Music - without strings - Telegraph If there was one scientific fact that every responsible (or pushy) parent knew, it was that learning to play music made their offspring brainier. This "Mozart effect" was vaguely connected in many minds with cows giving more milk to the strains of Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Recent findings from scientists that violin lessons raise the IQ not a jot will be pounced upon by youngsters bored by practising, just as their elders embrace convenient snippets of news valuing the effects of red wine (in moderation, of course). Yet even if mastering the fiddle does not have the same effect on the childish neural network as the Knowledge has on a cabbie's hippocampus, well isn't the discipline of learning the skill worthwhile in itself? A violin, as Laurie Lee found in the hungry Thirties, playing his way across Spain, is a resource in need and a joy at all times for the fiddler and the audience. Keep scraping.