In neuroscience, we can teach the primary locations and systems for visual processing, voluntary movement, language, speech production, emotions and memory formation. We cannot do that for music, and herein lies the beauty and its power. Music is diffusely activated throughout the brain—right, left, cortical, subcortical, anterior and posterior. It owns no particular ‘real estate.’ Much of the brain is involved in detection of even the simplest musical patterns.

In 1993, an article in the prestigious academic journal Nature created massive public interest in the power of music on the brain. The study reported that college students who listened to a Mozart piano concerto before taking a test that measured visual-spatial abilities did better than those who received relaxation instructions or silence.