What part of the brain can be linked with musical interpretation/enjoyment?

Question

Do some people appreciate music more due to their brain type? I have a friend with "bad taste". This is to say he is happy listening to repetitive techno, monotonous, robotic, ugly.

He is very mathematical and scientific. He does not appreciate art or philosophy, either.

I wonder, what part of the brain is linked to music?

Answer 1

Right side; creative arts, literature, math and science.  Music is closely aligned with mathematics and also included with thalamus on the more primitive emotional levels.  Techno has far more merit than rap/hip hop and since music appreciation is subjective, so is criticism.  Love him for his other qualities and both of you wear headsets and enjoy your music in private mode.

Answer 2

There is a specific brain area.  Speech is located in Broca's area, on one side of the brain ( left.)  The mirror opposite area on the other side of the brain is where a lot of musical ability is located.  (Much verbal and musical ability is also spread out across the brain.)  Someone who has a stroke affecting the speech area is said to have Broca's aphasia.  A stroke in the opposite area is called Broca's amusica.  //  Not to say your friend had a stroke.  Just that now we know there's a specific brain area, we can realize some areas can be just smaller, or didn't develop. //  Oddly, as a generalization, mathemeticians have above average interest in music.

Answer 3

It would be a vast oversimplification to define taste in music as the size or activity of an individual brain region. Certainly the above answer about regions associated with music is correct, but this is not to say that better taste is linked with a bigger region. Or, for that matter, that there is an objective, culturally independent, measure of taste. What if your friend didn't like anchovies and you did - would you ask for the errant region in his brain?

Also, the most famous mathematicians of all time were philosophers, artists, and musicians. See (respectively) Descartes, Escher, and Bach for example. The links between music and mathematics are far reaching - high school students who have studied music at an early age are more successful in mathematics.