> "In a study published in February in the journal Neurological Research,
> scientists report how spatial-temporal reasoning in 3- and 4-year-olds
> was affected by weekly piano lessons
What
> explains the effect? Physicist Gordon Shaw of the University of
> California, Irvine, suspects that in playing the piano, "you are seeing
> tho patterns work in space and time." When sequential finger and key
> patterns make melodies, neural circuits that connect positions (keys) to
> sounds in space and time (the melody) are strengthened. "Music training
> produces long-term modifications in neural circuitry," says Shaw. What
> scientists do not know is whether the effects of early music training
> endure - whether the preschoolers will be math wizards in high school."
Thanks for the memory jog. It was Mr. Shaw in an interview on an American
station that we had watched. By the by...our 8-year-old grandaughter has
been giving recitals for two years, and she IS a math wizard....so is her
mother and our youngest son, both of whom play the piano. We definitely
live in interesting times.
ard