Music has reinforcing effects not only for humans but also for other nonhuman animals, such as songbirds. Here we analyzed the potential reinforcing effects of music for pigeons. Pigeons were trained on concurrent chain schedules in which the initial link was a variable interval schedule and the terminal link was associated with different music in addition to food reinforcement. In the first condition, music by J. S. Bach and I. Stravinsky were used as auditory stimuli. In the second and the third conditions, one of the two music pieces and white noise were used as auditory stimuli. One subject preferred Bach and another subject preferred Stravinsky in the first condition, but their preference for music was less than 60% of choice. One bird consistently preferred white noise to music. Overall, these results demonstrated no reinforcing effects of music for pigeons. Analysis of responding rate during the terminal link showed the music did not have facilitative or suppressive effect on the operant responding. Because reinforcing properties of music have been shown for humans and songbirds but not by pigeons, it is suggested that a common phylogenetic contingency among humans and songbirds produced music preference in these animals.

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