Ear training doesn’t have to start when you are in elementary school or college. Music activities like ear training benefit you no matter what your age, from eight months to eighty.

This article provides useful information for:

• Older adults who want to discover the benefits of music
• Music students and health professionals interested in creative ways of working with the geriatric population, and
• Family members who want to use music to communicate with elderly loved ones in their lives.

So, what are some ways that ear training and music help older adults? Does musical training increase mental capacity and overall quality of life? Can music increase happiness?

1. Music therapy techniques, such as listening to live music, significantly increase the quality of life in elderly patients. Benefits included more restful sleep and a need for less medication. [1][4]
2. Musical activities increase communication in patients with dementia and reduce overall anxiety. Activities like singing and listening to music lightens mood and help elderly patients suffering from dementia self-express. [2]
3. Exercising to music can help older adults maintain balance and reduce falls. In fact, exercising to music yields better results than similar exercises performed without music. [3]
4. Studies suggest that leisurely enjoyment of music increases psychological well-being in the elderly, allows for self-expression, and can “facilitate successful aging.” [5]
5. Even musical interactive video games like Nintendo’s Wii Music can benefit the overall health of the elderly in long term nursing home facilities by increasing balance and reducing falls. [6]

Geriatric music therapists have discovered that Click to read the rest…

Series Information

This is part 13 of 17 in the Music & Life series.

Around this time last week we held the EasyEarTraining.com launch party, upstairs at the Union Chapel in London. The Union Chapel is one of the most incredible music venues in London – a beautiful old church with fantastic acoustics – so there couldn’t be a better place to launch a new site dedicated to helping musicians reach new heights!

We had guests from across the musical spectrum – Music lovers, hobbyist musicians, professional musicians (like the wonderful Annalie Wilson; if you haven’t heard her album, go listen now), Gilbert & Sullivan fans, experts in digital music and ground-breaking audio technologies, backstage concert crew, audio software developers, music-loving journalists, and primary school teachers – all gathered together to learn more about ear training, and how new technology can help make developing your ear easy and fun. It was fascinating to hear different people’s thoughts on ear training, and learn about their own experiences in developing their musical ear.

Click to read the rest…

Make no mistake: Wii Music is a lot of fun. Where else can you get together with your friends and play “Sukiyaki” on steel drums and sitar, or create a full orchestral jam session in space? Wii Music offers so many nuances of play that small children can play with no chance of failure, yet it can be adapted to create highly competitive opportunities for musicians to play.

What is Wii Music?

Essentially, players of Wii Music play music as Wii characters. Using the Wii remote controls, you choose instruments to play, using movements rather like those required in playing the musical instruments in the physical world. Each instrument has its own nature in Wii Music, just like in the real world, and particular combinations of buttons and movements give you chords or single notes, tremolo or arpeggios, crescendos or muted sounds. Add the Wii balance board for full drum set action.

As you continue to play, you unlock more instruments and more tunes, working up to a selection of over 60 different instruments from around the world Click to read the rest…