Your Brain on Playing the Piano

 

Want a full body workout? Play the piano! It seems obvious: sensory processing, motor control, hand-eye coordination, mental concentration, mental agility, and multitasking. It also builds mental and muscle memory.

Three parts of the brain particularly benefit from piano playing: the motion, visual and auditory cortices. Both sides of the brain and the bridge between those two sides are involved. It has been found that musicians’ brains can be larger structurally: attention, hearing and listening, emotion, memory, motor actions to produce sound, and learning.

Brain-related reading skills specifically improve with piano playing. Notes constitute a universal and unique language, which necessitate decoding just as alphabetic-based languages do. Beyond reading letters, notes reading is translated into hand motions. Each language has its own rhythm, which can be facilitated through music as composers optimally link oral language with musical rhythm. Indeed, when playing songs in different languages, the performer can cognitively and kinesthetically internalize those language-specific characteristics.

Likewise, mathematical thinking improves with piano playing. Music theory is mathematically-based in notes and rhythm.  The brain processes the combinations and sequencing of those elements, which reflect mathematical patterns.

All ages benefit, even in terms of brain plasticity (making more connections between neurons and creating new circuits, for instance) with consistent piano practice. Such practice also activates creative areas of the brain, facilitating original expression.

Taking piano lessons ramps up the impact of the brain even more: improving reading, expanding vocabulary, interpreting oral prosody emotionally, discerning sounds more subtly, and sequencing verbal information.

In short, playing the piano is a smart idea!

 

Exploring Tomoko

Tomoko is an explorer. She explores music through performing, reading, and travel.

Even today Tomoko continues to learn new pieces of music. “It deepens my knowledge and skill,” she says. “Challenge is very important.” There is also an element of curiosity. “It is like visiting a new city,” she comments. Each city, each piece, has unique features that are fascinating to experience.

Likewise, Tomoko enjoys attending master piano classes. “The advisor is always warm and good,”says Tomoko. She contends that there is always something to learn.

As a teenager, Tomoko remembers looking out at the Yokohama harbor, imagining the ships going out to sea, wondering where they would dock into port. She wanted to be on one of those ships, traveling to new shores. So it was no surprise that she left Japan to seek a wider world of music. “There was little opportunity for women to perform after college,” Tomoko remarks.

When Tomoko travels, she usually keeps her eye out for musical connections. She visited homes where musicians and composers lived. For instance, in the Chopin Museum, she played his raindrop prelude on their piano. When she visited a museum housed in a Medici residence, Tomoko asked, “May I use your harpsichord? ” She wanted to know how it sounded, and the museum staff answered, “You have to try it.” Tomoko played Bach’s Prelude in C sharp major BWV 848 on this antique, and recalls, “The instrument needed to be tuned.”

Tomoko also explores the world of music through reading, learning about musicians’ lives, which informs her own performance. By learning how how musicians create and respond to their world, Tomoko is able to relate to music and people even more effectively. She claims, “Books gives you ideas, and open your mind about people.”She shares that knowledge with her students so they can play more meaningfully.

In the final analysis, Tomoko’s explorations help her – and her students – grow musically and personally.

Reading for Life

Obviously, Tomoko reads music – scores of scores. And not surprisingly, she has read lots of books on musicians and composers. Her knowledge base of the musical universe is both broad and deep. Such knowledge informs her performance, and she passes this information onto her students.

What is less well known is that Tomoko likes other kinds of reading as well. She particularly likes biographies that reveal compelling stories and personalities. Tomoko has been known to suggest a good book to colleagues, tantalizing them with a vivid scene from the book. Tomoko says,“I enjoy other people’s lives and challenges. Everyone should write a biography.”

Tomoko has always had an interest in different people and ways of life, and books enable her to vicariously experience a wide variety of cultures and times. Even though Tomoko has travelled a lot, and has lived a rich life, her reading extends her interest even more. Through such reading, Tomoko asserts,
“I learn from others. That’s my education -- good or bad.”

By learning how how people think and perceive the world, Tomoko is able to relate to people even more effectively. She concludes, “Church gives you belief. Books gives you ideas, and open your mind about people.”

Another gift Tomoko gives to her students and broader audience is this blog, which captures some of her experiences and insights. We all benefit from her shared reading and writing.