing a musical instrument and brain development."  As we age and grow, our brain’s cortex (the outer layer of the brain), grows and changes, too.  The study by James Hudziak, M.D., professor of psychiatry and director of the Vermont Center for Children, Youth and Families, and colleagues including Matthew Albaugh, Ph.D., and graduate student research assistant Eileen Crehan, determined that incidences of depression, anxiety, aggression, behavior control, and attention issues were all correlated with thickening or thinning in areas of the cortex.  Therefore, this study sought to conclude if musical training could have an impact on these indicators.  The results indicated that, indeed, musical training DOES positively alter motor areas in the brain as instrument playing requires control and coordination of movements.  Not surprisingly, these positive changes also affected behavior-regulating areas of the brain.  Therefore, it was determined that musical training leads to increased cortical thickness in areas of the brain critical to inhibitory control and even emotion processing.  The study authors said, "Such statistics, when taken in the context of our present neuroimaging results, underscore the vital importance of finding new and innovative ways to make music training more widely available to youths, beginning in childhood."

10.  Musical Training Can Aid in Closing Academic Achievement Gaps – Musical training requires discipline.  My best example for this is a child in a high school marching band.  While other kids are going home to play video games or just to work, or staying after school for football practice, a band student has to practice fairly ridiculous counting routines to create “formations” for the viewers in the stands, rehearse those formations in blazing sun BUT also, still go home and practice scales, pieces of music, other exercises, AND THEN, do all their homework.  They are forced, at a fairly early age, to be disciple, organized, diligent, and persevering.  Band kids are consistently good students, hard workers, and reliable, friendly, decent people.  I also look at myself.  I was a female “Energizer Bunny” as a kid.  My parents only hope was to wear me out if they had any hope of sanity.  I never stopped AND never stopped talking.  They started me on piano lessons at age six.  I was not an ideal student BUT thanks to my Mother’s loving bribes not to make my recital dress if I didn’t practice, I practiced.  I have never been more grateful for anything.  I have two Bachelor degrees (one BA & one BS), and a Masters in Special Education, and I finished with a 3.8 average in May of this year.  I work hard and no, I don’t give ALL the credit to those piano lessons but I do give a LOT of the credit to them.  The skills you MUST learn to play the piano are skills you need to use for academics as well:  organization, focus, memory, multi-tasking, reading, and writing, to name a few.  There are documented ties between musical training and improvements in reading, writing, and math, at the very least.  In August 2014 the American Psychological Association (APA) reported that learning to play a musical instrument OR to sing could aid disadvantaged children in strengthening reading and language skills, and would close the distance between academic achievement gaps.  Hundreds of disadvantaged/impoverished children in urban Chicago and Los Angeles public schools were place in musical training classes and studied.  Nina Kraus headed the research team.  It was concluded that musical training actually amplifies the way a child’s nervous system processes chaotic sounds such as a classroom or urban playground.  The students were assessed after two years of musical training and results showed a faster neural response to sound, as well as a more precision response to the sound.  Furthermore, they found that musical training augmented and improved memory, improved communication skills, and helped the children focus their attention more easily. In a press release Kraus concluded, "Research has shown that there are differences in the brains of children raised in impoverished environments that affect their ability to learn. While more affluent students do better in school than children from lower income backgrounds, we are finding that musical training can alter the nervous system to create a better learner and help offset this academic gap."  This study was performed to show how musical training can help a child overcome socioeconomic barriers but it can also help ANY child who simply needs a little help getting life together, like I did.

I hope you have found these tips helpful.  This was illuminating even for me.  I always knew music lessons were beneficial and I appreciated what a gift they were to me but I have a whole new level of gratitude now that I understand all the science a little more.  Thanks for reading!  Please let me know what you think.  I look forward to hearing from you.  As always, if you have any questions about my lessons or me, check out my website at www.SingitForward.net.  PLEASE send me your questions, comments, and ideas for future blog post topics!  I value you!  Sing it forward!