So far, no one can say for sure why music affects our emotions so much: it makes us dance with joy, feel morale boost or sadness, even if nothing seemed to foreshadow a downbeat mood. And yet a number of recent studies may be about to lift the veil of mystery over the phenomenon of music’s influence on humans and offer some intriguing answers to the question posed. Let’s explore the mechanisms by which we respond emotionally to the sounds of music.

Why do we love music? 

As with most good questions, there is no single answer: music “works” and affects us in several layers and on many levels. Generally speaking, we like music because it makes us feel good, no matter what genre. Each person chooses something different, something that works only for them. But why do we feel good about rock, jazz, or classical music?

But why does music provoke such a reaction? 

In general, it’s easy enough to understand why sex and food are rewarded by a rush of dopamine: it makes us want more and thus promotes survival and reproduction (some drugs, by the way, undermine this survival instinct by stimulating the release of dopamine under false pretenses). But why would a sequence of sounds, which has no obvious value in terms of human survival as a species, do the same thing?

We don’t yet have an exact answer, but we do have a couple of possible clues to the mystery of why music evokes strong emotions in humans. By far the most beloved theory of scientists studying how we mentally process music goes back to 1956. It was then that philosopher and composer Leonard Meyer suggested that emotions in music are built solely around our expectations. Meyer drew on earlier psychological theories of emotion, which suggested that they arise when we can’t meet some need of our own, which, you might guess, causes frustration or anger. But as soon as we find something that restores emotional balance, whether it’s a feeling of affection or a cup of aromatic coffee, all the bright colors in the world immediately return.

But why do we care so much about whether or not our musical expectations are met? 

It’s not as if a new album by Billy Eilish or anyone else is something on which our lives depend. However, according to musicologist David Guron of Ohio State University, that may once have been the case. Predictions about our environment (that is, interpretations of what we see and hear formed from partial information) may once have been important for survival. Moreover, they remain so in some situations in modern life, such as when we are crossing the road and hear the noise of a car coming or the sound of a traffic light.

Bypassing the logical brain and short-circuiting the primitive limbic circuits that control emotions, mental processing of sound can trigger an adrenaline rush, an internal reaction that signals potential danger before we are actually aware of it

So music, indeed, has a direct connection to emotion: tears come to our eyes when, at a key moment in a sentimental movie, we hear piercing soulful sounds, even if our entire logical brain opposes, claiming that it’s all just cynical manipulation by the director. We cannot turn off the named instinct of expectation or its connection to emotion, even if we are sure that there is nothing life-threatening about a Mozart sonata.

The idea that musical emotions arise from small disturbances and manipulations of our expectations seems most promising, but it is very difficult to test, since it is not entirely clear what exactly we should be measuring and comparing. We expect the gaining melody to continue to increase its intensity, but it is unlikely to do so indefinitely. We expect pleasant harmonies, not abrupt dissonance, but what sounds pleasant today might have seemed cacophonous two hundred years ago. We expect the rhythm of the tune to be regular, and then suddenly we hear an abrupt change in tempo. Musical expectation is the complex, ever-changing interaction of the piece we hear at the moment with our experience of listening to similar pieces previously and our knowledge of musical styles.

All of this combined also implies that music is not just about good vibes; it can also evoke other feelings like anxiety, boredom, and even anger. Composers and performers walk on thin ice, adjusting to audience expectations

All of this may explain why we experience emotions from certain musical tunes and performances. More recently, Meyer’s ideas were further supported by a brain-scanning study by Zatorre and colleagues, which showed that the rewards stimulated by music heard for the first time are particularly dependent on the connection between emotional and logical circuits in the brain. Our emotional response to tunes can also be driven by a host of other factors – for example, reactions are different when we listen to music alone or in company, or when we associate a particular song with past experiences, good or bad.

Behind all these ideas is the fact that we can’t even be entirely sure what emotions we’re talking about. We can recognize sad music without feeling sad, and some tunes, like Bach’s music, can evoke strong emotions, even if we can’t put into words what those emotions are. And that’s why we may never understand why music stimulates an emotional response in us-at least not until we have a clearer idea of how our emotional inner world actually works.