Does Playing An Instrument Make You Smarter?

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Does Playing An Instrument Make You Smarter?

Sophia Xu
Updated: September. 23, 2023 

Playing a musical instrument is a rewarding and enjoyable activity that can enrich your life in many ways. But does it also make you smarter? This is a question that has intrigued researchers, educators and musicians for a long time. The answer is not simple, as different studies have found different results and there are many factors that can influence the relationship between music and intelligence.

The benefits of playing an instrument

There is no doubt that playing an instrument can have positive effects on your brain and cognitive abilities. Some of the benefits include:

• Enhancing your memory: Playing an instrument requires you to memorize notes, chords, rhythms, lyrics and other musical information. This can improve your memory capacity and recall in other domains as well 1.
• Improving your executive function: Executive function is a set of mental skills that help you plan, organize, focus, multitask and solve problems. Playing an instrument involves using these skills to coordinate your motor, auditory and visual systems, as well as to monitor your performance and adjust accordingly 2.
• Boosting your creativity: Playing an instrument can stimulate your imagination and foster your creative thinking. You can express yourself through music, improvise, compose and experiment with different sounds and styles 1.
• Developing your emotional intelligence: Playing an instrument can help you understand and communicate your emotions, as well as empathize with others. Music can evoke various feelings and moods, and playing with others can enhance your social skills and teamwork 1.

The limitations of playing an instrument

However, playing an instrument does not necessarily make you smarter in a general sense. Some of the limitations include:

• The specificity of musical skills: Playing an instrument can improve your musical skills, such as pitch, rhythm, harmony and notation. But these skills may not transfer to other domains of intelligence, such as verbal, mathematical or spatial abilities 3.
• The influence of confounding factors: Playing an instrument may be associated with higher intelligence, but this does not mean that it causes it. There may be other factors that influence both music and intelligence, such as genetics, environment, education, motivation and personality 3.
• The variability of individual differences: Playing an instrument may have different effects on different people, depending on their age, level of expertise, type of instrument, style of music and frequency of practice. Not everyone who plays an instrument will experience the same benefits or drawbacks 3.

The conclusion

So, does playing an instrument make you smarter? The answer is: it depends. Playing an instrument can have positive effects on some aspects of your cognitive abilities, but it may not affect others. It may also depend on how you play, what you play and who you are. Playing an instrument is not a magic bullet that will boost your IQ overnight, but it is a valuable and enjoyable activity that can enrich your life in many ways.