Most people begin learning the violin because of its gorgeous sound, the fact that it is just the coolest instrument, and the bragging rights that come from being able to say, “oh yeah, I’m a violinist.” Maybe I’m biased.
In all seriousness, people think about picking up an instrument because it sounds really beautiful, and because they think playing it would be fun. Those are absolutely fantastic reasons to learn an instrument! What people may not know are the other huge benefits to learning an instrument. As a lifelong student of the violin, I’ll be talking about some of the more unexpected things I learned, beyond the ability to play such a gorgeous instrument. Hopefully, reading these will convince you to start lessons if you’re on the fence, or inspire you to continue taking lessons.
A conversation topic that’s been very popular over the last few years has been the negative effects of smartphones and social media on our mental health. Not only is social media able to damage self-esteem, but having a supercomputer in our back pocket has screwed up our collective attention spans and abilities to be present IRL. You watch a video or read about productivity, and inevitably, the speaker will bring up how distracting our phones are, and how easy it is to waste time on them. Social media and phone addiction are some of the most common topics to bring up in mental health circles, productivity discussions, high schools and colleges. Just look at all these videos!
I’m not contesting at all that we as a society are addicted to our smartphones and the internet, and that this addiction is impacting our quality of life. 100% agree there. I have watched peers (myself included) get together and instead of talking to each other, spend most of the social outing on their phones rather than being present to the group. I have watched my attention span and patience dwindle in direct correlation to being more reliant on my phone. At this point, asserting that the internet and the possession of smartphones cause decreased presence, patience and attention is not a hot take.
Nothing is going to be as effective in fighting phone addiction as quitting or limiting the time you spend on it. If you thought this post was going to be a miracle post along the lines of “You can cure your phone addiction without having to quit your phone!”, I’m sorry. This is not that post.
But!
Did you know that learning an instrument can mitigate the effects of phone and social media addictions? Phone and social media addictions inhibit our ability to be present, diminish our patience and attention, and erode our ability to recover from distractions. Learning an instrument can help reduce those effects. In practice, rehearsal and performance we learn to 1. increase our attention and capacity to focus, 2. recover from distractions; 3. grow in patience while learning, and 4. increase our mindfulness and presence.
Attention span and deep focus
Music is an in-the-moment activity. It is unique because it one of the few art forms that absolutely requires the passage of time for it to exist and for people to experience it. Without time, you can’t have music. It is the only art form that utilizes the manipulation of sound waves over time to evoke an emotional response, create an image, or tell a story. So, not only is the passage of time necessary for the unfolding of a piece of musical literature, but actually creating that music goes a step further.
When we play music, we are both focusing on creating sound and assessing the sound we’re making. That means you are doing 4 things somewhat simultaneously: 1. Executing on your instrument, 2. Listening to the sound you’re making, 3. Assessing what you’re doing for accuracy, groove, melody, harmonization, etc. and 4. adjusting accordingly. You can definitely practice on autopilot, but if you’re really engaged with the activity, it requires 110% of your attention.
Now take that depth of attention and apply it over a period of practice time – 30 minutes, an hour, two hours. That’s a lot of time that you’re spending not just learning an instrument, but training your attention, mindfulness and focus.
“Playing the violin – which, like many instruments, requires the right hand to do something different than the left— uses the peripheral nervous system, which controls movement of your fingers, as well as gross and fine motor skills. The brain’s executive function – which plans and makes decisions – comes into play as a musician plays one part but keeps focus on what’s coming next. Couple that with the total sensory input – visual, auditory, emotional and all at the same time – and it becomes a total “workout” for the brain. ”
— Penn Medicine
Distraction recovery
Engaged practice develops your attention span into longer and longer periods of time, and also helps you practice redirecting your focus after encountering a distraction. For example, say you’re deep into a section of your practice when your phone chirps. Now you have the opportunity to acknowledge the distraction, mentally (or physically!) place it to the side to deal with it later, and bring your focus back to your practice. This strengthening of willpower is a critical skill for students, who need to learn to do deep work to succeed in high school, college and beyond.
Having a hobby that you enjoy doing puts you in the flow state, a state of being completely present to and immersed in what you are doing. This contentment to “be” or simply “do” helps us become more process-oriented rather than goal-oriented. You are focusing on the act of creating something, not the outcome of creation (although it is sometimes nice to listen to a well-played passage and think, “wow, I did that!”). The flow state also strengthens your growth mindset and increases patience.
While enjoying your hobby, you are practicing engaging with your task or environment distraction-free. This strengthens those neural pathways that smartphone addiction can weaken.
Distractions may be mildly inconvenient in a practice session, but during a performance, they’re downright terrifying. Students can practice recovering from distractions while being in a high-stress environment during musical performances. Extracurricular musical performances can function as training for academic tests, interviews, or presentations.
Patience
Learning an instrument requires a lot of patience. The violin has a high barrier to entry: it takes a lot of effort and learning to get to making a sound, let alone a beautiful sound. There’s also a lot of patience involved in the act of practice: you are painstakingly building up neural pathways for muscle memory, auditory memory and processing, and hand-eye coordination. There are no shortcuts to this. If anything teaches a student the value of incremental effort over a period of time, it’s learning an instrument!
Presence and mindfulness
Remember when we covered that music is an in-the-moment activity that trains our attention spans? It also trains us to be more present to ourselves and the world around us. Playing an instrument combines a passive activity, listening, with two active activities, creating sound and assessing: 1. the sound and 2. how we feel making the sound. The deep focus required to successfully do this demands that we be fully present to our activity, without judgement or overthinking.
Intuitive musicians (young or old) know that playing their instrument is a deeply physical, visceral experience. They remain deeply engaged with their bodies as they play, keeping themselves grounded. One musician friend described experiencing sounds deep in her chest and core while playing or listening. Deaf musicians can still make music through feeling the vibrations of the sound waves.
For those of us who have to work at developing this intuition, remaining alive to how your body feels as you play is an essential tool to learning how to play more naturally. Consciously remaining grounded in your body, even for half an hour of instrument practice, counteracts the time we spend mindlessly scrolling our phones in a semi- (or full!) dissociative state.
Can playing an instrument undo all the negative effects of phone addiction and social media? Obviously not, but our musical practice may be more helpful than we think at first glance. Picking up our instrument has the power to help us immensely as we strive to become more conscious, aware, patient human beings.
Sapega, S. (2017, January 30). Playing an Instrument: Better for Your Brain than Just Listening. Pennmedicine.org. Retrieved October 4, 2022, from https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2017/january/playing-an-instrument-better-for-your-brain-than-just-listening