This is a research paper that I wrote for an online writing course. It was my first experience with strictly following writing guidelines(Including margins and spacing, although I could not preserve those settings here) and making citations. In this paper, I used the MLA guidelines. I like how the subject of the paper combines two topics that I am interested in.
Wytse Gensemer
Mrs. McKinley
Writing: Research
Papers and Essays
5 October, 2018
The
Mental Benefits of Learning to Play Music at a Young Age
There has been music in human culture for longer than you might
think. Musical instruments are among the oldest manmade objects ever
found. Music was developed long before agriculture, and it might even
have preceded language, as it could have been one of the factors that
helped to create language. A love for music has not been naturally
selected against, meaning that it might be, or might have been, good
for survival or breeding in the human population. Thus, it has been
very important for early humans and much used in our culture (Levitin
250). As it is such an essential thing in our culture and our minds,
music can have life-changing effects. Young people who play music can
get the largest benefits from these effects, even if they only play
music for one or two years. All children should start learning a
musical instrument by the time they are eight years old, because
playing music can help brain development in ways that can benefit
their thinking, mood and social life.
Why eight years old? The reason why it is best to start learning
music at a young age is related to neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity
is the brain’s amazing ability to change, in both structural and
functional ways, to suit the environment, making the different parts
of the brain similar to muscles in that they grow and become more
effective when they are used often. Neuroplasticity for different
skills peaks at certain times, known as critical periods. During a
critical period for a skill, experiences related to that skill have
larger effects on brain development. After a critical period, those
experiences have little or no effect on brain development. The
critical period for many things, such as learning languages, happens
at about six or seven years of age (Mundkur 855-56). Someone can
still become a good musician if they started learning after this age,
but they would not have some added benefits that they would otherwise
have, such as the increased amount of connections across different
parts of the brain.
One of the findings about brain changes in musicians is that parts of
the corpus callosum are larger when the subject has been playing
music for a long time (Jancke). The corpus callosum is a bundle of
nerve fibers that link the right and left hemispheres of the brain
with each other. Another finding is that musicians have a stronger
link in between their auditory and motor brain regions than
nonmusicians. These are both adaptations for playing music, but the
strengthened linkage in the brain might also be useful in other tasks
(Jancke). An increased amount of connectivity is helpful, but there
are other changes that music makes to the brain, some of which can be
more widely applied.
Besides making the brain more connected, playing music can help
develop academical skills. Recent studies have shown that musicians
have better working memory than nonmusicians. Working memory lets
people remember things temporarily while they are thinking about
something else, so improved working memory makes people better at
tasks involving reading and math (Benefits of Music Education
3). Amazingly, another study compared IQ scores of two study groups:
children who were taught music, and children who were taught drama,
and discovered that, after one year, the group that was taught music
had a slightly higher average IQ score than the drama group,
suggesting that children who play music can do better academically
(Schellenberg 513). There are many ways that music is good for
thinking and intelligence, but these things also depend on mood and
general wellbeing, which music can also affect.
There are many ways that playing music is beneficial with feelings.
One benefit is relieving stress or decreasing depression. A study by
Jaakko Erkkila and
colleagues used 79 adults with unipolar depression. One group
was given normal treatment for the depression, and the other group
was given music therapy as well as normal treatment. The
music therapy consisted of tasks
related to making music,
including playing simple melodies, singing and
improvisation. Over
six months, the music therapy
group showed
a much
larger
improvement than
the control group. The
difference between these results
is considered to be clinically relevant (132-36).
It can be very good for
someone’s overall mental health that music
works well against depression, but
this is not the only time when it can strongly
affect feelings.
Music is shown to create positive
feelings as well as suppress
negative ones. Part of the
way that it does this is that it gives musicians a sense of
achievement,
which can be caused by
learning to play a song, getting into an ensemble or
performing. Something that a
musician will tend to do, especially
if they play in an ensemble, is
listen to music more often. Music
listening has many known benefits. This
has been demonstrated by a Swedish
study, carried out by
Professor Juslin and his team. Several
students carried small computers which
made beeping sounds at random times of the day. When each student
heard the sound, they answered
questions about whether they heard music at
that time or not, and how
they were feeling. The results were that, in any situation, music
made them feel happier or more relaxed than at the times when they
were not listening to music (Powell 37). Happiness
can be elevated by music for all of the reasons described above, but
happiness sometimes depends on social contact, and surprisingly,
music can benefit a musician’s life in this way too.
Social life can heavily affect
feelings, which in turn leads to changes in mental health, and there
are ways that music can help people have a better social life through
changes in the brain. One of these changes is a better auditory
cortex which leads to empathy. In
one study, young children who played music for six months showed more
improvement
in discriminating
tones in speech than children
who did not (Moreno et al.
712). Because
subtle tones in speech sometimes indicate how a person is feeling,
this helps
children who play music have more empathy. This has been shown in
toddlers who played music together
(Benefits of Music Education
6). The increase in empathy
means that people who play
music can do better socially, even though this is mainly with the
people they already know.
There are ways that music can make a
person more successful socially by meeting new people and bonding
with them. A very common thing for musicians is to play together in a
small group, band, ensemble or orchestra. This not only gives them
more social contact, but it also makes
people socially bond with each other (Tarr, Launay and Dunbar). This
bonding can let people make new friends more easily, leading to a
better social life.
Seeing what kind of changes music
causes to the brain, both
temporary and permanent,
the conclusion is
that music benefits a musician’s life in many aspects, including
that they are
able to do better academically, emotionally and socially. All of
these benefits
are related to
important factors for the success of a person’s life and their
wellbeing. Most of the
benefits are caused by
changes in the brain, so if someone learns music at a young age when
they have more neuroplasticity, they keep the
benefits for their whole
lives. Efforts
should be made to teach music to young children more in schools and
at homes, and to make learning music more affordable, so that yet
more people can enjoy the
benefits it brings.
Works
Cited
The Benefits of Music Education: An Overview of Current
Neuroscience Research. Toronto,
Canada: The Royal Conservatory of Music, 2012. Web. 1 Oct. 2018.
Erkkila, Jaakko et al. "Individual
Music Therapy for Depression: Randomised Controlled Trial." The
British Journal of Psychiatry
199.2 (2011): 132-39. Web. 1 Oct. 2018.
Jancke, Lutz. "Music Drives
Brain Plasticity." F1000 Biology Reports
1.78 (2009): n.pag. Web. 1 Oct. 2018.
Levitin, Daniel J. This is
Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.
New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Moreno, Sylvian et al. "Musical
Training Influences Linguistic Abilities in 8-Year-Old Children: More
Evidence for Brain Plasticity." Cerebral Cortex
19.3 (2009): 712-23. Web. 1 Oct. 2018.
Mundkur, Nandini. "Neuroplasticity
in Children." The Indian Journal of Pediatrics.
72.10 (2005): 855-57. Web. 1 Oct. 2018.
Powell, John. Why We Love
Music: From Mozart to Metallica - The Emotional Power of Beautiful
Sounds. Great Britan: John
Murray, 2016. Print.
Schellenberg, E. Glenn. "Music
Lessons Enhance IQ." Psychological Science
15.8 (2004): 511-14. Web. 1 Oct. 2018.
Tarr, Bronwyn, Jacques Launday and
Robin I. M. Dunbar. "Music and Social Bonding: "Self-other"
Merging and Neurohormonal Mechanisms." Frontiers in
Psychology 5.1096 (2014): n.
pag. Web. 2 Oct. 2018.
