When you get your child to take classes to play a musical instrument, you can help her to fine-tune her quality of comprehension and improve skills required for social interaction and academics.
Your child’s school schedule may be packed with fun activities like scouts and soccer. But if you are debating in your mind about whether to include music lessons like practising a musical instrument, consider the following benefits of signing your kid for guitar or piano lessons.
Though there is no guarantee that she will become the next Beethoven, she will hone skills like easily mastering maths, practising patience and good manners and becoming a good team player. Following are the benefits of taking up music education in schools as recognized by the best international school in Beirut:
Boosts Academic Skills
Music has had an evolutionary role in human intellectual development.Students who practice complex rhythms make more precise, faster connections in several physical and academic situations. A ten-year study noted that students, who study music, achieve higher test scores, whatever is their socio-economic background.
Music and math have a close connection. By gaining skills in scales, rhythms and beats, children learn how to divide, create fractions and identify patterns. Apparently, music wires a child’s brain to help in understanding mathematical concepts. When kids get older, they master recital of songs, exploiting both their short term as well as long term memory. Such mnemonic practice can be applied later to other memory skills. Musical instruments also introduce kids to basic physics. Plucking violin or guitar strings teaches kids about sympathetic and harmonic vibrations.
Helps in Physical Development
Some of the instruments like percussion help kids develop motor skills and coordination. They need movements of feet, arms and hands. Keyboard and string instruments, like piano and violin, demand a variety of actions from left and right hand simultaneously. Not only do instruments help develop ambidexterity, but also help kids to feel comfortable in naturally uncomfortable positions. Improving coordination and timing can prepare kids for other hobbies like sports or dance.
Hones Social Skills
Group music classes need peers communication and interaction that encourage teamwork since children must collaborate to create an accelerando or crescendo. A child must make adjustments in case he is playing too loudly or too speedily. Kids need to know and relate to their individual part in a larger ensemble. Kids are split into groups by teachers, and they make decisions about common goals like creating a melody or choosing instruments. Thus music classes instil the value of group problem-solving and group interaction.
Instils Discipline and Patience
By learning how to play an instrument, kids learn the value of delayed gratification. This helps teach students how to persevere through hours, months and even years before achieving specific goals like memorizing a solo piece or performing with a band. Practising at home and private lessons need highly focused attention. In group performance, children learn the value of patience as part of an ensemble since they have to wait for their individual turn to perform. Waiting for their turn, they learn to sit still and be quiet and attentive for specific periods of time.
Boosts Self-Esteem
Music lessons provide a forum where kids can learn to accept and give constructive criticism. Self-confidence can be built by turning negative criticism into positive change. Group lessons may help children understand that nobody is perfect, and everyone has scope for improvement. Public performance of music instils the talent for public appearances and can be transferred to the sphere of public speaking. Musical skills also help the personality of a child to shine above the rest.
These are all benefits of taking music lessons in school age.
