Vance Music Studio

🤩🎄❄️The Christmas recital date is here! Parents and students, please check your calendars and grab a Christmas recital policy from the studio. Christmas recital policies are due August 17th, 2026.

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How many guitars do you need?

Are you looking for ways to engage with your student this summer? Check out our summer engagement tips!

For those that travel to the studio via 13th street, Minisa Bridge will be closed for repairs until September.

Don't forget: Minisa bridge closed this week for rehabilitation repairs including brick driving surface, lighting, structural concrete, and graffiti mitigation and repairs to the decorative concrete.

🚧 Prior to the start of the USD 2026-2027 school year, the bridge will be opened to pedestrian traffic only, with an anticipated opening to vehicular traffic in September. Electronic signs have been in place in the area!

Are you looking for ways to engage with your student this summer? Catch a musical, like 'Fiddler on the Roof', together this summer!

🤩📘🎵Are you looking for ways to engage with your student this summer? Travel to the library and choose a physical book on music with your student! You can even browse in advance on the Wichita Public Library website.

Article link in the comments...

Music lessons “grow” a child’s brain by physically altering its structure and accelerating the maturation of neural pathways, particularly those responsible for sound processing, motor control and communication between the brain’s hemispheres. These changes are a result of neuroplasticity - the brain’s ability to reorganize itself in response to intensive multisensory and motor demands.

To elaborate, researchers using MRI scans has shown that even as little as 15 months of musical training can lead to visible structural changes in a young child’s brain:

🧠Corpus Callosum: The bridge of nerve fibers connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain becomes larger and more robust. This enhances communication between different brain regions, improving overall coordination and problem-solving.

🧠Motor Cortex: Areas of the brain that control finger movements (the precentral gyrus) show greater relative size expansion, especially in children playing instruments like the piano or violin that require high manual dexterity.

🧠Auditory Cortex: Music training accelerates the development of the auditory pathway, helping the brain process sounds, pitches, and rhythms more accurately and efficiently.

The structural “growth” translates into several enhanced cognitive abilities, often referred to as “far transfer” skills. Because music and language share similar neural pathways, music lessons can speed up language acquisition, reading skills, and the ability to detect subtle differences in speech.

Learning to play an instrument is a “full body workout” for the brain that strengthens working memory (holding and manipulating information) and increases the attention span. The pattern recognition, counting, and understanding of fractions (rhythm/meter) involved in music are directly transferable to mathematical problem-solving. Music training also improves the brain’s ability to plan, organize and complete tasks.

These neural enhances are most profound when training begins during “sensitive periods” (typically before age 7), but they can provide lifelong benefits.

PMID: 19279238

Best of luck to our student performing in the KSHSAA Regional Piano Festival today!