There is actually a lot of literature about this, drummers are smart, even better, drummers may probably be smarter than you! This year, Mic.com compiled a series of studies demonstrating that drummers’ brains are different from everybody else’s.
A study from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm found ‘a link between intelligence, good timing and the part of the brain used for problem-solving’. Professor Ullen concluded: ‘The rhythmic accuracy in brain activity that is observed when a person maintains a steady beat is also important to the problem-solving capacities measured with the intelligence tests.’
Researchers made men play a variety of different beats and do psychometric test of 60 questions and problems, and they found that men ‘with high general intelligence were also more stable on a very simple timing task’,… so the link between steady beat and intelligence. ‘We also found that these participants had larger volumes of the white matter in the brain, which contains connections between brain regions,’ added the professor. Their brain scans revealed that drummers use a wide distribution of areas to listen to music, but was it wider than normal? The study doesn’t say, however this is very interesting.
According to Mic.com, there are also studies which show that ‘experiencing a steady rhythm actually improves cognitive function’ as demonstrated by a psychology professor at the University of Washington who ‘used rhythmic light and sound therapy on his students and discovered that their grades improved’. Other studies have even used the same method on middle school boys with ADD, with successful results!
Okay, but did this study in Stockholm actually test renown drummers? And were they actually smarter than the rest of their band mates? And so can I conclude that Ringo was the smartest of the Fab Four, Meg White smarter than Jack and Patrick Carney smarter than Dan Auerbach? How high does this study bring Dave Groh’s IQs exactly? And what if you are a bad drummer, are you the dumbest of the smartest people?
I just have so many questions after reading studies like this one, they don’t really tell how drummers’ brains are different from the rest of the population’s brains and should I say that more studies are required before declaring such a big statement? We don’t even know what intelligence is anyway, as there are so many forms of intelligence…. Plus I wonder how these drum machines would test, hey they are pretty good at drumming after all.
