Music learning and practicing is many things: fun, exciting, relaxing. But it can also become a hassle if you’re constantly on the go. Between work, social activities, and general stress, our music practice can take a back seat in the priorities list. After a while, we can even forget we play an instrument altogether.

But what if music could help with the other stuff? What if spending an hour a day playing some great tunes could make your life easier? Musical learning and practicing has fantastic benefits both for your mind, body, and stress levels. Here’s why you should play on!

Your brain appreciates the workout

While musical training can at times seem monotonous and pointless (memorizing scales can be a bore), studies have shown that learning and practicing to play an instrument has a wide variety of health benefits. Playing an instrument boosts your memory and cognitive skills, it helps your brain stay fresh even as the rest of you ages, and it gives you great learning skills such as spatial-temporal, visual learning, and auditory learning, just to name a few.

Your body does too!

As any musician will tell you, the hardest part of learning to play an instrument is telling your body to do what your mind wants. Playing an instrument helps develop and maintain your muscle memory alongside improving fine motor skills such as delicate hand movements, hand/foot-eye coordination, and your reflexes.

It’s a great stress reliever

We all have to deal with stress every day-work, kids, traffic, school, and a million other triggers. Once you’ve mastered an instrument, playing for a few minutes every day is a fantastic way to clear your mind and push away the day’s bad energy. Music requires concentration and patience, and putting your emotions into a song is a great way of letting off steam.  Music has also been shown to release dopamine, the brain’s “happy” chemical.

It’s a great way to meet people

As many college freshmen will tell you, a guitar can be a great ice-breaker. Playing an instrument is a great way to gather people around, and can also be a fantastic way to meet new people. For the classically inclined, joining quartet, quintet, or even an orchestra is an easy way to meet lots of people. For those more into the “modern” instruments, joining a band is a fun way to jam and hang out with a group of friends with similar interests.

It’s loads of fun!

At the end of the day, music is a great way to boost your confidence, self-esteem, and generally have a great time. There’s nothing quite like mastering that impossibly hard riff you’ve been practicing for weeks, or playing through your favorite song after days of trying. Music is fun by yourself or with others, and is a fantastic way to lighten the mood in most situations.

The post Don’t Stop! Keep the music (learning) going! appeared first on Learn to Play an Instrument with step-by-step lessons | Simply Blog.

Sometimes I would learn them from the sheet music that was available. More often than not, I would listen to the radio or watch MTV and wait for the song to come on and try to play along on my piano or keyboard. At the time, I didn’t realize all of the informal learning processes going on that were developing my listening skills. In addition to my classical piano studies, I also played in garage bands with my classmates that involved a whole different skill set. When I got to college, I realized in my aural skills classes that I had developed perfect pitch or absolute pitch.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and I have had the privilege to teach piano to both of my two children. Being able to oversee their musical progress on a daily basis definitely has its advantages. Of course practicing piano especially at a young age can be a solitary experience. However, I created collaborative experiences by playing accompaniments both by me playing on another piano or with MIDI accompaniment files with them in the early stages of lessons.  Many piano methods contain written out accompaniments for teachers to play. If the method does not have an accompaniment, it is usually easily harmonized with two or three different chords that you can improvise with a simple accompaniment pattern.

The MIDI accompaniment files offered another dimension to my kids’ music-making experience. By practicing along regularly with virtual drummers, bass players, and guitarists, it gave them listening and musicianship skills that they ordinarily would not experience if they simply practiced alone. The most noticeable enhanced skill was their ability to play with a steady rhythm. Research has shown that practicing with some sort of external rhythmic stimulus whether it’s a metronome, MIDI accompaniment, digital audio accompaniment, or other musicians, improves musicians’ rhythmic accuracy and continuity. In particular, popular music or music in a popular style tends to be in a predictable duple meter that students can naturally gravitate to despite having few musical experiences in their early musical training.

Another benefit of playing with accompaniments and popular music is the exposure of commonly used melodic patterns and chord progressions. When young students listen to this music constantly, it becomes part of their aural vocabulary and makes reading and playing similar patterns much more easily.

Even as my kids were playing through method books and MIDI files, there would be some pop songs that they could pick up by ear or I could show them by rote. Even if some of the melodies and rhythms are beyond the students’ abilities, you can probably pick out parts of a piece that students can handle at their current skill level. A few years ago, my daughter Olivia was only 4-years-old when she could play most of the piano riffs in “Skyfall” by Adele. It certainly helps that the majority of the song can be harmonized with C and E-flat, but to her it was very motivating to know that she can contribute significantly to a real song.

One of the main advantages of MIDI accompaniments is that they can slow down or speed up without losing quality of audio. However, thanks to various apps such as AnyTune, NoteStar, and Piano Maestro, digital audio can similarly be manipulated so that students can play along with their favorite popular music. What’s great is that they don’t have to wait for these songs to play on the radio or MTV, but it can be brought up whenever they want on their iPads or other mobile devices. It makes me wish I had this technology when I was growing up!

Download Piano Maestro today and take advantage of over 2,500 songs (including pop,) exercises, and method books!

