Music Lessons and Brain Activity

It has been known that music can be good for your brain. But not many people understand why.
Stanford University conducted an experiment, comparing brain functions of musicians and non-musicians when given auditory tasks. Musicians made up one group and non-musicians made up the second group. Musicians were defined aspeople who took lessons or studied music through childhood into adulthood. Non-musicians were defined as people who either never took lessons or studied music, or had stopped taking music lessons before the age 7. They were given auditory tasks such as distinguishing between different tones or distinguishing between different syllables such as “da” and “ba.”

The research showed, through functional magnetic resonance imaging scanners (fMRI), that musicians had more focused and efficient brain activity during the tasks. The study found that musical training improves how the brain processes spoken words and leads to research which results point to improving the reading ability of children who have disorders like dyslexia and other reading problems. “There’s a specific aspect of language…that’s changed in the minds and brains of people with musical training” says researcher John Gabrieli, a former Stanford professor and now a professor at MIT.

This is just one of many reasons to get involved in music lessons. Whether you are looking to take piano or guitar lessons, or want to take voice lessons and learn theory of music; scientific research shows that music lessons play a positive role in brain activity. There are new studies out now that support all ages of music learning. From young students taking music lessons through senior citizens taking music lessons.
So don’t hesitate! Enroll yourself or a family member into music lessons! North Fulton School of Music offers lessons in the Alpharetta, Roswell, Milton Area as well as in Atlanta. North Fulton teaches not only piano lessons but lessons in voice, or vocal training, guitar, woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion and more!

Source: This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the National Science Foundation, the Ben and A. Jess Shenson Fund, the National Institutes of Health and a Stanford graduate fellowship. The fMRI analysis was performed at the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory.