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The Healing Power of Music

Music therapy is increasingly used to help patients cope with stress and promote healing.

essay on music therapy

By Richard Schiffman

“Focus on the sound of the instrument,” Andrew Rossetti, a licensed music therapist and researcher said as he strummed hypnotic chords on a Spanish-style classical guitar. “Close your eyes. Think of a place where you feel safe and comfortable.”

Music therapy was the last thing that Julia Justo, a graphic artist who immigrated to New York from Argentina, expected when she went to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Union Square Clinic for treatment for cancer in 2016. But it quickly calmed her fears about the radiation therapy she needed to go through, which was causing her severe anxiety.

“I felt the difference right away, I was much more relaxed,” she said.

Ms. Justo, who has been free of cancer for over four years, continued to visit the hospital every week before the onset of the pandemic to work with Mr. Rossetti, whose gentle guitar riffs and visualization exercises helped her deal with ongoing challenges, like getting a good night’s sleep. Nowadays they keep in touch mostly by email.

The healing power of music — lauded by philosophers from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Pete Seeger — is now being validated by medical research. It is used in targeted treatments for asthma, autism, depression and more, including brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and stroke.

Live music has made its way into some surprising venues, including oncology waiting rooms to calm patients as they wait for radiation and chemotherapy. It also greets newborns in some neonatal intensive care units and comforts the dying in hospice.

While musical therapies are rarely stand-alone treatments, they are increasingly used as adjuncts to other forms of medical treatment. They help people cope with their stress and mobilize their body’s own capacity to heal.

“Patients in hospitals are always having things done to them,” Mr. Rossetti explained. “With music therapy, we are giving them resources that they can use to self-regulate, to feel grounded and calmer. We are enabling them to actively participate in their own care.”

Even in the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Rossetti has continued to perform live music for patients. He says that he’s seen increases in acute anxiety since the onset of the pandemic, making musical interventions, if anything, even more impactful than they were before the crisis.

Mount Sinai has also recently expanded its music therapy program to include work with the medical staff, many of whom are suffering from post-traumatic stress from months of dealing with Covid, with live performances offered during their lunch hour.

It’s not just a mood booster. A growing body of research suggests that music played in a therapeutic setting has measurable medical benefits.

“Those who undergo the therapy seem to need less anxiety medicine, and sometimes surprisingly get along without it,” said Dr. Jerry T. Liu, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

A review of 400 research papers conducted by Daniel J. Levitin at McGill University in 2013 concluded that “listening to music was more effective than prescription drugs in reducing anxiety prior to surgery.”

“Music takes patients to a familiar home base within themselves. It relaxes them without side effects,” said Dr. Manjeet Chadha, the director of radiation oncology at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York.

It can also help people deal with longstanding phobias. Mr. Rossetti remembers one patient who had been pinned under concrete rubble at Ground Zero on 9/11. The woman, who years later was being treated for breast cancer, was terrified by the thermoplastic restraining device placed over her chest during radiation and which reawakened her feelings of being entrapped.

“Daily music therapy helped her to process the trauma and her huge fear of claustrophobia and successfully complete the treatment,” Mr. Rossetti recalled.

Some hospitals have introduced prerecorded programs that patients can listen to with headphones. At Mount Sinai Beth Israel, the music is generally performed live using a wide array of instruments including drums, pianos and flutes, with the performers being careful to maintain appropriate social distance.

“We modify what we play according to the patient’s breath and heart rate,” said Joanne Loewy, the founding director of the hospital’s Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine. “Our goal is to anchor the person, to keep their mind connected to the body as they go through these challenging treatments.”

Dr. Loewy has pioneered techniques that use several unusual instruments like a Gato Box, which simulates the rhythms of the mother’s heartbeat, and an Ocean Disc, which mimics the whooshing sounds in the womb to help premature babies and their parents relax during their stay in noisy neonatal intensive care units.

Dr. Dave Bosanquet, a vascular surgeon at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, Wales, says that music has become much more common in operating rooms in England in recent years with the spread of bluetooth speakers. Prerecorded music not only helps surgical patients relax, he says, it also helps surgeons focus on their task. He recommends classical music, which “evokes mental vigilance” and lacks distracting lyrics, but cautions that it “should only be played during low or average stress procedures” and not during complex operations, which demand a sharper focus.

