Unlocking the Power of the Mind

Disclaimer: I am NOT a psychologist or psychiatrist. While I did major in psychology in college, I did not go through the necessary steps to make it a career. What follows is simply an opinion, albeit maybe a more educated one.

To learn how to play piano is to unlock the full potential of the mind. Learning music in general is always a good way to expand one's mind and exercise the ol' grey matter. However, unlike most instruments that play either single notes at a time (not knocking those instruments from their pedestals, mind you), pianos combine notes and chords to play both harmony and melody in ways that cause us to have to make each side of our brains operate independently from each other... at least at first. It's known as hand independence. One hand is keeping a rhythm with chord progressions while the other is playing out a melody. Two hands doing two separate things and seemingly at war with each other... two sides of the brain operating differently than each other.

I say "at first" for a reason. When learning a song, it gets difficult to get your hands to do these two separate things. The brain loves efficiency and tries to get both hands doing the same thing as much as possible. However, once the song gets practiced enough along with the hand independence, you start to realize that both sides of your brain have figured out the secret to it all: It's not about your hands doing two separate things, it's about your hands doing one thing... creating a song. Suddenly the mind starts allowing your hands to function the way they need to in order to achieve this goal.

Over time, after many songs learned and much hand independence achieved, the brain starts to change the way it thinks, not just with piano, but with other facets of life. We start to see things more as a whole than individually. Not just paying attention to nuances within problems, people, situations, and personalities, but what those nuances all equal on the whole. I'm not saying that non-piano players are not capable of this. There are plenty who do and there are a myriad of ways to get the brain to think this way. But what way can be more beautiful, creative, and rewarding than learning to play a piano?