Associations between music and health-related outcomes in adult non-musicians, amateur musicians and professional musicians—Results from a nationwide Danish study

Musical activity in a subsample of the German National Cohort study

Musical activities (MA) such as singing, playing instruments, and listening to music may be associated with health benefits. However, evidence from epidemiological studies is still limited. This study aims at describing the relation between MA and both sociodemographic and health-related factors in a cross-sectional approach. A total of 6717 adults (50.3% women, 49.7% men, median age: 51 years (IQR 43-60) were recruited from the study center Berlin-Mitte of the German National Cohort (NAKO), a population-based prospective study. This study is based on a sample randomly selected from the population registry of Berlin, Germany, aged 20 to 69 years. 53% of the participants had been musically active at least once in their life (56.1% women, 43.9% men). Playing keyboard instruments (30%) and singing (21%) were the most frequent MA. Participants listened to music in median 90 min per day (IQR 30.0-150.0). Musically active individuals were more likely to have a higher education, higher alcohol consumption, were less likely to be physically active, and had a lower BMI compared to musically inactive individuals. This large population-based study offers a comprehensive description of demographic, health, and lifestyle characteristics associated with MA. Our findings may aid in assessing long-term health consequences of MA.

Beat alignment ability is associated with formal musical training not current music playing

The ability to perceive the beat in music is crucial for both music listeners and players with expert musicians being notably skilled at noticing fine deviations in the beat. However, it is unclear whether this beat perception ability is enhanced in trained musicians who continue to practice relative to musicians who no longer play. Thus, we investigated this by comparing active musicians', inactive musicians', and nonmusicians' beat alignment ability scores on the Computerized Adaptive Beat Alignment Test (CA-BAT). 97 adults with diverse musical experience participated in the study, reporting their years of formal musical training, number of instruments played, hours of weekly music playing, and hours of weekly music listening, in addition to their demographic information. While initial tests between groups indicated active musicians outperformed inactive musicians and nonmusicians on the CA-BAT, a generalized linear regression analysis showed that there was no significant difference once differences in musical training had been accounted for. To ensure that our results were not impacted by multicollinearity between music-related variables, nonparametric and nonlinear machine learning regressions were employed and confirmed that years of formal musical training was the only significant predictor of beat alignment ability. These results suggest that expertly perceiving fine differences in the beat is not a use-dependent ability that degrades without regular maintenance through practice or musical engagement. Instead, better beat alignment appears to be associated with more musical training regardless of continued use.

Losing Life's Sparkle: Experiences of Canadian Choral Musicians During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background. Singing in choirs, which previous research has identified as supporting wellbeing, has been restricted and altered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to investigate and describe the experience of music-making for musicians in professional and semi-professional choirs in Canada 18-22 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 participants and analyzed using interpretive description. Findings. Four themes: (1) increased negative feelings associated with the music-making experience due to COVID-19 restrictions, (2) isolation and disconnection, (3) recognizing how music-making aids in their own mental health, the participants used music-making to help their communities cope with the pandemic, and (4) adapting in response to COVID-19 reinforced music-making's importance. Implications. Understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered Canadian choral musicians' experience of music-making can help occupational therapists in supporting choral musicians return to this meaningful occupation.

Medical phenome of musicians: an investigation of health records collected on 9803 musically active individuals

Previous studies suggest that musicians may be at higher risk for a set of medical problems; however, this literature has been limited by relatively small sample sizes, self‐reports, and lack of controls. To address such limitations, we examined trends in the medical care of musicians in an Electronic Health Record database. On the basis of a collection of keywords and regular expressions in the patients’ clinical notes, we identified 9803 “musicians” that we matched for sex, median age (across the medical record), ethnicity, race, the length of record, and the number of visits with 49,015 controls. We fitted 1263 logistic regression models to determine whether the phenotype was correlated with musicianship. Two hundred fifty‐seven phenotypes were more prevalent in musicians than controls after Bonferroni adjustment (P < 7.6 × 10^–6), including diseases of the larynx and vocal cords (OR = 2.32 (95% CI: 2.25–2.40)), and hearing loss (OR = 1.36 (95% CI: 1.32–1.39)). Fifteen phenotypes were significantly more prevalent in controls than musicians, including coronary atherosclerosis (OR = 0.91 (95% CI: 0.89–0.94)). Although being a musician was related to many occupational health problems, we identified protective effects of musicianship in which certain disorders were less common in musicians than in controls, indicating that active musical engagement could have health benefits analogous to athletic engagement.

