music

I refuse to exercise without my iPod. Why? It makes the experience so much better/less miserable. And I’m sure many of you would agree.

The relationship between exercise and music is particularly interesting, as it draws from multiple disciplines: physiology, biomechanics, and neurology. And yet, scientists are unsure just how music affects your exercise routine.

In one test, British researchers had 12 male college students ride stationary bicycles while listening to music. They changed the tempo of the music slightly — first slower, then faster — but not significantly enough to be noticed. When the tempo was slower, the subjects biked slower; when it was faster, they biked faster. But oddly enough, nobody fund the workout any easier because of the tempo change. While the tempo improved the workout, nobody found the exercise any less discomforting.

Another study found that basketball players who performed poorly under pressure in games were much better at shooting free throws if they were listening to upbeat music. Clearly, music distracts athletes from themselves and everything around them.

Personally, I listen to my iPod at the gym because I’m tired of hearing my gym play the same three songs over and over. I GET IT, YOU LIKE LADY GAGA. NOW LET ME USE THE ELLIPTICAL IN PEACE.

Do you use listen to music when you exercise? How does it affect you?

From the New York Times. Photo by Ed Yourdon.

I’m sure we can all agree that getting your child to learn an instrument has benefits. It’s great for learning, future college applications, and to, you know, impress other parents. But new research—which actually sounds legit, considering how many big words and concepts go over my head—talks about the scientific benefits of studying music. In fact, it teaches how to learn better.

Engaging with music increases neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to adapt and change over the course of one’s life—and enables nervous system to provide “stable scaffolding of meaning patterns so important to learning.”

It also helps communication skills, not just with music, but in all aural forms, thanks to increased sound-to-meaning connections in the brain. And for kids with learning disorders, particularly those vulnerable to the effects of background noise, music training can strengthen those neural processes that affect their development, especially in children with dyslexia or have trouble hearing.

So there. Even more reasons for kids to learn music!

Do your kids play an instrument?

From Science Daily. Photo by Ernst Vikne.

Are you a mom whose looking to broaden your child’s music catalog with something other than Barney’s latest? Maybe you’ve had your fill of listening to Dora the Explorer and Baby Genius compilation CDs in the car. Is one more version of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” going to send you running? Here’s a list of my recommendations of children’s artists who make music parents can enjoy too.

Imagination Movers

Have you ever what would happen if the Beastie Boys or the Red Hot Chili Peppers took it down a notch and started making music for kids? Wonder no further, because you can get a taste of that alternate universe while listening to these Disney Channel darlings. Their infectious and hip alternative grooves caught my attention immediately.
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My husband is a blues man. He has played guitar and played the blues long before we were ever together. His music has remained an integral part of our lives together. And over this last summer it has become an integral part of our kids live as well. Almost every weekend this summer has been spent at festivals and restaurants where my husband has been playing.

So it should not have surprised me last weekend when my son decided he was now a part of the band.

We were getting ready to head to the central valley where my husband and the band were going to be playing the Modesto Blues Festival and my son decided he was going to bring his harmonica (a real one given to him by a friend of my husband’s a few years back). I did not think much of it since my kids regularly grab things to take us with us that end up collecting dust in the car. Not that day.
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All I know about Justin Bieber is that he is a singer and that tween girls across the country love him despite his awful haircut. And that this song is everywhere. So Kate at MomLogic wonders if her daughter’s love of Bieber is cause for concern.

“I put all that under being 15 and dreamy. But when my daughter looks at me across the dinner table and says, ‘I believe that Justin and I are destined to be together,’ that’s when I start to worry,” she writes. “I don’t know whether to play along and say that I don’t think famous guys make the best life partners, or to just smile because silence evades trouble.”

But Kate thinks back to when she was obsessed with Bruce Springsteen as a teen, a phase that she of course outgrew. So it’s likely that her daughter will outgrow Biebermania as well. (Although I’m kind of alarmed that someone would compare Justin Bieber to The Boss.)

Are your kids into Justin Bieber?

More at MomLogic.

Just in case you missed this last week, behold: a chubby Taiwanese boy out-Whitney Houstoning Whitney Houston. Seriously amazing. I’ve watched it 10 times. The magic starts at the 1:10 mark.

It seems like everyone who doesn’t play an instrument wishes they had learned at a young age, and even those who do play wish they had learned at a younger age. But it’s never too late to pick up an instrument. And according to neuroscientists, learning an instrument is always good for your brain.

With age, the “plasticity” that allows experience to mold the brain so easily declines. But it doesn’t disappear. At any age, learning a challenging new set of skills such as instrumental music is likely to return cognitive dividends, says Harvard University neurologist Gottfried Schlaug. And for adults, he added, the prospect of making music can be a far more effective motivator to practice than nagging parents are to younger musicians.

Hey, Eric Clapton didn’t join his first band until he was 17, and I would be content being one-tenth of the musician he is — just enough so I can play “Layla,” but not enough so I could write “Tears in Heaven.”

Full story at the Los Angeles Times. Photo by Paul McCord Sr.

“Mom, you rock” is a phrase mothers love to hear, and blogger Lindsay Maines, aka Rock and Roll Mama, wants you to know it’s a fitting one for moms everywhere.

“If there’s one thing I’d love for women to take away from my writing, it’s that they’re doing it right,” Lindsay said. “They don’t need to fit in a box to be great mothers, and they need to give themselves permission to cut loose every now and then… motherhood doesn’t need to be a woman’s sole identity.”
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