Who Plays Musical Instruments?
Overall, 37% of the respondents to this survey said they play a musical instrument. Although there are no differences between the percentages of men and women who play, it is interesting to note that twice as many women as men first learned to play through private lessons (35% vs. 17%, respectively), but that nearly three times as many men taught themselves to play, 33% vs. 12%. While 82% of Americans who play an instrument began their musical training between the ages of 5 and 14, the joy of music endures long after the last school bell rings. In fact, 42% of those between the ages of 35 and 50 who learned to play an instrument still play, as well as 20% of people aged 50 and older. For some people, it’s a lifelong pursuit. At 70, the great jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong was going strong. He told his doctor just a few months before he died, “My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn.” Social Benefits of Music Certainly the benefits of music go beyond pure audi
