Shopping for musical instruments could be a costly affair if quality and performance are the main criteria’s. The best quality electric guitar costs above $2000 and good keyboards are priced anywhere between $1000 and $3000. A quality acoustic drum set costs above $ 500. Professional musicians always go for high quality musical instruments irrespective of prices. Their main focus is on the quality and performance of the musical instruments as that will help them to draw huge crowd for their shows. Rich and famous people also spend thousands of dollars on buying these costly musical instruments, even though they rarely use them. These people believe that beautifying their homes with expensive pianos and other costly musical instruments impress the guests and visitors and eventually help upgrading their social status.

On the other side of the spectrum there are other sections of music lovers and performers with lots of passion, interest and talents on music. But, many of them can not afford to buy costly musical instruments. Students, teachers, amateur musicians, and other similar categories of musicians would always prefer shopping for cheap musical instruments. Students may not invest on costly musical instruments during their learning stages for two reasons. One is affordability and the second is risk of damaging the costly instruments while learning.

There are many ways for shopping cheap musical instruments. Countries like China and Taiwan manufacture musical instruments in volumes for selling at European and American markets with an affordable price. Brands like Jinyin and Eastman are made of rich variety of tone woods with good workmanship. It is estimated that some of the Chinese companies produce thousands of Violins, Piccolos, Clarinets, Saxophones and similar quantities of Trumpets, French Horns and Trombones every year. As these musical instruments are produced in mass volumes, they are able to sell them at a reasonable price. The prices of these musical instruments are affordable and quality as well as performance is reasonable. Such instruments are very popular among the students and other similar musicians across the countries.

Another way of shopping for cheaper musical instruments is buying the used ones from big musical troupes and other users. They often phase out their old musical instruments and buy a new one to maintain the quality of their performance. These are the good sources for students and other beginners because some times they may get good musical instruments for cheaper rates. One can also shop cheaper musical instruments from big musical stores and manufacturers during their discount and clearance seasons.

While, shopping for cheaper musical instruments can save substantial dollars than they would completely defeat the very purpose of music itself, if proper care is not taken while buying the cheaper musical instruments. The main problem with these cheaper musical instruments is that they are mostly sold on gray market or cheap musical shops. Often they do not carry warranty. As a result if something goes wrong, you can not repair it. These cheaper musical instruments may produce inferior sounds and effects. When a young student uses these instruments for learning purposes he may be frustrated due to its erratic performance.

The average person considers music to be a singular language. It is one of the oldest vehicles of communication, capable of expressing emotion and often having a profound effect on its listeners. However, the ability to appreciate music in its multiple forms is often ignored. We agree that bilingual people have an advantage over those who only know one language. In October 2001, the Juilliard School of Music, renowned for its unparalleled classical instructors and performers, added jazz to its academic curriculum. The world’s finest music institution is only one of a growing number of supporters backing a combined education in both classical and jazz for children and young musicians.

To express oneself in any language, one must first understand the language phonetically (learning by ear) before learning to read and write. To read and write a language, one must be familiar with its structure. In parallel, someone foreign to a language may have a more structured and scientific understanding than a native speaker. As a child, I was always fascinated when my uncle, a doctor of linguistics, would ask me, “How do you say that in English?” He was asking how to express the language colloquially and with English as my first language, it was natural to me.

Children learn foreign languages naturally by ear. On the other hand, adults tend to learn languages logically and methodically, referring back to their native language for comparison. It is obvious which method is easier; if one is brought up in a specific culture, it is easier to learn that culture’s language via naturally rather than via studious reading. Furthermore, when one understands and grows up in their native culture, one can understand the nuances of its language. For example, English speakers have varied dialects that differ depending on geography. There are noticeable differences in dialects between people from Canada’s west coast, east coast and the prairies. They all speak the same language but exhibit nuances that are inherent within their cultural structure.

Understanding music requires a similar method. Before learning to read or sight-read, one should be familiar with pitch. However, this is rarely the case in music education where the emphasis is on reading and not listening. Both classical and jazz artists employ a musical alphabet, but they use it in different ways. Jazz is a sophisticated language that is commonly overlooked in lieu of a “traditional” classical music upbringing. Growing up as the only Korean children in school, my sister and I were told by our Grade 1 teacher not to speak Korean at home, supposedly as it would confuse our understanding of English. Nevertheless, our father spoke English to us, and our mother spoke Korean. As a result, we can both understand Korean but not speak the language. This example demonstrates why I firmly believe children must learn both musical languages – that is, jazz and classical.

The idea that studying music improves the social development of a child is not a new one, but at last there is incontrovertible evidence from a study conducted out of the University of Toronto.

