Are There Any Downsides to Learning an Instrument?

On the 12th of December, around 9pm, the mother of a chinese middle schooler received a call saying her daughter had been accepted to the conservatorium high school of Sydney. The entry auditions for the music school had been very competitive and her daughter was thrilled to have gotten in.The conservatorium high school of Sydney is an australian selective school and like most selective schools, tests are required to be accepted. One being the audition and the other being the WISC IQ test. This reporter was startled to find the well known music school was also in 15th place for the HSC (high school certificate) results the previous year, a surprisingly good achievement for a school not very academically focussed.

Does this show the learning an instrument develops the brain as well? A better questions is, if learning an instrument is only beneficial for the brain why doesn’t everyone do it?

Research shows that in a study in 1993, college students got better results on a spatial reasoning test after listening to mozart, although the reason unknown. Nowadays, this result doesn’t really stand up to scientific scrutiny. Nevertheless more and more schools both private and public schools are including music programs in their schools. New research shows that learning a music instrument from a young age improves reading skills, logical and mathematical reasoning, spatial reasoning, self motivation etc. According to a father to the middle schooler “Learning to play an instrument for a long time and well takes diligence and loads of self motivation. After a certain point most people quit, but those who continue are likelier to succeed later on because of self motivation and being hard working in general.”

According the the stereotype, Asians are smart and exceptional at academics and music.  Even though this is a stereotype, it is somewhat true but not because asians are asians.

The actual reason comes embedded into their culture. As written Amy Chua’s article “Why chinese mothers are superior”, ‘In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job.".

According to her book “The hymn of the Tiger Mother”, her two daughters were not allowed to have a sleepover, have a playdate, be in a school play, play anything other the violin or piano, not play the violin or piano, get anything less than an A etc. Most of these typical “rules” make it quite hard for her daughters to interact with people socially as studying and playing an instrument to a high level requires a lot of time. Having rules like not being able to have a playdate or a sleepover prevents getting to know fellow students well. Another thing is many of the suicides in China, Hong kong, Singapore and other Asian countries have been caused by academic pressure. The University of Nottingham study of “The mental health support needs of international students (with particular reference to Chinese and Malaysian students)” shows that Chinese and Malaysian students make up the majority of the depressed students and in Yale university, 45% of Asian students had depression symptoms and another 27% suffered from anxiety.

This data proves being extremely competitive and high performing in academics does have problems. Likewise, if one were in a community where everyone participated and competed in high performance music, around the same amount of social pressure would be applied.


All in all, Music is still beneficial for the brain as is learning instruments, but excessive practice can lead to empty social lives, anxiety and possible depression. Next time parents, check if your child is simply whining about not wanting to practice, or expressing hate. It may be expressed in similar words, but the difference can mean a happy child or a miserable one.

Written by Jasmine

What Are Weight Losing Companies Lying To You About?

It was a typical lunch. Girls and guys flocked the tent plaza socializing and chatting eagerly, the established cliques in their own territory, and other groups of friends floating in their respective packs. One such group sat down at an overcrowded table, with their lunch, and were chatting enthusiastically. They talked about everything and nothing, trivial facts about celebrities, the newest songs and maybe gossip about their fellow classmates. Soon, after many topics had come and gone, came up the topic of fat. With that topic came the “competition” to see who was fattest, the current winner complimenting her friends on their slimness, all the while saying “I really should go on a diet since I’m so fat. Do you know how heavy I am!”

Somehow along the way, people have started interpreting the word “heavy” with the word “fat”, even though fat is only a quarter of the weight of muscle. Another thing is seeing fat as a bad thing. Words like “bulky” or “fat” or “heavy” are used as insults, and some people are embarrassed to announce their weight in fear of judgement, even from a young age. In the renaissance period as well as the cultural revolution in China, being fat or a bit pudgy was seen as a good thing since it meant you had enough to eat. It seems being fat was only seen as a bad thing in countries and time periods where food was in abundance, and not when food was scarce.

