Looking for a Hobby? 5 Reasons You Should Make Playing Music Your Hobby

If you’re looking for a new hobby to enjoy, there are countless reasons to consider playing music. Becoming a musician and playing music offers health benefits, can improve your memory, and opens up plenty of opportunities. When you can play music, you can do everything from pursue music as a major in college, play in local ensembles, or just have fun jamming out with your friends.

Are you still toying with the idea of learning to play music? Here are just a few of the reasons why it might make the perfect hobby.

Do you wish you were better self-disciplined or that you had better time management skills? Playing music can develop both of these capabilities.

Playing any sort of music requires discipline. You’ll need to practice, and if you want to improve, you’ll need to put in quality practice efforts, rather than just playing through your pieces. That means you’ll need to actively listen, think about, and assess what you’re playing so you can find ways to improve it.

Finding the time to practice can be a challenge, so you’ll naturally develop good time management skills as a musician. When you only have 30 minutes to practice, you’ll learn how to use that time most effectively to get good results. If you love your music and are dedicated to improving your skills as a musician, you’ll probably start to put your time management skills to use in rearranging your schedule so you have time for practicing, playing in ensembles, and pursuing other musical opportunities.

Playing music can be the perfect stress-reliever, too. After a long day at school or at work, knowing you have a rehearsal can give you something to look forward to. It breaks up your schedule, gets you out into a social setting, and allows you to focus on just music, rather than on the things that may be worrying you, for a few hours.

The same is true when you practice music on your own. Playing well requires focus, and that doesn’t leave much room to be thinking about the stresses of your life. Whether you’re singing or playing an instrument, you’ll need to focus on controlling your body, and even if the rest of your life feels out of control, playing music can help you to feel a little more grounded.

Even listening to music can help to relieve stress. Listening to music such as quiet classical pieces can lower our blood pressure, slow our heart rate, and decrease the stress hormones present in our bodies. Spending some time actively listening to music might be just what you need when you’re feeling stressed.

You may already love music, but when you learn the theory, technique, and approach that goes into creating each song, you’ll start to appreciate music even more. There’s something thrilling about understanding how a chord progression makes a song’s chorus sound so good, and when you’re finally able to play your favorite songs, you’ll feel more personally connected to them.

As you learn more about music, you can start to put your own creative touches on the pieces that you play. You might improvise a bit and change up the melody with your own embellishments, or add a bit of emotion to a piece by carefully introducing ritardandos and new dynamics for a bit of a different interpretation. Making a piece yours is exciting and fulfilling.

I’ll be honest – learning to play music is hard. But isn’t a good hobby also challenging? Music can offer endless challenges, but there are also countless accomplishments to help you stay motivated and enjoy this hobby. There’s always something new to learn in the music world, from tackling a new piece to focusing on a new genre or instrument.

Most importantly, playing music is a fun hobby that you’ll almost certainly enjoy. Music can open up new opportunities for you, and you may find that you love composing pieces or that you can’t get enough of performing. Learning to play music is an exciting adventure, and this is a hobby that can take you places, whether you decide to make music into a career or decide to start up a band with your friends.

If you’d like to take the first step in becoming a musician, we’d be happy to help you at Sage Music. We offer music lessons in everything from singing to guitar to French horn to the cello, and our teachers aren’t just great musicians, but are also passionate about teaching.