Studies on the relation between music and the brain have generated heterogeneous results influenced by the location of the cerebral injury and by the degree of previous musical knowledge. Some reports have shown that musical impairment is invariably associated with aphasia (aphasia with amusia), but others have demonstrated that language impairment does not entail disruption of musical skills (aphasia without amusia or amusia without aphasia). The complex relations between music and the brain and music and language are illustrated by the cases of 2 famous musicians: Vissarion Shebalin, with a left temporo-parietal lesion, severe aphasia and an amazing conservation of his musical production, and George Gershwin, affected by a temporal right hemisphere cerebral tumor that only produced apraxia in its last days. Both musicians, despite their cerebral lesions, preserved their highly qualified musical competence. In the case of Vissarion Shebalin, his remarkable preservation of receptive and expressive aspects of music, despite a profound aphasia, demonstrates the independence of cerebral processing of language and music and the probable correlation of the sparing of these abilities, with a talent developed early in childhood and a repetitive and formal training that generates an expanded cortical representation. In the case of George Gershwin, a highly trained artist, the preservation of his left hemisphere musical representation may explain his preserved musical competence.