The post Pop Music’s Role in Developing Musicianship appeared first on Learn to Play an Instrument with step-by-step lessons | Simply Blog.

The Way Learning an Instrument Makes You Feel

If you haven’t played the piano before, just think back to any beautiful piece that you’ve heard in the past. The music grabbed your attention and held you in place with an unseen but phenomenal force that you won’t soon leave behind. Now imagine being able to create – on your own – the kind of harmony, serenity, and beauty that that pianist created.

If you’ve played piano in the past but stopped, remember the feeling you got when you sat down and let the music flow forth from your fingertips? The invigorating rush when the melody came alive as you tapped across the keys? Those are feelings that can’t be replaced with any other hobby (picture getting that kind of charge off of stamp-collecting!), nor can they be forgotten.

See Also: What Instrument Should You Learn To Play?

Playing the piano can be frustrating when you start a new piece, but take a few moments to revel in that wonderful feeling, and remind yourself that it’s so worth the effort.

What Learning to Play an Instrument Does to Your Mind

Drums are fun when you want to let out some aggression, but they lack any sort of chord precision or pitch selection. Guitars are more complex but are still limited to six simultaneous notes, and besides, they focus on single-hand dexterity. Piano, now that’s a horse of a different color. You need to use not one, but two hands simultaneously, coordinate between 88 keys, and continuously maneuver ten different notes, sometimes all at once.

That’s a ton going on, logistically. And do you know what happens when you’re forced to coordinate so many things at one time? According to science, something fascinating. Unlike most people, pianists showed better all-around usage of both sides of their brains. What’s more, piano players displayed stronger decision-making, problem-solving, spontaneity, language, and social behavior skills than the average person.

See Also: Memory Overload? Here’s What Music Can Do to Help

And that’s not even the full extent of it! Read more about how playing the piano positively affects your brain here.

Making Music is Now Easier than Ever

When your parents were growing up, piano lessons were mini-torture sessions designed to hone your skills and develop the mind. But that’s old-school style, and today, learning the piano is easier than ever. From online courses to touch-sensitive smartphone apps, you can now learn how to play piano wherever you go and whenever you want. They say nothing good in life comes easy, but with the newest technology in your pocket, learning to play piano has become a whole lot simpler.

So basically, playing piano makes you more productive, smarter, and happier, making everything else you do better. Hmm, remind me why you haven’t put this at the top of your to-do list yet??

Check out how you can start playing like a concert pianist in no time at all (well, almost) with our cool learn piano app. Take your first step towards accomplishing this rewarding New Year’s resolution by downloading Simply Piano now!

The post Why Learning to Play an Instrument Should be Your #1 New Year’s Resolution for 2016 appeared first on Learn to Play an Instrument with step-by-step lessons | Simply Blog.

Mistake #1: Unrealistic Expectations

Watching someone play the piano, fingers flying across the keys, melodious notes swirling through the air. It’s all so magical, a captivating experience. For many of us, experiencing this magic is what sets us out on the path to learn to play piano, guitar, drums, or another instrument in the first place. But what the professional musician failed to mention during his streetside concerto are the hours spent practicing one chord, the months it took to perfect a single song, and the countless failures he met along the way. Success is hard and it takes time, but learning to play an instrument is the greatest gift you can give yourself and worth every ounce of effort it takes. Just set realistic goals and expectations for yourself so you don’t get discouraged when you’re not playing for money after a mere year of practice.

Mistake #2: Just Learning Songs

Many newbies to the art assume that if they can play a song, they’re really rockin’ the scene. This is a mistake. If you excelled at paint by numbers, you wouldn’t consider yourself a da Vinci, and learning to play a song or two won’t help you advance your musical hobby either.

Playing an instrument is about connecting to the music, hearing the sound behind the symbols, and understanding the various components that make up good music. To really appreciate, excel, and make the most of playing the piano (or flute or guitar or any instrument), study the notes, the rhythm, and the harmony. Discover the meaning behind the melody to appreciate your music in a whole new way.

*Trusting your ear is a good way to combat this mistake. Don’t limit yourself to notes and chords written on paper; stretch your ears and let the music be your teacher.

See Also: How to Read Sheet Music 101

Mistake #3: Not Getting Honest Critique

Some people think they’re God’s gift to mankind while others are perfectionists who can never fully appreciate their accomplishments. Some students try to learn musical instruments overnight, and others won’t touch another piece until they’ve mastered the first one. All these novices are missing out on an integral piece of the learning process: an unbiased opinion of where they are holding.

What’s wrong with not seeing the picture clearly? If you don’t think you’re good enough, you’ll never take the leap forward to really master the piano or the clarinet or the harmonica. If you think you are the best thing since sliced bread, you’ll fail to see the flaws in your music. Avoiding honest critique will limit your ability to expand, grow, and flourish in your newly acquired gift.

See Also: Which Instrument Should You Learn to Play

Wisdom is power. Now that you know what mistakes people make when they start to learn an instrument, you can stay ahead of the game. Avoid these common slip-ups, and start to really enjoy this magical art form that can transform your life.

The post 3 Mistakes You’re Making While Learning to Play an Instrument appeared first on Learn to Play an Instrument with step-by-step lessons | Simply Blog.