learning musical instruments essay

Essay on Musical Instruments

Students are often asked to write an essay on Musical Instruments in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Musical Instruments

What are musical instruments.

Musical instruments are tools that make sounds. People play them to create music. Some are old, like drums and flutes, and some are new, like electronic keyboards. Instruments can be simple, like a shaker, or complex, like a piano.

Types of Instruments

There are many kinds of instruments. They are often grouped by how they make sound. String instruments use strings, wind instruments need air, and percussion instruments make noise when hit. Keyboard and electronic instruments are also popular.

Learning to Play

Playing an instrument takes practice. Many start learning at school or with a teacher. It’s fun and can be a hobby or a job. Playing music helps with learning and brings joy.

Instruments in Culture

Instruments are important in culture. They are used in celebrations, religious events, and for entertainment. Each country has unique instruments that make their music special. Instruments help keep traditions alive.

Musical instruments are a key part of human life. They bring people together and let them express feelings through music. Learning about instruments teaches us about history, culture, and art.

250 Words Essay on Musical Instruments

Musical instruments are tools that people use to create music. Just like a painter uses a brush to paint pictures, musicians use instruments to make sounds. There are many kinds of musical instruments, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are small enough to fit in your pocket, like a harmonica, while others are so big they fill up a whole room, like a pipe organ.

Types of Musical Instruments

Instruments are often grouped by how they make sound. String instruments, like guitars and violins, have strings that you pluck or bow to make music. Wind instruments, such as flutes and trumpets, need air blown into them. Percussion instruments, like drums and tambourines, make sounds when you hit them. Finally, keyboard instruments, like pianos and electronic keyboards, have keys that you press to create notes.

Playing an instrument takes practice. At first, it might be tough to make a nice sound, but with time, you can learn to play songs. Some people take lessons with a teacher, while others teach themselves. Playing an instrument can be a fun hobby and a great way to express yourself.

Music Brings Us Together

Music is a language that everyone can understand, and instruments are the tools we use to speak that language. They help us to share our feelings, celebrate, and come together. Whether in a big concert or a small gathering at home, musical instruments add joy and excitement to our lives.

500 Words Essay on Musical Instruments

Musical instruments are tools that people use to make music. Just like a painter uses a brush to paint pictures, musicians use instruments to create sounds. There are many kinds of musical instruments, and each one can make different noises. Some are played by hitting them, like drums. Others are played by blowing air through them, like flutes. There are also instruments that make sound when you pull strings, like guitars.

Musical instruments can be grouped into families based on how they make sound. The main families are strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, and keyboards. String instruments have strings that vibrate to make sound, like violins and cellos. Woodwind instruments, like clarinets and saxophones, make music when air is blown inside. Brass instruments, such as trumpets and trombones, also need air but they have a buzzing sound. Percussion instruments, like drums and cymbals, are hit to produce sound. Keyboards, like pianos and organs, have keys that you press to make music.

Learning to Play an Instrument

Playing an instrument can be fun, but it also takes practice. When you learn, you start with simple notes and rhythms. As you get better, you can play harder pieces of music. Many schools have music classes where students can learn to play. Some kids also take lessons outside of school from a music teacher. It’s important to practice regularly if you want to improve.

The History of Musical Instruments

Musical instruments have been around for a very long time. Thousands of years ago, people made instruments from natural materials like wood, bone, and stone. Over time, as people learned more about music and making things, instruments became more complex. For example, early flutes were just hollow tubes, but now they have keys and parts that make them easier to play and sound better.

Musical Instruments Around the World

Different places in the world have their own special instruments. In Africa, there are drums that are unique to their culture. In India, there is an instrument called the sitar that has a long neck and many strings. In Scotland, people play the bagpipes, which have bags full of air that push out through pipes. Every country has its own music that sounds different and uses different instruments.

The Role of Instruments in Music

Instruments add beauty and feeling to music. They can be loud or soft, high or low. When many instruments play together, like in an orchestra, they can make a big, rich sound. Each instrument has its own part, but when they all play together, it’s like they’re having a conversation in the language of music.

Musical instruments are a big part of what makes music so wonderful. They come in all shapes and sizes and can make all kinds of sounds. Learning to play an instrument is a skill that can bring a lot of joy. Whether it’s the beating of a drum or the melody from a violin, instruments help us tell stories and express feelings through music.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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Happy studying!

Argumentative Essay Example: All Students Should Learn a Musical Instrument

“The number of adults who wish they knew how to play the piano is more than ten times the number who actually do play” (Hidden Benefits). This is a startling statistic as many students growing up had not seen the benefits of learning an Instrument, because they never had the opportunity. Students presently have become lazy saying, learning an instrument is too hard, and have forgotten the many concealed advantages of learning an instrument. So many today are passing through Schooling learning Math, English, Science, History, and never given the opportunity to learn an Instrument. Therefore, all students should learn a musical instrument.”

First, all students should learn a musical instrument because it builds character.

Learning anything in life has its ups and downs, but once mastered the reward of satisfaction far outways the beginning struggles. “Hard Work” is a valued lesson for any student to learn for life. According to “The Hidden Benefits” (1985,6), in American Music teachers, teachers are now placing more emphasis on students’ “self-satisfaction” of learning more than how successful the music is. If a student feels discouraged in his training, and feels playing an instrument is not for him, then he will at least know he tried. So many Adults out there have never tried yet would love to have the knowledge now of how to play an Instrument. For students learning an instrument, will help them grow as a person, and in their life skills.

Second, all students should learn a musical instrument because it improves cognitive function. Learning a musical instrument helps improve mental concentration, the ability to hold up under stress, memory skills, and reading ability. Frank R Wilson, a San Francisco neurologist (Hidden Benefits) unearthed that learning music had a positive outcome on both the body and the human brain, including that all kids have enough mental capacity to master any Instrument. An instrument may also have the opposite effect of stress on them. In their daily lives playing instruments allows them to take a break from daily stress and focus on something else. Music throughout time has been one of the greatest stress relievers for man to use, allowing a more positive mindset. A clear mind allows for a more efficient and effective mindset for a student during his studies.

Third, all students should learn a musical instrument because it is beneficial for the steps of daily life. Dr. Wilson states “"Humans are special physically because of the exceptional control we have over the muscles of our hands, mouth, and face and because of the bonding of these gifts to our powers of communication," Learning an instrument helps train a student in their ability to communicate with their piers around them at such a crucial time. Once a student is able to master an instrument they will have a sense of self-satisfaction, and thankfulness that they ended up learning one.

All students should take time to learn an instrument, so that they build character, improve brain power, and train everyday life skills. Simply as students their goal is to learn, and no better way to get started in a musical journey then a few basic lessons. Ultimately as the old saying goes you never know till you try, and the majority of adults today that never tried regret it.

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What My Musical Instruments Have Taught Me

By Jaron Lanier

“Waves Only Get Real When They Break,” by Colin Farish (piano), Jaron Lanier (guzheng), and Jhaffur Khan (flute).

It started after my mother died. She was a concentration-camp survivor—a prodigy concert pianist in Vienna who was taken when she was only a girl. She taught me the piano by holding her hands over mine, bending my fingers into arches above the keys. When I was just a boy, she died in a car accident. Afterward, I was both boundlessly angry and attached to the piano. I played it with extreme force, sometimes bleeding onto the keys. I still feel her hands when I play. I feel them even more when I’m learning a new instrument.

As I write this, on a laptop in my kitchen, I can see at least a hundred instruments around me. There’s a Baroque guitar; some Colombian gaita flutes; a French musical saw; a shourangiz (a Persian instrument resembling a traditional poet’s lute); an Array mbira (a giant chromatic thumb piano, made in San Diego); a Turkish clarinet; and a Chinese guqin. A reproduction of an ancient Celtic harp sits near some giant penny whistles, a tar frame drum, a Roman sistrum, a long-neck banjo, and some duduks from Armenia. (Duduks are the haunting reed instruments used in movie soundtracks to convey xeno-profundity.) There are many more instruments in other rooms of the house, and I’ve learned to play them all. I’ve become a compulsive explorer of new instruments and the ways they make me feel.

I keep a small oud in the kitchen, and sometimes, between e-mails, I improvise with it. Ouds resemble lutes, which in turn resemble guitars. But where a guitar has a flat back, an oud has a domelike form that presses backward against the belly or chest. This makes playing one a tender experience. You must find just the right way to hold it, constraining your shoulders, moving mainly the smaller muscles below the elbows. Holding an oud is a little like holding a baby. While cradling an infant, I feel pretensions drop away: here is the only future we truly have—a sacred moment. Playing the oud, I am exposed. The instrument is confessional to me.

But that’s not how all players experience their ouds. The most famous oud player of the twentieth century was probably the Syrian-Egyptian superstar Farid al-Atrash, who was both a respected classical musician of the highest order and a pop-culture figure and movie star. (Imagine a cross between Jascha Heifetz and Elvis Presley.) His playing was often crowd-pleasing, extroverted, and muscular. I have an oud similar to one Atrash played; it was created by a member of Syria’s multigenerational Nahat family, whose instruments are often described as the Stradivariuses of the oud world. In the nineteen-forties, my Nahat was savaged by a notorious Brooklyn dealer who tried to claim it as his own by covering the original label and marquetry. Later, an Armenian American luthier tried to remake it as an Armenian instrument, with disastrous results. After I bought the oud out of the attic of a player who had given up on it, two remarkable luthiers restored it, and the oud started to speak in a way that possessed me. Listeners notice—they ask, “What is that thing?”

