Playing music isn't just fun, it's educational!
(Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement)
Music Students Are Scoring. Music students are outperforming non-music students on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). College-bound seniors with coursework or experience in music performance scored 52 points higher on the verbal portion and 37 points higher on the math portion of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts.
Music Is Beating Computers at Enhancing Early Childhood Development. Music training, specifically piano instruction, is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills necessary for learning math and science. Learning music at an early age causes long-term enhancement of spatial- temporal reasoning.
Music Enhances Linguistic Skills. Music -- specifically song -- is one of the best training grounds for babies learning to recognize the tones that add up to spoken language.
Americans Say Schools Should Offer Instrumental Music Instruction as part of the regular curriculum. 88% of respondents indicated this in a 1997
The Window Of Opportunity For Studying Music is between the ages of three and ten. This is the time when we are the most receptive to and able to process music. This does not mean, however, that any age is too old to learn!
Studying Music Strengthens Students' Academic Performance. Rhode Island studies have indicated that sequential, skill-building instruction in art and music integrated with the rest of the curriculum can greatly improve children's performance in readi ng and math.
Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Casual Relationship. Music lessons, and even simply listening to music, can enhance spatial reasoning performance, a critical higher-brain function necessary to perform complex tasks including mathematics.
The Mozart Effect surfaced about four years ago when research uncovered that adults who listened to music of complexity for ten minutes or so experienced temporary increases
(The above was taken from the website: http://www.pianoworld.com/smartpiano.htm)