Music has also been used successfully to support recovery after surgery. A study published in The Lancet in 2015 reported that music reduced postoperative pain and anxiety and lessened the need for anti-anxiety drugs. Curiously, they also found that music was effective even when patients were under general anesthesia.

None of this surprises Edie Elkan, a 75-year-old harpist who argues there are few places in the health care system that would not benefit from the addition of music. The first time she played her instrument in a hospital was for her husband when he was on life support after undergoing emergency surgery.

“The hospital said that I couldn’t go into the room with my harp, but I insisted,” she said. As she played the harp for him, his vital signs, which had been dangerously low, returned to normal. “The hospital staff swung the door open and said, ‘You need to play for everyone.’”

Ms. Elkan took these instructions to heart. After she searched for two years for a hospital that would pay for the program, the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton, N.J., signed on, allowing her to set up a music school on their premises and play for patients at all stages in their hospitalization.

Ms. Elkan and her students have played for over a hundred thousand patients in 11 hospitals that have hosted them since her organization, Bedside Harp, was started in 2002.

In the months since the pandemic began, the harp players have been serenading patients at the entrance to the hospital, as well as holding special therapeutic sessions for the staff outdoors. They hope to resume playing indoors later this spring.

For some patients being greeted at the hospital door by ethereal harp music can be a shocking experience.

Recently, one woman in her mid-70s turned back questioningly to the driver when she stepped out of the van to a medley of familiar tunes like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Over the Rainbow” being played by a harpist, Susan Rosenstein. “That’s her job,” the driver responded, “to put a smile on your face.”

While Ms. Elkan says that it is hard to scientifically assess the impact — “How do you put a number on the value of someone smiling who has not smiled in six months?”— studies suggest that harp therapy helps calm stress and put both patients and hospital staff members at ease.

Ms. Elkan is quick to point out that she is not doing music therapy, whose practitioners need to complete a five-year course of study during which they are trained in psychology and aspects of medicine.

“Music therapists have specific clinical objectives,” she said. “We work intuitively — there’s no goal but to calm, soothe and give people hope.”

“When we come onto a unit, we remind people to exhale,” Ms. Elkan said. “Everyone is kind of holding their breath, especially in the E.R. and the I.C.U. When we come in, we dial down the stress level several decibels.”

Ms. Elkan’s harp can do more than just soothe emotions, says Ted Taylor, who directs pastoral care at the hospital. It can offer spiritual comfort to people who are at a uniquely vulnerable moment in their lives.

“There is something mysterious that we can’t quantify,” Mr. Taylor, a Quaker, said. “I call it soul medicine. Her harp can touch that deep place that connects all of us as human beings.”

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What to Know About Music Therapy

Music can help improve your mood and overall mental health.

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

essay on music therapy

Verywell / Lara Antal

Effectiveness

Things to consider, how to get started.

Music therapy is a therapeutic approach that uses the naturally mood-lifting properties of music to help people improve their mental health and overall well-being.  It’s a goal-oriented intervention that may involve:

  • Making music
  • Writing songs
  • Listening to music
  • Discussing music  

This form of treatment may be helpful for people with depression and anxiety, and it may help improve the quality of life for people with physical health problems. Anyone can engage in music therapy; you don’t need a background in music to experience its beneficial effects.

Types of Music Therapy

Music therapy can be an active process, where clients play a role in creating music, or a passive one that involves listening or responding to music. Some therapists may use a combined approach that involves both active and passive interactions with music.

There are a variety of approaches established in music therapy, including:

