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One thing I've always wondered about... Why music rather than art? Many people see it as a standard necessity that kids learn an instrument but very few people mandate drawing or dance lessons. Why is that?

I just wanted to respond to this quote as well as a reason why musical training is best started early.

Someone mentioned the Mozart effect, which was greatly exaggerated in the media. That said, there is solid evidence that early musical training produces measurable changes in the left hemisphere of the brain, and likely to connections to other areas of the brain (see Fujioka et. al. 2006, One year of musical training affects development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children.Brain 129. Another group of researchers looked at brain differences in musicians and found that anatomical changes (i.e. enlarged corpus callosum increased gray matter in auditory areas, etc.)in musician's brains were highly correlated with the age at which they began musical training and the amount of practice (see Schlaug et. al, 1995.) There are also studies about absolute pitch and early music training out there if anyone is interested.

Just thought I'd offer some research, if people are interested. It is always good to make informed decisions, I believe.