Nahat ouds can be especially big. My arms have to travel more in order to move up and down the longer neck; the muscles around my shoulders become engaged, as they do when I’m playing the guitar. Moving this way, I become aware of the world beyond the small instrument I’m swaddling; I start to play more for others than for myself. The cello also makes me feel this way. You have to use your shoulders—your whole back—to play a cello. But cellos summon a different set of feelings. Playing one, you’re still bound up in a slightly awkward way, bent around a vibrating entity—not a baby, not a lover, but maybe a large dog.

The khaen, from Laos and northeastern Thailand, is the instrument I play the most in public. It’s a mouth organ—something like a giant harmonica, but with an earthy, ancient tone. Tall bamboo tubes jut both upward and downward from a teak vessel, angling into a spire which seems to emerge, unicorn-like, from the forehead of the performer. I first encountered one as a teen-ager, in the nineteen-seventies, during a time when I was exploring Chinese music clubs in San Francisco. These were frequented mainly by older people, and often situated in the basements of faded apartment buildings. The khaen isn’t Chinese, but I noticed one resting against a wall in a club and asked if I could try it. As soon as I picked up the khaen I became a rhythmic musician, driving a hard beat with double- and triple-tonguing patterns. The old men applauded when I finished. “Take it,” a woman holding an erhu said.

Later, I learned that my instant style was completely unrelated to what goes on in Laos. It emerged, I think, from how the khaen works with one’s breathing. On a harmonica, as on many instruments, the note changes when you switch between inhaling and exhaling—but on a khaen, one can breathe both in and out without changing pitch. Breathing is motion, and so the khaen and its cousins from Asia, such as the Chinese sheng, are liberating to play. I’ve been lucky enough to play khaen with many great musicians—with Jon Batiste and the Stay Human band on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” for instance, and with Ornette Coleman. When I played the khaen with George Clinton and P-Funk, Clinton stood facing me, leaning in until we were just inches apart; he widened his eyes to make the channel between our beings as high-bandwidth as possible, breathing ferociously to transmit the groove he was improvising. It was the most physically demanding performance of my life.

If playing the khaen turns me into an extroverted athlete, then the xiao—which is held vertically, like a clarinet or an oboe—invites me to explore internal dramas. This isn’t just a mind-set but a physical sensation: while playing xiao I feel a rolling movement in the air just behind my upper front teeth, and a second area of resonance in my chest, and I seem to move these reservoirs of air around as I use the instrument. I’m not the only one to have this kind of sensation: singers often say that they experience air in this way, and flute teachers I’ve known have talked about “blue” or “yellow” air flows. I’ve had long conversations with wind players about how we seem to be painting the flow of air inside our bodies. I have to suspend my skepticism when this sort of talk starts—I don’t think we’re really doing what we describe, but I do think we’re describing something real. It’s possible to shape tone by adjusting the mouth, tongue, lips, jaw, throat, and chest. When I find my tone, I even feel the presence of a structure in the air between my lips and the flute—a tumbling, ineffable caterpillar, rolling rapidly on its long axis. The caterpillar collaborates with me, sometimes helping, sometimes pushing back, and by interacting with it I can explore a world of tone.

Did the xiao players of the past perceive invisible caterpillars like mine? Maybe they did. Xiaos have come in many shapes and sizes over the centuries, but, judging by the illustrations that have been preserved, they’ve all been recognizably xiao. On the other hand, there are many ways to play a flute. Perhaps xiao notes used to end in elegant calligraphic rises; maybe the breath was emphasized so that the sound of the flute seemed continuous with nature; or possibly ancient xiao tones were lustrous and technical, with perfect stability. Perhaps the sound that xiao players sought was deceptively transparent but filled with little features, or maybe they were show-offs, playing high, fast, and loud. These descriptions fit contemporary flute-playing styles, and it seems possible that historical styles resembled them—or not.

In recent years, a heightened spirit of experimentation in xiao-building has developed. Most of the experiments have to do with the shape of the blowing edge—the place where one edge of a flute’s tube has been thinned, forming a tiny ridge that’s positioned against the bottom lip to receive the breath. At the blowing edge, the air alternately flows more to the inside or the outside of the flute. This oscillation radiates as sound. Flutists of all cultures are vulnerable to debilitating fascinations with the tiniest design choices in blowing edges and the nearby interiors of their flutes. In Taiwan, a small cult has arisen around the idea of combining an outside cut in the form of a letter “U,” which is typical of some schools of xiao design, with an inside form that’s more like a “V.” Debates about the new cut run rampant in online forums.

After reading some of them, I finally ordered a flute with the new cut. (That I could do this so effortlessly made me feel momentarily better about how the Internet has turned out so far.) When I played my “U”/“V” xiao for the first time, I made the futile blowing sound familiar to beginning flutists. Eventually, though, I managed a few weird, false notes. I was surprised but also delighted. Some of my favorite moments in musical life come when I can’t yet play an instrument. It’s in the fleeting period of playing without skill that you can hear sounds beyond imagination. Eventually, I cajoled the caterpillar and found a tone I love, solid yet translucent. When that happens, the challenge is remembering how to make those fascinating, false notes. One mustn’t lose one’s childhood.

I’m a computer scientist by profession, and I started travelling to Japan at the beginning of the nineteen-eighties, when I was developing the first virtual-reality headsets and searching for business partners and technical components. I was surprised to find few young people there interested in traditional Japanese music. Precious and playable antique instruments like the shakuhachi, a traditional bamboo flute, could be bought at flea markets for less than the price of breakfast—and they were being snapped up not by Japanese students but by young Westerners who worshipped the remaining teachers. Meanwhile, interest in European classical music, which was declining in the West, was growing in Japan. I met many Japanese musicians who found Mozart as appealing as the Beatles , and who played violin and piano along with rock and roll. In Western countries, the social institutions that kept classical music alive—conservatories, instrument builders, teachers, contests—were being sustained by an influx of stunning musicians from Asia. A kind of cultural trade was taking place.

My experiences studying music in Japan were often astonishing. I chased down a teacher who claimed to be the holder of an ancient Buddhist shakuhachi tradition that had been suppressed by the mainstream musical world; his lessons were fused with a tea ceremony. I met another teacher who would only accept a student who could walk into the forest and choose a stalk of bamboo that, when it was cut down, would turn out to be in tune as a flute. (He gave me only one chance to get it right, and I failed.) In one of the main shakuhachi “lodges” in Tokyo, I came across a culture of male-dominated locker-room talk, in which some styles of playing were approved as sufficiently macho while others were denigrated as “gay.” Much of what I encountered startled me—it didn’t reflect what I’d read in books back in America about the shakuhachi.

Music operates on a plane separate from literature, and a lot of information about it isn’t written down. Most of the world’s compositions were never notated, and what was written down is often minimal; although scores do exist for very old Chinese music—some of the oldest are for the noble guqin, a kind of zither—they amount to mnemonic devices, lists of strokes and playing positions. The earliest European scores are similar, with lists of notes. What we now call “early music” is largely a modern stylistic invention. I tend to learn the rudiments of my instruments and then develop my own style; I’m an eternal amateur. But I console myself by noting that there are very few musical conservatories structured enough to preserve musical styles over long periods of time. We can study how Bach’s music might have sounded, or how the shakuhachi was actually played, but we can never really know. What would it have sounded like to be at court in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, China, Greece, Mesopotamia? The truth has been lost to time.

The exquisite skills involved in making instruments can seem to hover just beyond the edge of scientific understanding, and can easily be lost when war, plague, and famine break the chains linking masters and apprentices. And yet the traditions of a lost musical culture can sometimes be revived. Modern instrument makers can copy preserved examples of old instruments, or even work from illustrations. In the case of the xiao, much was lost through the centuries, and then again in the Cultural Revolution —but xiaos are small and easy to hide. Some musicians are said to have buried them in secret locations, in hopes of escaping Mao Zedong ’s attempts to engineer culture from scratch. This complex history means that, today, there are contrasting contemporary approaches to playing the xiao. Some players see learning and performing with the instrument as a spiritual quest to reconnect with the past; others play what sounds to me like a Hollywood composer’s idea of Chinese music from the early twentieth century—a musical genre that’s aged surprisingly well. There’s no verifiably authentic way to play such an ancient instrument.

As a technologist, my work has often focussed on the creation of interactive devices, such as head-mounted displays and haptic gloves. It’s sobering for me to compare the instruments I’ve played with the devices that Silicon Valley has made. I’ve never had an experience with any digital device that comes at all close to those I’ve had with even mediocre acoustic musical instruments. What’s the use of ushering in a new era dominated by digital technology if the objects that that era creates are inferior to pre-digital ones?

