The Power of Practice: A Longitudinal Study, Systematic Review and Meta-analysis on the Role of Intensity of Music Training for Enhancing Musical and Non-Musical Abilities

Despite an extensive body of research on the effects of music training on cognition, consensus on the transfer effects remains elusive. This paper addresses the methodological challenges underlying conflicting findings by integrating insights from two different studies. Our systematic review and meta-analysis (Study 1) revealed that only 12 of 149 studies screened employed dynamic measures—variables whose values can change across test waves for the same participant—to capture training intensity, with most stemming from neuroscientific research. These dynamic variables exhibited larger effect sizes for both near and far transfer outcomes compared to traditional static measures. Then, our empirical study (Study 2) employed a longitudinal quasi-experimental design with 141 preadolescents enrolled in either a Music Curriculum (MC) or a Standard Curriculum (SC) over 18 months. We used a dynamic measure of individual practice through the Concurrent Musical Activities (CCM; Müllensiefen et al., 2015) questionnaire and assessed fluid intelligence (Gf) with the Matrix Reasoning (MIQ; Condon & Revelle, 2014) test and the Jack & Jill Working Memory (JAJ; Tsigeman et al., 2022) test for visuospatial working memory along with perceptual tasks to assess musical ability. Findings indicate that higher training intensity significantly predicted gains only in Gf, even after controlling for baseline abilities, musicality, SES and musical home environment. Our findings suggest that individual practice is a key variable for detecting far transfer effects of music training, highlighting the need for more consistent and precise measures in future research.