Music in the Brain: An Essay on Neuroscience and Melodies

Music exists to be enjoyed, loved, fascinated, moved, educated, amused, frightened, and exhilarated. Whether produced by blowing into a bone flute, composed in the quiet of a Renaissance court, or written in the midst of war and surrounded by human folly, music remains the language of the human soul. It expresses the sublime moments, the lows, the ability to soar to the heavens and to crawl to the very bottom. It's no surprise, then, that we are all great consumers of music, if only because almost every one of us has a song or tune that has marked our lives. Music, in fact, is the universal language through which we express our feelings and emotions. It is the mirror that reflects the infinite nuances of life and dreams, of the sacred and the mysterious. But what happens in the brain when we listen to music or play it? Why does a rhythm move us, a melody move us, a song awaken distant memories? And finally: have we ever wondered how all this shapes neural circuits?

These are the engaging and even disconcerting questions that revolve around the essay Cervello in musica (Carocci editore, 2026, pp. 236) , co-authored by Laura Ferreri and Carlotta Lega , both cognitive neuroscientists at the University of Pavia. The book offers a journey through psychology and neuroscience to discover how the mind perceives, processes, and produces music. From the brain that listens to the brain that plays, to the effects of musical training on cognition, without neglecting educational and clinical applications: Cervello in musica recounts, in a scientifically rigorous, clear, and engaging manner, one of the most universal and mysterious phenomena of human experience. And it does so through chapters that playfully reference many of the melody that has entered our hearts and minds. Thus, we have an introduction entitled Before Leaving for a Long Journey and a series of instructions for using psycho-neuro jargon called How Would I Know? The chapter dedicated to music and movement is introduced by the title Keep the tempo while Words words leads us to discover the links between music and language, Confused and happy connects music and emotions and so on harmonizing, or rather continuing Strada fare as the part dedicated to learning an instrument is called.

The essay concludes with a growing frustration over the lack of attention paid, for example, to music education in schools, precisely because we understand how much music can offer our minds. Great music, in fact, isn't immediately accessible to everyone, like a Sanremo song. It needs to be introduced, explained, "taught" to newcomers. And without prior musical education, too much of the truly universal language that is music remains inaccessible. A language that helps us understand beauty, allows us to discover new aspects of life, and can open up career paths and even unexpected personal fulfillment for the future. For this reason, we dare add, music in schools should be more than a few improvised notions and a few hours of guitar or flute lessons!