Anecdotally, musical instruments are a constant, unending brain game. If they don’t make you smarter, almost nothing will.

Of course, there’s the studies, but we’re all capable of looking those up.

>If they don’t make you smarter, almost nothing will.

Because nothing makes you smarter. There are no means of intelligence enhancement, other than correcting deficiencies (e.g. iodine) in early development.

Au contraire! TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and related sort of magnetic-field-on-brain things have early results that say it can increase working memory, improve logic/math/3d visualization skills, and push motivation.

So school doesn’t either? If that’s true, then I don’t think we mean the same thing when we say “intelligence.”

School doesn't make people more intelligent. It makes them more educated, which can mean a variety of things depending on the cultural context, such as an understanding of social mores, skills such as reading and writing or arithmetic, and/or ideological indoctrination.

Most other things in the human body seems to be use it or lose it. Sure, innate talent matters a lot, but so does training. You’d never be a track star even with the best genetics if you never left the couch.

that's the problem though, the mind isn't a muscle. lifting weights can make you better in a different but related activity, like a sport. but the research on brain games shows that they only make you better at the specific game they're drilling, not anything else.

The evidence isn't that clear as I read it [1]. But who cares really, playing music is great.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-athletes-way/201...