The piano is a fascinating instrument for many of us. Playing the piano offers us a world of endless opportunities in the music world, plus it comes with mental, physical, and emotional benefits. Here are some of the benefits of playing the piano that you should know.
Contents
Benefits of Playing The Piano
1. Make you smarter
Studying music and playing the piano has a significant, healthy effect on the overall development of the brain. When you practice, you begin constructing new neural connections and information highways throughout your brain. We have all experienced this without even realizing it.
Think of the first time you tried to do something that was new.
If you stick with this new endeavor through thick and thin, even though you felt weird and clumsy, you’ll find that the more effort and practice you consistently put in, the more new neural pathways your brain will create.
2. Relieve stress
One of the benefits of playing the piano is to relieve stress in your life. The fact that music from the piano soothes the soul is known to us all but it also acts as a stress buster. Even if you give just a few minutes of your busy day to playing the piano, it can lower the blood pressure and make you feel much more positive. In fact, just being a part of piano recitals or playing in front of a few people can drive stage fright out of people.
3. Split concentration
Split concentration, also called divided attention, is an integral part of playing the piano, which helps sharpen your concentration skills. To play the piano, one must use both hands, read music, listen to the notes you’re playing, and work the pedals. That’s a lot to do at once! Once you become adept at using split concentration at the piano, you will find your multitasking skills in the outside world also greatly improve.
4. Good for your physical health
Regular piano playing offers different physical and physiological advantages to players. It sharpens fine motor skills, improves dexterity and hand-eye coordination. Music has also been shown to reduce heart and respiratory rates, cardiac complications, and lower blood pressure, and increase immune response. Playing the piano also makes your hands and arm muscles much stronger than the average person.
5. Improve the language skills
The aural awareness that is developed by playing the piano makes it easier for you to understand the sound patterns of foreign languages. It works wonders for kids who have trouble hearing in a noisy background and can fight dyslexia while it is still developing.
6. Make you happy and confident
Learning how to play the piano increases our self-confidence tremendously. It is a great instrument to vent our emotions into helping aid us in our overall health and happiness.
Furthermore, the piano will give you a way to be more emotionally available. Knowing to play it also opens up doors to friendships with other musicians. Hang out and listen to or discuss the music you both mutually like, or better yet, meet up to play music. When we surround ourselves with people who have similar interests, it’s hard not to be inspired!
All of these positive effects help mold us into more confident individuals.
7. Have positive responses to criticism
Working with an experienced piano teacher will make all the difference for your development. An effective teacher will be able to give you constructive criticism that is both respectful and exacting. People take advice from those they consider to be experts. Positively responding to criticism by learning from it instead of getting defensive becomes a practiced behavior the student will take into school, work, and life.
8. Improve your overall aural awareness
Playing the piano can improve your overall aural awareness no matter where you fall in this range. Playing the piano trains you to recognize tones, intervals, and chords as well as helping you to develop a sense of pitch. And it doesn’t matter how young or old you start! No matter your age, playing the piano and taking piano lessons helps to improve your aural awareness.
Is aural awareness important anywhere other than music? Yes! Good aural awareness makes it easier to identify and understand sound patterns of foreign languages, can fight dyslexia while it is still developing, and can help you if you have trouble hearing when there is a lot of background noise.
