Benefits of keyboard lessons

Knowing how to play a musical instrument has many known benefits. When someone takes music lessons as a child they develop in a significantly more advanced manner as an adult. When people learn to play as adults they show significant improvement in their stress levels and their attention level. Specifically, below you will find some of the many benefits of taking keyboard lessons:

1 Improves Hand- Eye coordination

While playing the piano or the keyboard your eyes are constantly concentrating on different aspects, from reading notes to following the movement of your hands. When hands and eyes concentrate on different actions you train them to respond better, faster and more efficiently. This acquired skill is useful in many fields, from sports to manual and office work.

2 Develops multitasking skills

Because you are concentrating on reading, listening and playing, playing keyboards and pianos allows you to develop great multitasking skills which are extremely sought after by employers as well as being great skills to have while studying and training.

3 Improves attention levels

Students that have played the keyboard or the piano for 3 years or more tend to have superior cognitive functions than their peers. Furthermore, they also tend to excel in mathematics and languages. This is believed to be linked to the brain being more prone to learning and multitasking.

4 language development

Keyboard and piano students also tend to have a much broader vocabulary and a greater gift for humanities and foreign languages.

5 develops creativity

Music is one of the most scientific and at the same time creative fields in the world. Playing the keyboard or the piano gifts its students the ability to both train their brain towards musical and non-musical achievements but it also opens the mind to creativity and innovation.

After knowing these five great facts about the benefits of playing the piano or the keyboard you have no excuses, start your keyboard lessons in Birmingham today!

Interest music facts

There is undoubtedly a mass of weird and wonderful facts about music and some we're going to share with you!

Did you know?

Listening to music during a work out measurable improves someone's physical performance.

A person does not essentially like an original version of a song because it is better; they like it because it was the version they heard first.

It is possible that one of your favourite songs is such because it is associated with an emotional event that occurred in your life.

There wasn't one member of The Beatles that could read music.

Heartbeat can mimic the music that you are listening to.

The inventor of the Telecaster and Stratocaster, Leo Fender, couldn't actually play guitar.

The much-loved Christmas carol Jingle Bells was initially written for the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

Loud music can influence a person to drink more in less time.

A song that is repeatedly playing in your head has a name: an earworm.

Listening to music triggers the dopamine chemical in our brains.

Anything more to add? Post them in the comments! Visit our website to view all of the academy's music lessons and more!

Half Term at Progress Academy

Progress Academy is opening its doors this half term for a week of music and fun.

You could have a chance to play on our Natal Drum Kit!

If you didn't know, every half term Progress Academy in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter open its doors for children everywhere to come and use the equipment and produce videos using the instruments. We host song recordings and video production for them to watch and potentially take home.

It's a great opportunity for children to learn about musical instruments, music and develop their technical skills - no matter the experience, and most importantly have fun.

You can find Progress Academy at 35 Northampton Street in the Jewellery Quarter, B18 6DU.

For further information about Progress Academy and if you're interesting in developing your musical skills, please visit the website!

Musical Instrument Facts

Brass horn

The oldest brass instruments can be dated back to 500 BC, and have been found preserved in bogs across Scandinavia. The instruments were called lurs, essentially a long, elegantly curved brass trumpet and had been recovered in batches of two.

Lurs have been used for the crest of Lurpak butter.

The word remains in the Swedish language as something that broadcasts sound, hÖrlurar meaning headphones, along with a mobile phone frequently called a lur.

Stone horn

The precise use of an ancient bronze lur remains a mystery, however, according to the Icelandic sagas the lurs’ later wooden relatives (lurar) had been used for the gathering of troops and scare away the enemy. The Saxons did not require an instrument, they simply used a sizable stone.

The Blowing Stone, at Kingston Lisle, is a large sarsen boulder with a number of holes in it. Blowing into the correct hole creates a loud, penetrating note. Alfred the Great had used said stone to gather his troops prior to the battle of Ashdown.

Universal organ

Rewind to 2004 when astronomers at the University of Virginia measured background radiation from 400,000 years preceding the Big Bang and described the ‘music’ the universe made while it was being created.

“For the first 400,000 years it sounds like a scream declining to a dull roar,” explained Professor Mark Whittle. “And over the first million years the music of the cosmos changed from a bright major chord to a sombre minor one.”

Singing sand

Sand dunes can actually play a ‘tune’, or rather a loud, resonate note that can last for 15 minutes and heard from approximately 6 miles away.

Studies that have been conducted in the Sahara presented that the booms are caused by avalanches on the dunes, often occurring after rain, when the lower layers of a dune are still moist (sometime clumpy) and the top layers are dry. The falling sand makes vibrations in the same manner as the membrane of a loudspeaker.

Cello

An abbreviation of the correct name ‘violoncello’ – literal translation of ‘little big viola.

Cello would have been written with an apostrophe preceding it in the past.

Hard cases

Chicago gangsters wouldn’t have been partial to carrying around machine guns in violin cases. Rather they opted for a ‘hard case’ that resembled a musical instrument carrier. It would have been compartmentalised in order for it to hold various parts of the gun easily.

Harpo

Salvador Dalí, in the Christmas of 1936, sent Harpo Marx a harp that had barbed-wire strings to which Harpo sent back a photo of himself bearing his bandaged fingers.

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Music lessons: fun and stress relief

Finding a hobby can promote resiliency and is a great way of filling and enjoying your free time.

Learning to play an instrument opens up a lot of opportunities; playing an instrument could ultimately lead to joining a church music group, songwriting and even starting your own band.

It's a chance to build a career as a musician and have a little fun with it also.

If you're a person that enjoys learning and has an interest in music, learning to play an instrument could be the thing to do - Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix were self-taught, their careers evolving from the passion to pursue that love of music they both possessed.

How to get started:

Begin with the basics and then you can develop from there and enjoy playing for fun. Purchasing a guitar, and maybe an amplifier and some sound effect pedals will allow you to create a limitless amount of sounds and call it music.

Play along to songs that appeal to you; it'll be a great way of unwinding as well as learning how a song is constructed - the development of your talent lies at honing in the skills you are taught yourself, and helping them flourish, by taking lessons, which is where Progress Music Academy can help!

Playing a musical instrument is a brilliant stress reliever and way of having fun, you'll be fascinated with the music you can make.
Please visit our website for further details about the lessons and services we can offer you!