Scientific American is just stellar today with its focus on the brain and music. A wonderful article explores the theories behind why music moves and how it could just be darn good luck that it does.

From the article:

Such dialogue provides a way for people to connect emotionally and thus may reinforce the ties that underlie the formation of human societies, which have clear survival advantages. Musical rhythms may have even facilitated certain physical interactions such as marching or dancing together, further cementing our social ties. In addition, tunes may work to our benefit on an individual level, manipulating mood and even human physiology more effectively than words can—to excite, energize, calm or promote physical fitness. All these benefits are causing people to reconsider whether music is truly as frivolous as it seems.

Throughout recorded history, people have attempted to explain music’s sway over the human spirit. Music has been labeled everything from a gift of the heavens to a tool of the Devil, from an extension of mathematics to a side effect of language processing. Charles Darwin was famously stumped by music’s ubiquitous presence around the world: man’s predilection for music, he wrote in 1871 in The Descent of Man, “must be ranked among the most mysterious with which he is endowed.”

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Read the full article here.