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Five Great Reasons Children Should Take Piano Lessons in Kansas City

Sep 18, 2014

With three locations around the area, Meyer Music gives thousands of piano lessons in Kansas City every week. Generally speaking, our piano students begin learning to play piano for one of two reasons. Their parents encourage them to learn or the child has a personal interest and asked to take some lessons.

Either way, when children enroll in piano lessons, what they learn impacts far more than their musical talent. The skills acquired learning to play piano carries over into their school performance and adult lives.

1. Taking piano lessons help children excel in school

Study after study reveals that children who take piano lessons perform better in school. Music lessons are proven to increase standard and spatial cognitive development test scores when it comes to science and math testing.

Students who take piano lessons, compared to those who don’t, score higher (up to 35%) on science and math tests because learning piano and math require increasing understanding of ratios and fractions. If you think you have a budding scientist, mathematician or engineer on your hands or a child who struggles in science and math class, enrolling him or her in piano lessons supports their learning path.

2. Piano lessons boost a child’s self-confidence

Learning to play the piano is fun and rewarding, but learning to play any instrument doesn’t come easy. Nothing worth doing ever is, right?

Taking these lessons is hard work and improvement takes commitment and dedication. Every note, every new melody learned boosts a piano student’s self-esteem. Just look at a child’s face and the audience’s applause, especially the parents, at the end of a piano recital. There is no greater sense of pride than when a student finishes playing piano at a recital.

Piano lessons are constant reinforcement that you can master anything life throws at you with enough practice and patience.  In today’s Internet connected world, we’re used to receiving immediate gratification. Learning to play piano helps students cope better when they’re dealing with other issues that might leave them feeling discouraged or frustrated when something doesn’t come as quickly as they’d like.

3. Piano lessons improve a student’s physical coordination

These types of interactive lessons improve a child’s dexterity, especially hand-eye coordination since the hands and fingers must work independently. As lessons progress, even the foot becomes involved when the piano pedals are introduced. Since the time your child born, you’ve been supporting their fine motor skills. While he or she outgrew blocks and such toys, playing piano is an activity that will continue to hone coordination throughout a lifetime.

4. Learning to play piano increases a child’s ability to focus and concentrate

Reading sheet music requires mental concentration and creativity to translate both notes and musical rhythm. That translation is simultaneously interpreted by playing keys on the piano. Critical thinking skills are constantly being reinforced as the brain quickly interprets and tells the hands and feet how to respond by playing the right notes at the appropriate timing. In other words, reading music and playing it, makes the brain think on its feet, which conditions it to respond the same way in other situations outside of piano lessons and practicing.

5. Taking piano lessons now promotes musical exploration and open-mindedness for a lifetime

Even if your child never plays a note again after they quit taking piano lessons, your time and money is well spent. Hopefully, playing piano is something a child will continue through adulthood, but if it doesn’t, the exposure to different music genres will stay with him or her.

Students who take lessons are more likely to explore types of music outside of their comfort zone. Mozart can live harmoniously on a playlist alongside Taylor Swift and Daft Punk.

Should they decide to pick up another instrument somewhere along the way, the skills they learned taking piano lessons would suit them well as piano skills transfer easily to new interests.

Parents and students who are interested in taking private piano lessons Blue Springs, Kansas City, Overland Park or the Northland should contact Meyer Music for more information. We have talented and well-qualified private piano teachers available at all Meyer Music locations. The Meyer Music closest to you has specific information regarding teachers and their availability for scheduling private piano lessons.