Can Learning Music Help Improve Other Abilities?

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Hi guys,

I'm currently learning how to use the ukulele. Mostly I've been following tutorials online and trying to learn some basic chords. I only know how to play one song and I haven't really been doing it for that long, but as soon as I learned how to play that song I feel like it's helping me to think more clearly about my lifelong passion, which is drawing and animation. Recently, I find that focussing on my ukulele and even just playing the few chords I do know is helping me to relax and helping my brain to calm down so I can build the reserves for my drawing ability. I think this is because I only play for fun, so I don't feel stressed out about whether I am "good enough" for it.

I don't consider myself to be musically skilled. I like singing, but otherwise I know next to nothing about music. Now I feel actually somewhat excited about learning different songs and getting a better grasp at moving between the chords. But best of all, it allows me respite from my constant self doubt in regards to my visual art, which I am ruthlessly critical of. I also feel like understand how to play an instrument is unlocking parts of my brain I don't usually use, which I feel will help my art in the future.

Does anyone relate to this? I sure hope that I keep this up because it's great to get out of this rut.

I can relate to this, definitely. Making music has been a wonderful sanctuary and therapy for me for many years. I experience the same escape from my everyday world problems that you describe. I learned a bit of ukulele myself many years ago, though it's a long time since I played it now - I play my bass guitar or keyboard mostly nowadays.

I think that making music can have a lot in common with stimming - the repetitive movements and finding patterns in the notes is very calming for me. I'm useless at relaxing a lot of the time, and I find it very hard to keep still, so I struggle with meditation and breathing exercises. Making music often feels like a kind of "active meditation" - it relaxes my body and mind without the need to be motionless or quiet. There have also been a lot of studies to show that learning an instrument can help in all sorts of other ways - it can help with things like number skills, memory and fine motor control, for example.

I had a friend a while ago who worked as a music therapist, and I was fascinated by him describing how he used music to improve his patients' lives - not just the stereotypical "calming noises", but also by encouraging people to express themselves through collaborating on song lyrics, or trying to create a sound to express a particularly difficult emotion.

There was a paper that appeared over 40 years ago in the Journal for Research in Music Education that was exploring the link between math, language arts skills and the ability to read music. My choral conducting professor from my undergraduate years has always maintained that music is a language of its own, and teaching anyone to read music should be taught in the same way you teach language arts. When asked why, his response is simple: what is a written language? A written language is a series of symbols arranged in a specific manner to convey a cohesive thought. Then what is written music? Written music is a series of symbols arranged in a specific manner in order to convey a cohesive thought.

While at this I can only conjecture, as I've been out of music Ed. For quite a while, The University of Delaware, somewhere in their archives, has data and research by Prof. Fred Hoffstaeder, who's the primary Architect for GUIDO, which was an ear training and music theory platform based on Control Data Corporation's CYBER platform. Again, I haven't looked at this platform in decades, but the last time I saw any papers by Prof Hoffstaeder, he found some interesting results, which I unfortunately do not remember the conclusions he made.

(Yeah, I know I Said I was never going to post on WP in the future, but this thread was too good to pass up. So sue me.)

I guess it can improve some abilities, since you have to think notes, rhythm and movements at the same time. So music involves a lot of parts of your brain at the same time!

I can play several instruments and it has been fundamental in improving my social skills. I think I wouldn't have any friend at all if it wasn't for music.
Besides that playing an instrument allows you to be together with other people without having to speak or put on fake faces... And that's kind of great