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Forget about music making me smart. The older I get the more I hope that playing will help ward off dementia. Use it or lose it.

...otherwise when the carrots start blooming on that upper Bb the rabbit eating the greens will bump my hand on that high arpeggio and my stinking saxophone will be useless.

PIANISTS HAVE MORE EFFICIENT BRAINS

by Dr. Norman M. Weinberger



Scientists in Germany have discovered that pianists have more efficient brains. A group led by Dr. Timo Krings required pianists and non-musicians of the same age and sex to perform complex sequences of finger movements. Their brains were scanned using a technique called "functional magnetic resonance imaging" (fMRI) which detects the activity levels of brain cells, by measuring changes in blood flow. The non-musicians were able to make the movements as correctly as the pianists. However, the amount of brain activity in areas controlling movement was different. The pianists made the correct movements while having less brain activation.

Thus, compared to non-musicians, the brains of pianists are more efficient at making skilled movements. These findings show that musical training can enhance brain function [source: Neuroscience Letters, 2000, 278, 189-198]

This article is reprinted with permission of the author from Musica Research Notes, (Volume VII, Issue 2, Spring 2000). For further information, contact MuSICA at www.musica.uci.edu/index.html


Classical Music's Traditional Audience Is Graying.
By the year 2030, approximately half of our nation's population will be over 65 years of age. Music educators have the power to make Classical music matter again to young people.
(Source: Chamber Music, February 1998; a publication of Chamber Music America)

Music Students Are Scoring.
Music students are outperforming non-music students on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). College-bound seniors with coursework or experience in music performance scored 52 points higher on the verbal portion and 37 points higher on the math portion of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts.
(Source: The College Board, September 1997)

Music Is Beating Computers
at Enhancing Early Childhood Development. Music training, specifically piano instruction, is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills necessary for learning math and science. Learning music at an early age causes long-term enhancement of spatial- temporal reasoning.
(Source: Frances Rauscher, Ph.D., Gordon Shaw, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, 1997)

Music Enhances Linguistic Skills.
Music -- specifically song -- is one of the best training grounds for babies learning to recognize the tones that add up to spoken language.
(Source: Sandra Trehub, University of Toronto, 1997)

America Is A Country Full Of Music-Makers.
113 million, or 53%, of Americans over the age of 12 are current or former music makers.
(Source: 1997 "American Attitudes Towards Music" poll conducted by the Gallup Organization)

Americans Say Schools Should Offer Instrumental Music Instruction
as part of the regular curriculum. 88% of respondents indicated this in a 1997 "American Attitudes Towards Music" Gallup poll.
(Source: Music Trades, September 1997)

Scientists, Therapists Agree: Music Heals More Than Just The Spirit.
Music benefits older adults. Active music-making positively affects the biology and behavior of Alzheimer's patients.
(Source: Music Making and Wellness Project, a study conduc ted at the University of Miami)

The Window Of Opportunity For Studying Music
is between the ages of three and ten. This is the time when we are the most receptive to and able to process music.
(Source: Newsweek, February 19, 1996)

Studying Music Strengthens Students' Academic Performance.
Rhode Island studies have indicated that sequential, skill-building instruction in art and music integrated with the rest of the curriculum can greatly improve children's performance in readi ng and math.
(Source: "Learning Improved by Arts Training" by Martin Gardiner, Alan Fox, Faith Knowles, and Donna Jeffrey, Nature, May 23, 1996)

Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship.
Music lessons, and even simply listening to music, can enhance spatial reasoning performance, a critical higher-brain function necessary to perform complex tasks including mathematics.
(Source: Frances Fauscher, Ph.D., Gordon Shaw, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, 1994)

The Mozart Effect
surfaced about four years ago when research uncovered that adults who listened to music of complexity for ten minutes or so experienced temporary increases in their spatial IQ scores.
(Source: Frances Rauscher, Ph.D.,Gordon Shaw, Ph.D., University of California, Irvine,1993-1994)

Music Is One of Our Greatest Economic Exports.
"The arts are an economic plus -- second only to aerospace as our most lucrative national export."
(Source: Michael Greene of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences)

Music Teacher Expertise is a Critical Factor in Student Learning.
Research indicates that teachers of all subjects -- including music -- who are more experienced and educated are more effective in the classroom. Consequently, students learn more from them.
(Source: Paying for Public Education: New Evidence on How and Why Money Matters, by Ronald Ferguson, 1991)


And even if it didn't do all the stuff listed above, it's FUN! (source: Piano World:Frank Baxter, 2008)

i chuckle when i hear my kids whistle bach fugues...

