Are Guitarists Smart? | Uncover the Evidence
Yes, guitarists are indeed smart! Are you aware that playing the guitar can immensely boost the sharpness of your mind?
Scientists have established that playing guitar can increase the activity and volume of the brain’s corpus callosum (which is the wide band of nerve fibers that connect the two brain hemispheres). This creates a more stable route for messages to move faster and at more diverse rates. That is why guitarists have a greater ability to solve problems faster, more effectively, and creatively.
If you doubt the numerous mental benefits that a guitar can give you, read on and get better insight!
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Guitar Players Are Multi Skilled
When you play guitar, activity increases in the Corpus Callosum, the area of the brain that links your rational left brain with your creative right brain. It means that guitarists aren’t just right-brained, creative types. They use both our creative right brain and the thinking “left brain” simultaneously. Learning the guitar essentially rewires your brain over time, giving you faster access to the thinking left brain area.
As a result, other cognitive functions that improve include:
- Problem-solving
- Memory
- Intuition
- Motor coordination
Playing the guitar needs high levels of improvisation, creativity, intuition, better memory, accurate hand-eye coordination, and countless other brain functions. Anyone who has tried learning the guitar knows just how difficult it can be; even professional players sometimes struggle. As per scientific studies, all guitar players’ brains share special synchronization abilities. These enable them to “sync” their brains, read each other’s minds while playing and even anticipate what will happen next. This can be attributed to greater brain chemistry and neural networks and it explains why guitar band members normally operate so smoothly as a single functioning unit.
Guitar Players are Very Intuitive!
Another common attribute of guitar players is that they are more intuitive than many other people and have excellent improvisational skills. Therefore, a guitarist can easily shift from conscious to unconscious thoughts. They can switch to the more creative and less practical mode of thinking without any difficulty.
It seems obvious that musicians are more artistic, right-brained people, but these studies show just how special guitar players are in particular. According to a Vanderbilt study, guitar players are better than other musicians at understanding a song via observation or listening than just reading the sheet music.
Their Creativity Is Astonishing.
Their creativity helps them to easily learn to play the guitar. This high creativity level can be attributed to their habit of listening to a diverse collection of music. In addition, it will help the guitarists become better at memorizing notes and improvising.
As with the other attributes, creativity is something you can learn, but it helps to already be a creative person. One of the best things about a guitar is that it is an instrument you can use in very many ways. Therefore, having high creativity allows you to easily evolve into a master guitarist whether playing actual songs or a video game guitar cover.
Other areas which greatly benefit guitar players and make them even smarter!
Concentration
Practicing the guitar can often enhance your attention span and boost your concentration massively. You need to place a lot of focus and effort into becoming a renowned guitarist. Therefore, by incorporating good focusing abilities into your daily guitar-playing routines, your mind embraces this as a “normality,” and you can concentrate much better in all your daily activities. If you are a pro guitarist, you should consider buying a pocket guitar to keep practicing in your spare time or while traveling.
Memory
Research has shown that guitar playing improves the brain’s grey matter. As a result, the guitar player gets a massive memory power boost. Since a guitarist is required to memorize patterns and chords from their guitar tab, memorizing them provides a guitarist with good practice for their brain to build greater memory capacity. Actually, learning to play instruments with greater skill is a memory-based affair. Therefore, guitarists heavily rely on memorizing chords, tunes, notes, etc., on helping them develop into amazing guitarists.
Guitarists usually have a greater capacity to develop long-term memory. This is because, over time, they develop greater muscle memory for riffs, songs, and chords. While some guitarists naturally have a good memory, it is possible that they develop better memory through regular practice. Think about the scenario where a guitarist is using video game tabs to memorize and play many songs. Here, an impressive level of memorization will help them play well.
The best part is that guitarists do not need to actively work on their memory because it is a natural development process that occurs the more often, they play their guitar. However, guitar plays are usually also very wary that their guitar skills can “vanish without frequent practice
The sharper memory of guitarists can also be attributed to their habit of practicing sight-reading. Sight-reading music helps them to test their memory skills. Their memory for chords, musical notes, and the right positions on the fretboard normally improves over time.
Good Listening Skills
A good ear for harmony and pitch will help you learn to play the guitar fast and effectively. Teaching yourself how to have a good ear is similar to the process of learning your guitar chords. Practicing being a good listener is crucial. You should listen closely to fellow guitarists or band players if you are part of a band. For example, listening keenly to how other guitarists experiment with rhythm and harmony helps guitarists develop greater musical sensibility. Then, a guitarist can help you cultivate a better ability to ingrain pitch and harmony into their performance. Knowing how your guitar playing fits in with the groove and harmony will allow you to play better at the right times.
Conclusion
Guitarists are indeed smart people. Some of the attributes that make them smart are creativity, a great memory, intuitiveness and great listening skills. There is no doubt that guitar helps to improve the brain abilities.
