Month: August 2015

Your Weekly Listen for 08/27/15 is this incredible informational video! Below, you can see Neuroscience Professor Nina Kraus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinios explain how music is interpreted by your brain.

Respected studies in neuroscience have shown that young children who take regular music lessons grow up to have more connective tissue in their brains than their non-musical peers, which enhances their abilities to learn language, music and other subjects at any age.

“Musical training before the age of seven has a significant effect on the development of the human brain … early musical training can benefit children even before they’re able to walk or talk. Babies who participate in interactive music classes show better early communication skills, like pointing at objects and waving goodbye, and also smile more and are easier to soothe.” – Psychology Today

For further reading on this topic, I also recommend this short article from Psychology Today.

John Lennon’s first and only music teacher was his mother, Julia Lennon. She played the banjo and taught him to play when he was a boy. He never had any formal music lessons.

He went on to form The Beatles and a songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney that would be one of the most successful and influential in the history of popular music.

So the moral of the story is … today, play banjo with your kid, and tomorrow, she could become a superstar! Or if not, then hopefully a happy, well-adjusted person who enjoys playing and sharing music with others and feels good about the sounds he makes. 🙂 After all, our kids are all superstars to us!