A lot of research in music neuroscience shows that brain rhythms can sync up with musical sounds. While this syncing (called neural synchronization) is known to help with predicting what comes next in music, it may also play a much bigger role.
In this article, we look at studies on how the brain processes different parts of music—like pitch, harmony, melody, rhythm, and emotion. We explain how brain activity, based on well-known neural processes, can help us understand how we perceive and perform music. This idea is part of what's called neural resonance theory.
According to this theory, people don't just predict music using mental models. Instead, the brain and body naturally respond to music’s structure. When certain sounds interact with the brain’s natural rhythms, they create patterns of perception and movement that we experience as music.
Publication
Musical neurodynamics. Eleanor E. Harding, Ji Chul Kim, Alexander P. Demos, Iran R. Roman, Parker Tichko, Caroline Palmer & Edward W. Large . Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 26, pages 293–307 (2025)