For decades, researchers have been attempting to model acoustic instruments with software. Simulated saxophones and violins can sound impressive but only within an artificially constrained frame. Listen to one note at a time and the synthetic instruments sound good. Connect the notes together and the illusion fails. This may be because the experience of interacting creatively with such models is sterile, vacant, and ridiculous. One is usually clicking on little dots on a screen, or pushing buttons, or—in the very best case—adjusting variables with physical knobs and sliders. From a commercial point of view, this doesn’t make simulated instruments useless; embedded in the mix, splashed with reverb and other effects, they sound just fine. But physical instruments channel the unrepeatable process of interaction, a quality lost with modern production technology.

Human senses have evolved to the point that we can occasionally react to the universe down to the quantum limit; our retinas can register single photons, and our ability to sense something teased between fingertips is profound. But that is not what makes instruments different from digital-music models. It isn’t a contest about numbers. The deeper difference is that computer models are made of abstractions—letters, pixels, files—while acoustic instruments are made of material. The wood in an oud or a violin reflects an old forest, the bodies who played it, and many other things, but in an intrinsic, organic way, transcending abstractions. Physicality got a bad rap in the past. It used to be that the physical was contrasted with the spiritual. But now that we have information technologies, we can see that materiality is mystical. A digital object can be described, while an acoustic one always remains a step beyond us.

Today, tech companies promise to create algorithms that can analyze old music to create new music. But music is ambiguous: is it mostly a product to be produced and enjoyed, or is the creation of it the most important thing? If it’s the former, then being able to automate the production of music is at least a coherent idea, whether or not it is a good one. But, if it’s the latter, then pulling music creation away from people undermines the whole point. I often work with students who want to build algorithms that make music. I ask them, Do you mean you want to design algorithms that are like instruments, and which people can use to make new music, or do you just want an A.I. to make music for you? For those students who want to have optimal music made for them, I have to ask, Would you want robots to have sex for you so you don’t have to? I mean, what is life for?

Much of the music we enjoy today makes use of audio loops, by means of which a note can be repeated with absolute precision. Because of my work with computers, I had early access to looping tools, and I was able to play around with loops earlier than most musicians. At first, the techniques didn’t speak to me; music is about change, I thought, while loops are about artificially preventing change. When so-called minimalist composers— Philip Glass , Terry Riley—ask musicians to play the same phrases repeatedly, what emerges from this technique isn’t repetition but an exquisite awareness of change: using a traditional, physical instrument, each repetition reflects your breath, your pulse, the weather, the audience, the light, bringing subtlety into consciousness. My understanding of loops shifted when hip-hop appeared. Here was a genre that was often angry, often a protest—the use of loops could evoke the strictures a rapper raged against. Some musicians now make their loops a little blurry, as if to suggest impermanence. For many people, of course, loops have become so commonplace that it’s hard to perceive them as a contrast to anything else.

In my own musical life, I prize the edge of chaos; that which cannot be repeated. I usually don’t record myself when I play alone; I don’t want to trick myself into a false mentality that lives outside of time, as if we weren’t time’s prisoners. I want to send music out into the universe, not into a computer’s memory. As crazy as it is to learn to play a multitude of instruments, my madness is the opposite of the loop. I’m often asked if I’ve learned all these instruments in order to make a sample library, or if I’d be willing to have someone come to the house to make such a library. Though I offer positivity from afar to musicians who like samples, I am travelling in a different direction.

If you work with virtual reality, you end up wondering what reality is in the first place. Over the years, I’ve toyed with one possible definition of reality: it’s the thing that can’t be perfectly simulated, because it can’t be measured to completion. Digital information can be perfectly measured, because that is its very definition. This makes it unreal. But reality is irrepressible.

I sometimes dwell on these ideas when I play the piano. A piano is essentially a row of keys, plus some pedals. Once a key has been depressed, a mechanism sends a felt hammer flying toward a string, which is not in direct contact with the key. In theory, this means that a piano played without the damping pedal ought to be abstract, like an electronic keyboard. The only information the hammer seems to convey from a key to a string is a single number—velocity. That’s also how much information a key press communicates in an electronic keyboard. And yet the experience of playing an acoustic piano, and of listening to one, is that more is being conveyed. When pianists trade off on the same instrument, they perform with individual touches and sounds. Pianos are somewhat abstract devices that have transcended abstraction.

My fondest hope for computing is that digital devices will become as much like pianos as possible. But the subtlest qualities of analog instruments are hard to study, in part because the controls necessary to make studies rigorous risk obscuring important elements of musical experience. There have been many studies comparing old and new violins, for instance, or flutes made of different metals, in which a player is hidden behind a screen and listeners are asked to identify which instrument is being played. The problem with this approach is that the difference between a good instrument and a great one could inhere in the player’s experience, rather than in the external sound. If an instrument inspires a musician, then the music will be more meaningful, even if listeners can’t distinguish the sound of one instrument from another. Music is an interior art before it becomes exterior.

For me, the piano has an interior aspect. The piano is one of the few instruments that’s bigger than you. Playing it, you are the baby: strike as much as you like, it remains the same. After my mother died, I became obsessed with fast arpeggios, and I zoomed between the extremes of the keyboard; I was also drawn toward the American-Mexican composer Conlon Nancarrow, who wrote superhuman piano music for player pianos, using hand-punched player-piano rolls. When I was a teen-ager, I often hitchhiked from New Mexico to visit him in Mexico City. I was determined to play as fast as the pianos automated by Conlon; his machines, in their unreality, were a flight from human frailty and trauma. I emulated them by challenging them in my own piano playing. In my fury, the piano became a chunk of reality to obliterate, though quixotically. You can caress a piano or attack it, be loud or soft, become proficient or not, make as much beauty as you can or flail in chaos—the instrument will most likely endure beyond you.

Decades have passed since that time. Today, I love to have musicians over to my house, where we can combine different instruments to see what happens. The joy that transpires when things go well is multilayered. There is the pleasure of connection with other people, and there is also the happiness of finding a new little corner of aesthetic interiority together. Music can conjure a new flow, a new pattern, a new flavor, between and inside people. And playing sufficiently obscure instruments forces a different approach to music. How can you be competitive about raw skill, or get into some other macho trap, when the task at hand is so esoteric? Who is to judge the winner in a contest that must invent itself over and over? When music made collaboratively with other musicians goes right, I feel a budding, rising warmth and comfort. Is this my mother smiling on me? Or maybe it’s me, smiling on her. ♦

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Teaching a Musical Instrument in School Essay

Introduction, recommendations.

Music education is a study field that deals with training of individuals interested in music. It entails all spheres of learning including psychomotor, cognitive and the effective domain. Psychomotor domain deals with ability development while cognitive domain deals with knowledge achievement. Effective domain is the most significant and entails the positive reception of music and sensitivity.

The integration of music education has become common in almost all academic institutions since music has become a primary constituent of human culture. The drive towards musical achievement is of great inherent value to both the learner and the society. As an immense subject, music needs to be trained in schools in several ways (Golby 2004 p. 218).

In elementary learning institutions, children are trained to use music appliances. Musical instruments taught include string instruments such as guitar and violin, woodwind instruments such as the flute, brass instruments such as the trumpet, percussion instruments such as the drum, the key board, and finally voice instruments such as the jazz.

They are also taught how to perform in small singing groups and the essentials of musical sound. Even though music education in many countries has conventionally strained on western music, the contemporary learning institutions are trying to integrate the use of non-western music. Students in learning institutions are often given the chance to sing in musical ensembles. Extra music classes are also offered (Steiner & Paul 2009).

Music education has two distinct strands, which include general education and private instrumental tuition. This paper will determine the most effective way of teaching a musical instrument in school. It will focus on formal individual instrumental tuition and class teaching as facilitated by the ‘Wider Opportunities’ initiative

. It will further examine the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches and draw evidenced conclusions. It will finally offer recommendations to improve the current delivery of instrumental tuition to enable access for all, whilst recognizing current financial and resource restraints (Green 2001 p. 128).

Formal individual instrumental tuition

Formal Individual instrumental tuition is an indispensable early beginning to education in music and coalesces great grounding for more prescribed lessons and immense fun. The lessons are broadly founded and comprise of teachings in rhythm, auditory skills, style, understanding, visual reading, and technological exercises.

To achieve satisfying progress, formal individual instrumental tuition ensures that each learner embarks on individual music practices nearly each day. This depends on age and knowhow of the learner. It takes place at set times of the day (Steiner & Paul 2009).

For learners showing a particular propensity, individual instrumental tuition by competent instrumental trainers is available as an enhancement of the formal educational syllabus.

Tuition in this teaching method is usually planned between the instructor and the learner’s parents. The instrumental teacher directly owes the parents. Peripatetic staff offers individual instrumental tuition to improve musical prospects in individual instrumental tuition (Golby 2004 p. 218).

Formal individual instrumental tuition involves all features of instrumental training and learning that occurs either at the learner’s residence or in school. It may involve only one learner or a very small group of learners. It is usually of specific concern to the peripatetic instructor who frequently works in segregation (Hallam1998 p. 26).

Strengths and Weaknesses of Formal individual instrumental tuition

One of the strengths of formal individual instrumental tuition is that the tutors are extremely skilled. Training sessions are tailored towards personal requirements hence giving each learner the best music assistance. In formal individual instrumental tuition, students are assigned an instructor that meets their wants to the maximum.