(not that #2 is doing well in school)

The Piano a Thing of the Past!

The past having been over 300 compelling years of piano or keyboard music development!

And, the improvement of the instrument itself!

The affordability of keyboards and marketed piano study systems - in print and in computer form - as well as in group and individual instruction.

Piano has not been sitting still, has it!

Piano is a vessel that needs a willing brain to match the genius of the instrument's capacity - both in performance and composition.

Don't underestimate the attraction of the piano!

Don't minimize the human spirit's need for challenging endeavors.

Piano, the original "Game Boy". Things exciting and electrofying, capable of building a person to their human capacity through making music.

Discipline? Absolutely!
Harnessing brain waves and paths? Absolutely!
The piano is a thing of the past? Absolutely NOT!Far out? Yes, far out into the future.

Betty

I first ran into some of the articles quoted by Frank B at a Back to School mtg. at a local middle school a few years ago. The band teacher was addressing parents whose kids had enrolled in school band. She handed out a packet of different articles that linked music learning to overall GPA, growth of brain power, success in adult life etc. etc.

Band is a huge competitor to piano, especially to acoustic piano. These articles do not prove that the acoustic piano is any more beneficial in achieving brain fitness or academic success than the digital piano, the violin, or membership in the school chorus.

The problem with the acoustic piano industry is that it, like the instrument it manufactures, is unplugged from the world of today. Just as a digital piano allows connection to a whole world of electronic media, so does the society we live in allow us as consumers to be plugged into Internet communities around the world.

Electronic age consumers want transparency in product origin, component origin, and PRICING. The antiquated (and in many cases deplorable and dishonest)) conditions that exist today in the marketing of pianos will not get the job done. Those who keep the torch lit for acoustic pianos and the classical lit written for them do so out of an emotional response to the instrument and the literature. In so doing, they accept the bad with the good. Unfortunately, the greatest numbers of those who carry the torch are in older age groups. If you pan down the demographics age chart, the torch is flickering.

The piano industry has too many brands, too many models, too many lies, too many subterfuges, and no professional association to certify its good members and hold accountable all the peripheral hucksters, charlatans, and liars who populate its fringes.

NAMM serves the music industry, not the acoustic piano industry. Expecting NAMM to guarantee the acoustic piano's place in the scheme of things is expecting too much. Time to pass the hat and get your own association to advance your own agenda and clean up your image. Saying "I support NAMM" is like saying "I gave at the office".

Turandot, your best post so far that I've read
You are dead on !!!

turandot said:


Wow,

Turandot, I have to say that I was disappointed by the nature of your post. I truly feel that in your post you have embraced the very worst of the piano industry, and while it does exist, it is a very small part of what happens on a day to day basis, at least in my experience.

My goal was to give ammunition to those who desired to "spread the gospel" of the joys of the acoustic piano and nothing more. My hope was to give a talking point or two to an avid amatuer that might strike a chord (no pun intended) with someone who might consider taking up the instrument. After all, when children are concerned, it is the parents that will influence what their activities are.

Frankly, I am not concerned with the amount of models and prices available on the market. I am very concerned, however, that the option of an acoustic piano is something that remains available for generations.

Yes, digital pianos can be cheaper - because they are cheaper to make. Yes, kids can play band instruments, or take karate, or play soccer. These are good things, too. They are also what piano competes against. The challenge is choice of time spent, IMHO. Yes, we need more information available on pianos, but as it is there is more available than ever before.

As far as your other points are concerned, if I wish to look for weeds in any industry, I will find them. Of course they are there.

I remain truly disappointed.

Rich,

I'm not trying to please or disappoint anyone. Would you rather I state my honest opinion or would you rather I say something to please you?

On the last post of the thread that you have said "inspired" yours, Frank B said:

Well, I've bought and paid for three acoustic pianos in the past two years. One of those was a gift for a younger member of the family who teaches piano for a living. As best as I know, our host doesn't own an acousitc piano.

