Through 14 years of teaching music in the Greater Toronto Area, the "music makes you smarter" notion has imbued many of the conversations I have had with multiple stakeholders in public education. Such conversations have suggested that the ancillary benefits of teaching music have now become the principal reason why we teach music--what I refer to as a new paradigm shift in music education. This study attempts to validate my own experiences through a sample size of 100 participants and a multiple methods approach to inquiry. Specifically, this study explores the perceptions and perspectives of the "music makes you smarter" notion by four groups of stakeholders in elementary education, namely; music teachers, students, parents, and non-music teachers. With a few exceptions, both quantitative and qualitative data have generated perceptions and perspectives that validate the "music makes you smarter" notion, suggesting that my own experiences of a paradigm shift within music education in the GTA were indeed authentic and valid. This paper ends with a discussion on the ramifications of this new paradigm shift and ultimately argues that the music itself should be the focus of music education. (Contains 7 tables, 1 figure and 7 footnotes.)