The lesson content relies on the learner’s objectives and interests. Students in this learning method have the benefit of learning for pleasure since musical exams are not compulsory (Green 2001 p. 128).However, at times learners in formal individual instrumental tuition are entitled to external assessments. All ratings and levels are gratified and this enables all music styles to be considered (Golby 2004 p. 218).

In formal individual instrumental tuition, the learners are taught how to play their preferred instruments. Each learner is taught at a different speed from the other and the syllabus is made in such a way that it fits the capabilities of every learner.

The use of daily or weekly homework in this method is an assurance of a stable progress. Time is usually allocated for different activities such as theory learning, exercises, and instrumental training. Time is also allocated for personal practice under the control of an instructor (Steiner & Paul 2009).

Learners are allowed to discover diverse aspects and contexts of music personally. They become more creative and their self-appreciation and musical capacity increases. Additional attention offered by close relatives in formal individual instrumental tuition boosts the learner’s interests.

Another strength of this approach is that there is profound relationship between the learner and his instructor. It is also in this kind of learning that instructors are often examined and obtain training all through the year. This assists them to develop their skills in teaching (Hallam1998 p. 26).

One of the criticisms, which have been made regarding the provision of formal individual instrumental tuition, is that it is elitist. This has been made on a number of grounds. First, the nature of tuition on offer is generally within the western classical musical tradition, although this is gradually changing. Secondly, and perhaps more important, this system is selective. Not everybody has had the opportunity to learn to play an instrument.

Because provision has been limited, only those with perceived musical ability have been given the opportunity to learn. Money is an issue when it comes to individual instrumental tuition. Access to tuition is restricted to those who can pay, hence denying opportunities to poor families (Cain1989).

Another criticism of formal individual instrumental tuition is that private instructors may fail to convey effectiveness and the learners’ parents end up paying vast amounts of school fees for this tuition with minimal or no-good outcome. Another issue involved in this type of teaching music is instrumental availability.

The learner’s parents usually provide the instruments used. In circumstances where the school offers the learning instruments required, then the parents are held accountable for lost or fortuitously damaged instruments (Steiner & Paul 2009).

Isolation of learners may also take place depending on their status. This may slow down the learning process especially in cases where the learners come from different families in terms of wealth. Learners from rich families may have very expensive musical instruments, and this may not be possible to those from disadvantaged families.

Problems of timetabling are a major drawback in this learning style. This is because there are no leaders and the tutor plans for his time. This might lead to poor time management since he is not answerable to any party (Hallam1998 p. 26).

An evidenced conclusion about how this teaching method works is the Cantiana Music institution, which offers individual instrumental tuition to kids and grownups from beginner to advanced levels. The involved learners are required to have their own instruments at home so that they can always practice while away from school.

Class teaching of musical instruments as facilitated by the ‘Wider Opportunities’ initiative

Wider opportunities in music gives learners a chance to learn how to play a musical instrument for one academic year for free. The students are given an instrument for a whole year and given a loan of the musical instrument if they continue with learning into the second year. The lesson usually takes an hour every week. This is done by two professional musical instrument teachers and a syllabus music instructor.

In the beginning lessons, the features of the instrument teaching centers on the basic technique development while the latter lessons allow students to use their skills in a band or orchestra bands which provides them with experience as they work in variety of performances. Concurrent to the instrumental development, the students are given musicianship lessons by instructors and visiting syllabus music teachers.

The undertakings complement the learning progress and the scheme of performances ensure the student makes appropriate and important links with others. The system is made not only to reach students who are involved directly but also to improve musical partaking of the whole school (Hallam1998 p. 26).

Widening participation initiative has become an integral part of the work done by all UK opera companies and musical organizations.

Several stakeholders are involved in the class teaching of musical instruments as facilitated by the ‘Wider Opportunities’ initiative. The learners are the central point with the head teacher, the leader of music service, the class teacher, and the society musician being the experts who make sure that learning occurs. The head teacher evaluates how the musical teaching will harmonize the musical life of the learning institution.

He makes decisions on how this initiative will associate with other school undertakings and assesses the probable responses from the learners, instructors, families and the authority. He identifies the necessary resources and this entails space, finance, and time. He also judges how the musical instruments, genres, and techniques relate to the artistic concept of the society and the learning institution (Steiner & Paul 2009).

The leader of music service guides a group that aims at conveying an efficient and high-class service, which fulfills the corporate objectives of the education power. The music service establishes affiliations with learning institutions to utilize resources successfully to sustain expand and improve musical activities.

The leader of this service thus sustains a strategic synopsis of what is achievable and available. He decides on how resources should be allocated and establishes procedures for effective introduction and maintenance of instrumental teaching. The class teacher has a central role in musical education. He provides support and motivation to the learners (Myers 2006).

It is recommended that to build a victorious, sustainable affiliation, the roles, and accountabilities of all persons involved in this programme be well understood, and the objectives of Wider Opportunities Initiative be apparent. It is, therefore, critical that this programme receives total support from the institutions head since he is the one who keeps an eye on its delivery.

He makes sure that the work force is aware of the effects and the benefits associated with their full participation. This method operates directly with the music service and due to this, learning institutions are after sometime able to purchase in instrumental provisions, musical instruments for their learners. This are bought based on the choice of instrument for each learner.

Many academic institutions purchase this in ensembles to allow their learners to carry on learning in-group setting. For the learners to achieve actual wider opportunities knowledge, then there is need for the concerned institutions to arrange for variety of practices that will introduce the learners to the widest probable range of musical tools, customs and styles (Spruce 2002).

Strengths and Weaknesses of Class teaching of musical instruments as facilitated by the ‘Wider Opportunities’ initiative

The major strength of this approach of teaching musical instrument lies in its free charges. This allows the program to offer a chance to financially constrained students to show case their talents and have them molded into successful musicians. The program also offers learners with musical instruments that are very expensive and this has been another milestone in improving music in the society.

This teaching method harmonizes and enhances the general music provision in the learning institution. This entails the national syllabus, extracurricular actions, and the comprehensive programme of the learning institution. It is in this method that live music performances for schools are provided.

This ensures that the learners are aware of the various distinct music styles, types, and musical instruments played worldwide. Wider opportunities initiative ensures that the individual requirements of each musical learning institution are met.

The existence of discussions between the music service and the institutions head assist in the establishment of the best programme that would improve the schools melodic community (Evans & Philpott 2009).

Another fundamental strength of this method is the association between the music service and the class tutor. The programme ensures that that classroom instructors and music professionals gain knowledge from one another by mutually organizing and delivering improved musical performances.

Through this initiative, children are more sentient about the dedication needed in learning a musical tool, and are, therefore, more prone to carrying on with their musical studies after the programme year has ended.

It balances and improves the music syllabus and culture of the involved learning institution and the community at large. It builds upon melodious events, customs, and capital within the learning institution.

Instructors who are totally involved in the conveyance of wider opportunities have the chance to not only enhance their associations with the learners, but also develop their own talents as well as the resources they use in their work (Spruce 2002).

Class teaching provides reachable ways into music education, and creates a progressive opportunity for the disadvantaged in the society. Severely unfortunate pupils have been dynamically involved in this programme. The lessons are usually entertaining and stimulating and since all students work as a team, then they are likely to acknowledge and appreciate each other’s efforts.

Every learner in the class is involved in musical actions all through the programme. In circumstances where the pupils have a wide range of taster chances, then they are capable of making a more informed decision concerning their melodical futures due to guidance and encouragement from their classroom tutors and instrumental trainers (Evans & Philpott 2009).

This programme supports a broad array of musical styles and educational traditions. It introduces a variety of inventions, familiarity, and western classical melody. An evidence of this is samba tuition, which is founded on an acoustic tradition.

It provides motivating and pleasurable experiences for the involved students. High developments both technologically and melodiously are also realized. This teaching method also improves musical knowledge for learners who are secluded by geography or lack of musical instruments (Philpott & Plummeridge 2001).

This teaching method offers high quality musical familiarity for the learner. The learners attain a safe foundation to learning a musical instrument hence increased progress. Books for learner practice are efficiently utilized, and proper guidance given to the learner. The learner has the right to write down the duration of time used in practicing.

Some of the weaknesses facing class teaching of musical instruments as facilitated by the ‘Wider Opportunities’ initiative is the lack of parental responsiveness and understanding. The parents feel that school time being apportioned for music could have been used better if assigned to other subjects (Evans & Philpott 2009).

Another weakness is the fact that the range of choice in this learning method relies on and is usually constrained by what the music service can offer and manage. Some learners may not be technically fit to the available musical instrument and this limits their motivation and improvement (Claxton1996).

Another weakness of this program is that some of the students may feel that the quality of it is low, though this is not the case, based on the fact that it is offered free of charge. This can be a major deterrent in cases where the student has a negative attitude toward the program.

Formal individual instrumental tuition lessons usually lay the ground for musical education. The following are the recommendations I would offer to improve the current delivery of instrumental tuition to enable access for all, whilst recognizing current financial and resource restraint.

For instrumental teaching to be better implemented, it should embrace originality, sensitivity, invention and a broad array of pedagogical approaches. According to Odam, the shared fundamental philosophies of instrumental teaching lie in the growth of an individual musical reaction in learners.