You can infer from my purchases that I have no problem with the instruments. There are some good choices at many different price levels. Plenty of good enough used ones are out there too for people who want to get started on a limited budget.

Apparently, we differ on what stands between the instrument and the individual seeking to purchase it. What you refer to as a few weeds seem to me to be pervasive practices in pricing, marketing, and product disclosure that make the purchase process confusing and sometimes disheartening. I certianly don't mean to imply that you are a weed, but I think it's a mistake for you to say

I think you should be concerned.

Wow, between the pesky turandot and the loveable Rich, I would have to be on turandot's side this time around.

I have purchased 1 digital piano and 2 grand pianos sofar. I am planning to purchase a 3rd grand piano in a couple of years. I still can't see through piano pricing.

I enjoy playing pianos in showrooms here and there already, but I abhor the complete obfuscation of piano pricing.

Although I am very willing to UNDERSTAND that most piano dealers make an honest living, I ALWAYS get the FEELING that ALL piano dealers are out there to cheat me out of my money.

Why? Obfuscation of piano pricing.

In stark contrast to open pricing on just about any product on the market.

Edit: Oops, I just noticed that the discussion has been going off-topic. Sorry!

Doremi,

"Pesky" Turandot thanks you for your qualified support , but doesn't feel that you need to choose here between him and the "loveable" Rich. Loveable Rich is living his beliefs and putting his money where his mouth is. Pesky Turandot admires that greatly.

Pesky Turandot feels that the acoustic piano is fighting for survival against some formidable odds.....shifting cultural tastes, incredible leaps in music technology, and economic difficulties worldwide. Pesky Turandot does not buy the argument that today's youth are unfocused lazy louts however. This is a gigantic cop-out that is trotted out whenever the older generation fails to understand the younger one.

Pesky Turandot feels that the piano industry is too small to attack the big-picture problems head-on, and should focus on internal problems that are more within its control....antiquated marketing, an embarrassing pricing structure, and a cannibalistic free-for-all where its 'professional' retailers routinely slam each other's product lines, selling practices, and personal character.

Pesky Turandot does not feel that this is the time to sit around the campfire with held hands and closed eyes saying that the acoustic piano is a marvelous instrument and everything will be okay. Pesky Turandot (and maybe pesky Doremi ) would prefer that the piano industry do some housekeeping and clean up its act by initiating a professional organization that lays out specific truth-in-advertising, selling, and pricing practices, and enforces compliance with these practices by certifying its members who play ball and identifying its members who don't.

Sadly, I think acoustic piano is a shrinking, niche market and in the not-too-distant future, will transform into a boutique segment of the music industry.

Unless you have talent out the whazoo, it takes discipline, committment and repetition to play.

Digital is the future. We can only hope to supplant the guitar as the lead instrument in live music, which can happen, as tastes change.

But I am pessimistic about music, in general...

The major problem with pianos is that learning to play is difficult. It is a lonely endeavor and requires lots of patience and discipline. It is tedious work and is boring compared to all the siren songs around us. Parents don't know how to mentor with the piano and many don't want to listen to the output.

Newer technologies have developed a sophisticated reward system that provide the illusion of mastery with much less effort- this is what the piano is up against.

The truth is that to achieve mastery at anything, long term time and effort is required. We have all witnessed the 80/20 rule at play were one can get to 80% competancy at 20% effort. (and here is where our society has done the best job at make us feel like heroes at the 80% mark). It's that final 20% that takes 80% of the effort. This is where most of the people get off the bus.

Long way of saying that piano makes clear early on that the only way to mastery is lots of discipline and hard work and who wants to sign up for that. Why not just go from idea to idea, get to 80% have a moment of internal greatness, hit the wall and then move to the next stimulus/reward system.

Others are setting the priorities for our kids for their own benefit. They are not invested in teaching the values of discipline, apprenticeship, aesthetic pleasure, long term rewards. Piano is a great way to teach life skills-it doesn't have to be an end in itself. Generally it's about 10,000 hours of effort to be really good at something, is anyone paying attention to where the investment of time is going in themselves and their children?

lol, turandot, I was painting in pesky black and loveable white colors to get the message out in a few words.