Now when there’s food in abundance in some countries, people can afford to do things like dieting, something completely against our natural instinct. They do this to get “slim” or “fit” , even though it’s not healthy. An example is the “calorie diet”. People using this dieting method count the amount of calories they eat to avoid “getting fat”. One kind of product being sold to “aid” people taking this diet are called “100 calorie packs”. Basically, these are snack packs that only contain 100 calories to make counting calories easier. The companies actually aren’t lying when they say it’s 100 calories, the actual problem is the content of the bags.

In order for companies to make snacks that taste just as good as normal snacks, but only 100 calories, they revert to artificial chemicals and additives. Your body can process natural foods, without chemicals easily, but food with man made chemicals are hard for your body to process. Since your body cannot break down the chemicals, it sends it to your liver. Eating too many chemical filled artificial foods can put too much pressure on your liver, which isn’t good for your health. Over dieting can also lead to eating disorders such as Anorexia and Bulimia.

Anorexia is when you purposely starve yourself. Some causes are depression and the fear of becoming fat, and this can cause your stomach to shrink be able to take less food. And if the Anorexia is severe, you may have to be hospitalised to receive nutrients through a tube that goes straight into your bloodstream so your main organs can continue to function.

Bulimia is the kind of the opposite. It is when you overeat or binge, and then vomit everything out. This is not good as it hurts your body to regurgitate things often. Both of these eating disorders can be a side effect of dieting and can have long term effects on your body.

Some people who are aware of this, turn to exercising. Exercising in general is a good thing, however many people get confused with again, the word “fat” and the word “heavy”. Although it’s true that many people with huge excess amounts of fat tend to be heavy as well, it does not mean that fat itself is heavy. Going back to the fact mentioned before, that muscle is 4 times heavier than fat, people are unaware of the fact that exercise will make you heavier.

If your goal is to get fit, stronger, or less fat, exercise could be a good thing. However if weight loss is your goal, then exercising is only going to build muscle which is again, a lot heavier than fat. Muscle also like fat, takes up space. So if your goal was to fit a smaller size, exercising may only do more damage than good as you build muscle. Many people unknowingly enter gyms and “slimming” class, with exercise instructors encouraging a gym membership or other like things so you can “get slim” or “lose fat”.

Overall, it’s pretty hard for people to be slim, fit, or a “good size” with so many tricks of the trade unbeknownst to the common people , so it may be better for people to just stick with being healthy!

Written by Jasmine

Are Parents Pushing Kids Too Hard?

On Monday the 8th of September , an eighth grader was seen in the UWCSEA East karate dojo, After school. He was seen talking to Shihan, the head instructor about joining the activity. The 8th grader , was new to martial arts , whereas his older brother had joined the dojo 4 years prior. As this reporter noted when watching the class, the difference of four years of practice was huge. Even though the older sibling had only been doing this martial art for four years, he had attended practices multiple times a week and went to most of the sparring tournaments and gradings.

Meanwhile, the younger sibling was struggling through the vigorous stretching exercises and warm ups, and evidently unused to and uncomfortable with his surroundings. In other words, out of his element. His stance is off and his movements uncertain, always keeping one eye on the instructor and one eye on his older brother. His older brother on the other hand was completely in his element. The older sibling runs through the exercises with confidence, sometimes getting called on by the teacher to count and lead the class, sometimes used as a demonstration example.

As a chinese saying goes “ Practice for 10 years, perform for 10 seconds”. It means you may have to practice many years to become good at something, and the brothers are a great example of the effects of hard practice. Research shows that it takes approximately 10 years to become an “expert” at something. Many people take this to heart, especially parents. As statistics show, many asian families enroll their children into extra curricular activities at an early age and important school subjects such as math, science and english.

Music in particular is a common one. Research shows that studying an instrument helps develop children. Learning to play an instrument requires hand eye coordination, determination and diligence, all good traits to have. But when is enough? Surely there is a limit on how hard you can push a child before their spirit breaks? The true dilemma is how hard to push children. Is it a waste to spend the first few years of a childs life on fun and play, instead of enrolling them in several activities in preparation of school? Or is it more of a waste to let the child grow up without carefree memories of toddlerhood and grow up a smart successful person? Is it right to deprive a young child of happiness? Many parents ponder this, and in this day and age, this could mean the difference between a happy childhood and a depressed one.

Written by Jasmine