This provides them with problem-solving abilities, which permit them to carry on learning and develop with optimistic self-criticism. The following example from the Suzuki method exemplifies this approach. In the Suzuki method with infantile children, a piece of material instrument is used for numerous weeks prior to using actual instruments.

Elementary movements that are fundamental to the fastidious instrumental performance are developed using the form instrument. The learners listen to the sound and build up auditory memories of good practice as they establish psychomotor routines that will, with luck, become second nature to them (Odam, 1995).

Musical education should be offered in such a way that it is closely associated to personal development and motivates emotional responsiveness and intelligence. Experienced and devoted instructors should be involved in instrumental tuition since every learner despite age, environmental setting, and position has a great prospective in growing musically.

Learners who embark on instrumental tuition should be optimistic towards obtaining fulfillment and pleasure. The opportunity for all learners, whether young or aged, to learn how to play a musical instrument should be viewed as an enhancement of the value of life.

This should hold as a fundamental value the self-esteem of instrumental teaching. It should mirror uniformly the broad areas of personalized instructions in all kinds of musical instruments (Spruce 2002).

The techniques and practices of teaching musical instruments should be researched to enable learning of diverse concepts of international music making. The most current and pertinent research that could help in instrumental teaching should be explored and conferred. Recognition of the exclusive value of instrumental teaching should be upheld in both the neighborhood as well as the whole nation.

People should campaign for improved governmental approval, appreciation and support in music teaching. Establishment of inventive approaches towards instrumental teaching should be encouraged. International perceptions on common matters influencing instrumental music teaching should be offered (Claxton1996).

Research should be carried out in all fields of instrumental teaching including presentation and the consequence of capacity on social feelings and personal abilities. The findings should be distributed to musical education bodies both regionally and globally.

The exchange of communication messages between the learner and the instructor should be facilitated. Ethical guidelines for training and learning associations between the instructor and the learner should be promoted. This results to mutual respect. The wants of the geographic location should be balanced with the instruments involved.

To improve the current delivery of instrumental tuition, the music department in every learning institution should also provide a secure, caring, and demanding environment, where all learners can experience a wide and fair melodic educational experience.

This experience should be in such a way that it accommodates all capabilities while simultaneously developing the learner’s individuality, skills, and concerns to the maximum. Learners should be given the opportunity to love and take pleasure in music in its broad context, participate in a wide array of performing activities and finally partake in an array of extracurricular activities related to music (Odam, 1995).

Class teaching of musical instruments as facilitated by the ‘Wider Opportunities’ initiative is the most effective criteria in learning a musical instrument. Learning institutions using this method may wish to aim at teachers with specific strengths for future musical education sustainability. It should, however, be noted that the inclusion of professionals in the conveyance of wider opportunities is crucial.

Wider opportunities initiative assist build affiliations with the music service as well as the community. It is a long lasting initiative and therefore learning institutions have to put into consideration what will ensue as the next group of learners switch to the subsequent wider opportunities next year.

This ensures that this programme is maintained and learners wishing to go on with musical education have the opportunity. This may entail the establishment of a new school band as well as improved instrumental lessons (Myers 2006).

This programme has further aggravated, thrilled, and enabled many young musicians to carry out music activities. In reality, this programme has acted as a beginning of a musical journey for learners. Sustainability is its guiding principle. Wider opportunities initiative is thus the answer to class teaching of musical instruments

Cain, M. (1989) The postman always rings twice. New York: Vintage Books

Claxton, G. (1996) Liberating the learner: lessons for professional development in education. Routledge: Routledge Publishers

Evans, J., & Philpott, C., (2009) A Practical Guide to Teaching Music in the Secondary School. New York: Taylor & Francis

Golby, J. (2004) Instrumental teaching in nineteenth-century Britain . Aldershot: England

Green, L. (2001) How popular musicians learn: a way ahead for music education Burlington: Ashgat

Hallam, S. (1998) Instrumental teaching: a practical guide to better teaching and learning . Oxford: Heinemann Educational.

Myers, K. (2006) Teaching children music in the elementary school . Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall

Philpott, C., & Plummeridge, C., (2001) Issues in music teaching. Routledge: Routledge Publishers

Spruce, G. (2002) Teaching music in secondary schools: a reader. Routledge: Routledge Publishers

Steiner, T., & Paul, J., (2009) Musical futures: an approach to teaching and learning. London: Paul Hamlyn Foundation

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IvyPanda. (2023, December 9). Teaching a Musical Instrument in School. https://ivypanda.com/essays/teaching-a-musical-instrument-in-school-essay/

"Teaching a Musical Instrument in School." IvyPanda , 9 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/teaching-a-musical-instrument-in-school-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Teaching a Musical Instrument in School'. 9 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Teaching a Musical Instrument in School." December 9, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/teaching-a-musical-instrument-in-school-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Teaching a Musical Instrument in School." December 9, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/teaching-a-musical-instrument-in-school-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Teaching a Musical Instrument in School." December 9, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/teaching-a-musical-instrument-in-school-essay/.

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Benefits of Learning to Play a Musical Instrument: Improve Your Brain Function and Emotional Well-being

November 25, 2023
Education , Features

Learning to play a musical instrument can be a fun and rewarding experience that offers a wide range of benefits.

Research has shown that playing an instrument can help improve literacy and math skills, enhance verbal memory, spatial reasoning, and cognitive function, as well as increase discipline and time management skills.

In addition, playing an instrument can provide social and emotional benefits by fostering teamwork, communication, and self-expression.

Whether you’re a child or an adult, it’s never too late to start learning to play an instrument. In fact, taking music lessons in your 60s or older can boost your brain’s health and help decrease loss of memory and cognitive function. It’s also a great way to reduce stress and improve overall well-being .

There are many different types of instruments to choose from, including piano, guitar, violin, drums, and more. Each instrument offers its own unique benefits and challenges, so it’s important to choose one that you enjoy and feel motivated to practice. With dedication and practice, anyone can learn to play an instrument and reap the many rewards that come with it.

Physical Benefits

Learning to play a musical instrument has a variety of physical benefits, including improved hand-eye coordination and increased fine motor skills .

Improved Hand-Eye Coordination

Playing a musical instrument requires the player to read sheet music while simultaneously coordinating their hand movements on the instrument. This process helps improve hand-eye coordination, which can be beneficial in other areas of life, such as driving or sports.

Increased Fine Motor Skills

Playing an instrument also requires the use of fine motor skills, such as finger dexterity and control. Regular practice can help improve these skills, which can be useful in daily tasks such as typing or writing.

Additionally, playing wind instruments such as the flute or clarinet can also improve respiratory function and strengthen the lungs and diaphragm due to the deep breathing required to produce sound.

Overall, the physical benefits of learning to play a musical instrument can have a positive impact on both the mind and body.

Mental Benefits

Learning to play a musical instrument has numerous mental benefits. In this section, we’ll look at some of the ways that playing music can improve mental health.

Reduced Stress and Anxiety

One of the most significant benefits of playing an instrument is the reduction of stress and anxiety. A study published in the International Journal of Music Education found that playing music can reduce cortisol, the hormone associated with stress, and increase the production of dopamine, the “feel-good” hormone. This effect is even more pronounced when playing music with others.

Playing music can also provide a meditative effect, helping individuals to focus on the present moment and reduce feelings of anxiety . This can be especially helpful for individuals who struggle with anxiety disorders or have high-stress jobs.

Improved Memory and Cognitive Skills

Learning to play a musical instrument requires a significant amount of memorization and cognitive processing. As a result, playing music can improve memory and cognitive skills.

A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that individuals who played an instrument had increased gray matter volume in areas of the brain associated with memory and cognitive function. This effect was seen in both younger and older adults, suggesting that it’s never too late to start playing music.

Playing music also requires the use of multiple areas of the brain simultaneously, which can improve overall cognitive function. This effect is especially pronounced in children, as playing music can improve their overall academic performance.

Social Benefits

Playing a musical instrument can have a positive impact on social skills and relationships. Here are some of the social benefits of learning to play a musical instrument:

Opportunities for Collaboration

Playing a musical instrument can provide opportunities for collaboration with other musicians. Whether it’s playing in a band or orchestra, or simply jamming with friends , making music with others can be a fun and rewarding experience. Collaborating with others can also help musicians develop important social skills, such as communication, teamwork, and compromise.

Increased Confidence and Self-Esteem

Learning to play a musical instrument can also boost confidence and self-esteem. As musicians improve their skills, they may feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in their abilities. Performing in front of others can also be a confidence-building experience. In fact, research has shown that playing a musical instrument can improve public speaking skills and reduce performance anxiety.

Playing a musical instrument can also provide a sense of belonging and community. Musicians often form close bonds with others who share their passion for music. This can lead to a sense of connection and support, which can be especially important for children and teenagers who may be struggling to find their place in the world.

Emotional Benefits

Learning to play a musical instrument can have numerous emotional benefits for individuals of all ages. Here are some of the ways:

Expression of Emotions

Playing a musical instrument can be an excellent way to express emotions. It allows individuals to communicate their feelings in a way that words cannot always convey. For example, playing a sad melody on the piano can help an individual process and express their sadness. Similarly, playing an upbeat tune can help lift their mood and express happiness.

