Music appreciation is related to the ability to process its underlying structure, that is, the ability to predict what will happen next in the song (whether such predictions are how a melody or chords will progress and will resolve, a drum beat will repeat, a verse will enter the chorus, and so on); however, the structure must involve some level of the unexpected, otherwise it becomes dull and emotionless. Controlling when these expectations are and are not met is how skilled composers are able to manipulate the emotion experienced by the listener in different ways to achieve the effect of a moving song. Although music appears to be similar to the characteristics of language, it is more rooted in primitive brain structures involved in motivation, reward, and emotion. The brain will synchronize neural oscillators with the beat of the music through activation of the cerebellum and predict when the next strong beat will occur. The expectation that elements of the song will follow this timing (or even elements that intentionally break out of the rigid structure or change it altogether) creates anticipation, which results in the reward reaction when that anticipation is met. The response that the brain elicits can also depend on the type or genre of music a person is exposed to; in one study, computer algorithms were used to identify specific aspects of music, which researchers were able to match to specific activated brain areas (seen using fMRI). Their results showed that vocal and instrumental music are treated differently: while both hemispheres of the brain deal with musical features, the presence of lyrics shifts the processing of musical features to the left auditory cortex, which suggests that the brain
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