Why do we listen to music?

Music is the universal language. Well, music, love and certain hand gestures.

The L.A. Times recently ran an article related to this subject from the standpoint of how our brains respond to music. I'm just going from memory, but basically a recent study using MRI's found that those of us with musical training (play an instrument, or have vocal training etc.) have significantly more development in one of the brain's frontal lobes versus non-musical people. The more accomplished a musician one beomes, the more active (and developed) this part of the brain also becomes.

In addition, the study found that the more we get the more we want. In other words, the more an individual developes this part of the brain through musical training, the more we enjoy stimulating it through playing music.

While the study didn't specifically address those of us who just listen to music, as opposed to play an insturment, it would seem to me a very reasonable assumption that it's an extension of the same basic mechanism at work in our brain. Certainly, those of us who enjoy music seem to develop the same sort of increasingly sophisticated appreciation of it over time, and also seem to crave it more and more as our ability to enjoy it at deeper levels increases.

So it would appear that music really does make a direct connection with our brain and communicates and stimulates it in very specific and measurable ways. And just like any other part of our body, the more we train it the more enjoyment we get from the using it. I think we audiophiles have always known this, but now it's been made "official."

Thanks Jbecker, and in response, 2 L.Ps and a large order of fries!

Because music is emotional and we are emotional beings. we are all driven by emotion, and music is the greatest way to involve that emotion.

Because we have nothing better to do.I also assume that you are familiar with the term 'sublimation'.