  • Analytical music therapy : Analytical music therapy encourages you to use an improvised, musical "dialogue" through singing or playing an instrument to express your unconscious thoughts, which you can reflect on and discuss with your therapist afterward.
  • Benenzon music therapy : This format combines some concepts of psychoanalysis with the process of making music. Benenzon music therapy includes the search for your "musical sound identity," which describes the external sounds that most closely match your internal psychological state.
  • Cognitive behavioral music therapy (CBMT) : This approach combines cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with music. In CBMT, music is used to reinforce some behaviors and modify others. This approach is structured, not improvisational, and may include listening to music, dancing, singing, or playing an instrument.
  • Community music therapy : This format is focused on using music as a way to facilitate change on the community level. It’s done in a group setting and requires a high level of engagement from each member.
  • Nordoff-Robbins music therapy : Also called creative music therapy, this method involves playing an instrument (often a cymbal or drum) while the therapist accompanies using another instrument. The improvisational process uses music as a way to help enable self-expression.
  • The Bonny method of guided imagery and music (GIM) : This form of therapy uses classical music as a way to stimulate the imagination. In this method, you explain the feelings, sensations, memories, and imagery you experience while listening to the music.
  • Vocal psychotherapy : In this format, you use various vocal exercises, natural sounds, and breathing techniques to connect with your emotions and impulses. This practice is meant to create a deeper sense of connection with yourself.

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Music Therapy vs. Sound Therapy

Music therapy and sound therapy (or sound healing ) are distinctive, and each approach has its own goals, protocols, tools, and settings: 

  • Music therapy is a relatively new discipline, while sound therapy is based on ancient Tibetan cultural practices .
  • Sound therapy uses tools to achieve specific sound frequencies, while music therapy focuses on addressing symptoms like stress and pain.  
  • The training and certifications that exist for sound therapy are not as standardized as those for music therapists.
  • Music therapists often work in hospitals, substance abuse treatment centers, or private practices, while sound therapists may offer their service as a component of complementary or alternative medicine.

When you begin working with a music therapist, you will start by identifying your goals. For example, if you’re experiencing depression, you may hope to use music to naturally improve your mood and increase your happiness . You may also want to try applying music therapy to other symptoms of depression like anxiety, insomnia, or trouble focusing.

During a music therapy session, you may listen to different genres of music , play a musical instrument, or even compose your own songs. You may be asked to sing or dance. Your therapist may encourage you to improvise, or they may have a set structure for you to follow.

You may be asked to tune in to your emotions as you perform these tasks or to allow your feelings to direct your actions. For example, if you are angry, you might play or sing loud, fast, and dissonant chords.

You may also use music to explore ways to change how you feel. If you express anger or stress, your music therapist might respond by having you listen to or create music with slow, soft, soothing tones.

Music therapy is often one-on-one, but you may also choose to participate in group sessions if they are available. Sessions with a music therapist take place wherever they practice, which might be a:

  • Community health center
  • Correctional facility
  • Private office
  • Physical therapy practice
  • Rehabilitation facility

Wherever it happens to be, the room you work in together will be a calm environment with no outside distractions.

What Music Therapy Can Help With

Music therapy may be helpful for people experiencing:

  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Anxiety or stress
  • Cardiac conditions
  • Chronic pain
  • Difficulties with verbal and nonverbal communication
  • Emotional dysregulation
  • Feelings of low self-esteem
  • Impulsivity
  • Negative mood
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Problems related to childbirth
  • Rehabilitation after an injury or medical procedure
  • Respiration problems
  • Substance use disorders
  • Surgery-related issues
  • Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
  • Trouble with movement or coordination

Research also suggests that it can be helpful for people with:

  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • Schizophrenia
  • Stroke and neurological disorders

Music therapy is also often used to help children and adolescents:

  • Develop their identities
  • Improve their communication skills
  • Learn to regulate their emotions
  • Recover from trauma
  • Self-reflect

Benefits of Using Music as Therapy

Music therapy can be highly personalized, making it suitable for people of any age—even very young children can benefit. It’s also versatile and offers benefits for people with a variety of musical experience levels and with different mental or physical health challenges.

Engaging with music can:

  • Activate regions of the brain that influence things like memory, emotions, movement, sensory relay, some involuntary functions, decision-making, and reward
  • Fulfill social needs for older adults in group settings
  • Lower heart rate and blood pressure
  • Relax muscle tension
  • Release endorphins
  • Relieve stress and encourage feelings of calm
  • Strengthen motor skills and improve communication for children and young adults who have developmental and/or learning disabilities

Research has also shown that music can have a powerful effect on people with dementia and other memory-related disorders.

Overall, music therapy can increase positive feelings, like:

  • Confidence and empowerment
  • Emotional intimacy

The uses and benefits of music therapy have been researched for decades. Key findings from clinical studies have shown that music therapy may be helpful for people with depression and anxiety, sleep disorders, and even cancer.

