'Akbar's Wisdom Was Hidden In His Drum Skills'

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London: The great Mughal emperor Akbar was an epitome of intelligence and wisdom despite being illiterate, and it could have been because of his exceptionally good drumming skill.

Researchers from Sweden have shown that drummers are actually natural intellectuals. After conducting a study, the scientists concluded that there was a link between intelligence, good timing and the part of the brain used for problem-solving.

For the study, some right-handed men aged between 19 and 49 were asked to tap a drumstick at a variety of different intervals. It was found that those with the best sense of rhythm scored highest in the mental assessments.

''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,'' researcher Frederic Ullen from the Umea University said.

Later, the volunteers were given a psychometric test of 60 questions and problems in which it was found that people with high general intelligence were also more stable on a very simple timing task.

''We also found that these participants had larger volumes of the white matter in the brain, which contains connections between brain regions.'' the Daily Telegraph quoted Ullen as saying.

Scans of the brain have shown that it uses a wide distribution of areas to listen to music.

The left side tends to process rhythm and pitch and the right looks after timbre and melody.