Music is universal amongst humans. Across cultures, times, and continents, humans make, listen to, and respond to music. Infants recognize melodies, ancient societies left behind elaborate instruments, and modern neuroscience confirms that music affects the brain in profound ways.
Neuroscientists have discovered that music engages nearly every part of the brain. Listening to music activates the auditory cortex, but it also stimulates the limbic system, which governs emotion, the motor cortex, even when we only tap our feet, and the prefrontal cortex, which supports planning and pattern recognition.
Brain imaging studies show that music triggers the release of dopamine, the same reward chemical associated with food, sex, and social bonding. This widespread activation shows that music is not mere entertainment but central to how humans process patterns, emotion, and reward. Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and author of the book This Is Your Brain On Music, described music as “an evolutionary byproduct that engages multiple neural circuits in ways that no other human activity does.”
From an evolutionary standpoint, music served adaptive purposes. Charles Darwin noted in The Descent of Man that musical ability could have evolved through sexual selection, much like birdsong, signaling intelligence, creativity, and fitness to potential mates. University of New Mexico evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller builds on this argument in The Mating Mind, suggesting that musical skill may have played a role in courtship.
Music also strengthens social bonds. Oxford University anthropologist Robin Dunbar has shown that group musical activities such as singing, drumming, and dancing release endorphins, synchronize heart rates, and enhance cooperation. In early human societies, music likely reinforced group cohesion, coordinated labor, and helped transmit cultural knowledge before fully developed language emerged.
Music is not just emotional but also cognitive. Learning and performing music enhances working memory, attention, and executive function. Cognitive psychologist Aniruddh D. Patel argues that music and language share overlapping neural resources. Rhythm, pitch, and timing in music supported the evolution of speech and linguistic processing.
Even passive listening has measurable effects. Research shows that music can reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance creativity. Music therapy, in particular, has demonstrated benefits in stroke recovery, dementia care, and the treatment of depression. In this sense, our brains are not only receptive to music, they are shaped and improved by it.
Beyond biology, humans interpret, create, and assign meaning to music. For Plato, music was a training ground for the soul, cultivating character and virtue. Arthur Schopenhauer saw music as the purest expression of will, more direct than language itself. Rutgers University philosopher and musicologist Peter Kivy argues that music communicates emotion in ways words cannot. Across history and culture, from lullabies to symphonies, tribal drumming to global pop charts, music has expressed what is otherwise inexpressible: emotion, community, transcendence, and imagination.
Musical preference is shaped by personality, psychology, and cultural context. Research shows that traits such as openness to experience, extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness influence the kinds of music people enjoy. Creative and open people are more drawn to complex and experimental music, while extraverts often prefer energetic, rhythmic genres. Those higher in neuroticism tend to favor emotionally intense or cathartic music.
Culture shapes taste further. Western traditions emphasize harmony and tonal progression, Indian classical music highlights microtonal scales and meditative depth, African music celebrates polyrhythms and collective performance, and East Asian traditions often focus on subtle tonal shifts and harmony with nature. Subcultures, from punk to hip-hop, develop their own musical codes that signal identity, resistance, or belonging.
References
Dunbar, Robin. How Musical Is Man? 2012.
Kivy, Peter. Introduction to a Philosophy of Music. Oxford University Press, 2002.
Levitin, Daniel. This Is Your Brain on Music. Dutton, 2006.
Miller, Geoffrey. The Mating Mind. Anchor, 2001.
Patel, Aniruddh D. Music, Language, and the Brain. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Salimpoor, V.N., et al. “Dopamine Release during Anticipation and Experience of Peak Emotion to Music.” Nature Neuroscience
Fascinating! And makes a huge amount of sense. I think a really good story or novel can cause emotions as well as, or almost as well as, really good music. So words can do it too, but music is definitely an emotion-generator. Music definitely makes you want to move more than words ever could (though I suppose one might argue that words can make especially groups of people cooperate in the motion of violence).
Great summary!
There are estimates of when humans first used fire and the wheel. I wonder when music began. Flutes date back some 30,000 years. How old is knocking rocks together for rhythm? How about sounds other than words? Dancing?
Some animals, like parrots, have a better sense of rhythm than some humans. The rhythm and language areas of the brain are larger for us and those animals. We're just beginning to decipher the language and songs of other animals.
Early birth, instead of the twelve months animals our size should have, leaves us vulnerable and dependent. Slings to carry babies and songs to soothe them may be among the earliest of what make us human.