Is there an ideal age to begin music lessons?

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Nowadays, parents are bombarded with a plethora of brain-enhancing products for their children like musical apps and online videos. With the promise of making their children grow smarter, parents take advantage of these products. That’s all good and acceptable. Still, nothing beats the benefits of formal music training. The question is: When is the right age to start training?

Several studies done by the University of California suggest that taking music lessons at age three can boost brainpower. However, Baby Center reveals that piano trainers recommend that children’s hands should be big enough to handle the keys and they should be able to sit still for hours of training. And this is usually at age five.

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There is also a growing concern about introducing formal lessons to very young kids. This may be an issue for them, later on in life, if they felt like they were being forced into playing an instrument when they were smaller. They can possibly grow to hate, even develop anger against music. So just when parents think their very young children are ready for formal lessons, music teachers advice parents to give them a year or two before enrolling their kids so that the children can determine for themselves what instrument they want. Although piano is an ideal instrument to start with, parents have to expose their children to several other instruments to know and cultivate their interest.

Brain development is probably the number one reason why parents encourage their young to engage in music. But let it be a reminder to them that the love for music should be as fun as much as it is educational.

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Mark Begelman continues to spread his musical influence on kids of all ages. Visit this website for more music updates.

Study: Childhood music lessons benefit adulthood cognition

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Music relaxes the body, uplifts the spirit, and motivates the inner will.

It should not be surprising to know that music provides these significant benefits. But, more than the ability to soothe, uplift, and motivate, music may actually boost the brain. And when children take up music lessons early on, it may boost brain response well into adult life, reveals a study in the Journal of Neuroscience.

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The scientists evaluated 45 healthy adults with ages ranging from 18 to 31. The results suggest that those who received formal music training as children have stronger brainstem responses to sound than those who never experienced music instruction. There is also an effect on how early musical training stopped. All in all, the results imply that cognitive developments boosted by musical training in childhood are significantly preserved through adulthood.

Furthermore, a short period of music lessons in childhood, say at the age of three years, alters the nervous system that persists in adulthood even after training. However, regular and continuous lessons early in life correlate to a better cognitive function in adulthood.

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Parents have to realize that beyond the ability to emotionally console or make children happy, playing musical instruments nourishes the mind. Injecting music into children’s lives can go a long way. As the great philosopher Plato put it: “I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.”

Mark Begelman and Markee Music open their doors to children to bring music into their lives. Know more of the studio’s facilities and services by visiting this Facebook page.