You May Owe Your Success to Being a Musician
I've always felt lucky to have grown up with a strong foundation of jazz, symphonic and marching band music. That experience and framework led me to a career in advertising and marketing because of the appealing creative similarities to jazz and ensemble music: the creative improvisation, and the collaborative dynamic.
Most people who regularly play an instrument and/or sing will tell you that being a musician has emotional, and physical benefits. There is a significant body of research supporting that claim. A recent survey of nearly 12,000 research papers itemized the benefits into four general categories: mood or emotion regulation, social bonding and connections, cognitive mechanisms, and self-esteem, empowerment and sense of achievement.
The survey included specific research that investigated the effects of playing an instrument, singing in a group, and songwriting, improvisation and collaboration. Unsurprisingly to anyone who engages in one or all of those activities, the effects and positive outcomes of playing music includes improved mental health, quality of life and well-being.
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You may be surprised, however, to learn about a super-powered benefit called “Self-Efficacy.” The concept, as originated by Albert Bandura of Stanford University, describes a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation, which has a profound effect on how you think, behave, and feel. It can play a role in not only how you feel about yourself, but can influence whether or not you are successful in achieving your goals.
A 2011 study (1) showed self-efficacy scores among children learning a musical instrument were higher compared to those not learning an instrument. Higher self-efficacy scores indicated greater levels of well-being and higher positive social tendencies. The research also noted that girls in particular who were learning a musical instrument had heightened self-efficacy scores.
Self-efficacy by its definition is task specific. A high degree of self-efficacy in your ability to be an amazing jazz pianist doesn’t automatically lead to a high degree of self-efficacy as a biochemist. Not automatically.
However, high self-efficacy is related to important benefits including resilience to stress, healthy lifestyle habits, improved professional dedication, and educational achievement, that help you succeed on other tasks. Those factors sound familiar to most of the successful people I know in Silicon Valley and beyond. They also perhaps help explain why so many successful people are also musicians. Resilience, healthy habits, high academic achievement and dedication. The experience of mastering one task certainly has ramifications on how you think, behave and feel about your ability to master other tasks.
So don’t be surprised if the members of the band you hear at street festivals, local bars, nightclubs and even weddings are successful business leaders, engineers, neuroscientists, biochemists, educators, or more.
It's very likely they each learned at least one musical instrument early in life, and have long turned to music as an emotional release, creative outlet and a means to improve well-being. Picking up an instrument at any point in life has its positive effects, and quite possibly personal success may be one of the more powerful ones.
Do you have a story to share about how playing music or singing has helped you succeed in other areas of your life? Drop me a line and let me know at john@joinsoundunion.com
Ritchie, L., and Williamon, A. (2011). Primary school children's self-efficacy for music learning. J. Res. Music Educ. 59, 146–161. doi: 10.1177/0022429411405214