However, the message on obfuscation of piano pricing is indeed intended to be black and white, because that's what it is, IMHO.

Gosh, there will hopefully no comments on the colors themselves. I won't respond to that.

I am very much inclined to agree with Fathertopianist and elements of what Turandot says.

I think the discipline argument is often misguided. Is it right for a parent to decide that a child shall commit hundreds or thousands of hours to learning to play a piano: and use discipline as a reason(among others) to support this decision? I regard that as at best a weak argument.

Children need to be motivated and encouraged to love music in order to derive real benefit from learning any instrument. Forcing them to learn something when they do not possess this interest, ultimately leads to disappointment, resentment and a waste of part of your child's life.

There is nothing special about the piano. It is just a tool to make music. It is no better or worse than any other tool to make music and your child will benefit most by learning an instrument that he is motivated to learn which may well not be piano.

Some instruments, though not necessarily any easier to learn to professional level, can be much more accessible to children in terms of delivering some some of recognizable musical performance quickly. Acoustic pianos suffer from having a steep learning curve, a high price, a costly maintenance requirement, no portability and they occupy a lot of space. Practice can be a trial for the whole family if a silent mechanism is not present. So Jolly is spot on - digital is without doubt the future for most people.

Computer games can also build intellectual and other skills. I suspect that most people who disparage them do so from a position of ignorance.

The piano has allot of competition for your child's time. Video games, computers, movie rentals, 150 TV channels all compete for time. Then theres the higher number of home work hours and the trend to team sports for so many students. There is actually little time left for children to learn a musical instrument unless they are highly motivated musically. I do believe that both guitar and piano should be taught in the schools on a voluntary basis.

nm

Steven, coming over from that same Mozart thread, I'm starting to get where you're coming from too. The problem with the idea that the youngest age is a window of opportunity comes through what is done with that. A child who is left sitting in front of a t.v. or without much to occupy him will not develop in the same way as one who is given plenty of stimulus and opportunity. He should have a "rich environment" and the nature of that environment makes a difference.

What has happened, however, is that we have oversimplified this, not understood how rich learning is, and we put this to relatively narrow purposes through adult eyes. We give our kids Speak 'Spells, toys with numbers and letters, everything is for specific learning. I wrote in the other thread about the kindergarten teacher over 20 years ago who even back then had to start teaching kids to crawl over, under, and through things because they were intellectually developed but had not concept of space which begins physically.

I noticed even at a kindergarten level that many children didn't know how to play anymore unless they were reenacting things they had seen, or using toys that told them what to do. It seems that the earliest kind of playing explores on all levels, and is internally directed. The interplay of everything is very rich and varied. You taste, rattle, shake, listen, try and you build a million impressions of the world. You imagine something and you create what you have imagined. The seeds of physics and abstract ideas lie in this. What happens if we overly direct the attention of the young child? What might we lose?

I also remember the documentary about some famous musician who brought people into some kind of barn. He had hung up things that made noises when you struck them and he was running about, an elderly man, banging away at these objects and listening, like a little kid who explores. It seemed important to see this.

The story is far too vast and it's my fault for having opened the door to it. The pencil in hand is quite ok. Not being able to use your body to explore and being drilled, and plunked in front of Sesame Street as a 3 year old, that was the problem. We form our abstract concepts and our ability to perceive such things as shape and direction, through the free physical explorations we do when very small. You were probably given that opportunity. These kids weren't. And maybe you were also precocious. ;D

At this point in time I have raised two sons, following my ideas partly out of necessity, homeschooled for 8 - 11 years, and now have the feedback from the adults. I have tutored children on and off, very often at a moment of crisis at school. But I also taught a young man whose "crisis" it was that he had an independent active mind who was so far ahead of the material that it was ridiculous and he was a pleasure to teach, except that the school curriculum kept getting in the way. I have explored various teaching systems and philosophies for the sake of my children. And finally there is my own learning process which is a puzzlement of its own accord.

I have a feeling that there is something out there that has not yet been explored, or maybe not in the mainstream. This is not a good place to put that idea.

keystring,

I would enjoy speaking with you more about your experiences. Have you had any musical experiences with any of these young people? Have you taught music or an instrument at all? I am just curious.

Thank you for your input so far.