Increased Empathy

Learning to play a musical instrument can also increase empathy. Research has shown that playing music can help individuals better understand and recognize the emotions of others. This is because playing music requires individuals to listen carefully and pay attention to the nuances of sound and tone.

Emotional Intelligence

Playing a musical instrument can also improve emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence refers to an individual’s ability to understand and manage their own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. Learning to play an instrument requires individuals to be patient, disciplined, and focused. These skills can help individuals better regulate their emotions and respond to the emotions of others in a healthy and productive way.

Overall, the emotional benefits of learning to play a musical instrument are numerous. From expression of emotions to increased empathy and emotional intelligence, playing music can help individuals better understand and manage their emotions.

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IELTS WRITING: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Ielts writing task 2:, some experts think that all students should learn musical instruments. to what extent do you agree or disagree.

SAMPLE ESSAY

It is believed by some professionals that every student should learn how to play musical instruments. In my opinion, I disagree that all students should be required to learn musical instruments as it would be problematic, I believe students should be given the freedom to choose a subject that would interest them.

Requiring all students to learn how to play any musical instrument in schools would be disadvantageous to those students whose interest is not in music. Those students who are forced to learn about it, despite not being interested in it, would only waste their teacher’s time and their time since they do not have any desire to learn it. Thus (as a result) , they both become unproductive (not effective in bringing something about) .

In addition, when they are forced to study about playing any musical instrument along (at the same time as; together with) with their classmates who can easily execute it, they would only feel inferior (of little importance or value) . They would think that they are not talented or are not capable of achieving things, or worse, they would think that they are witless (stupid) . This, then, makes them lose the motivation to learn.

I think the best thing that experts or people in the academe (a place of instruction) should do is to assess the interests of students and guide them in choosing the type of subject or activity that can help them develop their skills better. Moreover, by giving them the freedom to choose the type of subject to study, learning would become easy and natural.

In conclusion, experts must not make all students learn how to play musical instruments if students are simply not interested in it, instead, they should allow students to exercise their right to focus on learning a subject or an activity that would help them utilize or develop their skills fully.

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Music and Learning: Does Music Make You Smarter?

What is music and why do people think it is important for learning? Musical sounds fill our lives: from the music you share online to the songs playing in shops and restaurants, we are rarely far from music. Playing music gives the brain a multisensory “workout” that can strengthen memory, help us pay attention, and perhaps even improve reading ability. In this article, we highlight how various brain functions, including hearing, sight, movement, and social awareness, are impacted by music training. You do not have to be a Mozart to get the brain benefit of playing music, because music is so accessible and is more than just songs. Whenever you communicate without words (the way you say something instead of what you say) you are engaging in musical behavior. In this article, we explore research on learning and music to help us understand why music promotes brain development and how music can be a central part of our lives, in and out of the classroom.

Mind the Melody

What is music and why do people think it is important for learning? While people of every culture around the world make something that could be called music, not so many of them give it a name or think of it as separate from other activities, like dance or storytelling [ 1 ]. Because of this, we can only define music in a general way, as a form of communication through sound. Unlike speech, however, music is not generally considered semantic . This means that music does not use words to explain things. Think how difficult it would be to say something relatively simple like, “your left shoe is untied,” using only melody and rhythm . At the same time, music can convey profound emotions that would be difficult to describe in words. In addition to music being an art form, any form of communication is partly musical and can be said to have musicality . Think of the different ways that you might say “huh.” Each of those ways communicates something different. That is musicality. It is not a musical performance, but a musical aspect of communication. While not everyone is a master of the violin, everyone is a master of their own communication style.

At first, some scientists thought that the brain could benefit just by listening to music. They showed that people’s scores on IQ tests improved when they listened to classical music by Mozart [ 2 ]. This led people to believe that listening to music makes you smarter. But this was an oversimplification and an overstatement of the results. Subsequent studies showed that listening to music does not actually make you smarter, but rather raises your level of enjoyment and decreases your feelings of stress, which sometimes result in better focus and improved test scores. This means that, while music in your home or classroom would not automatically improve your performance, it could be useful to help you to focus on a new task or in situations when increased attention and decreased stress are necessary. Further, just listening to music may have a different, or perhaps smaller, effect than actually playing music. This is much the same as the way that playing sports will improve your physical condition more than simply watching sports. Therefore, the focusing power of music could be amplified by playing along.

Music for Brain Power

Just like your muscles, your brain gets stronger the more you exercise it. The process of changing the brain through our experiences is called neural plasticity , because the brain is easily shaped, like plastic. Scientists measure neural plasticity with special brain-imaging techniques, like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or electroencephalogram (EEG), to find out exactly how playing music changes the way our brains work. Research with these machines, as well as studying the brains of people who have died, shows that auditory (hearing), visual (sight), and motor (movement) areas of the brain are specialized in expert musicians [ 3 ]. The specialization includes not only increased size of each brain area, but also the way each area functions. The science tells us that music is so much more than just a source of entertainment; it is an important part of our lifetime of learning. Here are some of the important things that happen in the brain when we play music (for review, see Zatorre [ 4 ]):

Auditory : The auditory system processes sound more effectively after musical training. People can detect smaller differences in frequency (the number of sound waves per second), making both speech and music easier to hear [ 5 ].

Motor : Brain areas that control instrument-related muscles and body parts (such as the fingers, the mouth, etc.) grow in size. More neurons in the brain are devoted to fine-tuning muscle movement in these areas.

Reading : Studies show that better musical ability is related to higher reading scores, suggesting a link between how well we hear speech and how well we can map speech sounds to letters.

Socio-emotional awareness : Playing music together can enhance socio-emotional awareness, which is the ability identify, manage, and express emotions constructively. A good example of this is that very young children are more likely to interact positively with people they play music with.

Making the Musical Connection

How can music change anything other than what you hear? The reason music can reach so many parts of the brain is that the auditory system is highly interconnected with other sensory areas [ 6 ] ( Figure 1 ). Think of your earliest school days and you will probably remember singing songs. Many of us still sing the alphabet song when trying to remember the position of a given letter. If you do not believe us, what letter is four letters after “M”? Now tell us you did not hear the alphabet song in your mind as you looked for the answer! Songs, with repetitive melodies and rhythms, help us memorize lists, stories, and even processes.

Figure 1 - Other sensory areas of the brain provide input to the auditory (hearing, in blue) area.

Figure 1 - Other sensory areas of the brain provide input to the auditory (hearing, in blue) area.
Multisensory areas, such as the pre-frontal cortex (cognition), motor cortex (movement), and complex auditory cortex are shown in gray and contain small boxes colored to show the senses they interact with. Strong connections to and from auditory and visual areas are considered to be two-way highways, because sensory information is shared between brain areas in both directions (dashed orange lines). Similarly, somatosensory (touch) areas are shown in green and also have two-way connections that share information. Adapted from Musacchia and Schoreder [ 6 ].

Figure 1 shows the pattern of connections between the main auditory area in the brain and the other areas of sensation and perception. When we learn to play music, our senses actively interact, including sight, touch, hearing, balance, movement, and proprioception (body awareness). There are two things that make music fairly unique in this process. First, when you play music, you are using all of your senses. For example, you feel the instrument in your hands, hear the sounds you play and see the notes on the music sheet. Since each different type of sensory information reaches your brain at a different time, your brain must work to synchronize all of this information. Second, when playing music, things happen at different speeds and time scales and must line up precisely. For example, a guitarist must know where s/he is on a beat, in a rhythm, in a melody, in a song, and in a concert, precisely lining up all of these things. While our understanding of how the brain keeps track of all these things remains unclear, it is likely that there are different timekeeping mechanisms (“clocks”) for different timescales (speeds). Some of our research is based on the idea that synchronization between these brain “clocks” could help us analyze other sounds streams like speech.

A Lifetime of Music

Music is also a way that we express our identities: the music we play, or even listen to, can be a way of telling the world, our peers, our parents, and our friends something about who we are. In cultures that do not use writing, singers often hold an important place in society, because they memorize important things like history and family relationships. While musical expression of identity is usually positive, there have been times when one group of people found another group’s music threatening, or even dangerous [ 7 ]. For example, in the late 1980s rap music artists were arrested for performances that authorities thought were hostile and disrespectful.

While you might think of singing a song or playing an instrument as a special activity that you do only at certain times, you should also notice that music and musical sounds fill our lives. Music is played on speakers and sometimes played live, and we can hear music in most public places, on buses, in elevators, and in restaurants. Many of us listen to music through our phones or in our cars as well. Our lives are truly full of music, and so our relationship to music can have a big effect on a lifetime of learning.

Semantic : ↑ Relating to meaning in language or logic.

Melody : ↑ A sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying.

Rhythm : ↑ A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.

Musicality : ↑ Musical talent or sensitivity.

IQ Test : ↑ Intelligence quotient, a standard measure of an individual’s intelligence level based on psychological tests.

Neural Plasticity : ↑ The capacity of the nervous system to modify itself in response to experience or deprivation.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank those who assisted in the translation of the articles in this Collection to make them more accessible to kids outside English-speaking countries, and for the Jacobs Foundation for providing the funds necessary to translate the articles. For this article, we would especially like to thank Nienke van Atteveldt and Sabine Peters for the Dutch translation.