Depression 

Studies have shown that music therapy can be an effective component of depression treatment. According to the research cited, the use of music therapy was most beneficial to people with depression when it was combined with the usual treatments (such as antidepressants and psychotherapy). 

When used in combination with other forms of treatment, music therapy may also help reduce obsessive thoughts , depression, and anxiety in people with OCD.

In 2016, researchers conducted a feasibility study that explored how music therapy could be combined with CBT to treat depression . While additional research is needed, the initial results were promising.

Many people find that music, or even white noise, helps them fall asleep. Research has shown that music therapy may be helpful for people with sleep disorders or insomnia as a symptom of depression.

Compared to pharmaceuticals and other commonly prescribed treatments for sleep disorders, music is less invasive, more affordable, and something a person can do on their own to self-manage their condition.

Pain Management

Music has been explored as a potential strategy for acute and chronic pain management in all age groups. Research has shown that listening to music when healing from surgery or an injury, for example, may help both kids and adults cope with physical pain.

Music therapy may help reduce pain associated with:

  • Chronic conditions : Music therapy can be part of a long-term plan for managing chronic pain, and it may help people recapture and focus on positive memories from a time before they had distressing long-term pain symptoms. 
  • Labor and childbirth : Music therapy-assisted childbirth appears to be a positive, accessible, non-pharmacological option for pain management and anxiety reduction for laboring people.
  • Surgery : When paired with standard post-operative hospital care, music therapy is an effective way to lower pain levels, anxiety, heart rate, and blood pressure in people recovering from surgery.

Coping with a cancer diagnosis and going through cancer treatment is as much an emotional experience as a physical one. People with cancer often need different sources of support to take care of their emotional and spiritual well-being.

Music therapy has been shown to help reduce anxiety in people with cancer who are starting radiation treatments. It may also help them cope with the side effects of chemotherapy, such as nausea.

Music therapy may also offer emotional benefits for people experiencing depression after receiving their cancer diagnosis, while they’re undergoing treatment, or even after remission.

On its own, music therapy may not constitute adequate treatment for medical conditions, including mental health disorders . However, when combined with medication, psychotherapy , and other interventions, it can be a valuable component of a treatment plan.

If you have difficulty hearing, wear a hearing aid, or have a hearing implant, you should talk with your audiologist before undergoing music therapy to ensure that it’s safe for you.

Similarly, music therapy that incorporates movement or dancing may not be a good fit if you’re experiencing pain, illness, injury, or a physical condition that makes it difficult to exercise.  

You'll also want to check your health insurance benefits prior to starting music therapy. Your sessions may be covered or reimbursable under your plan, but you may need a referral from your doctor.

If you’d like to explore music therapy, talk to your doctor or therapist. They can connect you with practitioners in your community. The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) also maintains a database of board-certified, credentialed professionals that you can use to find a practicing music therapist in your area.

Depending on your goals, a typical music therapy session lasts between 30 and 50 minutes. Much like you would plan sessions with a psychotherapist, you may choose to have a set schedule for music therapy—say, once a week—or you may choose to work with a music therapist on a more casual "as-needed" basis.  

Before your first session, you may want to talk things over with your music therapist so you know what to expect and can check in with your primary care physician if needed.

Aigen KS. The Study of Music Therapy: Current Issues and Concepts . Routledge & CRC Press. New York; 2013. doi:10.4324/9781315882703

Jasemi M, Aazami S, Zabihi RE. The effects of music therapy on anxiety and depression of cancer patients . Indian J Palliat Care . 2016;22(4):455-458. doi:10.4103/0973-1075.191823

Chung J, Woods-Giscombe C. Influence of dosage and type of music therapy in symptom management and rehabilitation for individuals with schizophrenia . Issues Ment Health Nurs . 2016;37(9):631-641. doi:10.1080/01612840.2016.1181125

MacDonald R, Kreutz G, Mitchell L. Music, Health, and Wellbeing . Oxford; 2012. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199586974.001.0001

Monti E, Austin D. The dialogical self in vocal psychotherapy . Nord J Music Ther . 2018;27(2):158-169. doi:10.1080/08098131.2017.1329227

American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). Music therapy with specific populations: Fact sheets, resources & bibliographies .

