The Power of Music: How Does Playing Music Impact the Brain and Cognitive Disabilities?
- Ishaan S Ahuja
- Jul 4, 2024
- 4 min read
A pianist’s strong fingers fly across the keys, their eyes quickly reading notes and translating the page into movement. Playing an instrument requires immense coordination, a practice that can also help people with disabilities manage everyday tasks, both neurologically and physically.
Picture a pianist’s strong fingers flying across the piano, coordinating their eyes, hands and foot to produce beautiful and complex music. Playing an instrument strengthens one’s coordination between their brain and different parts of their body, a practice that can significantly improve everyday tasks for people with certain cognitive and physical disabilities.
Playing an instrument greatly benefits people with cognitive disabilities who struggle to process information. One of the most well-known cognitive disabilities of this sort is Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). APD is a disability that makes it difficult for a patient to process auditory information, such as speech and sounds from objects. This means that people with APD can sometimes struggle to understand the information they are hearing. However, if you think about it, it makes sense for APD to make it difficult to process musical sounds as well, right? Yes, this is the case, but despite that, playing an instrument is still an excellent way to support a person with a disability.
It turns out that the best treatments for APD enhance neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to quickly react in response to different stimuli. This is simply because APD is a disability that slows down the cognitive ability of processing, specifically in the area of auditory processing. Therefore, training to process sounds faster will help someone with APD.
Playing an instrument is one of the best ways to practice neuroplasticity, as music forces the brain to find patterns and melodies, differentiate between a variety of tones, process chords and articulations, and adjust your style of playing rapidly throughout the piece. Therefore, different body parts must react while reading the music when playing an instrument. For example, your fingers must play the keys on a piano as soon as you read the notes, and your foot may have to use the pedal. This means that every time one practices, they are practicing and enhancing their brain’s neuroplasticity.
But the benefits aren’t just cognitive; playing music benefits people with physical disabilities by exercising coordination and fine motor skills, which may be compromised with a diagnosis of a disability. Some disabilities that impact a patient’s coordination and fine motor skills are Dyspraxia, Cerebral Palsy, and Muscular Dystrophy.
Let’s take an example of playing the piano. One of the key elements when playing the grand instrument is to be able to “strike” each key in order to have a clean and crisp sound, where each note can be heard. This requires the pianist to have strong and independent finger muscles, as without this, one would have to use their whole arm to play all the notes, which can be highly inconvenient when playing fast passages/pieces. Anyone can test their finger independence at home, all you need is a flat surface. Simply lay your hand flat on the surface and your ring finger and see how high you can raise it before striking it down. If the sound your finger makes isn’t very loud, and you struggle to lift your ring finger very high, it may not have much independence. Give it a try!
I struggled with this exercise myself, but years of playing the piano has strengthened my individual fingers and now I can do exercises like this one much more successfully. Similarly, someone with a disability could build previously compromised individual finger muscles by playing and practicing the piano regularly for extended periods re. This would be of great help in many scenarios, even something as simple as holding a fork. I’ve read a lot about people with muscular dystrophy, for example, struggling with tasks like this, but it makes that learning to play an instrument would be of great help to build their finger muscles and fine-motor skills, making their everyday life so much easier.
In addition to being of support for someone with a cognitive disability, playing an instrument helps with coordination as well. For example, a pianist must translate notes they’re reading to their fingers on the keys and their feet on the pedals, a coordinated full-body effort. Playing a musical instrument on a regular basis can help people with disabilities regain muscle control and coordination, making everyday tasks such as eating much easier in the long run.
So, we just explored some of the key benefits of music for people who have cognitive and/or physical disabilities. Now that I think of it, it makes sense why listening to music or playing an instrument are very common activities in schools for children with disabilities. In the end, it goes on to help them in life, whether it be in a conversation at their job or simply when eating dinner with their family. Music is always there in some way, no matter the scenario. What are your thoughts, do you think the effects of music and playing instruments are enough to be a part of therapies?
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