[1] ↑ Merriam, A. P., and Merriam, V. 1964. The Anthropology of Music . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

[2] ↑ Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., and Ky, K. N. 1995. Listening to Mozart enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: towards a neurophysiological basis. Neurosci. Lett . 185:44–7

[3] ↑ Schlaug, G. 2009. “Music, musicians, and brain plasticity,” in Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology , eds S. Hallam, I. Cross and M. Thaut (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 197–207.

[4] ↑ Zatorre, R. J. 2003. Music and the brain. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci . 999:4–14. doi: 10.1196/annals.1284.001

[5] ↑ Musacchia, G., Sams, M., Skoe, E., and Kraus, N. 2007. Musicians have enhanced subcortical auditory and audiovisual processing of speech and music. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104:15894–8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0701498104

[6] ↑ Musacchia, G., and Schroeder, C. E. 2009. Neuronal mechanisms, response dynamics and perceptual functions of multisensory interactions in auditory cortex. Hear Res . 258:72–9. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2009.06.018

[7] ↑ Binder, A. 1993. Constructing racial rhetoric: media depictions of harm in heavy metal and rap music. Am. Sociol. Rev. 58:753–67.

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IELTS Speaking: Musical Instruments Questions and Answers

It is possible to be asked about musical instruments in all parts of the IELTS speaking test. Below are some questions which mostly appear in part 1 but questions 4 to 5 can appear in part 1 and part 3. Two model answers are given below as well. This is topic currently being used in 2017.

You can vocabulary for types of musical instruments here: Musical Instruments Word List

Questions: IELTS Speaking Musical Instruments Topics

Check some possible questions for this topic:

Did you ever learn a musical instrument as a child?
If you could learn a musical instrument, what would you choose?
If you had a child, what musical instrument would you encourage him/her to play?
What traditional instruments are there in your country?
Do you think traditional musical instruments have a place in modern society?
How do you think traditional music could be made more popular?

Sample Answers for Part 1

Q. Did you ever learn a musical instrument as a child?

A. No, I didn’t but I always wish I had. If I had had the chance, I would have learned the guitar. The problem was that my parents thought it was more important to focus on school work than learn to play an instrument.

Q. If you could learn to play any musical instrument, what would you choose?

A. I think I’d probably go for the violin. It’s such a beautiful stringed instrument and I think the music that can be played on it, can be really haunting and moving. Yes, I’d definitely choose that one.

Sample Answer for Part 3

Do you think traditional instruments have a place in modern society?

Absolutely yes. Traditional instruments are part of our heritage and our identity. I believe that all school children should have the opportunity to learn to play one of them a part of their music lessons. For example, the tabla, which is like a pair of wooden hand drums, is a traditional instrument in our country and is part of most traditional songs. So, learning it would enable children to appreciate their country’s musical history more.

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IELTS Speaking Part 1 Musical Instruments Question and Answers

Find band 9 sample answers to the IELTS Speaking part 1 questions about musical instruments.

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About the article

In this document, you will find sample answers to the IELTS Speaking part 1 questions about musical instruments. It is not difficult to get a band 9 score on the IELTS Speaking test, use descriptive words, and idioms, and be clear in your conversation.

IELTS Speaking Part 1 Musical Instruments Question and Answers

1. Which instrument do you like listening to the most? [Why?]

I primarily enjoy piano sounds. The sound a piano makes is so lovely and melodic. It calms my ears and renews my spirit. The guitar, which is frequently used in most music genres, is possibly my second-favorite musical instrument.

2. Have you ever learned to play a musical instrument? [Which one?]

I previously made an effort to get better at playing the guitar. Even though I was admitted to a music school to learn how to play the guitar, I was unable to complete the entire program. I can play some simple guitar chords and melodies, but I'm not a very good player.

3. Do you think children should learn to play a musical instrument at school? [Why/Why not?]

I think schools should have resources for students who are interested in learning to sing and play an instrument, but it shouldn't be required of everyone. A student in school should be given the option to learn something if they are passionate about doing so.

4. How easy would it be to learn to play an instrument without a teacher? [Why?]

Today, it is a little bit simpler to learn to play a musical instrument like a guitar or a drum without the direct supervision of a mentor thanks to online courses and interactive video tutorials. Earlier, I believe it was practically impossible before the internet. However, having an instructor is also helpful because s/he encourages learning and can serve as a role model for developing musical instrument mastery.

5. What kinds of music do you like to listen to?

My musical preferences range greatly from classical to contemporary EDM. However, if Korean pop is regarded as a genre of music, then yes, it is my all-time favorite. I have more than half of Korean songs on my playlist, and I constantly keep up with news on Korean entertainment.

6. Have you ever been to a concert before?

Despite my love for music, I haven't had the opportunity to go to a performance because I can't afford the expensive concert tickets for my favorite musician. I can't afford a ticket because I'm a student and always on a tight budget. But if I had a chance, I would surely like to attend a Coldplay concert.

IELTS Vocabulary on Music and Musical Instruments

You can memorise this list of vocabulary words explained in the video and use them when talking about music and musical instruments in IELTS Speaking part 1 musical instrument questions, IELTS speaking part 2, IELTS speaking part 3 and IELTS essay on music and musical instruments. These words will help you score high in IELTS speaking tests and also make your IELTS essay rich with high range vocabulary words.

The video delves deeper on the vocabulary list helping you build upon your lexical resources in an effective and productive manner. Touching upon the derivation or origin of a word, which is known as the etymology of a word, video entails how learning one word root can help predict and recall the meaning of several other terms. You also learn about other terms that have the same root word which are:

musicality

Then you learn names of few musical instruments and people who play them:

piano

After that the video entails some miscellaneous lexical terminologies such as

instrumental music

Furthermore, the video elaborates on some key terms that could be deployed while tending to questions or speech. Furthermore, the learnt vocabulary is then used to answer a few sample questions asked in the IELTS speaking test.

You can find more IELTS Speaking part 1 questions with model answers, IELTS Speaking Part 2 and Part 3 questions with model answers. These questions have been shared by our students over years who appear in the IELTS exams. The answers are written by our teachers as samples of band 9 answers. We also offer courses to help students prepare for the IELTS exam.

children should learn to play musical instruments. do you agree or disagree

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To get an excellent score in the IELTS Task 2 writing section, one of the easiest and most effective tips is structuring your writing in the most solid format. A great argument essay structure may be divided to four paragraphs, in which comprises of four sentences (excluding the conclusion paragraph, which comprises of three sentences).

For we to consider an essay structure a great one, it should be looking like this:

Paragraph 1 - Introduction
Sentence 1 - Background statement
Sentence 2 - Detailed background statement
Sentence 3 - Thesis
Sentence 4 - Outline sentence
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Sentence 1 - Topic sentence
Sentence 2 - Example
Sentence 3 - Discussion
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Paragraph 3 - Second supporting paragraph
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Sentence 1 - Summary
Sentence 2 - Restatement of thesis
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Our recommended essay structure above comprises of fifteen (15) sentences, which will make your essay approximately 250 to 275 words.

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In the past important knowledge of culture and history was stored in the museums. Nowadays information is freely available on the internet therefore is no need of museums. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Doing an enjoyable activity with a child can develop better skills and more creativity than reading. to what extent do you agree use reasons and specific examples to explain your answer., learning english at school is often seen as more important than learning local languages. if these are not taught, many are at risk of dying out. in your opinion, is it important for everyone to learn english should we try to ensure the survival of local languages and, if so, how, some people say that competitive sports have advantages for people from different groups and countries, while others believe that competitive sports only create problems between people. discuss both views and give your opinion., it is important for children to learn the difference between right and wrong at an early age. punishment is necessary to help them learn this distinction. to what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion what sort of punishment should parents and teachers be allowed to use to teach good behavior to children.

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Student Opinion

What Can You Make or Fix With Your Hands?

Did you know that manual activities like cooking, making art, playing a musical instrument and building things can be good for your brain?

By Natalie Proulx

How often do you work with your hands — that is, use them for activities that don’t involve typing, pushing buttons or tapping screens?

Do you draw, write or knit? Garden, cook or play a musical instrument? Build or fix things? Play sports?

What if you knew that those kinds of hands-on activities could help improve your mood, attention span and memory? Would you try to spend more time on them?

In “ Working With Your Hands Is Good for Your Brain ,” Markham Heid writes about why some experts believe we should be using our hands more:

The human hand is a marvel of nature. No other creature on Earth, not even our closest primate relatives , has hands structured quite like ours, capable of such precise grasping and manipulation. But we’re doing less intricate hands-on work than we used to. A lot of modern life involves simple movements, such as tapping screens and pushing buttons, and some experts believe our shift away from more complex hand activities could have consequences for how we think and feel. “When you look at the brain’s real estate — how it’s divided up, and where its resources are invested — a huge portion of it is devoted to movement, and especially to voluntary movement of the hands,” said Kelly Lambert, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Dr. Lambert, who studies effort-based rewards, said that she is interested in “the connection between the effort we put into something and the reward we get from it” and that she believes working with our hands might be uniquely gratifying. In some of her research on animals , Dr. Lambert and her colleagues found that rats that used their paws to dig up food had healthier stress hormone profiles and were better at problem solving compared with rats that were given food without having to dig. She sees some similarities in studies on people, which have found that a whole range of hands-on activities — such as knitting , gardening and coloring — are associated with cognitive and emotional benefits, including improvements in memory and attention, as well as reductions in anxiety and depression symptoms.

