3 Myths About Music and the Brain (and What Science Actually Says)

Music is often praised as “good for the brain,” but how much of what we hear is actually true? As someone who’s passionate about both neuroscience and music, I’ve noticed that some of the most common beliefs about music and the brain are based on oversimplified science — or just myths altogether.

Let’s break down three of the biggest misconceptions, backed by real research 

Myth #1: Listening to Mozart Makes You Smarter

The myth: If you listen to Mozart, your IQ will go up. 

The truth: The original “Mozart Effect” study from 1993 (Rauscher et al., 1993) showed that listening to Mozart improved college students’ performance on a spatial reasoning task,  but only for about 10 to 15 minutes. It wasn’t a lasting increase in intelligence.

Later studies revealed that the improvements were more likely due to increased arousal and mood from listening to music you enjoy, rather than anything specific to Mozart.

A meta-analysis (Chabris, 1999) concluded that there’s no evidence for long-term cognitive improvement from passive music listening. A 1999 study attempted to replicate the Mozart Effect with a group of college students but did not find a statistically significant result or an effect size suggesting practical significance, pointing instead to short-term effects tied to general enjoyment.

Bottom line: Music you like can give your brain a short-term boost — not because of Mozart himself, but because of how it lifts your mood and alertness.

 Myth #2: Music Only Affects the Emotional Part of the Brain

The myth: Music is just about feelings.

The truth: Music does activate emotional areas like the amygdala, but that’s only part of the story. It also stimulates areas involved in hearing, memory, movement, language, and decision-making.

A groundbreaking PET imaging study (Blood & Zatorre, 2001) found that emotionally powerful music activated key regions of the brain’s reward system — including the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex — areas that are rich in dopamine and also respond to rewards like food, sex, and exercise. Another study (Gaser & Schlaug, 2003)  found increased gray matter volume in motor and auditory regions — proving that musical training strengthens structural and functional connections across the brain.

 Bottom line: Music isn’t just emotional — it engages nearly every major region in your brain.

Myth #3: Playing Music Only Uses the Right Side of the Brain

The myth: Music is a “right-brain” activity tied only to creativity and emotion.

The truth: This idea comes from an outdated and oversimplified view of brain function that divides tasks into left = logical and right = creative. In reality, playing and listening to music activates both hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere processes things like rhythm, timing, and reading notation, while the right processes melody, timbre, and emotional nuance. In trained musicians, studies have even shown increased size in the corpus callosum,  the bundle of nerves that connects both sides of the brain,  suggesting heightened communication between hemispheres(Schlaug, 1995). Research (Gaser & Schlaug, 2003) also found that musicians had more gray matter across several brain regions, including both auditory and motor areas on both sides of the brain.

 Bottom line: Music isn’t “right-brain” or “left-brain”, it’s a whole-brain experience.

In summary, music and the brain have a deep, fascinating connection, but it’s easy to get lost in myths and half-truths. While it won’t turn you into a genius overnight, music has the power to sharpen your focus, lift your mood, and change your brain over time, that few other things can.

References

Blood, A. J., & Zatorre, R. J. (2001). Intensely Pleasurable Responses to Music Correlate with Activity in Brain Regions Implicated in Reward and Emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(20), 11818–11823. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.191355898

Chabris, C. F. (1999). Prelude or requiem for the “Mozart effect”?. Nature, 400(6747), 826– 827. https://doi.org/10.1038/23608

Gaser, C., & Schlaug, G. (2003). Brain structures differ between musicians and non-musicians. The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 23(27), 9240–9245. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14534258/

Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Ky, C. N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365(6447), 611. https://doi.org/10.1038/365611a0

Schlaug, G. (1995). Increased corpus callosum size in musicians. Neuropsychologia, 33(8), 1047–1055. https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(95)00045-5

Steele, K. M., Bass, K. E., & Crook, M. D. (1999). The Mystery of the Mozart Effect: Failure to Replicate. Psychological Science, 10(4), 366–369. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00169