The Role of Music in Everyday Life During the First Wave of the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Exploratory Study

The effects of musical practice on the well-being, mental health and social support of student, amateur, and professional musicians in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic

This pan-Canadian study investigates the effects of musical practice on the well-being, mental health, and social support of Canadian musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a survey questionnaire, data was collected from 1,618 participants aged 14 and above during the first wave of the pandemic up to the first half of 2022. The survey included standardized questionnaires to self-assess well-being (WHO-5), mental health (MHC-SF), and social support (SPS-10 measures social support). Results show that increased musical practice frequency correlates with improved well-being and mental health, particularly among amateurs. Professional musicians and those at a post-secondary level exhibit lower well-being scores, likely due to pandemic-related challenges. Factors such as age, gender, sports engagement, and participation in social clubs or volunteer work significantly influenced outcomes. While sports engagement was associated with higher scores on well-being, mental health and social support, no significant differences were found among participants engaged in artistic hobbies. As for involvement in social clubs or volunteer work, benefits were reported on two of the three outcomes. Overall, the findings suggest that regular amateur musical practice, especially in group settings, alongside engagement in sports and social activities, may have promoted well-being, mental health, and social support among musicians during the challenging period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Exploring the usability and feasibility of a mobile music listening application for people living in the community with post-stroke aphasia

PURPOSE

Language and communication disorders can inhibit participation in activities that have potential therapeutic benefits for recovery. This exploratory research examined the usability and feasibility of a purpose-built music listening mobile application for people living in the community with post-stroke aphasia, and examined relationships between useability and participant age, aphasia severity and time post-stroke.

METHODS

Nineteen participants with chronic aphasia tested the application for two weeks. Prior to use, music preferences, technology use and confidence, self-efficacy and music engagement questionnaires were completed. System usability scale, music listening data and a satisfaction rating were completed following use.

RESULTS

Overall, the application was perceived as being usable and feasible with a high system usability rating and moderate effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. The system usability scores were not associated with aphasia severity, age, years post-stroke, self-efficacy or music engagement. Technology confidence was positively associated with system usability.

CONCLUSION

The music listening application is a feasible and usable option for listening to music in people with chronic post-stroke aphasia. This study provides a foundation for the rigorous examination of the usability of music listening technology for people with post-stroke aphasia and the potential investigation of use in acute care facilities and other clinical populations.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONMusic listening has potential therapeutic benefits for people with post-stroke aphasia.Applications for music listening require customisation to enable people with post-stroke aphasia opportunity to listen to their preferred music.Music listening applications that are perceived as usable and feasible by people with post-stroke aphasia may have potential application within rehabilitation and community settings.

Music in the Middle: A Culture-Cognition-Mediator Model of Musical Functionality

Music is both universal, appearing in every known human culture, and culture-specific, often defying intelligibility across cultural boundaries. This duality has been the source of debate within the broad community of music researchers, and there have been significant disagreements both on the ontology of music as an object of study and the appropriate epistemology for that study. To help resolve this tension, I present a culture-cognition-mediator model that situates music as a mediator in the mutually constitutive cycle of cultures and selves representing the ways individuals both shape and are shaped by their cultural environments. This model draws on concepts of musical grammars and schema, contemporary theories in developmental and cultural psychology that blur the distinction between nature and nurture, and recent advances in cognitive neuroscience. Existing evidence of both directions of causality is presented, providing empirical support for the conceptual model. The epistemological consequences of this model are discussed, specifically with respect to transdisciplinarity, hybrid research methods, and several potential empirical applications and testable predictions as well as its import for broader ontological conversations around the evolutionary origins of music itself.

"Help! I need some music!": Analysing music discourse & depression on Reddit

Individuals choose varying music listening strategies to fulfill particular mood-regulation goals. However, ineffective musical choices and a lack of cognizance of the effects thereof can be detrimental to their well-being and may lead to adverse outcomes like anxiety or depression. In our study, we use the social media platform Reddit to perform a large-scale analysis to unearth the several music-mediated mood-regulation goals that individuals opt for in the context of depression. A mixed-methods approach involving natural language processing techniques followed by qualitative analysis was performed on all music-related posts to identify the various music-listening strategies and group them into healthy and unhealthy associations. Analysis of the music content (acoustic features and lyrical themes) accompanying healthy and unhealthy associations showed significant differences. Individuals resorting to unhealthy strategies gravitate towards low-valence tracks. Moreover, lyrical themes associated with unhealthy strategies incorporated tracks with low optimism, high blame, and high self-reference. Our findings demonstrate that being mindful of the objectives of using music, the subsequent effects thereof, and aligning both for well-being outcomes is imperative for comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of music.

