Of course, it all starts with your ear. The human ear is an amazing instrument. Although it’s working parts take up less than a cubic inch of space in your head, it’s capable of distinguishing between 300,000 and 400,000 slight variations in tone and intensity.  It can detect the drop of a pin or tolerate a sound a trillion times more intense.

According to the article, What You’re Missing When You’re Not Listening, we know that how hearing happens in your ear, but we still don’t know how your brain turns nerve impulses into sound:

When the eardrums vibrate in response to sound, the tiny piston-like stirrup bones of the middle ear amplify the vibrations. This motion is passed along to the snail-like chamber of the inner ear, which is filled with liquid and contains some 30,000 tiny hair cells. These fibers are made to bend, depending on the frequency of the vibration—­shorter strands respond to higher wavelengths, longer strands to lower—and this movement is translated into nerve impulses and sent to the brain, which then, somehow, ‘hears.’”

Recent research did identify the first brain cells that respond to sound which appear to play a role in the early functional organization of the cortex. This could explain the early link observed between sound input and cognitive function, often called the ‘Mozart effect.’

Science is showing that sound can benefit your mind, brain, and body in many ways.