Why does music make us feel? On the one hand, music is a purely abstract art form, devoid of language or explicit ideas. And yet, even though music says little, it still manages to affect us deeply. We might shed tears at a sombre melody, or feel our hearts race during a rousing chorus. Our physical responses to musical sounds are astonishingly potent: pupil dilation, rapid heartbeat, sweating palms, and an unexpected shiver running down the spine.
A recent paper in Nature Neuroscience by a research team in Montreal, Canada, marks an important step in revealing the precise neurological mechanisms behind musical pleasure. The researchers recruited volunteers through advertisements and monitored their brain activity while they listened to their favorite pieces of music. Using advanced PET (positron emission tomography) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans, the researchers made a striking discovery: listening to music stimulates the release of dopamine in two key brain regions – the dorsal and ventral striatum – known to be central to our experience of pleasure.
What is rather more significant is the finding that dopamine neurons in the caudate – a subregion of the striatum involved in learning stimulus-response associations – were particularly active in the moments leading up to the listener's favorite musical climax. This period is referred to as the anticipatory phase. In other words, our brains experience a chemical rush not just when the crescendo hits, but while expecting it. The anticipation of pleasure mirrors our neurological reaction to biological rewards like food or sex.
One way to answer why anticipation is so potent is to look at the structure of music itself. While music can often seem continuous and seamless, it is composed of intricate patterns and predictable conventions. When we listen, our brains are actively calculating what note will come next based on prior experiences with the musical genre. When a composer cleverly delays resolving a chord or temporarily subverts the expected progression, the brain enters a state of heightened arousal.
To demonstrate this psychological principle, the musicologist Leonard Meyer, in his classic book Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956), analyzed how composers manipulate our expectations. According to Meyer, emotional response is triggered when a habitual tendency is inhibited or delayed. When Beethoven delays the return to the tonic chord, he creates unbearable suspense. The joy of music lies precisely in this dance between expectation and delay.
Meyer's insight explains why purely predictable music bores us, while music that is utterly chaotic alienates us. Great music strikes the perfect balance: it creates patterns, establishes expectations, playfully postpones their fulfillment, and finally delivers satisfaction. Through this sophisticated psychological mechanism, sound transforms into profound human emotion.
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Participants, who were recruited for the study through advertisements, had their brain activity monitored while listening to their favourite music. It was noted that the music stimulated the brain's neurons to release a substance called in two parts of the brain associated with feeling .
Researchers also observed that neurons in the area of the brain called the were particularly active just before the participants' favourite moments in the music – the period known as the . Activity in this part of the brain is associated with the expectation of reward stimuli such as .
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.
32. What point does the writer emphasise in the first paragraph?
33. What view of the Montreal study does the writer express in the second paragraph?
34. What does the writer find interesting about the results of the Montreal study?
35. Why does the writer refer to Meyer's work on music and emotion?
36. According to Leonard Meyer, what causes the listener's emotional response to music?
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–F, below.
A. our response to music depends on our initial emotional state.
B. neuron activity decreases if outcomes become predictable.
C. emotive music can bring to mind actual pictures and events.
D. experiences in our past can influence our emotional reaction to music.
E. emotive music delays giving listeners what they expect to hear.
F. neuron activity increases prior to key points in a musical piece.