A wonderful indoor activity for seniors is learning to play one or several music instruments. It is not even necessary to follow any teacher or any book or buy a DVD (although all of those things definitely help a lot). Seniors can just buy the musical instrument they enjoy or dreamed about in a local shop or even online (example: Ebay) and just start to get acquainted with it.
Music Enriches the Soul
One of the major differences of this indoor activity versus a number of others is that not only seniors find a pleasurable way to spend their time, but this activity for seniors literally enriches the soul as many people can easily confirm through their experience in playing and listening to music.
Naturally, nobody can play so beautiful when they just begin learning, but the reward is very much worth the many hours of practice. When seniors or actually anyone learn their first song on their favorite musical instrument the joy and excitement are so abundant that they can not be compared to most emotions of a regular person who does not play any musical instrument.
Music Slows Down Dementia & Keeps Brain Active
Furthermore, I found this quote in ABC News:
(talking of the elderly in retirement homes) “I saw much more activity in these people than in the others,” says Pantev, a neuroscientist at the center’s Rotman Research Institute.
and also added:
He saw a difference even among those who were slipping over the edge into dementia
So, this shows that not only seniors who play or learn to play musical instruments are more active, but also there is a very positive physical impact on their brains and negative effects are either slowed down or possibly even completely avoided in the best case.
A Very Affordable Indoor Activity for Seniors
First of all buying a music instrument will cost some money, but most seniors should be able to afford this, even if we speak about more expensive instruments. However, instruments like the flute or an acoustic guitar are very affordable to practically anyone, so learning to play indoors a musical instrument is cheap and easy to do.
Additional costs may involve a learning DVD or hiring a teacher or signing up for classes, but in all honesty these things are not so expensive when especially a lot of musicians would love to earn some extra income by teaching their art to anybody.
Please also see other indoor activities for seniors or browse the entire activities for seniors website for fun, ideas and interesting articles.
Thank you for this nice article. I always wanted to play the flute and after reading your “Learning to Play Musical Instruments” article I was reminded about it and maybe I will do just that.
Why not? 🙂 Thanks for the interesting activity suggestion. I think I’d like to learn to play the piano.
I see this as a more outside activity for seniors or others than an indoor one because there is just a huge difference if you are playing in an apartment / house or outside in the sun, green grass, etc 🙂
I take care of an elderly person and this could be an interesting activity that we could spend some time on. Thank you for the article.
nice idea for seniors, better late than never
I discovered exactly what I was taking a look for. Bless you!