Positive Organisational Arts-Based Youth Scholarship: Redressing Discourse on Danger, Disquiet, and Distress during COVID-19

This methodological article argues for the potential of positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship as a methodology to understand and promote positive experiences among young people. With reference to COVID-19, exemplars sourced from social media platforms and relevant organisations demonstrate the remarkable creative brilliance of young people. During these difficult times, young people used song, dance, storytelling, and art to express themselves, (re)connect with others, champion social change, and promote health and wellbeing. This article demonstrates the power of positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship to understand how young people use art to redress negativity via a positive lens of agency, peace, collectedness, and calm.

"Grace Under Pressure": How CEOs Use Serious Leisure to Cope With the Demands of Their Job

How chief executive officers (CEOs) use their leisure to help respond to the demands of their job is important for themselves, their employees, and their organizations. This study shines light on this hardly explored subject by focusing on CEOs of major US companies and their “serious leisure,” the goal-oriented pursuit of a non-work passion. Serious leisure is increasingly practiced by the population at large as well as by top leaders. This study is based on 16 interviews with “serious leisurite” CEOs of Fortune 500, S&P 500, or comparable organizations. Novel insights are brought into the ways in which CEOs believe their passionate non-work pursuit supports not only coping with the strain of the top job but also optimal functioning in it, as well as into how they perceive the demands of the CEO role. This work contributes to research on leader personal resources and leader effectiveness, executive job demands, as well as to the leisure-based recovery literature.

The effects of playing music on mental health outcomes

The association between active musical engagement (as leisure activity or professionally) and mental health is still unclear, with earlier studies reporting contrasting findings. Here we tested whether musical engagement predicts (1) a diagnosis of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar or stress-related disorders based on nationwide patient registers or (2) self-reported depressive, burnout and schizotypal symptoms in 10,776 Swedish twins. Information was available on the years individuals played an instrument, including their start and stop date if applicable, and their level of achievement. Survival analyses were used to test the effect of musical engagement on the incidence of psychiatric disorders. Regression analyses were applied for self-reported psychiatric symptoms. Additionally, we conducted co-twin control analyses to further explore the association while controlling for genetic and shared environmental confounding. Results showed that overall individuals playing a musical instrument (independent of their musical achievement) may have a somewhat increased risk for mental health problems, though only significant for self-reported mental health measures. When controlling for familial liability associations diminished, suggesting that the association is likely not due to a causal negative effect of playing music, but rather to shared underlying environmental or genetic factors influencing both musicianship and mental health problems.

Understanding Wellbeing Among College Music Students and Amateur Musicians in Western Switzerland

Musical performance requires the ability to master a complex integration of highly specialized motor, cognitive, and perceptual skills developed over years of practice. It often means also being able to deal with considerable pressure within dynamic environments. Consequently, many musicians suffer from health-related problems and report a large number of physical and psychological complaints. Our research aimed to evaluate and analyze the wellbeing of two distinct groups of musicians, college music students and amateur performers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. A total sample of 126 musicians was recruited for the study (mean age ±SD = 22.4 ± 4.5 years, 71 male). Wellbeing was assessed through the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF questionnaire evaluating two general measures, quality of life (QoL) and general health, and four specific dimensions: physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment. For both groups, respondents’ QoL was high on each measure: median scores were higher than 4 for the two general measures and higher than 70 for the four specific dimensions. Among the dimensions, respondents had the highest mean score for environment (75.0), then social relationships and physical health (74.0 and 73.8, respectively), and finally, psychological health (70.3). Differences between groups of musicians emerged in terms of overall QoL and general health, as well as the physical health dimension, where college music students scored lower than the amateur musicians; conversely, college music students scored higher than the amateurs on social relationships. Our overview of musicians’ wellbeing in Western Switzerland demonstrates that, while music making can offer some health protective effects, there is a need for greater health awareness and promotion among advanced music students. This research offers insight into musicians’ wellbeing and points to the importance of involving different actors (teachers, administrators, support staff) in facilitating healthy music making.