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Comment by jonfw | Hacker News Reader

The question becomes 'as opposed to what?'

The article says that studies which controlled against dance or sports showed no additional effect. Which looks really good for music IMO- because exercise has incredible benefits.

Maybe as compared to sports, music doesn't show additional benefit- how about as compared to watching YouTube videos? Playing flappy bird?

I find it hard to believe that we can really 'prove' anything with respect to child development. The studies have a phenomenally low lack of control on one end, which produces a LOT of noise. On the other end- we have no effective ways of measuring child development. Standardized tests or IQ produce metrics that are somewhat useful to measure how productive a child may be, but is that really what you want to optimize for as a parent?

What we really want to do for our kids is optimize for lifelong happiness. And we aren't even remotely close to measuring that.

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> The question becomes 'as opposed to what?'

A better question is: why do you learn or teach music?

Learning music provides plenty of benefits for the development of children, but nobody teaches music with the specific goal of rendering people smarter.

Many people force their children to learn an instrument with the expectation that it will make them more intelligent, and lead to better life outcomes.

My parents didn't do that but I did after watching a documentary that I can't remember name of. In the end though, I just beat my computer chair for a little bit of fun and haven't touched the guitar.

Not trying to be argue for the sake of arguing, but is there some data to back this claim up? Anecdotally I'm aware of many parents who think music makes their kid well rounded, but I'm not aware of parents that specifically believe learning music makes their kid more intelligent in non-musical areas.

I remember lots of posters aimed at parents around the music room, with pictures like a tray of surgical instruments as well as a wooden reed. With some caption like "Music improves life outcomes" or something like that.

So schools at least push this narrative.

> I'm not aware of parents that specifically believe learning music makes their kid more intelligent in non-musical areas.

It is all anecdotal evidence, but I am aware of some parents who "forced" their baby (and then little kid) to listen to classical music (specifically Mozart), because the kid would become a genius. Apparently, after some googling, it is called the "Mozart effect". Here are press articles about it:

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-b...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130107-can-mozart-boost...

Could it be a motivation for teaching music to little kids? That is what is suggested in the conclusions of the articles linked above, and which I quote below. Some parents might be receptive to these conclusions.

From the Scientific American article [1]:

> Rather than passively listening to music, Rauscher advocates putting an instrument into the hands of a youngster to raise intelligence. She cites a 1997 University of California, Los Angeles, study that found, among 25,000 students, those who had spent time involved in a musical pursuit tested higher on SATs and reading proficiency exams than those with no instruction in music.

From the BBC article [2]:

> There is a way in which music can make a difference to your IQ, though. Unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than putting on a CD. Learning to play a musical instrument can have a beneficial effect on your brain. Jessica Grahn, a cognitive scientist at Western University in London, Ontario says that a year of piano lessons, combined with regular practice can increase IQ by as much as three points.

It was a big argument for music funding when the band and orchestra parents were engaged in their annual battle to preserve funding for the school music program when I was a kid in the 70s/80s.

Depends who you ask. If you ask a music teacher I am sure they will cite chapter and verse for why music is the ultimate learning experience for children, along with many more reasons why they teach it. When I was in school we had to choose an extracurricular activity - band, chorus, etc. If students and their parents did not have to choose an arts class, but instead chose to use that time to double reading or math, it would lead to decreased funding and employment for those teachers.

Ultimately music is a language. Again, there are plenty of arguments about the benefits of learning (a) new language(s).

That said, I don't think teachers can argue in good faith that learning a particular will make you smarter versus learning another. Are multilingual people more intelligent than monolingual? Are people fluent in Ruby smarter than those fluent in PHP?

A better argument would be, learning music could potentially unlock the ability to learn new languages. Debatable, but I'd agree with that.

There is a difference, though, between learning something as a hobby, which is what most people learning music do, and mastering an instrument, which is a lifelong pursuit. The pursuits different, and so are the rewards. Learning something as a hobby will provide benefits, but none that can be associated with gaining more intelligence.

well I am going with, paying more attention to children regardless of skill, hobby, or whatnot, improves their results across the board.

Each time I read a story about how doing X improves a child's ability I simply think, well yeah, paying more attention to them does that.

> Each time I read a story about how doing X improves a child's ability I simply think, well yeah, paying more attention to them does that.

This is a problem with a lot of research on educational methodologies as well, in that there is usually some selection bias being applied to the teachers participating in a study, as well as a placebo effect.

What studies show that exercise makes children smarter?

Dunno if it was a genuine question, but I found one that you might be interested in: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28789992/

I don't know about smarter. I see a general hum regarding correlation of sport and willpower. But I am not sure about causation.

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