The Telegraph has today reported that not only will playing a musical instrument early on in life make you cool as hell, but will also provide a long-term effect and will boost your brain as a pensioner.

The report comes from the results of a study by The American Psychological Association who discovered after carrying tests that those who played a flute, piano, clarinet, violin or any other musicial instrument that requires reading sheet music performed better on intelligence tests.

The APA carried out tests on 70 healthy pensioners between the ages of 63-80 and found that musicians performed better on several cognitive tests than those who'd never played an instrument or learnt how to read music.

"Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of ageing," said lead researcher Dr Brenda Hanna-Pladdy at the University of Kansas Medical Center

Don't wait around! We're here to help you; whether you want to learn to play the violin, keyboard, drums, guitar or piano, we have a bunch of beginner's guides for your delectation.

Dolphin Music's Musical Instrument Guides;

• Beginners guide to playing the violin
• Beginners guide to playing the keyboard
• Fender's Guitar Guide for Beginners
• The Beginners guide to drumming; Electric or Acoustic?
• The Begginers guide to electronic drums