Are you an adult piano enthusiast planning to take piano lessons? Wondering what else you can get besides learning how to play the instrument? Or are you looking for more reasons to convince yourself to take piano lessons? Besides obtaining a skill, playing the piano has so many benefits that helps improve our entirety as a human being. Reading this article will give you not just information about learning the piano, but also reasons why you should take piano lessons and the benefits that you will get while you are taking it.
Body Awareness
When you play the piano, you do not only use your arms, hands and fingers, but you use your whole body. Even your legs and feet are important as you need to plant yourself for balance when you sit and play in front of the piano. Another reason that requires awareness of your whole body, is to maintain proper posture. Posture must be observed as much as possible, because your back needs to be straight while playing to avoid slouching which can cause back pain.
Sometimes there are pieces that require you to use the pedal of the piano, which means that apart from playing the piano keys with your hands, you also need to be aware of your foot stepping on the pedal. Basically, playing the piano is a full body exercise.
Improves Multitasking
Multitasking is when you do two or more tasks simultaneously. It is one of the benefits that you can get when you learn the piano, because while you are playing the notes, you will be doing several other tasks at the same time, like stepping on the pedal of the piano. These tasks develop multitasking very well as your brain will be processing multiple body parts to move at once. Aside from those, you will be also using your eyes to read the notes and your ears to listen to the sound you produce.
Playing the piano is indeed a good exercise to improve multitasking as you will be able to practice doing a lot of tasks altogether. Your mind will get to analyze and receive a lot of information like identifying the notes, counting the rhythm, interpreting the phrases, observing the articulations and so much more.
Learning music is not just a bodily exercise but also a brain workout! Good deal, isn’t it?
Enhances Memory
Aside from exercising your motor skill when playing the piano, you also train your memory skills as you will be familiarizing yourself with and will be memorizing notes from pieces. A piece usually consists of plenty of details and knowing all of them will surely improve your memory skills. Notes are not the only information that you need to memorize when you learn and play a piece. because you need to be knowledgeable with other details like dynamic markings, articulations, phrasings, etc.
You will even get to learn words from a different language in music. Some markings are written in Italian and some in French depending on the composer.
It may sound like a lot of information to take in, but it is actually a good brain exercise and as time goes by you will be able to memorize all of the information without knowing it as long as you expose yourself regularly. Slowly but surely.
Reduces Stress and Anxiety
Nowadays, a lot of people are getting conscious and concerned about their mental health because of all the events that are happening all over the world. Especially the pandemic and economic issues. It is vital that we take care of our mental health and we should put more effort in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. People look for ways to overcome the stress and anxiety caused by the pandemic and learning the piano is a good option to fight stress.
Music can really affect our moods and feelings, and we should be mindful of the things that we hear or listen to every day. Playing the piano is a good way to reduce stress and anxiety as it helps focus ourselves on another thing, thus relieving our minds from negative thoughts which increases our positivity and motivation to reduce our stress. Learning the piano also boosts our self-esteem as we will experience achievement when learning a new skill.
Develops Problem Solving Skills
There will be times when you are learning a new piece, you will stumble upon obstacles that require you to think and find a solution for you to be able to play a passage efficiently. You will be faced with questions like which finger you should use next to play a passage flawlessly. Because each piano learner is unique and does not have the same hand size or length of fingers, there are passages that sometimes need to be altered to suit the piano player. One of the things that you can develop when learning the piano is your mathematical skills, as music has rhythm, which means you will be required to count beats which will exercise your mind to deal with fractions and numbers.
Bonus: Adds Color to Life
“Earth without ART is just Eh.” – Demetri Martin
Music gives more than just vibrations transmitted through a medium. There is more than just producing sound to create melodies and harmonies. Music gives us feelings. It gives us hope. It gives us reason: a reason to feel, a reason to express, a reason to be alive.
Some might think that music is just a background for a movie or ambient music for hotels and wellness centers. But actually, through our ears, it gives us something to feel.
Learning the piano can have a huge impact in our lives if we put our hearts and minds into it, because there is so much to be gained.. Apart from giving you knowledge about music and improving your skill with the instrument, it also opens possibilities of progressing yourself as a musician in so many ways.