Piano Sheet Music Net

Mozart is considered one the greatest musical minds in history. He was nothing but pure genius and in fact, it may even be a long time before anyone even comes close to his capability, and producing the same quality workmanship in music. Sure, we have had a few child prodigies that have surfaced here and there, and even more that have shown some really great potential, but I still stand on my previous statement. So what makes these great musical minds? What do these children have that makes them stand out from the rest? A lot of debating has been going on about what makes a child intelligent. Some scientists have said that it is genetic and we are born with great intelligence inherent in the very genetic coding that makes who we are. Others say that intelligence is learned through experience and that from the very moment we are born and we open our eyes to view the world for the first time, our brains begin to absorb everything through all five of the senses. We begin to build a picture and try to understand what is happening all around us and then we store and learn from those experiences. Whichever one it happens to be, they both have something in common. In both cases our minds develop by forming neural pathways that begin to interconnect and work between each other. The one thing that all scientists can agree on, is the fact that the more you use and develop your neural pathways, the more likely you are to have a superior brain with superior cognitive ability.

So how do we develop these pathways? How do we make ourselves smarter? Research has shown that music can and does play a big part. Of the many instruments that one can learn, the one that stands out most is the piano. Studies have shown that playing the piano helps to develop many key areas in the brain that are responsible for superior mental and cognitive functioning. Playing the piano requires a great amount of control and dexterity in the hands, a highly developed sense of co-ordination, extensive concentration, tone differentiation, and something called sight-reading. Each of these factors help develop an attuned sense of being, and lead to wonderful by-products that the individual can find most useful as they go on along their journey through life.

Control and dexterity in the hands can improve handwriting skills, and lead the child to write more like a calligrapher rather than a doctor. However, this is not proven, but merely an observation. By learning to play with both hands and controlling the left and right sides simultaneously, you train the brain to communicate between the two hemispheres, thus creating neural pathways that allow the hemispheres themselves to communicate better with each other. A natural by-product of this would be that the mind could then use all aspects of each individual hemispheres combined rather than use the more dominant one, as this is the case for most of us. The simplest way to explain this is that research has shown that the left side is predominantly logic oriented and the right is creative. By creating the links between the two sides you can combine both those aspects.

Another benefit that is mentioned is that of hand-eye co-ordination. By learning to make your hands move according to what your eyes can see, you are able to improve motor-neural connectivity. What that means for the individual is that it will have a distinct impact on motor co-ordination or body movement. To give you an example, a pilot would needs such reflexes to control a plane according to what he sees while taking off and landing. A cricket or baseball player holding a bat and watching a speeding ball moving toward them will be able to judge how to hit the ball in a more proficient way.

Improved concentration has obvious benefits. If your child is able to sit in a classroom and listen to what the teacher is saying, rather than stare out the window wondering what he or she is going to do during lunch, they will invariably take in more of what the lesson has to offer.

Tone differentiation is the ability to hear or judge the difference between the notes that are being played. The main benefit here would be an improved hearing ability. A child will force itself to listen more intently to what is going on in the world around them.

The last aspect to mention is called sight-reading and it is linked to hand-eye co-ordination in the same way that the eyes help the brain co-ordinate the movement of the hands.

Aside from all these wonderful physical benefits that a child gets from learning to play the piano, there are also the emotional benefits that are really a by-product of all these physical aspects that occur. The child will have more confidence in everything that he or she does. By concentrating more and learning more in class, they will achieve better grades, making them feel smarter. The hand-eye co-ordination can help them improve on the sports field, as well as any given use in their working career and the child can even become that pro-golfer or pilot if they want to. They will carry that confidence through out their life, knowing that they can achieve anything and they will always have the ability to walk into someone’s house that they hardly know, sit behind their grand piano and start to charm and woo everybody with any of their favorite melodies. It even works wonders for family gatherings.

So to sum it all up for you, the possibilities are truly endless. Teach your children to play the Piano and bring out the Mozart that’s in them.