02/22/2025
Few adults play musical instruments, and even fewer do so in a group, Caroline Mimbs Nyce wrote in 2024. What health benefits might they be giving up? https://theatln.tc/oglkQfzJ
“Kids receive plenty of music education, but as people get older, they fall out of practice. Many stop picking up their instrument,” Nyce writes. “This is unfortunate, in part because plenty of research shows that adults could benefit from playing music.”
Playing music helps build larger brain networks and new pathways. “Musicians tend to have better attention than nonmusicians,” Nyce continues. “Banging on a drum or tooting a horn can also relieve stress, reduce burnout, and help with anxiety and depression. For older people specifically, research has shown potential cognitive benefits along with a possible decrease in dementia risk.”
Adults may be skipping out in part because music education is associated with childhood and coursework. And after people grow out of music education in their childhood, they tend to think that music is a special talent, Nyce writes, not something that just anybody can learn.
“Of course, people are busy; they simply may not have the luxury of sitting down to study Bach once a week, much less the money to pay for an instrument or private lessons,” Nyce writes.
Playing music in groups has additional benefits, such as allowing adults to feel more trusting of and connected to one another, and to the world in general. But while it’s easy to go to a park or gym and pull together a game of pickup basketball, “piecing together people at the same skill level to play a concerto or even just jam in a garage is another matter.”
Nyce herself recently began to play the recorder. “I plan to keep learning,” she writes, “not because it strengthens my neuropathways per se (though I certainly don’t mind that), but because making music, even when it’s silly—perhaps especially when it’s silly—is just a whole lot of fun.” https://theatln.tc/oglkQfzJ
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