Based on my belief that words alone achieve nothing if not accompanied by deeds, I use every occasion to brainwash our offspring with good music. Because when you have music in your heart, nothing else matters. I lock them in the car on our way to school or isolate them in the kitchen during cooking, and I turn up the volume for some ancient hits, pretending to be blind for the avalanche of eye rolls that usually follows.
Now, the kids just have to know that there was a time when not all singers shrieked with incredibly tiny voices on the radio and not all music used to be offensively digital and false. Let’s take Metallica’s song “Nothing Else Matters” (1992) for example – one of the pieces I have listened to more than 1000 times in my life, mostly between the age of 16 and 18. There is just something about this song that makes people with hearts feel things. Maybe the guitars, maybe the deep masculine voice, who knows.
As I grew up with music, I know from personal experience how important it is for body and soul. We played music to both our babies from the very first weeks in the womb. Their early infancy routine included sleeping in a cool and calm room, to the strains of quiet classical music. The complexity of music (especially classical) works wonders for the human heart and for the human brain. Here is why:
– Music has been scientifically proven to have a powerful effect on the brain. Many studies have shown that music stimulates more parts of the brain than any other human function and has healing potential.
– Music improves memory, evokes positive emotion, reduces stress by lowering cortisol levels, relieves pain.
– Singing and listening to music is vital for cognitive and motor skills, spatial-temporal learning and neurogenesis, which is the brain’s ability to produce neurons.
– Music is beneficial for babies and enhances their prenatal development and wellbeing. Babies are born with billions of brain cells which form connections with other neurons during the early stage of life, becoming stronger if fired regularly.
– Children who grow up listening to music develop neuron pathways which later affect the way they think. Listening to classical music improves the spatial reasoning, and playing an instrument has a long-lasting effect on certain intellectual skills.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. – Plato
