Many parents/adults know the feeling of relaxation while listening or making music. Hence the reason for singing the lullaby to the baby! The leap is short to overall health benefits of music. Brain researchers wax about mylenation formation - the glue of our nervous system. Brain circuitry development another much extolled byproduct of early music training. Today, while we shelter in place, we just feel the joy, and by extension, the health benefits. We teachers love the articles linking lifelong music study to overall positive immune system health - a new under-appreciated reason to persevere in daily music.
During a pandemic, we gather in to be safe and we manage our emotional and intellectual lives just as we did before; but now, with an acute appreciation for that which come from within instead of events and group activities which for now we cannot do. Music was always there, within. Whether just singing aloud, to the radio or a Sonos playlist - singing (humming, whistling) is a human innate soothing habit. As the pandemic rolled on, many people have pulled out their instruments from closets, dusted off their old keyboards, horns, guitars. One keyboard repair tech here in the Bay Area said, “It’s great to be helping people play again — specially now”
If you’re reading this, you may need no convincing that music up regulates, puts some swing in your step, or, when cooking, it just makes doing the dishes a party. And, by the way, you can learn how to dance, how to mourn, how to woo or party while you learn piano or any instrument - the array of genres in our repertoire— a cool polyphonic dance (Minuet) by Bach, a Farmers’ harvest march by Schumann and a bittersweet Little Flowers dance by Gurlitt; a surprise short spot of time defiant magic by Tcherepnin and Chopin. Twinkle twinkle little star? Don’t forget to catch the August Comet these next weeks.