Playing Musical Instruments Improves Mathematical Abilities

Playing Musical Instruments Improves Mathematical Abilities
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Tatiana_Bandurina]Tatiana Bandurina

We already know about the advantages of singing and how the ability to play a musical instrument can aid the child in mastering his writing skills.

I have to note that thanks to musical lessons, children develop a sense of rhythm and, equally important, coordination between hearing and motor skills. When playing the instrument, the student has to closely follow the score in order to memorize a new piece, and also coordinate both hands to play, thus improving and developing good eye-hand coordination. The fingers of the right and left hands are moving in absolutely different ways while playing!

Therefore, children who are learning music are more capable of expressing comprehensive thought - not only in conversation, but also during essay writing, than other children. They are also better at using punctuation marks than other children, who are deprived of the ability to play a musical instrument (in the author's opinion). Such children can easily find and allocate the sentence that possesses the main, complete semantic meaning of the entire text. In general, they do not have any difficulties in breaking down an unfamiliar text into paragraphs.

Now I'd like to turn from your child's writing skills to his mathematical abilities.

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras was the first to establish a close connection between music and mathematics. Many well-known mathematicians liked to play musical instruments. For example, Max Planck played piano; Richard Feynman - bongos; and Albert Einstein - violin. Thousands of years ago, Pythagoras created the doctrine of sound by studying the philosophical and mathematical aspects of a sound. He even tried to connect music with astronomy. He was the first to state that music teaches a person not only to see, but also to reproduce what has been seen; not only to hear, but also to imagine what you hear. Pythagoras drew the conclusion that music develops all kinds of perception: visual, acoustical, and sensual. From that, we learned that music develops the player's attitude toward a sound.

In addition, music positively influences different types of memory: visual, acoustical, motor, graphic, and associative. Every skill you've ever learned is easily forgotten by your hands, but not your mind.

Also, music develops the associative imagination of children that makes mastering other kinds of arts much more possible. Remember Leonardo da Vinci? Everyone admires his versatile talent. Consider his talents - some of which complemented others: he was the sculptor, the artist, the architect, the engineer. Da Vinci could also sing; he even gave singing lessons! He was one of the first people who studied the nature of a vocal art.

By organizing your child's time around studying music during his lessons and at home, he will actively develop and improve his emotions and other human qualities. After seizing the art of playing a musical instrument, he will more than likely not experience any major difficulties in choosing a profession in the future. More often than not, such people are able to find their place in life quite easily due to being exposed to a larger scope of interests early in life.

Tatiana Bandurina is an educator, an inventor and a Canadian writer.

For more than twenty years she worked in several children's musical academies and schools as a teacher and a principal.

Tatiana is now a chief of Quintecco Educational Products, Inc., the website is [http://www.quintecco.com]http://www.quintecco.com. She develops new trend in education - music education for parents.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Playing-Musical-Instruments-Improves-Mathematical-Abilities&id=3435693] Playing Musical Instruments Improves Mathematical Abilities