To manage all those options, pianists have to develop a totally unique brain capacity - one that has been revealed by science.Īlready, then, pianists are able to make their brains into better-rounded machines.
Guitar only allows for six notes at once and heavily favors left-hand dexterity.īut piano is the ultimate instrument in terms of skill and demand: Two hands have to play together simultaneously while navigating 88 keys. Drums are functionally pitchless and achordal, so pitch selection and chord voicings aren't part of the equation. In this series, we've already written about what makes guitarists' and drummers' brains unique, but playing keys is an entirely different beast. This is, in part, because true pianists' brains are actually different from those of everyone else. Both were formative experiences.īut while everyone grows out of braces, some people never recover from childhood piano lessons. For a few years, everyone's parents paid a lot of money so their children could contort their bodies (fingers teeth) and lie about doing something daily that, really, they never did (scales rubber bands).
