Music Makes You Better at Maths

Christina Sng for Maths@Singapore

It has been well known for a long time now that music makes you better at math. Einstein himself used to play music when he was stuck on a mathematical problem:

“By concentrating on the problem at hand (left brain) while playing the piano or violin (right brain), he was able to strengthen the communication between the two hemispheres of his brain and increase brainpower.”

More recently, it has been shown through research that listening to music can improve a student’s cognition and ability to learn math skills. 

One 2012 study even demonstrated that listening to music during a math test can improve performance by 40 percent. That’s a substantial increase!

And that is for listening to music. What more if one decides to perform music, a practice shown to vastly increase one’s math ability. 

Playing music improves math skills because, truly, all music is math: “It’s about time signatures, beats per minute, and formulaic progressions. Performing music, therefore, reinforces parts of the brain used when doing math.”

Studies demonstrate that students who play musical instruments can complete complex mathematical problems better than peers who do not play musical instruments.

It’s clear that there is no better time than now to start learning an instrument, or at least, start practicing math with music in the background to level up those math skills.

Read more about this incredible topic at https://www.brainbalancecenters.com/blog/correlation-between-math-and-music-ability

Thanks to Wes Hicks @sickhews for making this photo available freely on Unsplash