Yet another reason to take up the accordion if you haven’t already

If the examples I have provided aren’t enough to convince you to take up the accordion, here’s another one. According to this article at Scotsman.com (“but it’s nae oatmeal!”), researchers at the University of Heidelberg have found that musicians have 130 per cent more grey matter in a particular part of their brains compared with those who are unable to play a note. Other researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong found students who had studied music using Western instruments showed improved short-term memory for words. Another group doing studies in Boston found that musicians have cerebellums that are 5% bigger.

Allow me to add that we’re good-lookin’, funny and smell nice too.

Apparently, these beneficial effects apply not only to playing the almighty accordion, but the other, lesser instruments as well.