Moving to musical rhythm is an instinctive, often involuntary activity, but how does the brain produce this behaviour? In this talk I will describe how perception of musical rhythms activates motor brain areas even when no overt movement is made. I will cover brain stimulation studies that assess the causal role of motor areas in rhythm perception, and also discuss individual differences in rhythmic ability, examining how motor and auditory activity relate to important behavioural components of rhythm ability.