Instrumental Music is a fun and rewarding experience

Whether playing piano or playing a wind or percussion instrument, music can be a very rewarding experience for anyone.  The practice time put in coupled with the rehearsal and performance time for the ensemble or band usually pay off for each participant.  At the college level, being part of a music ensemble provides many fun and rewarding opportunities such as concert tours nationwide and abroad.  Learning to play an instrument is a talent that usually stays with you for the rest of your life.

Through the studying of instrumental music and playing in ensembles, students learn countless lifelong skills to help them develop into intelligent, creative leaders.  The cognitive abilities of the students grow and expand the longer they study music.  Through reading music, students learn a new language that is significantly more complex than any other written language.  They also improve their physical motor skills by honing their abilities at a piano or any variety of other instruments.  Students learn leadership, organization, dedication and teamwork.  They also develop an interactive awareness of what is occurring around them through ensemble playing.

From personal experience, music can be a medium that takes you away from everything else that is going on in your life and in the world.  In other words, it can become a stress-reliever of sorts.  Music allows you to escape to a care-free and creative world.

Springfield Public School Instrumental Music Director Stephen Seaberg shares responses from three of his concert band members regarding involvement in music programs in school and what music genres they enjoy:

See complete article in this week's issue of the Springfield Advance-Press.