Should music be compulsory in schools because it boosts other subjects?

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Experts periodically report that children who play instruments do better at mathematics and languages, and conclude that music should therefore be compulsory. I support school music strongly, but I find this particular argument weak, and compulsion the wrong tool. First, the evidence is shakier than it looks. Families who can afford instruments and lessons are typically also families with books, quiet study space and high expectations. The violin may be a marker of advantage rather than its cause, and studies that control for background find much smaller effects. Second, justifying music by its side effects quietly insults the subject. We do not defend mathematics because it improves flute playing. Music deserves its place because it trains attention, discipline and expression, and because a school that produces only examinable skills produces incomplete people. Third, compulsion is a blunt instrument. A child forced through five years of unwanted piano learns mostly resentment. A better policy is universal access with genuine choice: every school funded to offer instruments, ensembles and teachers, every child required to try, none required to continue for years against their will. In conclusion, I disagree with compulsory music justified by test scores, and support something better: music taught seriously, funded properly and defended as valuable in itself. The strongest case for music has never needed mathematics to make it.