Listening To Music
Music In Babies
- Music for babies is a sensory-engaging activity, helping them stimulate an interest in music.
- Listening to music is fun for babies; you often find them dancing along to certain songs!
- Dancing along to these songs can improve a babies rhythm and timing from a very young age.
- Cognitive experiences like listening to music help establish and strengthen the important connections throughout the brains nerve cells. (The Importance of Music for Babies, n.d.)
- Babies who have been introduced to music tend to do well creatively further on in life.
- Improves memory and recalling information; they will begin to recognise certain songs they enjoy more than others early in life.
- Emotional development is generally improved as babies can detect certain basic feelings from different genres of music.
Music In Kids
- Allows growing children to gain a further understanding and interest in music; they might carry on with music further in life, such as studying it in college.
- Improves brainpower for academic subjects such as maths and science.
- Develops social skills which can be a struggle for children. It allows making friends and finding people with similar interests musically easier.
- Builds imaginatively and originality, allowing them to perform better in creative environments such as art lessons in school.
- Music is a great form of expression; being exposed to different genres of music can help a child find what styles and artists they like, giving them a further interest in music. They can change or expand their music taste as they enter their teen years.
Music In Teens
- Music helps people, especially teenagers, express themselves and their emotions without having to use words or present themselves in a certain way.
- It helps develop their own opinions, beliefs and influences in their own time.
- Gives them a sense of community; people that like the same music have common interests which helps to make lasting friendships.
- Music can act as a coping mechanism if they are in stressful situations, such as being overworked, relationship problems etc, and it can be a form of release for the listener as they can relate to the song’s or artist’s strong emotions and meanings.
- Encourages creativity, motivation and energy.
- To gain approval from people (e.g. wearing merchandise, sharing playlists or songs).
Learning An Instrument
- Allows for a more creative outlook on many things in daily life and generally improves the quality of life.
- Researchers have found that playing an instrument improves your memory as it uses both sides of your brain.
- Improves patience and willingness to learn as playing an instrument isn’t just something you can pick up overnight; it takes time and a lot of effort!
- Builds confidence and allows you to express yourself by playing your favourite songs or genres of music.
- It gives people a sense of achievement as learning an instrument is a very challenging hobby.
- Relieves stress and lets people unwind from school or work by practising your instrument.
- Learning such a hard thing generally makes you smarter in other subjects. “Many studies show a correlation between musical training and academic success, in both children and adults. Learning to play an instrument stimulates the brain, improving functions like memory and abstract reasoning skills…” (10 reasons you should take up a musical instrument, 2018).
- Improves social life; you can meet new people through music and will share similar interests and passions with others.
- Joining bands, operas or orchestras improves your team building and group work skills with new kinds of people.