The study, published in the August issue of Psychological Science was led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, and examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six-year-old children. A group of 144 children were recruited through an ad in a local newspaper and assigned randomly to one of four activities: piano lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons.

Two types of music lessons were offered in order to be able to generalize the results, while the groups receiving drama lessons or no lessons were considered control groups in order to test the effect of music lessons over other art lessons requiring similar skill sets and nothing at all. The activities were provided for one year.

The participating children were given IQ tests before and after the lessons. The results of this study revealed that increases in IQ from pre- to post-test were larger in the music groups than in the two others. Generally these increases occurred across IQ subtests, index scores, and academic achievement.

While music teachers across the country greeted the new research enthusiastically, in fact, many other studies have previously shown a correlation between music study and academic achievement.

In 1997, well known music researchers Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw and their team at the University of California (Irvine) reported that music training is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children’s abstract reasoning skills, the skills necessary for learning math and science. A group led by the same two scientists had earlier showed that after eight months of piano lessons, preschoolers showed a 46 percent boost in their spatial reasoning IQ.

The March 1999 issue of Neurological Research published a report by another group of researchers, also at the University of California (Irvine), who found that second-grade students given four months of piano keyboard training, as well as time playing newly designed computer software, scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than other children.

Students with coursework and experience in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT, according to a Profile of Program Test Takers released by the Princeton, NJ, College Entrance Examination Board in 2001. This report stated that students in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal and 41 points higher on the math, and students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on the math, than did students with no arts participation.

Another part of this same study shows that longer music study means higher SAT scores. For example, students participating in the arts for two years averaged 29 points higher on the verbal portion and 18 points higher on the math portion of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts. Students with four or more years in the arts scored 57 points higher and 39 points higher on the verbal and math portions respectively than students with no arts coursework.

Another study also found support for a relationship between math achievement and participation in instrumental music instruction. The researchers found that students who participated in instrumental music instruction in high school took on the average 2.9 more advanced math courses then did students who did not participate.

In fact, various studies over the last 10 years suggest teaching kids music can heighten their aptitude for math, reading, and engineering. (One explanation for improved ability in mathematics is that music theory is based on mathematical truths. Rhythms are divided into fractions – half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes. Scales have eight tones, and the steps between them follow an equation.)

A McGill University study in 1998 found that pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly for students given piano instruction over a three-year period. The researchers also found that self-esteem and musical skills measures improved for the students given piano instruction.

And data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 revealed music participants received more academic honors and awards than non-music students, and that the percentage of music participants receiving As, As/Bs, and Bs was higher than the percentage of non- participants receiving those grades.

In 1994, a report entitled “The Case For Music Study In Schools” was printed in Phi Delta Kappan, the professional print journal for education. It included details of research conducted by physician and biologist Lewis Thomas, who studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. Thomas found that 66 percent of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group.

The same report asserted that the very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley industry were, almost without exception, practicing musicians.

The world’s top academic countries also place a high value on music education. In a study of the ability of fourteen year-old science students in seventeen countries, the top three countries were Hungary, the Netherlands, and Japan. All three include music throughout the curriculum from kindergarten through high school.

St. Augustine Bronx elementary school, about to fail in 1984, implemented an intensive music program, and today 90 percent of the school’s students are reading at or above grade level. And a ten-year study at UCLA tracked more than 25,000 students, and showed that music making improves test scores. Regardless of socio-economic background, music-making students get higher marks in standardized tests than those who had no music involvement. The test scores studied were not only standardized tests, such as the SAT, but also in reading proficiency exams.

Music training helps under-achievers as well, according to research published in Nature magazine in May 1996. In Rhode Island, researchers studied eight public school first grade classes. Half of the classes became “test arts” groups, receiving ongoing music and visual arts training. In kindergarten, this group had lagged behind in scholastic performance. After seven months, the students were given a standardized test. The “test arts” group had caught up to their fellow students in reading and surpassed their classmates in math by 22 percent. In the second year of the project, the arts students widened this margin even further. Students were also evaluated on attitude and behavior. Classroom teachers noted improvement in these areas also.

In 2005, it appears the pace of scientific research into music making has never been greater. The most recent evidence from the University of Toronto confirms what many other researchers have already detected – that music boosts brainpower, academic achievement,socialization skills, and emotional health.

It’s logical, when you think about it. People who learn to play an instruments are in groups—bands, choirs, orchestras, combos, worship teams, etc. And working and making music with others is bound to help relateabilty with people and foster close bonds with fellow musicians.

So it appears that learning to play music, whether guitar, piano, or some other instrument, actually does contribute to your ability to “win friends and influence people.”