Determining the role of music attitude and its precursors in stimulating the psychological wellbeing of immigrants during COVID quarantine - a moderated mediation approach

Based on social cognitive theory (SCT), the purpose of this study is to examine the role of music attitude and its essential precursors in stimulating the psychological wellbeing of immigrants in isolation (quarantine) during the COVID pandemic. This study employed quantitative methodology; an online survey was administered to collect sufficient data from 300 immigrants who traveled to China during the pandemic. Data were collected from five centralized quarantine centers situated in different cities in China. Additionally, the valid data set was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) via AMOS 24 and SPSS 24. The results indicate that potential predictors such as cognitive - music experience (MEX), environmental - social media peer influence (SPI), and cultural factors such as native music (NM) have a direct, significant, and positive effect on music attitude (MA), which further influences immigrants' psychological wellbeing (PW) during their quarantine period. Moreover, in the presence of the mediator (MA), the mediating relationships between MEX and PW, and NM and PW, are positive, significant, and regarded as partial mediation. However, the moderated mediation effects of music type (MT) on MEX-MA-PW and NM-MA-PW were found to be statistically not significant and unsupported. This study contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of individuals' music attitude and its associated outcomes, focusing on mental health care in lonely situations such as quarantine during the COVID pandemic. More importantly, this study has raised awareness about music, music attitude, and their beneficial outcomes, such as mental calmness and peacefulness for the general public, particularly during social distancing, isolation, and quarantine in the COVID pandemic situation.

Personal and contextual variables predict music consumption during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Canada

The global COVID-19 lockdowns shattered familiar routines, plunging individuals into a disorienting emotional landscape characterized by loss, uncertainty, and a deep yearning for social bonds. Many employed coping strategies such as cleaning, dancing, and mindfulness-based practices to ameliorate negative emotions. Music listening was one of the most widely used coping strategies, moderated by personal and contextual variables. We obtained data from a Canadian national survey conducted in April 2020 to examine the role of personal (sex, age, education level, pre-pandemic income, minority status, feelings about music, and Schwartz's "personal values") and contextual variables (level of worry, changes to income, COVID-19 status and risk, having children at home, and internet access) in predicting music listening for stress relief, changes to music listening, changes to music watching, and music discovery. Our results indicate that women, younger adults, individuals who like or love music, and those reporting high levels of worry were more likely to listen to music to relieve stress. Personal variables were more significantly associated with music listening for stress relief than contextual variables.

Reasons for participating in musical activities and their relationship with well-being during and before Covid-19

People tend to participate in musical activities-whether it is making or listening to music-for reasons that are related to basic psychological needs. This study explored whether the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) has changed the reasons for participating in musical activities and examined the relationship between these reasons and well-being during as well as before the pandemic. In total, 246 people (between 18 and 35 years) completed a survey during the pandemic, which contained questions relating to the reasons for participating in musical activities-namely the promotion of identity and agency, mood regulation, relaxation and company, enjoyment-and to subjective and eudaimonic well-being before and after the outbreak of the pandemic. Results showed that during the pandemic compared with before, people more often chose music to promote identity and agency, mood regulation, and relaxation and company. Two of the reasons that were invoked more often-namely identity and agency and mood regulation-positively predicted eudaimonic and subjective well-being, respectively, during the pandemic as well as before. Thus, people's reasons for participating in musical activities during the pandemic compared with before changed in a direction consistent with increasing both eudaimonic and subjective well-being.

