Playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins | TEDEd

When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What’s going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians’ brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.


The connections between brain research and music have been ongoing for the past two decades, but there are actually a lot of different areas within the research, and it is easy to confuse them.

Firstly there is the area of music and the brain, which is about how we process music in our brains. Daniel Levitin wrote a great book called This is Your Brain on Music (daniellevitin.com) which is all about how we process music.

Then there is the area of music therapy and the brain, which is about how we can use music to assist people who have had brain injuries, physical trauma or have been born with a disability, to improve their physical and cognitive function.

More: ed.ted.com | Lesson: Anita Collins | Animation: Sharon Colman Graham