The Current No joy: when music falls flat for people
Mar 30, 2026
Robert Zatorre, a McGill cognitive neuroscientist who studies how music triggers reward, and Bill Weiss, who lives with specific musical anhedonia and feels no pleasure from songs. They describe what it is like to not be moved by music. Conversations cover the brain wiring behind musical reward, survey and scan findings, heritability, and how people find pleasure in other ways.
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Growing Up With Musical Indifference
- Bill Weiss discovered as a teenager that music felt mechanical and produced no emotional response, so he hid his lack of connection to fit in with peers.
- He later learned about specific musical anhedonia and felt validated that his brain simply doesn't link auditory input to reward centers.
Use The BMRQ To Validate Musical Experience
- If you suspect you lack musical pleasure, consider the Barcelona Musical Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ) to assess specific musical anhedonia.
- Bill used the NPR lead to find the BMRQ and felt validated by the diagnosis and science.
Social Costs And Rituals Around Music
- Bill described social awkwardness from not noticing background music and having nothing to contribute when conversations turn to songs.
- At his wedding he danced to honor his wife even though the music felt mechanical and unemotional to him.