¶ … Weinberger, Norman M. 2004. "Music and the Brain." Scientific American, Nov., pp. 88-95.

Of all the behaviors humans exhibit, the universal love of music is a puzzle to researchers. In spite of the fact that neither listening to nor making music meets a crucial life need, the human brain is able to process sounds in highly complex ways, apparently just for the pleasure of it. The author of the article, Norman M. Weinberger, has studied how the brain processes music for years, and wrote a summary of what is known so far.

One unexpected find has been that while our brains have areas dedicated to vision, finger movement and a host of other things, there is no one "music center." Rather, various parts of the brain play important roles and work together for us to understand and appreciate music.

The points in the article were illustrated with examples such as the case of the composer Ravel who suffered brain music, and after that could imagine music in his head but could not write it down. This also demonstrated how many parts of the brain work together in music appreciation. Studying music and brain function also demonstrates how the brain restructures itself as it learns. In highly trained musicians, parts of the brain they use for music are more developed than they are in other people. For instance, pianists have a more developed corpus callosum, which facilitates communication between the two sides of the brain, so both hands can work together more efficiently.

The article included clear illustrations of how the ear translates sound to the auditory nerve, but since researchers are using brain imaging, it would be been interesting to see pictures of those, perhaps a CAT scan when a person was listening to music compared to a CAT scan done in silence. Nevertheless, the article demonstrated how complicated brain function for specific skills really is.