Pianos are such amazingly versatile instruments. They can play fast, fun, and exciting songs, all the way down to slow, peaceful, or gloomy songs. Music can make people calm and relaxed, and also get them pumped up and full of energy. The piano produces music that is different from every other instrument. It has a wide range of sound going from low to high and from soft to loud. Put those sounds in combinations and it could produce music. The piano has a large range of music’s available that most everyone is able to find music that they would like. There are also people who play that have varying levels of talent. From famous pianists such as Mozart and Beethoven, down to beginners such as little children, they all play the piano. Do they do it for fun or is it something else? Some recent studies have shown that there are improvements that people haven’t considered before. “The studies have shown that children in music lessons scored higher in English and math than students who had no music lessons at all…” (Baedeker). So with lessons in music, students could do better in life than without music lessons. With improved academics, they are able to solve problems better and get to college and thus get better jobs. Also, with improved academics, people appear able to juggle more tasks such as athletics and hobbies.
The piano is an instrument that originated from Florence, Italy. Bartolomeo Cristofori was a craftsman who repaired harpsichords. He called the invention he made a “simple keyboard that he called gravecembalo col piano et forte, “keyboard instrument with soft and loud,” (Hoover, Adams, Rucker, and Good). The changes made the instrument able to make more variations than a harpsichord was able to do. People then changed the ...
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Batrolomeo Cristofori brings the piano into the musical arena around 1709 in Florence, Italy. One of Cristoforis previous instruments, the harpsichord, actually brought about the idea of the piano. Cristofori wanted to develop a more dynamic instrument, because the harpsichord had such a small dynamic range. His answer to that problem was the ‘gravicembali col piano e forte,’ which meant harpsichord with soft and loud. This long name was shortened to pianoforte, and then eventually forte was dropped, and now these modern instruments are known as pianos. As the keeper of instruments in Prince Ferdinand’s court in Florence, Cristofori reinvented the harpsichord into the piano. The actual date that he created the piano is unknown, but
Throughout history music has played an important role in society, whether it was Mozart moving people with his newest opera or the latest album from the Beatles. Where would society be today without music? With schools cutting their music programs, the next Mozart may not get his chance to discover his amazing talent. Music programs are essential to education. To fully understand this one must understand how music helps the human body, why schools have cut music programs, and why people should learn music.
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Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Ky, K. N (1993). Music and spatial task performance.
August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, tells a story of a family haunted by the pain of their past and their struggle to find peace to move forward. The story begins with character Boy Willie coming up from the south visiting his sister Bernice. Boy Willie introduces the idea of selling the family’s heirloom, a piano, to raise enough money to buy the land on which his ancestors were enslaved. However, both Boy Willie and his sister Berniece own half a half of the piano and she refuses to let Boy Willie sell it. Through the use of symbolism, Wilson uses his characters, the piano and the family’s situation to provide his intended audience with the lesson of exorcising our past in order to move forward in our lives. Our past will always be a part of our lives, but it does not limit or determine where we can go, what we can do, or who we can become.
Many people do not realize the positive effect that popular music has on children. At a young age one of the breakthroughs for children is music’s benefit for language development. According to the Children’s Music Workshop, the effect of music education on language development can be seen in the brain. Studies have indicated that musical training develops the left side of the brain known to be involved in processing language and can actually wire the brain’s circuits in specific ways. The relation between both music and language development can also have advantages children. Listening to music can also improve children test scores and IQ levels. Dr. Schellenberg found that a small increase in the IQs of six year olds who were given weekly vocal and piano lessons. This leads to the fact that music is very helpful when it comes to education. Professor Christopher Johnson revealed that students in elementary schools with better music education programs sc...
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The idea of the Mozart effect began in 1993 with a study conducted by Rauscher, Shaw & Ky. This study involved 36 university students taking three different IQ spatial reasoning tasks and for each test used either Mozart’s sonata for two pianos in D major and relaxation music was played, silence was also used. The results of this experiment showed that students who had listened to the music of Mozart had better results for the spacial reasoning tests in comparison to silence or relaxation music. The results also showed that the impact of Mozart’s music was only temporary and only lasted for 10-15 minutes. Overall this study was very basic and had numerous flaws such as the sample size and also the variety of tests used to look at the impact of music (Rauscher, Shaw & Ky, 1993). In 1997 Don Campbell’s book The Mozart effect popularised the claim that music makes children smarter. This book created a public interest in music and brain development. The book uses Rauscher’s experiment as an example of what Mozart’s music can do which in this experiment shows a temporary increase in spatial reasoning, this however was misinterpreted by the public as an increase in IQ. The popularisation of the...
Mannes, Elena. "www.npr.org/2011/06/01/136859090/the-power-of-music-to-affect-the-brain." Mannes, Elena. The Power of Music to Affect the Brain. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011.
Weir, Kirsten, and Debbie Nevins. "Music And Your Mind.. (Cover Story)." Current Health Kids 34.1 (2010): 10-12. Health Source - Consumer Edition. Web. 9 Jan. 2012.
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When music education comes to one’s mind, one may think that it only applies when it comes to listening to diverse songs and beating two drum sticks together to the beat of songs. However, there is much more of a deeper meaning to it than that. According to the acclaimed author, J. Yudkin, “Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain (the development of skills), the cognitive domain (the acquisition of knowledge), and, in particular and significant ways, the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity. The incorporation of music training from preschool to postsecondary education is common in most nations because involvement in music is considered a fundamental component of human culture and behavior. Music, like language, is an accomplishment that distinguishes us as humans” (Yudkin 4). The subject of expurgating music education has been discussed for numerous decades. However, those discussing this fail to realize that music education not only has an imperative part in the students’ grades improving but also betters their behavior. Music education should remain in the curriculums of today’s students because it has a positive effect on their upbringing, in turn leading them to better, more fruitfulfutures.
...in these kinds of music learning environments. All these benefits together have also been linked to longevity, as well as physical and mental health.