The sound of stress recovery: an exploratory study of self-selected music listening after stress

BACKGROUND

Empirical support for the notion that music listening is beneficial for stress recovery is inconclusive, potentially due to the methodological diversity with which the effects of music on stress recovery have been investigated. Little is presently known about which recovery activities are chosen by individuals for the purpose of stress recovery, and whether audio feature commonalities exist between different songs that are selected by individuals for the purpose of stress recovery. The current pre-registered study investigated whether audio feature commonalities can be extracted from self-selected songs for the purpose of stress recovery. Furthermore, the present study exploratorily examined the relationship between audio features and participants' desired recovery-related emotions while listening and after listening to self-selected music.

METHODS

Participants (N = 470) completed an online survey in which they described what music they would listen to unwind from a hypothetical stressful event. Data analysis was conducted using a split-sample procedure. A k-medoid cluster analysis was conducted to identify audio feature commonalities between self-selected songs. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between audio features and desired recovery emotions.

RESULTS

Participants valued music listening as a recovery activity to a similar extent as watching TV, sleeping, or talking to a significant other. Cluster analyses revealed that self-selected songs for the purpose of stress recovery can be grouped into two distinct categories. The two categories of songs shared similarities in key, loudness, speechiness, acousticness, instrumentalness, liveness, musical valence, tempo, duration, and time signature, and were distinguished by danceability, energy, and mode. No audio features were significantly associated with participants' desired recovery emotions.

CONCLUSIONS

Although a comprehensive portrait of the relationship between audio features and stress recovery still warrants further research, the present study provides a starting point for future enquiries into the nuanced effects of musical audio features on stress recovery.

Musical participation and positive youth development in middle school

Introduction

Music is central in the lives of adolescents. While listening is usually the most common form of engagement, many adolescents also learn music formally by participating in school-based and extracurricular programs. This study examined positive youth development (PYD), school connectedness (SC), and hopeful future expectations (HFE) in middle school students (N = 120) with four levels of musical participation in school-based and extracurricular music programs. Levels of participation were based on students' engagement in different music programs, including the Virtual Middle School Music Enrichment (VMSME), a tuition-free, extracurricular program that focuses on popular music education and virtual learning. We also investigated student listening preferences, musical tuition, and daily instrumental practicing.

Method

Study participants completed an anonymous, online survey that contained five self-report measures including the very-brief form of the PYD questionnaire, a scale of school connectedness, and a scale of HFE.

Results

Findings revealed significant differences in PYD scores by grade and gender, and associations between levels of musical participation and competence, a PYD component. Liking music and participation in extracurricular activities predicted scores on SC, and starting formal music education before age 8 predicted scores in HFE. We also found VMSME students to stem from neighborhoods with lower HDI than students in the other study groups, which points to issues of access to formal music education.

Discussion

Findings are discussed in light of earlier research on PYD, extracurricular activities in adolescence, the ubiquity and functions of music in adolescence, and deficit thinking in education.

Music engagement is negatively correlated with depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic via reward-related mechanisms

The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply affected the mental health of millions of people. We assessed which of many leisure activities correlated with positive mental health outputs, with particular attention to music, which has been reported to be important for coping with the psychological burden of the pandemic. Questionnaire data from about 1000 individuals primarily from Italy, Spain, and the United States during May-June 2020 show that people picked music activities (listening to, playing, singing, etc.) most often as the leisure experiences that helped them the most to cope with psychological distress related with the pandemic. During the pandemic, hours of engagement in music and food-related activities were associated with lower depressive symptoms. The negative correlation between music and depression was mediated by individual differences in sensitivity to reward, whereas the correlation between food-related activities and improved mental health outputs was explained by differences in emotion suppression strategies. Our results, while correlational, suggest that engaging in music activities could be related to improved well-being with the underlying mechanism being related to reward, consistent with neuroscience findings. Our data have practical significance in pointing to effective strategies to cope with mental health issues beyond those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The whole sky has broken down on me. I might die alone": A qualitative study on the lived experiences of COVID-19 positive frontline workers in Bangladesh

