The benefits of learning an instrument

this idea. The IQs of pre-school children who attended several weeks of music classes as part of these studies did not differ significantly from the IQs of those who had not. B But that does not mean that the advantages of learning to play music are limited to expressing yourself, impressing friends, or just having fun. A growing number of studies show that learning an instrument in childhood can do something perhaps more valuable for the brain: it can provide benefits as we age, in the form of an added defense against memory loss cognitive decline, and impaired hearing. Not only that you may well get those benefits even if you haven't picked up your instrument in years, or decide to take up music for the first time in mid-life or beyond. According to neuropsychologist Brenda Hanna-Pladdy of Emory University in Atlanta, the time spent learning and practicing specific types of motor control and coordination – each finger on each hand doing something different, and for wind and brass instruments also using your mouth and breathing – contributes to the brain boost that shows up later in life. C You can even map the impact of musical training of the brain itself. In one study, Harvard neurologist Gottfried Schlaug found that…