If music be the stuff of brain, play the music
Ludwig van Beethoven is credited with saying, "Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy." And while some may argue the point, there's certainly been a good bit of evidence suggesting that learning to read and play music is good for intelligence, academic performance and critical thinking skills. In a 2006 study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology , E. Glenn Schellenberg, a researcher at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, found that 6-year-olds given voice and piano lessons had higher IQs as well as better academic performance. What's more, Schellenberg found that the effect got bigger the longer that the children received the lessons--there was a dose-response association . There have been several hypotheses why music may have such an effect. It may be a chicken-and-egg-thing where children with higher IQs can handle the rigors and challenges of music on top of school and other activities. It m...