31 Playing A Music Instrument Is Beneficial For the Brain – Natalie Kirtley

 Music is one of the most beneficial things a student can do for their brain in numerous diverse ways. As part of my research, it is found that stronger connections can be made between the hemispheres, hearing will improve in later life, and memory-decreasing disorders will be reduced. As you can see from the above, playing a musical instrument in college has a number of benefits for students. This is despite the risk of burnout that can occur when playing in high school bands and competing in high school bands. Even though high school students might experience burnout as a result of their involvement in music, the students should continue their involvement with music in college, as further engagement in music is beneficial for the brain in the later years of life.

There are many general benefits to playing music in college. Heart rate and stress levels are affected in beneficial ways. In general terms, playing music can lower one’s heart rate and lower the hormone that causes stress. An online music professor that has many years of experience in music says, “A study done in 2011 found that music therapy, in which depressed patients play instruments to express how they’re feeling, can lead to lower levels of anxiety and depression” (Sutton, 2017 para. 8). Anxiety and depression cause stress which leads to high heart rate. A piano professor from New England says that there are many studies that prove music helps with keeping someone calm and in turn lowers heart rate and blood pressure. This then lowers cortisol the hormone for stress (Hughes, 2019 para. 2).

Another great benefit is an improvement in one’s cognitive ability and critical thinking. Critical thinking is a key part in terms of cognitive ability. Dr. Nathan Froebe, a professor at IU East said during an interview, “There are many life skills that comes with playing music. These include problem solving skills, critical thinking, and being able to collaborate with others” (N. Froebe, personal communication, November 1, 2022). A doctorate student studying the effects of music says, “Playing a musical instrument has been shown to increase cognitive ability through enhanced neuronal communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, resulting in positive effects on learning, memory, fine motor skills, verbal reasoning, and non-verbal reasoning, resulting in an overall more capable brain to apply in a variety of diverse settings” (Stoklosa, 2016 pg.1).

Along with better cognitive ability, memory is also improved. Not only is mental memory better, but muscle memory is also increased. “… learning a musical instrument improves memory; it not only improves your cognitive memory but also muscle memory as well” (Hughes, 2019 para. 1). Improved memory leads to better literacy especially for children. Sutton points out for reason number two that “… learning an instrument can significantly improve both verbal memory and childhood literacy” (Sutton, 2017 para. 2).

Improved memory as a child translates or carries into later adulthood. Memory reducing illnesses such as dementia have a reduced chance of effecting musicians. Sebastian Walsh and a group of doctorate fellows researched how playing a musical instrument reduces the risk of memory reducing illnesses, specifically dementia. Walsh also studies how playing music for certain amounts of time impacts memory. “Higher levels of education, and greater cognitive complexity of occupation have been associated with increased cognitive reserve, and reduced incidence of dementia” (Walsh, 2021 pg. 1). One study that he and his team had done was on twins where one was a musician and the other was not. “A twin study estimated that, of twins in which one is a musician, and one is not, the musician twin has a 64% lower likelihood of mild cognitive impairment or dementia” (Walsh, 2021 pg. 6). Walsh goes on to talk about why music reduces the risk of dementia. He says, “Participation in cognitive stimulating leisure activities has been shown to be associated with a decreased incidence of dementia. Musical instrument playing is considered a cognitively stimulating leisure activity…” (Walsh, 2021 pg. 7).

Along with better memory into later adulthood, musicians also have better hearing. Musicians can decipher consonants better than their non musician peers. Nina Kraus is a neuroscientist who studies music and speech in the brain. Kraus and her team studied the differences in neural encoding of the speech between musicians and non-musicians. She studied this by using a cABR machine which measures neural encoding in the brain to the milli-second. Kraus says, “A recurring theme is that music training has a profound impact on auditory perception and cognition, in addition to its underlying neurophysiology” (Kraus, 2014 pg. 2). She goes on to say, “Compared to their non-musician peers, musicians have better speech understanding in noise, refined auditory temporal resolution, and heightened auditory memory, and attention skills” (Kraus, 2014 pg. 3). Kraus then compared the gathered data to peers and younger musicians and non- musicians. “Both behaviorally and neurophysiologically, older adult musicians do not exhibit many of the age-related declines in auditory function commensurate with typical ageing” (Kraus, 2014 pg. 3). “In fact, older musician’s neural timing matches young adult non-musicians. These musicians also had more robust representation of speech harmonies, more consistent responses, and more resilient responses to noise degradation” (Kraus, 2014, pg. 3).

Better hearing and better memory are able to take place because of the connections in the brain. Playing a musical instrument increases the connections in grey and white matter. Grey matter is the outermost layer of the brain. Its color is pinkish grey which is why it is called grey matter. Like grey matter, white matter is also named after its color. White matter is the network of nerve fibers that allow communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. These fibers look white because of the protective materials that covers the nerve fibers.

