I’d always thought that being a member of a band and/or orchestra was also socially advantageous.
My experience watching my children (I am utterly unmusical myself) is that it is a wonderful social experience to play in ensembles, large and small. BUT like pinewood1 says, it's fairly neutral re popularity and general social "fitting in" across the wider school community. And that is at schools with a large and successful music programs. Discussing this with my kids' various music teachers it seems there are many schools where it's "weird" and "geeky" to be involved with the music department and their own quite musical children have been deterred from being involved in music at school because it was socially disadvantageous. Notably these schools also had poor offerings which were often boring to embarrassing to be part of, and as music gets stripped from budgets this will presumably be more and more the case.
It is also my understanding that orchestral performances are physically demanding and most professional members are quite physically fit and coordinated.
It does depend quite a bit on the instrument in question how fit one really needs to be in order to play to the highest standard. Some brass instruments require really very high cardiovascular fitness to play at the professional level. But yes, this was one of the reasons I mentioned that it was surprising that our children's developmental other "Es" have not prevented them from excellence in musicianship. Our child who is currently attending a conservatory attached highschool should not be physically able to play their instrument, not at the level they do, or having achieved that level with the ease they have. The OT we've been working with for years was sure it would not be possible and pretty much did not want them to even try.
