If we are not free to stand up and let the music move us physically around the room, we tap our feet, nod our head, or move our arms in time to its beat. The sensory appeal of music, although rooted in human nature and in the senses that we all share, is hard to analyze or measure. While we are born with our senses, our responses to the sensations they detect are conditioned by years of experience or inexperience. The culture of which we are a part influences or conditions our minds to interpret and our bodies to respond to specific incoming sensory messages in a particular way. Thin of the sense of taste, for example.
Parents enjoy some foods that their children find totally unpalatable.
And so it is with sounds and music. We dislike what we do not understand or what is unfamiliar. In other words, the mind gets in the way of our senses, and conditions us to like some sounds and rhythms and to dislike others. But certainly, even within those limits, it is easy enough to see that music has sensory appeal. Besides appealing to our senses, music speaks very powerfully to our imaginations and memories.