There is another very important reason for children to take piano lessons:

Recent study showed that after almost a year of weekly piano lessons, students’ IQs rose nearly three points more than their untrained classmates!

The study supports the idea that piano lessons exercise parts of the brain useful in mathematics, language, spatial intelligence and other intellectual pursuits. Piano lessons, because there are so many different activities involved–such as memorizing, expressing emotion, learning about musical interval and chords–may be motivating the IQ effect.

Here is more about the study itself:

Researchers grouped together a few 6-year-olds for weekly piano lessons. Then another group was created to take weekly drama lessons. Last group of children was going to receive no classes during the period of the study.

All children went through a long intelligence test that assessed them in ten different areas. Following that children went off to first grade at school and to their assigned piano lesson, drama and no lessons at all groups. After the first year of study all children were retested.

At the time of retesting, all students displayed increases in IQ of at least 4.3 points, on average, which is a common result from attending a school. Drama class children`s IQs didn`t differ from those who did not take any lessons at all. Testing the piano lessons children researchers found a slightly larger increases in IQ than the other groups, averaging 7-point gains in their IQ scores–2.7 points higher than children placed in either drama or no-lessons group.