Wang CF, Sun YL, Zang HX. Music therapy improves sleep quality in acute and chronic sleep disorders: A meta-analysis of 10 randomized studies . Int J Nurs Stud . 2014;51(1):51-62. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2013.03.008

Bidabadi SS, Mehryar A. Music therapy as an adjunct to standard treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder and co-morbid anxiety and depression: A randomized clinical trial . J Affect Disord . 2015;184:13-7. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2015.04.011

Kamioka H, Tsutani K, Yamada M, et al. Effectiveness of music therapy: A summary of systematic reviews based on randomized controlled trials of music interventions . Patient Prefer Adherence . 2014;8:727-754. doi:10.2147/PPA.S61340

Raglio A, Attardo L, Gontero G, Rollino S, Groppo E, Granieri E. Effects of music and music therapy on mood in neurological patients . World J Psychiatry . 2015;5(1):68-78. doi:10.5498/wjp.v5.i1.68

Altenmüller E, Schlaug G. Apollo’s gift: New aspects of neurologic music therapy . Prog Brain Res . 2015;217:237-252. doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2014.11.029

Werner J, Wosch T, Gold C. Effectiveness of group music therapy versus recreational group singing for depressive symptoms of elderly nursing home residents: Pragmatic trial . Aging Ment Health . 2017;21(2):147-155. doi:10.1080/13607863.2015.1093599

Dunbar RIM, Kaskatis K, MacDonald I, Barra V. Performance of music elevates pain threshold and positive affect: Implications for the evolutionary function of music . Evol Psychol . 2012;10(4):147470491201000420. doi:10.1177/147470491201000403

Pavlicevic M, O'neil N, Powell H, Jones O, Sampathianaki E. Making music, making friends: Long-term music therapy with young adults with severe learning disabilities . J Intellect Disabil . 2014;18(1):5-19. doi:10.1177/1744629513511354

Chang YS, Chu H, Yang CY, et al. The efficacy of music therapy for people with dementia: A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials . J Clin Nurs . 2015;24(23-24):3425-40. doi:10.1111/jocn.12976

Aalbers S, Fusar-Poli L, Freeman RE, et al. Music therapy for depression . Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2017;11:CD004517. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004517.pub3

Trimmer C, Tyo R, Naeem F. Cognitive behavioural therapy-based music (CBT-music) group for symptoms of anxiety and depression . Can J Commun Ment Health . 2016;35(2):83-87. doi:10.7870/cjcmh-2016-029

Jespersen KV, Koenig J, Jennum P, Vuust P. Music for insomnia in adults . Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2015;(8):CD010459. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD010459.pub2

Redding J, Plaugher S, Cole J, et al. "Where's the Music?" Using music therapy for pain management . Fed Pract . 2016;33(12):46-49.

Novotney A. Music as medicine . Monitor on Psychology . 2013;44(10):46.

McCaffrey T, Cheung PS, Barry M, Punch P, Dore L. The role and outcomes of music listening for women in childbirth: An integrative review . Midwifery . 2020;83:102627. doi:10.1016/j.midw.2020.102627

Liu Y, Petrini MA. Effects of music therapy on pain, anxiety, and vital signs in patients after thoracic surgery . Complement Ther Med . 2015;23(5):714-8.doi:10.1016/j.ctim.2015.08.002

Rossetti A, Chadha M, Torres BN, et al. The impact of music therapy on anxiety in cancer patients undergoing simulation for radiation therapy . Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys . 2017;99(1):103-110. doi:10.1016/j.ijrobp.2017.05.003

American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). Guidance for music listening programs .

What are the Benefits of Music Therapy?

Music therapy benefits

After World War II, a new profession entered the arena – music therapy. With far-reaching benefits and in a variety of settings, the types and methods of music therapy have had a profound impact.

Used in conjunction with traditional therapies, positive psychology, and even as a stand-alone intervention, music therapy offers a variety of benefits. It is these benefits we will evaluate here.

Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values and self-compassion and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students or employees.

This Article Contains:

6 proven benefits of music therapy.

  • What are the goals and objectives of music therapy?

