It is clear that music perception is the result of complex sound processing and involves a wide spectrum of cerebral responses, including interval timing and motor control (Buhusi & Meck Reference Buhusi and Meck2005). Indeed, the preference for specific pitch intervals in music appears to be related to the relationships of the formants in speech that determine the perceptions of distinct vowels (Ross et al. Reference Ross, Choi and Purves2007). Such environmental influences and evolutionary constraints indicate that the relationship between music and movement is paramount and occurs very early in processing. In this regard, the basal ganglia and cerebellum are crucial to timing and time perception (Meck Reference Meck2005; Schirmer Reference Schirmer2004). Although Juslin & Västfjäll (J&V) mention expectancy, there is virtually no consideration of (1) how events unfold over time, (2) how the timing of events relates to emotion and emotional response, and (3) where these mechanisms are located in the brain. It is tempting to think of a slow dance with a loved one where tempo and rhythm relate to movement and emotion, or the difference between a 3:4 waltz rhythm and a 4:4 marching rhythm. The tempo/timing in these examples would seem key to the resulting emotion. Consequently, one could argue that specific tempos and rhythmic structures resonate with specific body parts and movements – leading to a complex interplay between rhythmic motor entrainment to music and the resulting emotion (Grahn & Brett Reference Grahn and Brett2007; Jones Reference Jones1981; Molinari et al. Reference Molinari, Leggio, de Martin, Cerasa and Thaut2003; Schubotz et al. Reference Schubotz, Friederici and von Cramon2000).

The appreciation of music engages virtually every major region of the brain (Levitin Reference Levitin2006). One of the most remarkable aspects of music is its ability to elicit emotional responses in the listener. The major question is to determine how music creates these emotions. In the target article, J&V have endorsed this question and propose six additional mechanisms through which music listening may induce emotions: (1) brain stem reflexes, (2) evaluative conditioning, (3) emotional contagion, (4) visual imagery, (5) episodic memory, and (6) musical expectancy. The authors provide an extensive analysis and summary of data related to the different emotions induced by music. It is clear that music has the power to evoke a wide variety of emotions, and the target article provides a roadmap that should prove useful for future research related to the identification of the brain mechanisms underlying these processes.

Indeed, for many of us, the emotions induced by music may be overwhelming. Studies by Zatorre and colleagues have identified some of the specific neurobiological basis of these emotions. Using neuroimaging techniques, they have shown that imagining music can activate the auditory cortex as strongly as listening to it. They have also demonstrated that emotional responses to music implicate the activation of numerous brain regions (e.g., Blood & Zatorre Reference Blood and Zatorre2001; Chen et al. Reference Chen, Penhune and Zatorre2008). J&V also emphasize that different brain regions have been activated in different studies, showing that musical emotions cannot be studied without regard to how they were induced.

Humans are continually engaged in emotionally driven behavior in everyday life. Music, like emotions, has the ability to affect cognitive tasks such as our perception of time. Timing and emotion are inextricably linked by the rhythm and tempo of a myriad of external and internal events that comprise music, film, dance, sports, courtship, social conflict, and everyday activities (Droit-Volet & Meck Reference Droit-Volet and Meck2007). According to scalar timing theory (MacDonald & Meck Reference MacDonald and Meck2004), timing of intervals in the seconds-to-minutes range entails three stages of sequentially performed processes; namely, the registration of the duration, maintenance of the temporal information in memory, and a decision based on a comparison of the accumulated duration(s) with other temporal information maintained in memory. Those listeners with at least some musical training typically exhibit better performance in timing tasks than do listeners with little or no musical training (e.g., Berens & Pastore Reference Berens and Pastore2005). Moreover, activation induced by brief emotional stimuli affects the processing of subsequent signal durations. In this sense, while irrelevant sounds – whether speech, tones, or music – do not affect timing performance (Franssen et al. Reference Franssen, Vandierendonck and Van Hiel2006), emotional sounds can influence our time perception. Noulhiane et al. (Reference Noulhiane, Mella, Samson, Ragot and Pouthas2007) found that emotional sounds were perceived as being longer than neutral ones, at least for short durations (up to around 3–4 sec). This agrees with results related to emotions evoked by visual stimuli. Thus, emotional faces – especially angry faces – are judged longer than neutral ones (Droit-Volet & Meck Reference Droit-Volet and Meck2007). Overall, these data suggest that music, in the same manner as other stimuli that increase arousal, affects the perception of time.

In the section “The Melancholy Mirror” from her essay The Bloody Countess, the Argentinean poet Alejandra Pizarnik (Reference Pizarnik and Baldick1971; for translations, see also Baldick Reference Baldick1993; Golombek & Yannielli Reference Golombek and Yannielli1996) describes melancholy as a musical problem related to timing disruption:

Consequently, analysis of the complex interplay between emotion, music, and time perception remains to be elucidated.

In summary, we agree that a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying emotions could be of great importance for clinical applications like music therapy. Thus, the identification of the neural mechanisms involved in emotional responses to music is likely to tell us a great deal about functions of the auditory system that are currently obscure. Our main point is to encourage the search for common representations of abstract quantities involving the impact of time, space, and number on the emotional response to music (Cordes et al. Reference Cordes, Williams and Meck2007).