11/12/2025
AMEB (Australian Music Examinations Board) Piano Examination Results 2025
🎶🎹🎶🎹🎶🎹🎶🎹🎶🎹🎶🎹🎶
Congratulations to the following students for your determination and commitment to complete your piano exam with excellent results:
Practical Component
Penelope Bass - Preliminary Piano for Leisure Comprehensive, A with Honours
Jake Carrick - Preliminary Piano for Leisure Comprehensive, B with Credit
Austina Joseph - Preliminary Piano for Leisure Comprehensive, A with Honours
Selena Munasinghe - Preliminary Piano for Leisure Comprehensive, A with Honours
Kayal Saravanan - Preliminary Piano for Leisure Comprehensive, A with Honours
Malia Carrick - Grade 3 Piano for Leisure Comprehensive, B with Credit
Youki Mannix - Grade 4 Comprehensive Piano, B with Credit
10/09/2025
Two new studies suggest that playing a musical instrument—even if you start in old age—could help protect your brain from the effects of aging and stave off cognitive decline.
In the first study, researchers compared older adults who had played music for decades with those who hadn’t. Brain scans showed that the musicians processed speech in noisy environments almost as efficiently as young adults, thanks to stronger neural connections. Non-musicians, by contrast, showed more signs of aging and had to work harder to complete the same task.
But the more exciting finding? A second study found that even seniors who only recently picked up an instrument—and stuck with it for four years—had healthier brains than those who stopped. Their memory was sharper, and crucial brain structures like the putamen hadn’t shrunk as expected with age.
These results point to the power of cognitive reserve—the brain’s ability to compensate for aging or damage. And music may be a particularly effective way to build it.
So whether you’re strumming a guitar, playing piano, or learning the violin for the first time—your brain might just thank you.
🎵 It’s never too late to tune your brain.
📄 RESEARCH PAPERS
📌 Xueyan Wang et al, "Never too late to start musical instrument training: Effects on working memory and subcortical preservation in healthy older adults across 4 years." Imaging Neuroscience (2025)
📌 Lei Zhang et al, "Long-term musical training can protect against age-related upregulation of neural activity in speech-in-noise perception", PLOS Biology (2025)
20/08/2025
Congratulations to Anneliese Knight for her Third Prize - Piano Solo Novice -
11 years and under, at the Yarram Eisteddfod held last weekend.
Well done! 🤩🌟🎹
