Part 4: The Brain and Music (is this the brain project?)

        Hey everyone!

        This week I started to think about my saxophone playing from a more educational lens. I was wondering if there were benefits to the mind while playing a musical instrument. I have heard a number of my music teachers mention that “music makes you smarter” but I wanted to set out myself to find out if this claim was true.

I did some research and discovered a study conducted by Boston Children’s Hospital on this very topic. The study was featured on Psychology Today Magazine. In short the study found that there was a strong correlation between musical training and “improved executive function” in both children and adults. Executive functions high-level cognitive processes that let people to quickly process and retain information, regulate their behaviors, make good choices, solve problems, and adjust to changing mental demands. They came to these conclusions by using MRI brain imaging of people who played instruments daily (sounds like me!).

Nadine Gaab from the Boston Children's said, "Since executive functioning is a strong predictor of academic achievement, even more than IQ, we think our findings have strong educational implications." He also claimed, "While many schools are cutting music programs and spending more and more time on test preparation, our findings suggest that musical training may actually help to set up children for a better academic future."

I found this evidence to be very surprising. Schools should take another look at studies like these before they try to cut music education!

So… An update on this week.

One of my goals from last week was to push my limits by practicing and learning longer pieces. In previous weeks an average song length was about 20 seconds. However, this week I learned pieces that significantly longer. They consistently were over a minute long!

Here are two selections.

I was genuinely surprised at how my mouth tired so quickly. I found myself having to take breaks between each run-through of the songs.  But as the week progressed, my mouth strength became much better.

Remember that horrible squeaking I was experiencing last week? Well, it’s gone now. I am not exactly sure why it is gone. It’s probably a combination of small things. Such as, studying diagrams on saxophone embouchure, gaining familiarity with newer notes, or simply repetition.

Diagrams 

                                      

Hopefully the horrid squeaking and squawking is gone for good!

The future looks bright!

                         --  Joel