Can music really help students in their academic studies? Is it possible that playing your favourite song on guitar could actually benefit your performance In subjects like maths? Well the answer is yes, and we're going to discuss how all this is possible.
Listening to music stimulates high brain function . When a person listens to music, their brain works furiously to pick apart things like the rhythm, and melody and lyrics. We might look relaxed but in all fairness, our brains are actually working at 1000mph. We know that our brains can be split into two sides. One side handles all the subjects like maths and other academic subjects whilst left is far more creative. Playing an instrument engages both sides, it's a full work out for the brain! Like any work out, the more we exercise our brains in this way the stronger it will become.
Playing music challenges us to observe things like technique. timing and creating a very specific sound overall, those that say they can't multitask but can play an instrument are wrong....they can actually multitask at an extremely high rate. In the case of guitar, both hands are doing completely different things, our attention is being pulled to different aspects of our playing constantly and we need to make sure what we're playing is correct.
We need to hold a lot of information in our heads when we're playing guitar. We need to remember how the song goes and what's to be played where. This means that the student then exercises the part of the brain that deals with memory span. Think about it, when you watch someone play a guitar they rarely pause to think 'what comes next'. They need to be on the ball 100% of the time reacting very quickly to the changes in the songs. This same part of the brain helps us remember maths and science formula's and even our language learning!
Concentration and alertness is something that also gets developed very quickly whilst learning guitar. When we sit down to practice or play a song we can't afford to switch off. We need to always be mindful of what we're doing during a song performance so we need to be able to concentrate for the entire duration of what we're playing. This carries across well to school environments whereby a test or exam scenario could be a possibility. If a student can concentrate on practice and playing and performing songs then focussing for periods of time will come more naturally.
Here at Inspire, our students have shown improvements in core subjects at school and this is just as a bi-product of playing and practicing guitar. By playing guitar they have learnt to focus more in lesson type settings, mentally multitask in areas like maths and science and demonstrate the ability to memorise facts and formulas more effectively. Our younger students have even taken to the discipline of homework and revision thanks to the keystone habit of practicing independently already being cemented.
If you would like any more information about our guitar classes in the St Albans area, why not contact us today!