Music training improves verbal memory.
A preliminary study at The Chinese University of Hong Kong has shown that adults who had had music training before the age of 12 years had an improved ability to recall spoken words - ie. verbal memory. The study tested 60 adults of which 30 who had had six years or more of training with a Western musical instrument, and the balance had some training through to none. 

Learning music helps under-performing students to improve.
Researchers at Brown University in the US discovered that children aged 5-7 years who had been lagging behind in their school performance had caught up with their peers in reading and were ahead of them in maths after seven months of music lessons. The children’s classroom attitudes and behaviour ratings had also significantly improved, and after a year of music classes were rated as better than the children who had had no additional classes.

Music students are less likely to be naughty.
High school students who participate in the performing arts, including the school band program, are far less likely to be involved with drugs, crime or have behavioural problems, according to a longitudinal study being pursued in the US. Called Champions of Change, the study is being undertaken by a number of researchers including those at Harvard, Stanford and Columbia. This finding is supported by the Texas Commission on Drug and Alcohol Abuse which reported in 1998 that ‘secondary students who participated in band or orchestra reported the lowest lifetime and current use of all substances’ (alcohol, drugs, tobacco).