How Infants and Toddlers Benefit From Piano Music

How Infants and Toddlers Benefit From Piano MusicIt’s commonly believed that piano music lessons should start when your child is entering elementary school – at around the age of 5 or 6. However, recent studies have shown that lessons should start much earlier than this – when you child turns 5- or 6-months-old. According to this research, your child will reap many great benefits for starting lessons as soon as they can push a key.

How Piano Music Helps Build Your Baby’s Brain

In 2018 McMaster University conducted a study in which they determined that teaching rudimentary piano skills and tone recognition to infants and toddlers led them to perform well in many areas. These areas included:

  • Developing more advanced music skills
  • Having social skills that were much better developed
  • Showing a preference for music that isn’t off-key
  • Being better able to handle new stimuli without it upsetting them
  • Recovering quickly when becoming upset
  • Much better hand-eye coordination
  • Being able to point and gesture prior to communicating verbally

Of course, a lot of positive reinforcement was necessary along the way. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of evidence showing that musical training plays a very important part in a child’s development.

How Early Piano Music Lessons pay off in the Long-Term

The immediate results of these lessons are great. However, the results that continue over the long-term are equally as great. These include:

  • Music is like riding a bike in that it’ll stay with your child even if they haven’t done it in a while. This is because things like identifying tones, music theory, and reading sheet music are built on muscle memory – something your child can pull on at any age.
  • Learning to play piano music is never easier than when your child is young. This is because musical learning and language development occur in many of the same areas of their brain. An added benefit of starting them at this age is that they won’t complain that they’d rather be hanging out with their friends instead of practicing their piano lessons.
  • Some professionals say piano lessons will also help your child develop their native intelligence. This hasn’t been fully confirmed yet but there are scientists who are working on linking children who receive music lessons at an early age to an improvement they’ve shown when it comes to cognitive functions (e.g. math, spatial perception, abstract reasoning). This is because music helps build your child’s brain.
  • Music helps your child develop better emotional control. Many studies throughout the years have shown that music almost always improves children’s social skills (EQ) which is just as important as their IQ. Piano lessons can help give them a boost in both areas.
  • Being musical is never outdated. Even though the world is rapidly evolving around us, this is one skill that your child will be able to use now and in the future.

Now that you see the benefit of starting your child on piano music lessons as early as possible, isn’t it time you did so? Stop by Dave’s Piano Showroom to check out their wide array of pianos and get your child started today.

Picture Credit: NeiFo