Wednesday, June 7, 2023 | Uncategorized

I’ve just been reading about a recent study conducted by psychologists at the University of Bath. They conducted a randomised controlled trial to see what effects learning to play music for just a few weeks had on cognitive abilities.

The 31 adults in the study, who had no prior musical training, had either piano lessons for 1 hour per week for 11 weeks, assigned music listening (to listen to the same music the first group learnt to play), or were put into a control group to complete ‘homework’. The group who had the lessons reported significant improvements in recognising audio-visual changes in the environment (improved audio-visual synchrony perception).

Dr Petrini (co-author)  from the University of Bath explained: “Learning to play an instrument like the piano is a complex task: it requires a musician to read a score, generate movements and monitor the auditory and tactile feedback to adjust their further actions. In scientific terms, the process couples visual with auditory cues and results in a multi-sensory training for individuals. The findings from our study suggest that this has a significant, positive impact on how the brain processes audio-visual information even in adulthood when brain plasticity is reduced.”

I think this is really interesting as this study has been conducted in adults. The Royal Conservatory of Music in Canada has previously published data on the positive effects of music learning in children, and I hope that the team at Bath can conduct and publish some more research in this area.

The published article can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-23340-4

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Thursday, May 4, 2023 | Uncategorized

It is so important to practise your instrument so that you can improve and develop as a musician. But what should practising look like? Do you know what strategies you can utilise to help you?

I help my students to understand what quality practice looks like. Together, we work out in the lesson what will be the most effective use of their practice time, to get the best results, and be able to play those pieces they enjoy!

We don’t just think about what needs to be practised, and in what way, but also how to make that practice time more fun, with board games and action cards to help learn how to practise effectively. Vibrant music teaching resources add colour into all aspects of learning the piano with me.

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Saturday, March 25, 2023 | Uncategorized

I use games in my piano lessons. Not every lesson, but I think games are a great resource, and I'm going to talk about why:

1. The music games we play in our lessons are pedagogically sound. When we are working on a specific concept, playing a game means we can go over the learning, I can check understanding, and the repetition isn't boring, it's fun! My students are embedding the new skill or information without even realising.

2. Games mean we can explore concepts in different ways so that it can appeal to the learning style of any student. If we match the learning style to the student, they understand better, and learn faster.

3. Think about how easy it is to sit still for 30-45min and stay concentrated on one task for the whole time? Even adults can find that hard. Switching topics and activities keeps the brain engaged and keeps concentration going.

4. When we're enjoying ourselves, we're engaged and ready to take in new information. Games also mean that students can often discover a new concept through exploration, rather than just being 'told', and this helps the information stick better!

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