Music performance is both a natural human activity, present in all societies, and one of the most complex and demanding cognitive challenges that the human mind can undertake. Unlike most other sensory-motor activities, music performance requires precise timing of several hierarchically organized actions, as well as precise control over pitch interval production, implemented through diverse effectors according to the instrument involved. We review the cognitive neuroscience literature of both motor and auditory domains, highlighting the value of studying interactions between these systems in a musical context, and propose some ideas concerning the role of the premotor cortex in integration of higher order features of music with appropriately timed and organized actions.

Perception and actions can be tightly coupled; but does a perceptual event dissociated from action processes still engage the motor system? We conducted 2 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies involving rhythm perception and production to address this question. In experiment 1, on each trial subjects 1st listened in anticipation of tapping, and then tapped along with musical rhythms. Recruitment of the supplementary motor area, mid-premotor cortex (PMC), and cerebellum was observed during listen with anticipation. To test whether this activation was related to motor planning or rehearsal, in experiment 2 subjects naively listened to rhythms without foreknowledge that they would later tap along with them. Yet, the same motor regions were engaged despite no action-perception connection. In contrast, the ventral PMC was only recruited during action and action-coupled perceptual processes, whereas the dorsal part was only sensitive to the selection of actions based on higher-order rules of temporal organization. These functional dissociations shed light on the nature of action-perception processes and suggest an inherent link between auditory and motor systems in the context of rhythm.