Music lessons help memory

` Music lessons help memory Music lessons improve children s memories and may give them an advantage in school, say scientists. Hours spent practising piano scales develop the left side of the brain, where both musical ability and memory connected... More

` Music lessons help memory Music lessons improve children s memories and may give them an advantage in school, say scientists. Hours spent practising piano scales develop the left side of the brain, where both musical ability and memory connected with words are chiefly centred. Scientists think learning music acts as a kind of cross-training which, as a side-effect, boosts verbal memory skills. Psychologists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong initially studied 90 boys aged between six and 15. Half were members of the school orchestra and had been taught to play classical music for up to five years. The other 45 had no musical training. All the children were tested to see how many words they could recall from lists. They were also given a visual memory test. The scientists, led by Dr Agnes Chan, found that boys who took music lessons recalled Memory: music lessons can boost children s mental capabilities significantly more words than nonmusical stud Less