The Neurophysiology of Enchantment: How Music Casts Its Spell on Us

“Music so readily transports us from the present to the past, or from what is actual to what is possible.”

“Music,” the trailblazing composer Julia Perry wrote, “has a unifying effect on the peoples of the world, because they all understand and love it… And when they find themselves enjoying and loving the same music, they find themselves loving one another.” But there is something beyond humanistic ideology in this elemental truth — something woven into the very structure and sensorium of our ...