Students, read the entire article and then tell us:

What is your reaction to the article? What is something new you learned about working with your hands? What questions do you have?

Tell us about a hands-on activity that you enjoy. What benefits have you noticed from it?

Does the article convince you to try more activities that involve using your hands, like cooking, making art, playing an instrument, building things or writing by hand? Why or why not?

“When you put in effort and can see the product of that, like a scarf you knitted, I think that builds up a sense of accomplishment and control over your world” Dr. Kelly Lambert, who studies effort-based rewards, said. What do you think about that idea? Have you observed a connection between the effort you put into something and the reward you get from it in your own life?

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Natalie Proulx joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2017 after working as an English language arts teacher and curriculum writer. More about Natalie Proulx

COMMENTS

Essay on Musical Instruments
Musical instruments are tools that people use to make music. Just like a painter uses a brush to paint pictures, musicians use instruments to create sounds. There are many kinds of musical instruments, and each one can make different noises. Some are played by hitting them, like drums. Others are played by blowing air through them, like flutes.
Argumentative Essay Example: All Students Should Learn a Musical Instrument
First, all students should learn a musical instrument because it builds character. Learning anything in life has its ups and downs, but once mastered the reward of satisfaction far outways the beginning struggles. "Hard Work" is a valued lesson for any student to learn for life. According to "The Hidden Benefits" (1985,6), in American ...
IELTS Essay: Musical Instruments
Analysis. 1. Many teachers feel that learning to play a musical instrument is an indispensable part of a student's education. 2. In my opinion, there are socioeconomic concerns with this tenet but it is still advisable overall. Paraphrase the overall essay topic. Write a clear opinion. Read more about introductions here.
What My Musical Instruments Have Taught Me
Some players see learning and performing with the instrument as a spiritual quest to reconnect with the past; others play what sounds to me like a Hollywood composer's idea of Chinese music from ...
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Music education has two distinct strands, which include general education and private instrumental tuition. This paper will determine the most effective way of teaching a musical instrument in school. It will focus on formal individual instrumental tuition and class teaching as facilitated by the 'Wider Opportunities' initiative.
Benefits of Learning to Play a Musical Instrument: Improve Your Brain
Learning to play a musical instrument can be a fun and rewarding experience that offers a wide range of benefits. Research has shown that playing an instrument can help improve literacy and math skills, enhance verbal memory, spatial reasoning, and cognitive function, as well as increase discipline and time management skills.
Full essay: Learning a musical instrument
Some educationalists say that every child should be taught how to play a musical instrument. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Home; Index. Advice; Reading; Listening; Speaking; Writing Task 1 (Ac) Writing Task 1 (Gen) Writing Task 2; Grammar; Vocabulary; Teacher Training; Ebooks; Videos .
Ielts Speaking Part 1: Musical Instruments
I believe so because all graders have to study music. I mean, a music subject is taught in grade school. I studied that subject when I was in Grade 4 until Grade 6. I learned how to read musical notes, compose songs, and of course, play a musical instrument. That was really fun! Do you think children should learn to play a musical instrument at ...
IELTS Writing Task 2: Musical Instruments
This can provide a boost to not only academics but also their long-term mental well-being. In conclusion, though policymakers will have to account for accessibility issues, learning an instrument is key for neurodevelopment. Schools, parents, and teachers should work together to ensure the best chances of success.
IELTS WRITING: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
In my opinion, I disagree that all students should be required to learn musical instruments as it would be problematic, I believe students should be given the freedom to choose a subject that would interest them. Requiring all students to learn how to play any musical instrument in schools would be disadvantageous to those students whose ...
IELTS Speaking Part 1: musical instruments
IELTS Speaking Part 1: musical instruments. For IELTS speaking part 1, remember to give short, simple answers. Answer the question with a full sentence and give a reason for your answer. Here are some example questions and answers about musical instruments (from Cambridge IELTS book 6): 1.
I believe that everyone should learn to play a musical instrument
Featured Essays Essays on the Radio; Special Features; ... In the long run, learning to play a musical instrument brings benefits not only to yourself but other in your community. Music is universal language that can help people learn about themselves and bring people closer together. As such, music can create better understanding within ...
Playing an Instrument: Better for Your Brain than Just Listening
"Recent studies suggest that music may be a uniquely good form of exercising your brain," he said. "Fun can also be good for you." And the best news: While learning to play an instrument as a child provides life-long benefits to the brain, taking music lessons in your 60s - or older - can boost your brain's health as well, helping ...
The Harmony of Benefits: Playing a Musical Instrument
Hire writer. Lutz Jancke, a psychologist at the University of Zurich, illuminates this symphonic journey further, asserting that learning to play a musical instrument can potentially elevate IQ by seven points in both children and adults. For the younger generation, such as learning the piano, the process instills qualities of self-discipline ...
13 Easy Musical Instruments To Learn
4. Tambourine. An excellent percussion instrument for beginners, the Tambourine is a circular hand instrument used in various music types. If you're looking for an easy instrument to learn, the tambourine is one of the easiest out there. The tambourine consists of a plastic or metal circular frame interspersed with pairs of tiny metal cymbals ...
Music and Learning: Does Music Make You Smarter?
At first, some scientists thought that the brain could benefit just by listening to music. They showed that people's scores on IQ tests improved when they listened to classical music by Mozart [ 2 ]. This led people to believe that listening to music makes you smarter. But this was an oversimplification and an overstatement of the results.
The Importance of Learning to Play a Musical Instrument
Learning musical instruments is important because it helps to develop creativity, discipline, and problem-solving skills. It also encourages self-expression and can be a great way to relax and have fun. Additionally, playing an instrument can help to build confidence and can be a great way to connect with others.
IELTS Speaking: Musical Instruments Questions and Answers
IELTS Speaking: Musical Instruments Questions and Answers. It is possible to be asked about musical instruments in all parts of the IELTS speaking test. Below are some questions which mostly appear in part 1 but questions 4 to 5 can appear in part 1 and part 3. Two model answers are given below as well. This is topic currently being used in 2017.
Exploring the Realm of Playing Musical Instruments
Quality is one of the things that are vital. In addition, costs and functions are also vital. For example, the work of a lead guitar is different from the bass guitar. There can also be problem caused by the instruments itself such as the bowing of the violin. These can be harmful on the part of the person playing it.
children should learn to play musical instruments
children should learn to play musical instruments. do you agree or disagree. it is part of any culture. In some regions of the world, learning musical. is mandatory. From my perspective, I think it is not obvious for a. In. issue. enhancing the ability of the brain. listening and learning ability, hold attention, and boost confidence.
IELTS Speaking Part 1 Musical Instruments Question and Answers
These questions have been shared by our students over years who appear in the IELTS exams. The answers are written by our teachers as samples of band 9 answers. We also offer courses to help students prepare for the IELTS exam. Share this article: Find band 9 sample answers to the IELTS Speaking part 1 questions about musical instruments.
Describe A Musical Instrument That You Learnt/Play
Note: You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes.You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish. Model Answer: Introduction: Well, music is something that touches the soul of every human, and it is not uncommon to see people expressing themselves through music and learning to play musical instruments.
children should learn to play musical instruments
children should learn to play musical instruments. do you agree or disagree. I disagree with. , there are more important subjects to learn that can be of more benefit to them. , The need for learning musical instruments or singing is considered of less priority compared with other skills.
How a Violin Maker's Dreams Came True in Cremona, Italy
A Rising Star of Italian Violin Making Is a 32-Year-Old From South Korea. As a teenager, Ayoung An decided to become a violin maker. Her journey eventually took her to Cremona, Italy, a famed hub ...
What Can You Make or Fix With Your Hands?
A lot of modern life involves simple movements, such as tapping screens and pushing buttons, and some experts believe our shift away from more complex hand activities could have consequences for ...

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500 Words Essay on Musical Instruments

Learning to Play an Instrument

The History of Musical Instruments

Musical Instruments Around the World

The Role of Instruments in Music

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Argumentative Essay Example: All Students Should Learn a Musical Instrument

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Benefits of Learning to Play a Musical Instrument: Improve Your Brain Function and Emotional Well-being

Physical Benefits

Improved Hand-Eye Coordination

Increased Fine Motor Skills

Mental Benefits

Reduced Stress and Anxiety

Improved Memory and Cognitive Skills

Social Benefits

Opportunities for Collaboration

Increased Confidence and Self-Esteem

Emotional Benefits

Expression of Emotions

Increased Empathy

Emotional Intelligence

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IELTS Speaking Part 1 Musical Instruments Question and Answers

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IELTS Speaking Part 1 Musical Instruments Question and Answers

IELTS Vocabulary on Music and Musical Instruments

children should learn to play musical instruments. do you agree or disagree

Fully explain your ideas

In the past important knowledge of culture and history was stored in the museums. Nowadays information is freely available on the internet therefore is no need of museums. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

What Can You Make or Fix With Your Hands?

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