How Music Lessons Can Boost Brainpower

While it was once thought that learning how to play an instrument was simply a form of recreation, new research has shown that playing music can have wide-ranging benefits. Of these benefits, the one with the most potential is the data indicating that music can strengthen the brains of human beings, especially of children. Here are 3 essential ways that playing music can benefit a child's brain:  

1.     Music Lessons Can Boost Ones Verbal Skills  
Perhaps the most significant way that musical training can benefit musicians is by increasing electrical activity in the parts of the brain that are involved with reading. In other words, studies have shown that the brains of children who play instruments may have an advantage when it comes to thinking verbally. These studies posit that there is a close relationship between reading and music that can significantly aid in the cognitive development of children. If this is true, then music lessons may be one of the most effective ways available to improve a child's reading skills at a young age.  Another crucial piece of evidence which points in this direction is that those with musical training have increased activity in the left sphere of their brains, which is the part of the brain responsible for language.  

2) Music Supports Neuroplasticity  
One of the most exciting fields in the world of neuroscience is the idea of neuroplasticity, which relates to the brain's ability to adapt to human behavior and learn new skills. A recent study performed by brain scientists found that there is biological evidence to support the fact that music training reinforces a brains plasticity. Even more remarkably, this research found that the benefits of music lessons early in a child's life can last a lifetime. The study found that music training at a young age, even as young as 4 years old, could strengthen a brains ability to learn new information even many years later.   

3) Music Lessons Can Fight the Achievement Gap  
Perhaps the most important effect that musical lessons can have on our schools is to minimize the achievement gap between schools of varying means. Research has shown that music can a long way in reducing inequality and can achieve tangible results even as alternative experiments have repeatedly turned out to be ineffective. Since music fortifies the brain and increases a child's ability to respond to fast-changing stimuli, these children begin to perform better in school as they begin their music lessons.