Why would music lessons enhance intelligence?

As noted by Schellenberg (2005) and other researchers (Shlaug et al 2005), a variety of explanations might account for it. For example, music lessons might enhance intelligence because they train kids to

• focus attention for long periods of time

• decode a complex symbolic system (musical notation)

• translate the code into precise motor patterns

• recognize patterns of sound across time

• learn rules of pattern formation

• memorize long passages of music

• understand ratios and fractions (e.g., a quarter note is half as long as a half note)

• improvise within a set of musical rules

All of these explanations have in common the idea that music lessons cause higher IQs.

But there is also the “killjoy” hypothesis--the idea that music lessons are the effect, not the cause, of higher IQs.