Stowers Institute’s Dr. Kausik Si explains how music plays the brain

Kausik Si. // Photo Courtesy of Stowers Institute

One of the great mysteries humanity is still unfolding is our response to music. We’ve all experienced a song triggering concealed memories or felt the bonding power of music at concerts. Through all the different genres, mediums, and topics music can take on, one idea unifies great musicians–They are bringing an unknown reality to humanity in a form we can understand. 

Dr. Kausik Si—a neuroscientist at the Stowers Institute—studies memory making and is fascinated with how the brain processes and responds to music. To him, these musicians may make sense of the world in a way that allows them to bring what is unknown into reality.  

“Creative people always have a little bit of that different balance because that’s what imagination is,” Si says. “Imagination is actually connecting things that are not connected in the real world and connecting them. That’s why music is so fascinating, because it’s actually very hard to know why we find some air pressure pleasing.”

Music and sound as a controlled change in air pressure hit cells in our ears. This release of ions sends an electrical signal to our brain that strings the sounds together and comprehends that we are listening to music. There is no contact; The music never actually interacts with our brain. Therefore, it is our minds that put together these signals to form a tune. 

“You do not taste in your tongue but inside your brain. So everything that we sense is reconstructed in the brain,” Si says. “We are just hearing sound, but another part of music is the emotion it evokes. It’s the same thing with food. You need the food to survive, but you also have the pleasure.”

The impact a song can have on anyone is nuanced with how their brain has formed and how they make sense of the world. It starts with our upbringing determining what is important and the frontal lobe connecting one aspect of reality to every other. Musical tastes, like many aspects of our brain, are mostly solidified by the time puberty is over. From there, what it chooses to prioritize or let fade away literally constructs our past and present realities. 

Photo Courtesy of Stowers Institute

Since so much goes into this determination of real life, it may be that great artists tend to have a different prioritization and are on the edge of reality itself. Their exploration and creation bring forth a different, yet universal perspective on life. No matter what stage of development a person is in, these creations can captivate their mind. 

“I stopped what I was doing and began listening, and I realized my son—who was like a year old—also stopped playing and started listening,” Si says. “Our brains are in a very different state, and we have different experiences. But there was something about that series of sounds connected together, that the brain inherently found interesting.”

Music seems to be a uniquely human attraction. Something about it is practical like our need for food, but beyond this necessity, there is a great pleasure. Si explains that musicophilia—the extreme craving for music—displays how our attractions can turn into obsession. This condition shows how differently a person can construct reality and lead to drastically distinct responses to music. 

“It’s one thing to sense the world and another to get attracted towards it. That’s why you play the same music and some people are immediately in love with it, and some people think it’s just a sound.” 

Not all sounds are music and not all music is pleasing. It is through experimenting and being in tune with the music making process that musicians are able to present art that is uniquely enjoyable. But it is ultimately the meaning we assign to music that allows it to impact us. It is simpler to think of this in the context of language. Making the sound of the word “grief” does not contain anything special, but the meaning we assign gives it its impact. People’s names can mean nothing to us or cause great emotion. The meaning you assign all depends on you. 

“Music and language are very abstract. Essentially, we are changing some air pressure,” Si says. “You are making sense, you are hearing a sound, and you are giving meaning to those sounds.”

Music, just like speech, is full of patterns that we learn to recognize. It is when those patterns are broken, that we get a jolt of excitement, a feeling of being alive. Even though our minds do everything they can to predict what will happen next, there is pleasure in getting it wrong. 

We should logically view surprises negatively because that’s when we have made an incorrect prediction. But it is much more nuanced. When we are generally surprised, there are two reactions: a quick response that prepares the body for action, followed by a slower response that assesses the situation and decides what to do. The first puts gas in the car, the next decides where it should drive.

Photo Courtesy of Stowers Institute

This is an especially strong reaction in music because the end result of a surprise is compounded. Basically, an unexpected, unpleasant sound is much worse and an unexpected pleasant sound is even more pleasant. So, when we are surprised by music, its pleasantness is multiplied. 

“This is why great artists and good musicians, their music is always a surprise,” Si says. “By listening to the first part, I cannot predict the second part, and to the brain, that is always attractive because it is always looking for what is new.”

Our need and attraction to music is still mostly a mystery but it is something we can observe and tangibly experience. Even though we do not know what information is hidden, the artists are bringing it to life so that we too may experience the unknown.