I’m not sure an IQ test is the best metric when looking at the benefits of playing an instrument.
Music teaches patience, dedication and rewards self-motivation and self-teaching, among other things.
Music teaches patience, dedication and rewards self-motivation and self-teaching, among other things.
“The authors found studies with high-quality design, such as those which used a group of active controls – children who did not learn music but instead learned a different skill, such as dance or sports, for example – showed no effect of music education on cognitive or academic performance.“
If you can acquire the skills you mentioned doing other activities then it doesn’t mean learning music is worthless just means music doesn’t hold a special ability to do it relative to certain other activities.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I was a proper nerd and he was built like a greek god.
From the original study: "-evidence indicates that engagement in music has no impact on people’s non-music cognitive skills".
My intuition says the evidence must not be comprehensive enough then.
Sure there is. I did it! Playing the bass meant very few fast parts like the other people (except for some nasty stuff Bach wrote because he hates bassists), and playing cymbals in marching band is way less effort than sousaphone or even a lightweight wind instrument.