Two decades of work across psychology, neuroscience, biology, genetics and animal cognition have reshaped scientists’ understanding of music’s origins. Research on musicality may inform treatments for language disorders, motor impairments and emotional dysregulation, and may guide new approaches to education and well-being.
According to a new study in Current Biology, humans are fundamentally musical, with our capacity for music rooted in biology, not just culture.
Henkjan Honing, author of the study and professor of music cognition at the University of Amsterdam, says some of the strongest evidence for biological musicality comes from infancy. For example, research data shows that newborns can detect rhythmic patterns, prefer certain melodic contours, and form expectations about timing and pitch long before they acquire language.
“These abilities emerge spontaneously,” said Honing. “Infants respond to rhythm and melody without being taught. This strongly suggests we are born with biological predispositions for musical structure.”
To trace musicality’s evolutionary roots, scientists also study other species.
“If a musical trait is found in humans and other primates, it likely existed in our common ancestor,” said Honing. “If we see similar traits in distantly related animals like birds, that suggests evolution arrived at similar solutions independently.”
The data supports what Honing calls a “multicomponent hypothesis:” musicality is not a single trait but a mosaic of abilities—including beat perception, pitch processing and emotional response—each with its own evolutionary history.
For decades, many scientists assumed music was a by-product of language. Growing evidence challenges that idea. Brain imaging studies show that music and speech rely on partly distinct neural pathways. Some patients with severe language impairments retain musical abilities, while others with normal language experience congenital amusia.
Rather than evolving from scratch, newer studies show musicality likely emerged by integrating older brain systems involved in perception, movement and emotion.
Data from Universiteit van Amsterdam