The Piano Music By Claude Debussy - An Avenue for Enhanced Child Development

If you've never considered piano lessons for your child, you may be interested to learn that a number of studies have confirmed that young children who participate in piano lessons show dramatic improvements in coordination and concentration. Not only that, but piano lessons can also translate into better performance in the classroom. Children who take piano lessons often have higher reading scores and better memory. Not only that, the kids who are involved in piano as an extracurricular activity exhibit higher confidence levels. Not long ago, a study from the University of California at Irvine revealed that children who are three and four years old and receive a weekly piano lesson for a period of 365 days exhibit dramatic improvement in puzzle solving skills. In fact, this improvement was so dramatic that the children scored 34 percent higher than the groups of children who took singing lessons, computer training, or received no additional teaching at all. Many people wonder why this is... the fact of the matter is that written music is a series of patterns and relationships, and children who learn music are also learning to recognize patterns and relationships between notes. According to one neurologist, a child learning to play piano is like a person learning to play chess. Children have to see ahead of their current position in order to be successful. Theoretically, this fact plays into a rewiring of neural circuits. During early brain development, children develop locales in the sensory cortex dedicated to specific tasks. Music, and piano in specific, expands all sensory cortexes, thereby improving a child's ability to do just about anything. Interestingly enough, not all piano music is created equally. It has been indicated that some music expounds on mental processes more effectively than others. Beloved French composer Claude Debussy is renowned for his pieces, not least his piece "Clair de Lune" which is one of the most famous piano pieces ever written. One of the things that make Claude Debussy's piano music so unique is the fact that he was considered a leader in the field of Impressionist music. Oddly enough, he was disapproving of the title "Impressionist." Perhaps one of the reasons that impressionistic music, and Debussy's music in particular, is the fact that it was renowned for its sensory components. His music never formed around a single pitch or a single key and instead spanned a vast array. Despite the fact that he seemed so overtly concerned with tone, color, and symbolism -- some of his greatest achievements seem to be organized around mathematical models and sequences – which could be another reason that Debussy compositions are so beneficial for children. Debussy's compositions incorporate creativity and logic at the same time. While he was inspired by symbolism, and his pieces seem to reflect the turmoil going on in his own life, he was never without control and precision in his composition. For parents who truly want to give their children an advantage in education, athletics, and mental development, the incorporation of Claude Debussy's compositions into a weekly piano lesson could be just the answer.