Music has been with us as long as we can collectively remember. Musical instruments have been found dating back tens of thousands of years. Yet no one knows why we love music, or what function, if any, it serves.
Researchers have yet to find a "music center" in the brain. Like many higher-order processes, the tasks involved in processing and enjoying music are distributed across several brain areas.
One study found that when focusing on harmony in a piece, a subject experiences increased activity in the right temporal lobe's auditory areas. Several studies have shown the temporal lobe to be one key region for understanding certain musical features. But it works closely with areas in the frontal lobe responsible for forming meaningful musical syntax (or structure).