The ability to play piano is a wonderful skill to have. We at Petrof Piano House understand the enjoyment that can be gained from your piano, and we are committed to helping ensure your piano playing is as enjoyable as possible. We offer some of the best piano tuning in Fort Worth, Texas, and will keep your piano in excellent playing condition.
We also recognize the benefits that learning to play the piano can bring to young children, and we would always encourage starting piano lessons at a young age. Below we have listed 10 of the key benefits piano-playing children may experience.
1. Learning to play the piano builds self-esteem Being able to tackle something that was once difficult and being able to overcome that is a big boost to self-esteem, in both kids and adults. Having the ability to play the piano to family and friends and receive praise also helps to raise confidence in children. High self-esteem is strongly linked to higher levels of happiness and achievement in adults. Kids with higher levels of self-esteem are also more likely to take on tasks that are perceived more challenging and so are more likely to expand their skills and abilities as they grow.
2. Piano lessons can help with focus and concentration
Sitting and working on learning to play the piano is excellent for improving focus and concentration skills. They say practice makes perfect, and this applies not just to the skill of actually playing the piano, but to the ability to sit and focus on one task without getting distracted, particularly when it becomes challenging. This is a fantastic skill to have, and can be generalized to apply to learning other intricate or challenging tasks.
3. Piano playing can improve creative and problem solving skills
Learning to play a musical instrument has been shown to help improve creativity as well as problem solving skills. These are really helpful abilities to have and they transfer well to other areas of life, including general coping skills. Children who have learned to play piano and so have developed those parts of their brain may be better at finding creative solutions to problems that arise in their lives.
4. Learning piano playing can help with general performance at school
Learning to play piano may also help with school performance. Studies have shown that learning a musical instrument exercises the same part of the brain as that used for certain math problems. This means that musical training may also boost classroom performance in math and other spatial awareness and logical reasoning tasks, such as those involved in engineering. The improvement in concentration and focus discussed in an earlier point can also help with school performance in other subjects.
5. Piano lessons can improve communication and maturity
Sitting and working one-to-one with a piano tutor can help to improve communication skills. The need to listen and respond, and to question and explain queries or difficulties mean the child is getting good practice at these key skills. With repetition the child is likely to become a far better communicator than they would have been without these one-to-one lessons. Working one-to-one in a rather professional manner also helps to increase the maturity of the child. They will most likely interact in a more polite and formal manner than they would with their parents or family, or compared to how they would act if there were others of their age about as in a traditional classroom. Having the confidence and ability to interact with adults in a mature way could really help the child to get ahead.
6. Music lessons increase exposure to wider cultures
Learning to play the piano can expose children to a whole range of classical music and composers that they would never have heard of otherwise. This can help to grow a more rounded and educated child with a broader view of the world.
7. Children learn languages faster and better than adults- this may also apply to music
It is a known fact that children learn new languages faster and more naturally than adults can. It would make sense that this would also apply to reading music. Children are also better able to hear subtle sounds in languages when they are younger, which is why children who learn a language often sound more like a native than an adult learner will. It may follow that exposing children to music at an early age may help them to tune their ear to the subtleties of tone and pitch. You never know, if they don’t choose to become a professional musician it may help them build a career in piano tuning later in life!
8. Piano playing improves coordination
Playing the piano requires the coordination of 10 fingers on two hands and the feet for the peddles, all while reading music and potentially even singing. There can be no doubt that such utilization of so many parts of the brain at once is incredibly beneficial to brain development and the improvement of coordination. This benefit may transfer into other skills that require good coordination.
9. Learning to play piano teaches the benefits of hard work and persistence
It is always hard when you start to learn something new and inevitably do it badly. It takes persistence and hard work to push through this time of struggle until you begin to reach a level of competence. With the exposure to increasingly complex piano pieces, this novice to competence cycle continues throughout the duration of learning to play the piano. However, the accomplishment of being able to play pieces well after the hard work teaches the child that hard work and persistence do pay off.
10. Piano playing provides relaxation and self-expression
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, learning to play the piano can provide a child with an excellent outlet for self-expression and a wonderful method of relaxation. Once competent as a piano player, the child can lose themselves in their playing and the music, leaving the stresses of school and life behind. Surely this alone is a compelling reason to start piano lessons for a child.