Many countries, including Bangladesh, have conducted research on the mental health of frontline workers and their challenges in adjusting to their new workplaces. However, the authors are unaware of any studies on their real-life experiences as COVID-19-positive patients in Bangladesh. This study intends to investigate the lived experiences of Bangladeshi frontline workers who were isolated as a result of the COVID-19 infection and tested positive for the virus. We used a qualitative methodology and a semi-structured interview guide to conduct ten interviews between July 26 and August 12, 2020. The participants were recruited via a social media campaign and purposive sampling. All interviews were conducted via telephone and online and were transcribed and analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological method. The study does, however, identify four primary themes and 13 supporting themes, including (1) experience in a new working environment (subthemes: workload and adaptation, maintaining health protocol and social distance, and the fear of infection), (2) diagnosis (subthemes: the origin of infection, physiological problems, experiences at the diagnosis center), (3) recovery days (subthemes: earlier reactions, experiences in isolation, coping mechanisms), and (4) post-COVID-19 (subthemes: excitement, fear, and confusion; physiological problems; increased religiosity; and changes in philosophy). This study is important for healthcare policymakers because it helps them design healthcare management systems that take Bangladeshi society's social context into account. This study also recommends that long-term behavioral change programs be implemented by national policymakers to lessen societal stigma. At the same time, it suggests that the government should help lessen the barriers to health care services that persons with lower socioeconomic status confront.

One Year on: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Lives of Freelance Orchestral Musicians in the United Kingdom

Before the drastic disruption caused by the sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, 85% of the United Kingdom’s 14,000 orchestral musicians were self-employed freelance workers, engaged in busy and varied portfolio careers comprising a combination of orchestral, West End theatre, chamber music, and commercial recording work. Between May and June 2020 we carried out a first study examining the impact of the pandemic on the lives of 24 self-employed orchestral musicians, all established freelancers. Twelve were mid-career and 12 were late-career (described in that study as “seasoned”). They all reported having lost their much-loved performing careers, missing music making and colleagues, and being anxious about the future of the music profession. However, there were some differences between the two groups: the late-career participants demonstrated greater financial and emotional resilience, while the mid-career musicians reported distress, confusion, and anxiety about their identity as musicians. In the present follow-up study, we aimed to examine the impact of the first year of the pandemic on the lives of 21 of the same musicians. We found that while all the mid-career participants remained committed to their performing careers, many late-career participants aged 54–59 had developed interests in non-performing music work, and the older late-career participants, aged 65 and over, feared that they might already, de facto, have retired. We discuss the findings with reference to the precarity of freelance orchestral musicians’ lives, lifespan models of musicians’ careers, self-determination theory and post-traumatic growth, and their implications for music colleges and musicians’ support organizations.

The impact of COVID-19 on music consumption and music spending

COVID-19 induced restrictions ordered by governments around the world have been an exogenous shock to the music industry, which we divide into two affected groups: 1) live music events and 2) recorded music. While the impact on live music events is rather obvious, it is unclear how the current pandemic is affecting the recorded music market. Hence, we study consumers’ pre- and post-pandemic shifts in consumer spending (in euros) and music consumption (in hours) across live music events, as well as the digital and physical submarkets of recorded music, in the world’s fourth largest music market, Germany. Relying on an online bi-annual panel capturing five waves between winter 2018/19 and winter 2020/21, we find that the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the continuous trend towards digitalization of the music landscape with premium streaming being the biggest beneficiary. However, total monthly consumer spending on music decreased by more than 45% compared to pre-pandemic, with live music events and physical sales being the most severely affected. Surprisingly, music consumption in hours also decreased during the lockdown even though consumers spent more time at home.

Does chronotype explain daily timing of music behaviors?

We addressed how circadian rhythms influence daily musical activities of performing musicians, who exhibit fine temporal control. Music performances often occur in the evening and late at night; evidence suggests that composing musicians tend to be later chronotypes than non-composing musicians. However, chronotype and daily music-making in performing musicians have yet to be investigated. The current study examined chronotype in actively practicing and/or performing musicians and non-musicians, and whether it was related to the daily timing of music performance. To test influences of daily changes due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions to musical, athletic, social, and sleep habits were also measured. Performing musicians, active (practicing but non-performing) musicians, inactive musicians, and non-musicians, residing in Canada, completed a 7-day online daily activity and sleep diary in Summer 2020. There were more evening chronotypes than morning chronotypes in the sample. Active/performing musicians tended to be earlier chronotypes than all other groups. Musicians' chronotype, but not nightly sleep timing, predicted the time of day that musicians made music: Late chronotypes made music later in the day and early chronotypes made music earlier in the day. Music performance and practice amount decreased during the COVID-19 period, but the daily timing of these activities did not change. All participants reported later sleep onset during the COVID-19 period; the amount of social interaction decreased during the COVID-19 period, while exercise increased for some and decreased for others. No changes in the daily timing of exercise, social interaction, or morning wake-up were reported. These findings suggest that performing musicians may be slightly earlier chronotypes than non-performing musicians and non-musicians, despite music performances often occurring in the evening. Chronotype was related to the time of day of music-making independent of nightly sleep timing, suggesting that times of day for making music reflect an individual's circadian rhythm.