Christian Gaser, a neuroscientist, studied how musicians and musicianship status impacts grey matter and connections in the brain. Gaser studied this by gathering a group of people with different musicianship status (professional, amateur, and non-musicians). He had scans or images taken of multiple people in each musical group. These scans were then compared to each other using computer software that reads the volume of white and grey matter. Gaser says, “… areas with a significant positive correlation between musician status and increase in gray matter volume were found on perirolandic regions primary motor and somatosensory areas, premotor areas, anterior superior parietal areas, and in the inferior temporal gyrus bilaterally” (Gaser, 2003 pg. 2). Key parts of the brain, according to the scans taken, shows an increase of connections with grey matter, with the most grey matter found in professional musicians. In other words, the data shows that the longer (more) a person plays a musical instrument, the better connections the brain will have because there is more grey matter present. “Our study also showed a strong increase in gray matter volume related to musician status in the inferior temporal gyrus, most probably including anatomical regions involved in the ventral visual stream” (Gaser, 2003 pg. 3). These are all key parts of the brain that, with ageing, declines. This tells musicians and non- musicians that playing a musical instrument proves to be beneficial into later adulthood.

Grey matter and white matter are both effected by playing music. Stoklosa says, “gray matter volume in the motor, auditory, and visual spatial brain regions is greater in musicians than non-musicians. This is most likely due to structural adaptations in response to long term skill acquisition and repetitive rehearsal of that skill” (Stoklosa, 2016 pg. 2) She then goes on to talk about white matter in the brain. Stoklosa refers to a study done in 2005 by Sara L. Bengtsson. Stoklosa says, “They concluded that playing the piano is an effective way to enhance the structure of white matter, especially when the fiber tracts are still under maturation” (Stoklosa, 2016 pg. 2). This tells us that the best time to start playing a musical instrument is during childhood because there are better chances of the brain developing differently in beneficial ways.

These are all great benefits. The thing is though, to reap the full benefits, one should continue to play outside of high school. Many music teachers have stated that the best time frame to fully reap all benefits is ten to fifteen years with between one and three hours of study every day. College is the best way to do this because it trains musicians how to further their musician skills that can be difficult to learn on one’s own. Many studies have shown that musicianship status plays a key part in the benefits reaped. Stoklosa says that “Children with at least three years of instrument music training outperformed their control counterparts on auditory discrimination ability and fine motor skills as well as vocabulary and nonverbal reasoning skills” (Stoklosa, 2016 pg. 3). This is because when starting instrument playing at a young age, the brain is able to develop with stronger connections, instead of trying to build these connections after the brain is finished developing which is around age 25. Melissa Locker, a Time Magazine reporter says that “Researchers found that after 2 years, children who not only regularly attended music classes, but also actively participated in the class, showed larger improvements in how the brain processes speech and reading scores than their less involved peers” (Locker, 2014 para. 10).

Locker goes on to say, “Even in a group of highly motivated students, small variations in music engagement – attendance and class participation – predicted the strength of neural processing after music training” (Locker, 2014 para. 4). Gaser’s study, one that was previously looked at, shows that the longer you play an instrument the more benefits are reaped and connections in the brain grows stronger. “… the gray matter volume is highest in professional musicians, intermediate in amateur musicians, and lowest in non-musicians” (Gaser, 2003 pg. 2). Professional musicians have the highest levels of connections in the brain, which leads to the other benefits being heightened. This reinforces the idea that playing music, especially after high school, is beneficial in many ways.

Even though there are all of these benefits, and musicians that have been playing for many years reap the most benefits, most high school students do not continue playing after graduation. The biggest reason for this is burnout caused in high school. The biggest cause of burnout can be considered to be marching band or competitive band. This is because marching band is a high stress sport. It is considered high stress because it teaches students to compare themselves to bigger bands that don’t have to put in as much effort compared to smaller bands. Dr. Nathan Froebe had a lot to say on this topic during our interview. He says, “The marching band has, in my opinion, showed young musicians that it takes so much to be a good musician. Even though it does take effort to be a good musician, competing is not helpful. It creates burnout for students that participate in it. Once those students get to college, they don’t want to participate because they have been put under so much pressure between making the show perfect and competing with bands that are bigger and that have more money is an unhealthy way to express music” (N. Froebe, personal communication, November 1, 2022). He continued, “Music is supposed to be fun. Marching band teaches us to compare to others and that can be very bad for self-esteem because if one band of 50 members and a low budget doesn’t get top 5 against bands of 150 with a budget that could pay for a new house, they won’t think about the good things that happened but instead they get the mindset of “was I not good enough’” (N. Froebe, personal communication, November 1, 2022). Because competition band makes small schools that don’t have the funds that bigger schools have, a student’s self-esteem is damages when they don’t place as well as bigger schools with more funds. Those students then, instead of looking at the progress the have made throughout the season, look at the placings and think that they aren’t good enough for the judges.

College music is much more relaxed because it does not have the competition aspect like high schools. This in turn is better for musicians and their mental health. It is better because it improves one’s self esteem and overall mental health. Although burnout of marching band is a reason people don’t continue playing music after high school, a study done in the UK and Germany by Nicolas Ruth shows that it is hard to pinpoint reasons for students not furthering their musical training. Ruth decided to change his study from reasons why students don’t continue to how many students quit and when. He found that “…about 50% of all students drop out of music lessons and other musical activities by the time the turn 17, with most students quitting between the ages of 15 and 17.” (Ruth, 2021 pg. 1).

Playing music in college is beneficial for the brain both physically and mentally. Even though competition band causes burnout, college bands are stress relieving, and they produce many benefits such as better hearing, better memory, lower heart rate, and stronger connections in the brain. College band is great because it does all of these things and it allows musicians to reap more benefits than they would have if they stopped after high school. These benefits then translate into late adulthood which shows us that the longer one plays music the better they will age. These are all great reasons to play music in college instead of quitting after high school.