Lois Svard

Making music with brain waves

November 29, 2017

Imagine that you have been singing all your life. You’re not a professional, but you sing with the elementary school students in your fifth-grade class, you conduct a church choir, and you’re good. You have a nice voice, you can sing in tune and finding the right pitch is never a problem. Suddenly one day,…
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Executive functions: Why study music, part IIIa

November 14, 2017

It’s been a long time since my last post and this one is a continuation, so if you’re new to this blog, or if you don’t remember the previous post about the importance of learning a musical instrument for developing executive function skills, you may want to re-read it before continuing here. Briefly, the three…
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Executive functions: Why study music, part III

July 10, 2017

Most of us have more to do than time to do it. We juggle family and job responsibilities, friends, household management, social media, errands, plus a great deal more. And for those of us who are musicians, we’re always trying to find practice time at our instrument. How well we’re able to manage the…
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Music and math: Why study music, part II

April 12, 2017

Math teachers have often noticed that students who are good in math have studied, or are studying, music. In the past, it was assumed that the kind of discipline necessary to excel in playing a musical instrument would extend to other academic areas, leading to excellence in those areas as well. But some researchers looked at the math-music…
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Why study music, part I

March 16, 2017

Albert Einstein, at or near the top of anyone’s list of “greatest scientists of the twentieth century,” revolutionized science with his theory of relativity. And what did he have to say about this discovery? The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition. My parents had…
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A holiday gift that lasts a lifetime

December 18, 2016

A friend of mine recently asked me to suggest some piano etudes he could give his son for Christmas – something to help improve technique. His son is an excellent musician – with an advanced degree in oboe from a major music school. He has recently bought a piano and now wants to become a better…
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The Musician’s Brain

The Musician’s Brain is a blog by Lois Svard, a musician who has written and lectured extensively about the applications of neuroscience research for the study and performance of music. She is Professor Emerita of Music at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and is the author of the book The Musical Brain about music, the brain, and learning.

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