Why children should play an instrument
5 reasons why your child should start an instrument
Learning an instrument as a young child requires a lot of patience and persistence from both the child and their parents. Children that start learning can often get demotivated by lack of progress they are making and parents often do not see a point in them continuing or even starting the musical education. However, research has shown how beneficial learning music can be on a child’s mood and behaviour! Here we will provide 5 interesting (and quite unexpected) reasons why your child should take up an instrument and stick to it.
Of course, unlike adults, children very rarely are able to self-teach. Having a high-quality teacher, that can guide and develop your child's abilities to unlock their potential and open new worlds to them, is vital. Here at musictutors, we have tutors who specialise in young pupils and even families. Find the tutor who is the right fit for your child today:
1. Improves academic performance
It is commonly noted, that arts are nothing like science. Music cannot be related to maths… or can it? Neuroscience research suggests, that learning an instrument improves child’s cognitive abilities and by playing a new piece of music, a child is essentially solving a quite complicated maths problem. Developing an understanding of how music is created helps build pattern recognition skills that are useful across many disciplines.
2. Teaches patience
Each musician, no matter how old, has to learn the keys, notes, scales and beats themselves and that takes time. There is no universal time frame, which defines exactly how long it takes a person to learn a new instrument. It takes dedication and patience with oneself to continue learning an instrument, even when it is not going well. For instance, a child might not be very good at playing in the beginning, but they notice that if they stick to their practising routine they get better, which motivates them to be disciplined about training their skills. This kind of patience and discipline can also be then transferred to other subjects, such as languages or maths.
3. Boosts confidence
If a child is suffering from low self esteem or needs a daily confidence boost, learning a musical instrument can provide those things. It is the satisfaction in doing something well that makes us feel better about ourselves. Performance is daunting for everyone, but learning to overcome the stage-fright helps children grow socially, and become natural leaders.
4. Instills responsibility
Practising a new instrument can be similar to taking care of a small pet - a child has to pay attention to it and love it. While practising a child may understand that only he is responsible for their progress and nobody else is going to learn the instrument for them however hard they try! This instills a feeling of personal responsibility to perform and become better.
5. Improves coordination
Generally, we tend to associate coordination with doing gymnastics or other sports that involve the whole body, but it is also beneficial to coordinate individual body parts. It is well known that practicing a musical instrument on a consistent basis can greatly improve hand-eye coordination.
To find the perfect tutor, you can click here and choose an instrument, which you wish to master, then choose your whereabouts and just click search. You will be presented with a variety of music tutors near you, which you will then be able to sort by their popularity or how short the distance between you is.
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The office team of MusicTutors are all professional musicians and educators. We also believe that we have the best job in the world. We get to spend our day talking to students across the country about how much they love music and we have helped hundreds of people connect with the perfect, professional tutor for them. We'd love to help you too! Please get in touch with us and tell us your story. 07946125613 Or send us a mail to [email protected]. We can't wait to hear from you!