4 Reasons Why Music Learning should be compulsory for Children

Music can be many things. An outlet to your stress, your favourite hobby, a medium to communicate and an education that will help you throughout your life. As an adult you know the purpose when you are learning, but why is it important for kids? There are kids who are genuinely interested in music and there are some who just follows the trend and pick up some instrument to learn. Some do get attached to their instrument while some struggle to get a start. However, whatever the purpose, as a child, learning an instrument can benefit you for the rest of your life and is a great skill to have as you are growing up. Here are some of the benefits that you will gain by learning music.

1. Brain Development/Stimulation

There are many studies telling us the benefits a child can achieve by learning a musical instrument. Kids engaged with music tend to improve in subjects that involve I.Q , reasoning and comprehension skills. Any musical instrument requires exercise and dedication towards your motor, auditory and visual aspects and as you improve your skill in the instrument, the abilities of your senses also become sharper, hence scientifically makes you smarter. The brain is a complicated neural network and the best way to simplify the process to make your brain work faster and smarter is to learn instruments. It gives your brain a full-workout and thus enabling your neurons to fire faster. It develops our communication, reasoning and understanding abilities which can be made use in any life situations that may arise before you.

2. Increased Learning Ability

Another discovery made by scientist suggest that learning musical instrument improves speech processing abilities and your reading speed. As we discussed before, how music can stimulate your brain to be smarter, faster and more active, it gives you the capability to process words faster and deliver it with efficiency. Reading is an important part of life that you need to solve mathematics to your daily routine tasks. You understand the context of a problem better, comprehend the situation and effectively put out comprehensive results. It may not be very obvious in your improvements but research and past experience shows that children learning instruments show improvement and better results in standard academic achievements.

3. Focus/Discipline

Learning music is different from all the other subject that you learn in school. It is kind of a hobby when you start out, and gradually start having fun with it as your skills improve. However, the time and commitment that one has to put to improve progressively and hone their skills is also different. Yes, one thing is common for every subject, you have to practice numerous times to understand and get a comfortable command over a certain context, but the consciousness that you have to put and the feedback you get is very different and refreshing. When learning instrument, you get immediate feedback and you yourself will identify if you are doing something right or wrong. It requires you to be disciplined and organised with your practice routines and with patience you will yield results which gives you immense joy and pride. With time it teaches you how to direct your focus to get the best results out of a session, and if you stick with it long enough, it really explains why discipline and organised learning is the best way to progress in any subject.

4. Confidence

Confidence is a key to be able to fully showcase yourself. You are your best self when you are confident of what you are doing. In music, as we discussed in the previous point (about how getting results after your patience and belief in the disciplined learning can really give you joy and pride) that will boost your confidence and instil self-belief which, is crucial in your development as an individual. This doesn’t mean you will brag about everything, it just means you are confident and really believe in your skills and showcase what you have planned assuredly. Every child deserves to be able to speak their view and for that one needs confidence, and learning music kind of solves that.

In summation, learning music makes you more social, smarter, reasonable and confident about everything that you do. But in the end, do remember, even if music is providing so many benefits to develop you as an individual, it should brighten up your day and you should have fun because that is the beauty of music.

BlueTimbre is a unique Music Company that provides Music Education and  Recording Studio services. BlueTimbre also works with schools to provide end-to-end Music Education solutions for schools. 

The BlueTimbre team comes with decades of cumulative experience in running Structured Businesses, Music Curriculum Development, Music Education and Performance.

References

1.     https://theinspiredclassroom.com/2017/05/why-is-music-education-in-schools-important/

2.     https://hosimusic.com/learning-music-compulsory/

How Long Does It Take To Learn to Play Instrument ?

It is a question which is asked by almost every beginner, from young students to adults. It is natural to want to know how long will it take to be able to play an instrument. However, most people often forget the fact that it is their practice time and commitment towards the instrument that will determine their progress. Then again, there are some other factors as well which shapes up the duration of their progress. We usually have two different age  groups of students, namely young students and adult beginners. Let’s discuss these two groups individually under specific parameters.

Young Students (Aged 8 years to 12 years) 

Approach to Learning: Young beginners should have fun with their instrument. As they are just getting to know the instrument and the skills they can achieve while learning it, it is very important that it excites them and inspires them to work toward progress. As they are young, theories and basic reading should be introduced in a progressive and practical way so that they can take in the details and master one aspect at a time.

Objective: Their objective should be to perform in about a year with the knowledge they have gathered during that time. They should be able to connect with their instrument and play the tunes they want to play. Once they can execute the music they hear, there is a sense of achievement that inspires them to learn further and therefore accelerates their learning progress as the instrument has catches their interest.

Duration: If you are a complete beginner and aged between 8-12 years, it may take you about 6-9 months to have a strong command over the basics, especially certain techniques such as chord shifting, pitch change and the coordination of both hands or hands and feet (as this requires advanced motor techniques), etc. Students aged above 12 has the capacity to take more information and process a bit quicker, so they might be able to have better command on basics in 4-6 months.

Adults

Approach to Learning: As an adult, there is an interest to learn and play the instrument that has been there a long time but you haven’t found time or you had other commitments. There are also cases of adults who’d learn from the ever-growing internet but are either unsure due to too much information or stuck at a point where their progress has been constant for a long time (they don’t know where to go next). First as a working adult, you have to decide what you want out of it. Is it just to play in front of friends (as a hobby) or gather knowledge to be able to play in a band or release your own compositions, or for therapeutic, stress release or other reasons. Whatever the reason is, you should ensure that where ever you are learning from (teacher or institute), should be flexible enough to suit your timings as well as your goal. So, it should be goal or result oriented approach.

Objective: The objective should be able to measure your progress and layout a practice schedule that works for you. Keep in mind what you want to achieve and spend time on that. Try to excite and inspire yourself during practice which will help you commit to the instrument more. Keep playing the songs you love other than just the exercises your teacher might have given you for your improvement and make a conscious effort to understand what you are executing.

Duration: If you are just beginning, it will take you at least 3-4 months to have good command over the basics and then further take it to the level where you will be able to play along with certain songs and even hum it yourself. It also matters how you see yourself playing the instrument, if you expect yourself to be able to jam along with other instruments, it will take a little longer especially if your just beginning to learn your instrument.

The duration is just an assumption, and not always true but it is the average time one takes to finally understand their instrument based on our experience. There are other factors that determine how long it takes to progress including daily practice of the exercises and lessons given to improve muscle memory. So, make sure that you set your goals and follow them with plenty of regular practise and commitment to achieve them in the duration.

BlueTimbre is a unique Music Company that provides Music Education and  Recording Studio services. BlueTimbre also works with schools to provide end-to-end Music Education solutions for schools. 

The BlueTimbre team comes with decades of cumulative experience in running Structured Businesses, Music Curriculum Development, Music Education and Performance.

References

http://www.bucktownmusic.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-learn-an-instrument-tips-for-success