<p>There is all kinds of evidence of the benefits of arts education that is lost on the 3r’s crowd, who consider music and art ‘frills’ (my town, like most towns, has had to deal with tight budgets and such, and one of the things they have been talking about gutting in music and art; yet the same school district (high school), wanted to float a nearly 20 million dollar bond to build new athletic stadiums and field houses and such…). One of the reasons I suspect was highlighted in the book “Your Brain on Music” (I highly recommend it, the author is a good writer, a neuroscientist, who had been a music producer), and one of the things music does is it connects disparate parts of the brain, the whole right brain =music is untrue, and that may have something to do with it, same with other arts. I can’t speak with any kind of expertise, but I believe they have used music with kids with disabilities which can help them adapt and overcome the restrictions those can apply, and Oliver Sachs in his book Musicophilia describes the things music can do. </p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind that interest in music is pretty strongly correlated with certain aspects of intelligence, that it may be likely that the kids who feel strongly to get involved in music are ones with certain other attributes…The other thing is the rigor of music study, I think most people don’t realize the kind of work ethic required to study music in its various forms, the amount of effort and time, and that has to affect the person’s ability to do non music things:)</p>