Playing music makes children smarter

Playing music makes kids smarter, why am I not surprised? Well, one reason is because anything that takes skill and is a challenge will usually make a child smarter. I do not understand why this is such a breaking news story. Playing an instrument has to make a child smarter because it id developing a new skill in them. It forces them to remember certain things and also teaches them patience and learn another language, reading music is a new language.
Now the study did say that learning music increases activity in the brain and sharpen the hearing for all kinds of sounds that includes speech.
I am just surprised that is was actually a study, I thought it was pretty much common sense. We are not surprised that when we force our children to read instead of watching television, we are not surprised that they are smarter are we? Or when our children learn new things, we are not surprised by that, or at least we should not be.
I guess in an age when too many children are put in front of the television for everything, they may not be as smart as they used to be and that is sad. Perhaps in today’s world, we are surprised when a child learns a new skill that does not involve the computer.
Learning music also is a great time for children to be in a social environment, which helps them meet new kids and make new friends. It gets them away from the computer and TV and maybe gets them to lose weight and get exercise.
Learning music is challenging, so when a child learns how to conquer it, they learn many things. They learn time management, they learn a new language and they learn a new skill. A very great thing to learn but not at all surprising that learning it makes them more intelligent. I guess that was common sense.