If learning music is painful then I think something's wrong with the teaching method. Guess there's a distinction between learning as a lay person and training to be a professional some day. The former should be pretty enjoyable I would think.

d3_crescentia

United States4053 Posts

May 20 2012 06:31 GMT

#24

music is actually a very interesting thing to learn. not saying that subjects like math aren't (and I *love* math), but the skills music demands of you is an interesting combination of different things you need to exercise at the same time that otherwise wouldn't ever be used together.

performing music trains the following areas:
1. hand-eye coordination, as in sports, but at a finer level than most sports (sensory skills as opposed to abstract thinking)
2. artistic, creative expression (development of an intuition-based judgment instead of quantitative)
3. memory

also, music has a very responsive feedback loop - if you listen to yourself play, you immediately know whether or not you're doing something right or wrong, so in theory it SHOULD be easy to get kids to practice. (personally, I think most parents go about encouraging kids in a silly way)

now, it might be that learning music trains you ONLY in how to use these skills in conjunction together, so that learning music only makes you good at music. BUT, I don't think this is the case, so learning music should at least affect the way you think and may have interesting benefits.

I haven't really done any research to tell me what, if any, of these benefits have been scientifically proven and documented. I do think that (based on personal experience, at least), it's worthwhile to introduce music as one of many different activities that help develop cognitive abilities in a kid's life.

RedJustice

United States1004 Posts

May 20 2012 06:52 GMT

#25

There is a great bulk of research you can find if you care to look for it, as mentioned before, that proves there are significant benefits to be gained from learning an instrument. This http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/benefits.html sums up many such studies and lists the sources should you care to read more about it.

Whether or not a child likes something really shouldn't play a large role in the parent's decision to have them do it. Even if you prefer candy, sorry you're gonna have to eat whole grains and vegetables... terrible parenting right there.

It's good to give children instrument options, and I am definitely against the crazy parents who make their kids practice for 6 hours a day, but it is flat out good for children to learn an instrument. It physically changes your brain and improves intelligence. I can't help but feel your rant is pretty uninformed.

Nonexistent

United States50 Posts

May 20 2012 09:20 GMT

#26

Learning the piano raises your iq by a few points. Also, if you want a child to develop perfect pitch, you need to start them early.

Hidden_MotiveS

Canada2562 Posts

May 20 2012 16:09 GMT

#27

I think the discussion is off topic. We're no longer discussing the relevance of music to other subjects but rather music as a whole.

On May 20 2012 18:20 Nonexistent wrote:
Learning the piano raises your iq by a few points. Also, if you want a child to develop perfect pitch, you need to start them early.

No it doesn't.
One of the links on the page red linked.
http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/canmusicmake.html

"The answer is 'no' in a superficial sense," Hodges said. In 1993, experimenters claimed that listening to a Mozart sonata would make your IQ increase by eight points. Subsequent work, Hodges explained, proved that such listening would sharpen a subject's spatial-temporal relationships momentarily. After a short while, the subject would go back to being just as smart as before. Or dumb.

Sure music would make you have a higher IQ, temporarily, but it goes away if you stop practicing. Same could be said of anything.

The exact page you linked Red uses anecdotal evidence

Any music teacher or parent of a music student can call to mind anecdotes about effectiveness of music study in helping children become better students.

, draws links where they shouldn't be, and doesn't account for the type of errors that scientific studies should. It also uses the fact that the brain lights up when playing music as evidence that musicians are smarter.

Their brains were scanned using a technique called "functional magnetic resource imaging" (fMRI) which detects the activity levels of brain cells. The non-musicians were able to make the movements as correctly as the pianists, but less activity was detected in the pianists' brains. Thus, compared to non-musicians, the brains of pianists are more efficient at making skilled movements.

The best evidence that music is more useful than another study is the study on music providing more temporal reasoning than other subjects, and music class improving math scores more than computer classes. But that isn't enough to answer the question: Why the obsession with music?

The question of whether the arts is useful has already been beaten to death in the thread by Empryan: Honestly, what is the purpose of art these days.http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195892

Zocat

Germany2229 Posts

May 20 2012 16:33 GMT

#28

I think it's important to offer a child a variety of options & experiences.

So a small bit of "force" to make it learn play an instrument - why not. My sister played piano, I played flute, when we were very young (~6). Our parents "forced" us to learn them for about 2-3 years (dont remember).
Then we both quit - because we were not interested in it anymore.

Later with 14 my sister wanted to learn to play th guitar. She did that as well for 3-4 years and had an easier time thanks to her earlier piano lessons.
I personally was never interested in playing another instrument again.

My parents also forced us to play a sport (I stuck with football (soccer) for a very long time).
They also forced us to learn to dance (standard / latin dances) for 6 months - which I enjoyed and stuck with for 4 years in the end (since I met a girlfriend during the dancing lessons^^).

I think I'd sum it up with:
"Here try this out - you would never start it on your own, but there are a lot of people who enjoy it. You might be one of the, even though you think you're not."
Forcing it for a longer period of time (3+ years) seems to be stupid though. You'd know if you enjoy it after such a long period

Thrill

2599 Posts

May 20 2012 16:37 GMT

#29

Life is all about expression.

Giving your kids music is giving them another way of being able to express themselves.

YPang

United States4024 Posts

May 20 2012 17:37 GMT

#30

For those that say playing music provides discipline to kids. Then why not force them into athletics? You get in shape at the same time and you also learn discipline from training a lot of days regardless if u really wanted to or not.

Plus if u also decide to quit you get health points. If you ever decide to quit an instrument you dont really get any benefits from it. Unless u wanna pick it back up at an another time or something... But i still think having better heatlh is a bigger benefit.