I agree and since the link doesn't seem to work for me, I can't comment on the article.

Perhaps learning music changes the brain in a way that is different than say, learning how to cook French food or to fix a computer?

Actually, if you are a excellent French cook, I suspect that your brain was changed in much the same way. Fixing a computer, not so much. See my post about the "game of awareness" in music.

Yes, but it's well known that certain kinds of changes are qualitatively different. There is a big difference between learning how to speak French when you are a child, versus someone learning in middle age. There are also big quantitative differences in MRI scans of people listening to music between those who learned how to play an instrument before the age of 12 versus those with no such background.