Cognitive decline is part of the aging process, but fascinating new research demonstrates that we can train the brain to delay this aging process by learning to play a musical instrument. This workshop will help participants discover the skills they should stress in lessons with aging adults. In addition to making the student a better musician, these skills also strengthen cognitive abilities that usually tend to decline with age, such as 1) executive functioning ability, 2) brain processing speed, 3) how well the auditory system processes sound, and 4) visuospatial abilities. In multiple studies, musicians have been found to be stronger in all of these cognitive abilities, having built cognitive reserve through practice. A new long-range, large-scale study now shows that even older adults who have not previously studied a musical instrument can build cognitive reserve, thus delaying aging, in just a year of music lessons. Many teachers have increasing numbers of older adults in their studios due to an aging population. This workshop will invite participants to discuss the learning strengths and weaknesses of their elder students. We will then look at a recent study in Germany and Switzerland involving 155 retired adults between the ages of 62-78 who had never had music lessons. They were randomly assigned to either piano lessons or a musical culture class for a period of a year. They were tested at baseline, 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months (6 mo. post study) on a variety of measures, including cognitive, sensorimotor, and perceptual. They also underwent MRI imaging. We will look at the positive neuroplastic changes that occurred in various cognitive areas of the brain after a year of piano lessons or listening analytically. And we will see that those positive neuroplastic changes occur in the same cognitive areas listed above that tend to decline with age. Through participant discussion, we will then relate those brain changes to what we do in lessons that leads to those changes - defining a set of practical ideas to include in older adult lessons, including sight-reading which improves executive function, listening to voicing which improves our auditory system’s sound processing, and various techniques to improve brain processing speed and visuospatial abilities. These neuroplastic changes in the brain as a result of practice not only build cognitive reserve and contribute to healthy aging, but as we know, also lead to improved quality of life.