Some people are born to enjoy music more than others

Walk through any busy street, and you’ll hear it – music, playing from car windows, cafés, or earbuds. People love and enjoy music. It helps us celebrate, grieve, concentrate, and connect. But while we know how music makes us feel, we rarely ask why it makes us feel that way.

Why do melodies spark joy? Why do rhythms move our bodies before we even think? Is our love for music something we learn, or does it go deeper?

A recent study published in Nature Communications brings new depth to this question. The research suggests that our ability to enjoy music is not simply a cultural product or personal habit.

Scientists have now found that genetics also play a role in shaping how much pleasure we draw from music. That joy, it turns out, may be written in our DNA.

Is our love for music rooted in biology?

For centuries, music has been more than entertainment. It reflects who we are. It binds people across generations and geographies. It serves as an emotional outlet and a social bridge.

Even Charles Darwin, fascinated by music’s power, once said it “must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed.” Despite its deep cultural presence, we still struggle to explain the origins of music enjoyment.

This new research, led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, takes a scientific step forward. The international team set out to explore whether the pleasure people feel while listening to music is partly influenced by genetic differences.

“The answer to this big question has the potential to open a window into more general aspects of the human mind, such as how experiences become pleasurable,” said study first author and PhD candidate Giacomo Bignardi.

“We wanted to understand whether genetic differences between individuals can result in differences in the pleasure that people derive from music and what these differences can tell us about human musicality in general.”

Strong genetic links to music enjoyment

To investigate, the researchers turned to twin studies – a powerful method in behavioral genetics. Identical twins share almost 100% of their DNA. Fraternal twins share about half.

By comparing similarities between these two groups, scientists can estimate how much genes contribute to a trait. If identical twins enjoy music in more similar ways than fraternal twins, then genetics likely play a part.

​The study was a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. It involved data from more than 9,000 twins.​

Participants provided self-reports on how much pleasure they get from music – what researchers call music reward sensitivity.

They also answered questions about their general sensitivity to rewards and completed tasks that measured their musical perception, such as identifying pitch, melody, and rhythm.

Love for music may be genetic

The findings were striking. The researchers estimated that about 54% of the variation in music reward sensitivity in the Swedish sample could be linked to genetic differences.

That means more than half of the difference in how people respond to music may be inherited. This is a significant discovery. It implies that music enjoyment is not just a learned behavior or shaped by environment – it may be part of our biological design.

But the results went further. The researchers also found that the genes affecting music reward were not the same as those influencing general pleasure or musical skill.

That distinction is important. It means that enjoying music isn’t just about being musically talented or having a naturally cheerful personality. The capacity to feel joy from music stands apart.

Different genes for different experiences

As the research dug deeper, more complexity appeared. Music enjoyment is not one single experience. People find pleasure in different ways: some feel emotionally uplifted, others feel compelled to dance, while some enjoy making music with others. The genetic analysis reflected this richness.

The team found that different genetic pathways were associated with different aspects of music reward. This means that the genes influencing your emotional connection to music may differ from those that make you enjoy dancing to a beat or playing in a band.

“These findings suggest a complex picture in which partly distinct DNA differences contribute to different aspects of music enjoyment,” said Bignardi.

“Future research looking at which part of the genome contributes the most to the human ability to enjoy music has the potential to shed light on the human faculty that baffled Darwin the most, and which still baffles us today.”

Music enjoyment is inherited

This study reshapes how we think about the roots of musical pleasure. For years, scientists and philosophers treated music as a purely cultural artifact – something passed down through teaching and tradition. Now we see that biology plays a strong role.

The rhythm that makes your feet move or the melody that brings tears to your eyes may be part of your genetic inheritance.

That doesn’t mean culture or personal experience don’t matter. They still do. What we listen to and how we express our tastes remain deeply shaped by family, society, and personal history. But now, we can add another layer to the story: a biological one.

Future research on music enjoyment

The study opens new possibilities. Future research may explore which regions of the genome are most involved. Scientists might one day discover genetic patterns linked to musical creativity or preference. Such findings could also have broader applications.

Understanding how our brains respond to music may offer clues to emotional regulation, mental health, or even cognitive development.

In the end, music continues to enchant, connect, and move us. This study reminds us that part of that magic might be found inside our genes – echoing across generations, written into the very code of our being.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

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