In a world increasingly aware of the importance of connection, music stands out as a universal language that fosters social bonds. Beyond its aesthetic appeal, music serves as a powerful medium for enhancing social synchrony—coordinated interaction between individuals—which is fundamental to building trust, empathy, and social skills. This article defines social synchrony, explores how music promotes it, examines current research, and highlights its implications for the field of music therapy.

What Is Social Synchrony?

Social synchrony refers to the coordination of behaviors, emotions, and physiological states between individuals during interactions. It often occurs through shared rhythms, mirrored movements, eye contact, vocal patterns, or physiological responses like heart rate and brain wave alignment. This alignment helps individuals experience mutual understanding and connection, laying a foundation for prosocial behavior and cooperative learning.

In musical contexts, synchrony emerges naturally during shared musical activities—such as drumming, dancing, or group singing—where participants must listen, respond, and align their actions with others. These coordinated actions can foster emotional attunement and strengthen interpersonal bonds (Trainor & Cirelli, 2015).

How Music Facilitates Social Synchrony

Music is uniquely suited to facilitate synchrony because it is inherently rhythmic, patterned, and emotionally evocative. Musical engagement requires individuals to anticipate beats, align timing, share attention, and attune to emotional cues—all key ingredients of social interaction.

Joint music-making activates brain regions involved in social processing, motor coordination, and emotion, including the mirror neuron system and limbic areas (Koelsch, 2014). These neural systems support the embodied experience of “being with” others and enable participants to feel a shared emotional reality.

Even simple shared actions like clapping in rhythm or moving to a beat have been shown to promote interpersonal synchrony, increase trust, and lead to greater cooperation between participants (Tarr, Launay, & Dunbar, 2016).

Research Insights: Music and Social Connection

1. Music Promotes Prosocial Behavior

A meta-analysis by Kirschner and Tomasello (2010) found that young children who engaged in joint musical activities showed more cooperative and helpful behaviors immediately afterward than those who engaged in non-musical joint activities. Music’s rhythmic and emotionally expressive nature seems to prime the brain for connection and collaboration.

2. Neural Synchrony in Music Therapy

Research using EEG and fMRI imaging has demonstrated that shared music-making leads to synchronized brain activity between participants. This phenomenon, called interpersonal neural synchronization, is linked to increased empathy, rapport, and social understanding (Lu et al., 2021).

3. Nonverbal Synchrony Between Therapist and Client

In clinical settings, music therapy sessions often show increased nonverbal synchrony—coordinated movements and gestures—between the therapist and client. Higher synchrony correlates with better therapeutic relationships and more positive outcomes, suggesting that synchrony is a marker of emotional safety and engagement (Hadar et al., 2022).

Implications for Music Therapy

The ability of music to naturally generate social synchrony has significant implications for music therapy:

• Building Social Skills: Musical games that involve turn-taking, imitation, or rhythmic coordination support the development of core social interaction skills.

• Fostering Trust and Connection: Music lowers barriers to communication, allowing participants to connect in nonverbal ways that foster trust and emotional closeness.

• Creating a Safe Emotional Space: Music evokes emotional responses and supports regulation, giving clients a medium to express, process, and share emotions in a safe, shared context.

• Supporting Neurodivergent Clients: For individuals with autism or developmental disabilities, musical synchrony can scaffold social engagement and communication in ways that feel less demanding and more intrinsically rewarding.

Conclusion

Music is more than entertainment—it’s a biological and cultural tool for creating connection. By synchronizing bodies, brains, and hearts, music opens pathways to empathy, cooperation, and growth. As research continues to affirm the deep social and neurological impact of shared music-making, music therapy stands validated as a powerful, evidence-based approach to promoting human connection and development.

References

Hadar, L. L., Taragin-Zeller, L., Bensimon, M., Ziv, A., & Amir, D. (2022). Nonverbal synchrony in music therapy: A marker of the therapeutic relationship in children with autism. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16, 912729. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.912729

Kirschner, S., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old children. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 354–364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.04.004

Koelsch, S. (2014). Brain correlates of music-evoked emotions. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(3), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3666

Lu, K., Xue, H., Nozawa, T., & Hao, N. (2021). Shared musical experience induces brain synchronization between listeners and performers. Psychology of Music, 49(1), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735619842379

Tarr, B., Launay, J., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2016). Synchrony and exertion during dance independently raise pain threshold and encourage social bonding. Biology Letters, 12(6), 20151093. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.1093

Trainor, L. J., & Cirelli, L. K. (2015). Rhythmic engagement with music in infancy: Early enculturation and the role of movement. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 6, 27–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.07.003