Top 7 Amazing Reasons Piano Lessons Make Students Smarter in 2025
Ever wondered if piano lessons make students smarter and do better in other school subjects? It’s hard to say that they don’t. There’s a variety of processes the brain goes through during piano practice that should aid school performance – in general or specifically. Here is a published list of benefits from learning just one foreign language – and piano is like learning two different languages at the same time!
Top Benefits
- Boosts brain power
- Improves memory
- Enhances the ability to multi-task
- Sharpens the mind
- Keeps the mind sharper for longer
- Enhances decision-making
- Improves performance in other academic areas
Learning the language of music means the brain must deal with new patterns and complexities – sometimes several at one time. Key learning skills are developed from this new thinking process of reading and playing music. This also expands memory because of the brain work-out!
Imaging tests with fMRI and PET scanners show that “playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout.” Activity all over the brain is greatly increased in an instrument-performer as opposed to a music-listener. Playing a musical instrument engages practically every area of the brain at once, especially the visual, auditory, and motor cortices, in intricate, interrelated, and astonishingly fast sequences. It increases the activity in the corpus callosum, the brain’s bridge between the two hemispheres. Solving nonmusical problems should come easier since the information travels more quickly, efficiently, and through more diverse routes. (1)
Reading and playing piano is a great example of multi-tasking, which is very demanding work for the brain. Being good at multi-tasking can reduce stress levels and help make you feel more “on top of” things.
There’s also the coordination that’s developed through eye-hand-mind reading and playing of music notation; the improvement of listening skills; the development of tenacity and discipline in order to practice regularly. All of this contributes to how piano lessons make students smarter by increasing problem-solving skills.
Reading music notation and going through the processes to actually play that written music on the piano (or other instrument) increases thinking skills. This increase creates benefits in higher scores on standardized tests in problem-solving tasks.
A Very Interesting Study about Music and Students
It seems piano lessons make students smarter, and they do better in other school subjects!
Peter Gouzouasis is a professor of music education at the University of British Columbia and senior author of the Journal of Educational Psychology study of over 110,000 Canadian students. He has been studying the effects of music education on academic achievement for over two decades and has found that highly engaged music students were one year ahead in their English, science, and math skills compared to peers who had not taken any music classes.
Gouzouasis “saw a predictive relationship between high music grades and high mathematics achievement — meaning students who received high grades in their music lessons tended to also do better in math.
Whether or not your student is part of an official study, it does seem apparent that music lessons, (piano especially because of its complexity of using two hands to read two different clefs) contribute to making students smarter in other ways!
Why I Created Piano Revolution
Teaching Beginners to Read Music
Personal Reflection by Leslie M. Young, author of Piano Revolution
Leveled Piano Instruction Books in Four Series
Why It Matters
The writing and proving of the Piano Revolution books has been a decades-long journey for me. The longer I used the method as a teacher, the more frequently I saw the lasting benefits for students of various ages. This approach truly teaches learners—proven with ages 5 to 65—how to actually read and play written music from the very first lesson. It’s not just about pressing keys. It’s about unlocking literacy in music and having independence.
Backstory: The Power of Instructional Design
In 1982 I observed a course at the University of North Texas that was about how Instructional Design principles can be used to teach anyone anything in a way that should practically guarantee successful learning. That one experience reshaped how I thought about teaching. It showed me that learning doesn’t have to be rote copying tied to hand positions and finger numbers—it can be logical, clear, and empowering. That’s exactly how Piano Revolution is structured – now.
I realized in the 1980s that just marking out most of the printed finger numbers in songs would not solve the root problem. Those songs were purposefully written in “hand positions” so that only certain notes would be read and certain piano keys played. A student has 10 fingers. A piano has 88 keys. Instant problem.
To alleviate this problem in the beginner’s first book, I searched for recognizable songs in the public domain that would fit my new “thinking process” strategy. This also meant new songs would have to be written to provide enough sequential progress for the student. There were years spent writing and rewriting.
Then something fantastic was created . . . the Internet! . . . and with it the capability for self-publishing books! New notation software – print on demand – no inventory – the book in your hand three days from ordering – amazing! This new “thinking process” method could be in the hands of teachers, students, and parents – all over the world.