Music in Quarantine: Connections Between Changes in Lifestyle, Psychological States, and Musical Behaviors During COVID-19 Pandemic

Music is not only the art of organized sound but also a compound of social interaction among people, built upon social and environmental foundations. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, containment measures such as shelter-in-place, lockdown, social distancing, and self-quarantine have severely impacted the foundation of human society, resulting in a drastic change in our everyday experience. In this paper, the relationships between musical behavior, lifestyle, and psychological states during the shelter-in-place period of the COVID-19 pandemic are investigated. An online survey on musical experience, lifestyle changes, stress level, musical behaviors, media usage, and environmental sound perception was conducted. The survey was conducted in early June 2020. Responses from 620 people in 24 countries were collected, with the large proportion of the responses coming from the U.S. (55.5%) and India (21.4%). Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed causal relationships between lifestyle, stress, and music behaviors. Elements such as stress-level change, work risk, and staying home contribute to changes in musical experiences, such as moderating emotion with music, feeling emotional with music, and being more attentive to music. Stress-level change was correlated with work risk and income change, and people who started living with others due to the outbreak, especially with their children, indicated less change in stress level. People with more stress-level change tended to use music more purposefully for their mental well-being, such as to moderate emotions, to influence mood, and to relax. In addition, people with more stress-level change tend to be more annoyed by neighbors' noise. Housing type was not directly associated with annoyance; however, attention to environmental sounds decreased when the housing type was smaller. Attention to environmental and musical sounds and the emotional responses to them are highly inter-correlated. Multi-group SEM based on musicians showed that the causal relationship structure for professional musicians differs from that of less-experienced musicians. For professional musicians, staying at home was the only component that caused all musical behavior changes; stress did not cause musical behavior changes. Regarding Internet use, listening to music via YouTube and streaming was preferred over TV and radio, especially among less-experienced musicians, while participation in the online music community was preferred by more advanced musicians. This work suggests that social, environmental, and personal factors and limitations influence the changes in our musical behavior, perception of sonic experience, and emotional recognition, and that people actively accommodated the unusual pandemic situations using music and Internet technologies.

Engagement in Music-Related Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic as a Mirror of Individual Differences in Musical Reward and Coping Strategies

The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken to mitigate its impact (e.g., confinement orders) have affected people's lives in profound ways that would have been unimagable only months before the pandemic began. Media reports from the height of the pandemic's initial international surge frequently highlighted that many people were engaging in music-related activities (from singing and dancing to playing music from balconies and attending virtual concerts) to help them cope with the strain of the pandemic. Our first goal in this study was to investigate changes in music-related habits due to the pandemic. We also investigated whether engagement in distinct music-related activities (singing, listening, dancing, etc.) was associated with individual differences in musical reward, music perception, musical training, or emotional regulation strategies. To do so, we collected detailed (~1 h-long) surveys during the initial peak of shelter-in-place order implementation (May-June 2020) from over a thousand individuals across different Countries in which the pandemic was especially devastating at that time: the USA, Spain, and Italy. Our findings indicate that, on average, people spent more time in music-related activities while under confinement than they had before the pandemic. Notably, this change in behavior was dependent on individual differences in music reward sensitivity, and in emotional regulation strategies. Finally, the type of musical activity with which individuals engaged was further associated with the degree to which they used music as a way to regulate stress, to address the lack of social interaction (especially the individuals more concerned about the risk of contracting the virus), or to cheer themselves up (especially those who were more worried about the pandemic consequences). Identifying which music-related activities have been particularly sought for by the population as a means for coping with such heightened uncertainty and stress, and understanding the individual differences that underlie said propensities are crucial to implementing personalized music-based interventions that aim to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms.