I’ve been playing, performing, teaching, and learning music for almost 25 years, and there's one question people often ask me: Why should I learn to play music? What are the benefits of learning music? Why should I invest time and money in something that would not be useful in my professional career? Why not use the time to learn about financial investments or leadership skills?
No doubt things like finance and leadership are important. I worked as a business development executive at a multinational corporation for a large part of my life, and am a huge advocate of both of these professional disciplines. In recent times, I’ve been exploring the entrepreneurial path, and my training and history as a business professional has allowed me to build Liberty Park Music into the successful, high quality online music school that it is.
The impact of music may be less less obvious than that of finance and leadership, but it can be just as important in alternative ways. It builds soft skills that makes a difference in both your professional and private life.
Today, I am going to share 10 advantages of learning music that will impact your life and in a good way. There are many more advantages to learning music than these, but I find these to be the most prominent ones.
Music Does Wonders for Your Health
Research has shown that playing music lowers your blood pressure, reduces stress and anxiety levels. It can even strengthen your immunological response, making you more resistant to viruses (a trait we could all benefit from in recent times...).
Most importantly, music can be learned and played even at an old age, and is a social activity that can keep our minds active. This is especially important in protecting ourselves from mind-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Music Can Make You Smarter
Many studies have shown that learning music can enhance the development of the mind when it's taken up at an early age. But what if we've already passed early age?
It turns out that learning music at an older age can do wonders for your mind as well.
In a study at the University of South Florida, adults aged between 60 and 85 were given piano lessons. Six months later, they exhibited improved memory, verbal fluency, information processing skills, and other cognitive functions.
Music Can Boost Your Social Life
When you learn to play an instrument, you're also learning how to create something beautiful for your loved ones to enjoy, which can bring you closer to them and help to forge deeper connections.
Should you decide to play music in public, you might make some new friends. Musicians who play together often develop a sense of fellowship, one common among collaborators who can collectively produce so much more than an individual can.
Nothing beats a good old-fashioned jamming/hangout session with other musicians, and the bonds and friendships you can develop during them are priceless.
Music Can Help Build Confidence
Have you ever wondered how some seasoned musicians can go on stage in front of hundreds, or even thousands of people, and just perform like they were born to do nothing else?
No matter who you are, it takes a lot of self-confidence and strength to get up onstage and bare your soul for an audience. Sometimes even great musicians suffer from performance anxiety!
Learning music gives you opportunities to put yourself in potentially uncomfortable performance situations and learn to overcome the anxiety. The audience does not have to be massive; you could be performing for just one person or your partner, but when you pull off a performance, you'll feel a whole lot better about yourself!
And the best thing is, you will bring that confidence into other areas of your life.
Music Teaches Patience and Discipline
They say that the best things in life are worth waiting for. Through music, you can learn that they're also worth working for.
Learning to play music requires us to work consistently for a good amount of time. It requires commitment and perseverance, and a resilience to the natural ebb and flow of our day-to-day enthusiasm.
But there are few things as satisfying as knowing that you've successfully mastered a piece that you've been dying to learn, and that it was your patience and discipline with the musical training process that allowed you to do it.
Music Enhances Creativity
According to Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, music lets you “look beyond what currently exists and express yourself in a new way.”
Music is all about understanding basic rules and then expressing yourself in the form of sound. Writing your own songs, improvising solos, and re-performing existing songs are all ways that musicians create something out of nothing.
It should come as no surprise then that numerous successful people studied music at some point in their lives.
Music Helps You Connect with Others
Music is appreciated across the world.
Think of how many of us can enjoy songs in languages we don’t speak or barely understand. You may be surprised at how music can bring you closer to people, especially if you need to socialize with people from other cultures.
If you ever find yourself lacking a topic to talk about, ask the other person what his/her favorite song is, and if you're knowledgeable in music, you may just have the start of a great conversation.
Music Can Help You Learn Teamwork
When you're playing with other musicians, it's important to always listen to your team-mates and watch their facial and body language. Only then can you decide how you want to play your instrument to blend in seamlessly with the song.
This ability to listen to what everyone is playing and find a good solution translates to other areas in your life and can make you a great team-player.
Music is an Amazing Stress Reliever
We all have busy lives, and there will be times when we feel like our heads are going to explode from everything that’s happening.
As a result, we seek some form of stress relief. Watching shows, playing games, socializing with others, eating, drinking, smoking - these and many other activities fall within the commonly defined boundaries of stress relief. Not all of them (as you may have noticed) are entirely healthy, and relatively few of them successfully manage to combine actual stress relief with any form of achievement.
Here's a thought: How about going for a jamming session and letting it all that stress out with your instrument instead? Playing music is an amazing way to get your mind off things. It doesn’t hurt your health, it allows you to release your frustrations, it costs nothing, and you probably will gain a bunch of close musician friends while you do it!
Music is FUN!
Last but definitely not least: Playing music is fun!
Learning to play music can take some effort, but it’s rarely easy to learn something with so much beneficial potential. And when you reach that level of being able to play the music you've always wanted to, it can be totally awesome. It starts with a sense of achievement, and then it becomes a whole confidence thing when you play for others. Then it becomes utter enjoyment when you play with others.
It's a healthy addiction that's loads of fun, and I promise that you will not regret making that decision to start learning music. At Liberty Park Music we teach music lovers like you the ability to create beautiful music. But the benefits extend beyond just learning music. You'll also experience the advantages listed above first-hand. So come check out out our courses and start your musical journey!
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About Liberty Park Music
We are an online music school offering courses for piano, guitar, drum kit, and music theory. Our lessons are designed and taught by accredited teachers and experienced musicians from around the world. Check out our course offering here and start exploring with our 30-day free trial.
Trying to maintain focus as you study or complete an assignment is not easy. We’ve all been there. Spending countless hours flicking back and forth through the textbook.
You got my attention when you said that you can get your mind off things and release your frustrations by playing music. There are times that I feel like I’m too stressed because of many reasons. I want to find a way to divert my attention and help me to relax, so I will make sure to consider learning to play guitars. Thanks!
Great write up in simple easy to understand language as music itself!