Music to Your Ears

Great news for all you musicians out there. Turns out that your musical training will benefit your brain throughout your lifetime, particularly when it comes to understanding speech. Don’t fret if you haven’t taken up an instrument yet, there is still time. Research suggests that even learning an instrument later in life will benefit your ability to understand speech as you age.

How does this work? Well, learning to play an instrument develops a number of brain (neural) skills related to pitch, rhythm, and harmony, that are also used to understand speech. Practicing an instrument exposes the brain to repetition of precise sound experiences that finely tune the brain to all the complexities of sound. The combination of the activity of playing the music, the emotions associated with playing it, and the brain power used to play it, allows the musician to make meaningful connections to sounds. These activities refine how the brain processes sound and helps to form new connections (neuroplasticity) in the brain.

As we age, our brain shows signs of decline in the speed at which we process all things (including sound), our memory, and our ability to pay attention. Adding a hearing loss to the mix makes understanding speech, particularly in noisy environments, very difficult. Research has shown that older musicians do not experience many of the declines in their ability to process sound that are typically seen in older adults. It is believed that the strong brain (neural) connections associated with regular exposure to playing music has built an effective and efficient sound processing system. Have you always wanted to channel your inner Mozart or Mick Jaeger? There is no time like the present to get started, and your brain will thank you for it.