The Thinking Process: Step-by-Step
The beginner learns each hand’s staff separately. This makes sense because each staff represents different portions of the piano keyboard—so that the lines and spaces of each staff have different letter names. After the spaces are gradually learned (and the location of their piano keys), the spaces are used to name and locate the line letter names and key locations, in a gradual and logical sequence.
This “thinking process” that the student acquires within a short time of repeated practice is exciting for a teacher to see in action and self-motivating for the students because they can self-correct any errors. I’ve had a student say, “I can figure this out myself, so why do I need a teacher?” That was very satisfying for me to hear!
Though the process can be used by anyone and everyone, the only real hindrances are a low level of maturity in young children and a lack of sufficient practice time for most everyone. To overcome these issues, an uninterrupted nearly-daily session of about 10 minutes of practice (that follows the guidelines) is all that is required for substantial and continued progression. Any parent knows that an immature child can use up 10 minutes making excuses not to be involved. Close personal supervision usually prevents wasted time for young students.
In some cases it takes a bit of time to discover that piano is not the instrument of choice. Some instruments use the same clefs as the piano, and if so, then the “thinking process” of Piano Revolution would be essential in learning to actually read the music for a different instrument. Greatest satisfaction results from learning to play the most preferred instrument, and that may take some time to determine since there are many choices.
The Method that Empowers Students to Teach Themselves
The evolution of structured teaching to read written music and perform it has spanned about 150 years. The Bertini Pianoforte Method of the 1880s was more like an encyclopedia of everything piano rather than a graduated method for beginners to learn to read and play – but it was a start. In the years after Bertini’s book appeared, other method books were published, including Beginners’ Book of the Oxford Piano Course in 1928 and John Thompson’s Modern Course for the Piano in 1942.
There are certainly more that followed, but modern piano method books seem to be organized in the same general way as that of the 1880s: Systematically gathering beginner concepts together, leading to more difficult, and then the even more difficult – this IS the methodology.
It would take a determined effort for a professional teacher to make a thorough comparison of the books available today. To break away from the popular methods that are generally accepted – and instead consider the logical benefits of Piano Revolution – this may seem revolutionary! A “thinking process” instead of rote-copy hand positions . . .
Piano Revolution gives students independence. It teaches them not just to play by rote-copying, but to understand. Not just to perform, but to logically think.
Here’s a fun and short cartoon video that
shows the Thinking Process used in
Piano Revolution books:
What Would the First Lesson for a Young Student Look Like?
What Would the First Lesson for a 6 to Teen Look Like (video)?
View sample pages of all the books for students
ages 6 to teen:
View sample pages of all the books for students
4 to 5 years old:
View sample pages of all the books for older
teens and adults:
View the books on Amazon:
Any and all comments are welcome about the topics that are published. I will try to accommodate as many as possible in future articles – and thank you for your input!
What Would the First Lesson for a Young Student Look Like?
What Would the First Lesson for a 6 to Teen Look Like (video)?
View sample pages of all the books for students
ages 6 to teen:
View sample pages of all the books for students
4 to 5 years old:
View sample pages of all the books for older
teens and adults:
View the books on Amazon:
About the Author, Composer, Illustrator,
Educator, and Eternal Optimist
Leslie Young is the author, composer, and illustrator of the PIANO Revolution method books (originally titled as the Revolutionary Piano Method). She co-founded a K-12th grade charter school in Texas and has been a piano teacher for over 40 years. She has had experience teaching a variety of students tackling piano for the first time or as returning students.
Young believes that “learning to play the piano is more about diligence and perseverance” – but would add that just as critical to success is the method that is used, the pattern of critical thinking, and the instructional principles that promote immediate success.
She states: “In teaching piano to students of varying ages, what also varies is a commitment of time and the amount of dedication. Children of younger ages may do very well with a parent as teacher; others may need someone who is not family to instruct them. Some older children and adults prefer to make progress on their own, and this method is designed to act as a meticulous guide through new material. Some adults and teens insist on professional teachers, which also encourages continuity.
Because these books are self-explanatory, a novice or experienced professional teacher will have no trouble using the PIANO Revolution method with students. It’s an easy and effective way to learn piano.”
