Among the many ways to motivate a young musician one of the finest ways is to take that young musician to a concert. It really doesn’t matter what kind of concert it is - it just has to be a concert of good music.

I remember well when I was probably 14 I was invited to see Errol Garner play at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium for a concert and I barely knew who Errol Garner was at that time. He was the great jazz pianist who composed Misty and lots of other wonderful tunes but I had no idea what I was in for - it was just a piano concert and I thought “well, how can a piano without an orchestra or band entertain everybody for a full two hours?” To the surprise of my life I had no idea before that the piano could be played that well to make it sound like an orchestra and more than an orchestra - to sound like nature itself with the dancing keys in the high glissando and the deep bass chords - all the exciting stuff that the best of music has to offer. I remember he played “I remember April” a great jazz tune of that era and I just was so thrilled because I had no idea that music could be that exciting.

After the concert it was about an hour back to my home. I got home probably 11 o’clock or so but I remember staying up late and probably driving my parents mad but I just couldn’t get enough of what I had heard and wanted to try out all that on the piano. Of course what I played I’m sure sounded silly and continued to sound silly for lots of years and of course compared to Errol Garner it still sounds silly but I was inspired to really practice hard after that and learn my chords and to learn improvisation and so on. So that was a great motivation in my life - that single two hour concert.

A year or so later I was invited to attend another concert at the Memorial Auditorium of touring there in Sacramento on 16th St., (still there by the way) and this concert was called Jazz at the Philharmonic -a guy and impresario named Norman Granz organized this concert. He got a bunch of great jazz musicians together to play in this concert. I remember some of the musicians that were there were Illinois Jacquet, Sonny Stitt, Ray Brown the great bassist, Oscar Peterson the great pianist from Canada who greatly influenced me as well and again I had no idea the piano could be played like that. He was different than Garner but equally as exciting. I also saw Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz and many other of the great classic artists of that day and of course they are all in the Jazz Hall of Fame right now. So that was another concert that greatly motivated me to practice and to learn my my chords in and learn how to improvise and so on very very inspiring.

Still another concert that I went to when I was so probably 15 was a classical concert - an opera called “Amal And The Night Visitors” by Gian Carlo Menotti and it was a wonderful opera is based on the story of the of the Oriental Wise Men coming to see the baby Jesus from the East with very haunting music - exciting stuff - great singing, great music. That was another inspiring concert.

Then when I was about 16 or 17 the Dave Brubeck Quartet came to my high school auditorium in Auburn California to Placer high school and Dave had his whole Quartet there including the great alto sax man Paul Desmond and of course bass and drums. I don’t recall who was on bass and drums at that time. It was so exciting to see the interplay between Desmond and Brubeck as one would play a melodic line and the other would imitate it or play it back upside down or inside out - playing little games of cat and mouse - all off-the-cuff, all improvising and it was just extremely exciting and again it motivated me highly to start practicing and refine some of the things that I had wanted to learn.

So never underestimate the power of a concert to motivate a young musician. It has the power to make them excited and to get them practicing and to let them see that lessons are worthwhile and that some worthy goals lie ahead for them, and that these kinds of goals are achievable.

Will learning to play the piano make you more intelligent?  Could the brain grow larger than normal by learning to play a musical instrument such as a keyboard or piano?  Questions such as these have been arising everywhere over the past few years and not only in science journals either.  The interest of the general public in these studies involving music and the development of the brain has led to the publishing of many articles, to the delight of music-lovers everywhere.  But all the information gathered, the reliable and the questionable, has left many still confused about how much importance should be put on use of musical training for brain development.

If your feeling confused about what you have learned, certain valid points considered may help clear your thinking.  It seems that the most benefit is derived from early musical training when it comes to strengthening the connectors in the brain and creating new pathways. Research demonstrates the definite influence that music training has on the long-term development of specific parts of the brain.  The research findings of Gottfried Schlaug, Herman Steinmetz and their associates were published in Discover magazine in 1994. They did a comparison of 27 classically trained right handed musicians with 27 right handed non-musicians using a technique called MRI, abbreviated for magnetic resonance images.
 
Their findings revealed that the planum temporale (the brain’s auditory processor) was larger in the left hemisphere and smaller in the right in comparison with the group of non-musicians. Musicians who started training before the age of seven had even more outstanding differences.  The differences were especially notable among musicians who started early training, specifically before the age of seven.  Shlaug claims that the study of music also promotes enlargement of the corpus callosum, a bridge of sorts between the brain’s two hemispheres. He discovered that among musicians who began their musical education before seven years of age, their corpus callosum was thicker by 10-15% compared to non-musicians.  It was suspected that a larger corpus callosum improves motor control by making a faster connection between the hemispheres of the brain.

Later research published in a 2002 issue of Science magazine showed the results of a study conducted by Dartmouth music psychologist Peter Janata which confirmed that music is one of the best stimulants for improved connectivity between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and between areas responsible for emotion and memory.  A team of scientists led by Janata reports that with musicians, they have found certain areas of the brain to be 5% larger, and specifically the auditory cortex in expert musicians, up to 15% larger than people with little or no musical background. In addition, those who started studying music early in childhood have increased development of up to 15% in the brain area called the corpus callosum, which is a four-inch bundle of nerve fibers connecting the left and right side of the brain.
 
There is growing evidence that detailed and even skilled motor functions are enhanced, besides the growing evidence from research studies that some brain region connectivity, as well as some types of reasoning functionality is improved by music training. The corpus callosum in musicians is evidently essential to the performance of such tasks as the coordination of fingers. As any muscle must grow to accommodate the tasks at hand, this portion of the brain also grows to make one more proficient at these necessary musical skills.

In a study conducted by Dr. Timo Krings and reported on in Neuroscience Letters 2000, non-musicians and pianists of the same age and gender were asked to complete a series of intricate finger movements.  In this study, pianists and non-musicians of the same age and gender were asked to perform sequences of complex finger movements.  Correct movements were noted by both groups, but less activity was seen in the brains of the pianists. The conclusion drawn by the researchers was that the pianists’ brains make skilled moves with less effort.  There are a staggering number of ways that the human brain and its development are affected thanks to the study of music.  With all this research at your fingertips, how do you decide what type of musical studies will benefit yourself or your children?

An article by N.M. Weinberger published in Musica Research Notes in 2002 made an interesting point about how the Mozart Effect , although not living up to it’s musical hype, has raised the public eye to the research being conducted in the field of music. Listening to just a few minutes of Mozart invites a whole new world of musical possibilities to the listener. The academic evidence discovered for using music study as a tool to aid brain development is compelling, even with the hype regarding the Mozart Effect.  Dr. Frank Wilson from the University of California’s School of Medicine in San Francisco says his research reveals improvement in coordination, concentration, memory, eyesight and hearing when a person engages in practicing the art of music.

According to Frank Wilson’s research, learning to play an instrument brings about these benefits: better coordination, improved concentration, memory, eyesight and hearing. According to Wilson, all other activity pales in comparison to musical training which refines the entire neurological system by improving connections and motor skills in the brain. Dr. Wilson says that he believes musical instruction is vital for total brain development.

The conclusion we draw from what we’ve learned is that studying music can be an important tool to enhance various important functions of the brain. No guarantees, of course, but if you love music, why not do what you love?  Therefore, if you are a lover of music, dust off that old piano you have always wanted to play and get started today - you have much to gain in satisfaction and pleasure. And who knows? If it increases the capability of your brain, what a bonus!