What Effects Can Music Therapy Have on a Client?

What can music therapy be used for, 9 interesting facts and statistics, a look at the nordoff-robbins approach, relaxation and music therapy, 4 music therapy ideas and interventions, 12 recommended songs commonly used, 10 music therapy activities and exercises for adults, 5 group ideas and activities, technologies to support music therapy interventions, using music therapy in schools, music therapy for children, 5 ideas for kids, a take-home message.

Jillian Levy (2017) shares the six major health benefits of music therapy:

  • Music therapy reduces anxiety and physical effects of stress
  • It improves healing
  • It can help manage Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease
  • Music therapy reduces depression and other symptoms in the elderly
  • It helps to reduce symptoms of psychological disorders including schizophrenia
  • Music therapy improves self-expression and communication

What are the Goals and Objectives of Music Therapy?

essay on music therapy

This may include, for example, improving motor function, social skills, emotions, coordination, self-expression and personal growth (Therapedia, n.d.).

Common goals in music therapy, as identified by Everyday Harmony (n.d.) are the development of:

  • Communication skills (using vocal/verbal sounds and gestures)
  • Social skills (making eye contact, turn-taking, initiating interaction, and self-esteem)
  • Sensory skills (through touch, listening, and levels of awareness)
  • Physical skills (fine and gross motor control and movement)
  • Cognitive skills (concentration and attention, imitation, and sequencing)
  • Emotional skills (expression of feelings non-verbally)

essay on music therapy

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Music can affect a client’s attention, emotion, cognition, behavior, and communication (Koelsch et al., 2009). It can also help bring about relaxation and pleasure (Koelsch et al., 2009). Music also affects perception (Koelsch et al., 2009). Training in music promotes an individual’s skills in the decoding of acoustic features, such as pitch height and frequency modulation (Koelsch et al., 2009).

Music has various effects on the activity of a large range of brain structures (Koelsch et al., 2009). Functional neuroimaging studies have shown that listening to music can have effects on the core structures of emotional processing (the limbic and paralimbic structures) in both musicians and ‘non-musicians’ (Koelsch et al., 2009).

The peripheral physiological effects of listening to music and making music are still being looked into (Koelsch et al., 2009). However, given the effects of emotion on the autonomic nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system – and the fact that music has the power to evoke and modulate emotions – Koelsch and colleagues (2009) suggest that music therapy may be used to treat disorders associated with dysfunctions and imbalances within these systems.

Therapeutic relationship

Music therapy can be used for facilitating movement and overall physical rehabilitation and motivating clients to cope with treatment. It can provide emotional support for clients and their families, and provide an outlet for expression of feelings.

Credentialed music therapists can work with patients with an acquired brain injury (AMI). For example, music therapy helped congresswoman Gabby Giffords to regain her speech after she survived a bullet wound to her brain. Music therapy can be used to lessen the effects of dementia, reduce asthma episodes in both children and adults and help reduce pain in hospitalized patients.

Music therapy can also be used to help children with autism spectrum disorder to improve their communication capabilities. Furthermore, it can help premature infants improve sleep patterns and increase their weight gain. Finally, music therapy can be used to help individuals with Parkinson’s disease to improve motor function.

  • 86% of users of the Nordoff-Robbins music therapy services said that music therapy had enabled them to develop social skills and interaction (Nordoff Robbins, n.d.)
  • Your heartbeat changes to mimic the music that you listen to
  • Distinguishing changes in sounds were found to be equipped in those as small as a developing fetus
  • Listening to happy vs. sad music can affect the way you perceive the world around you
  • An “earworm” is a song that you can’t seem to get out of your head
  • A ‘brain itch’ is a need for the brain to fill in the gaps in a song’s rhythm
  • Music triggers activity in the same part of the brain that releases dopamine (the ‘pleasure chemical’)
  • Music triggers networks of neurons into an organized movement
  • Learning a musical instrument can improve fine motor and reasoning skills

These interesting facts were sourced from Ashley Blodgett (2015).

How music can heal our brain and heart – Kathleen M. Howland

The following information was found on the Nordoff Robbins website .

In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the Nordoff-Robbins approach was developed by Paul Nordoff (an American composer and pianist) and Clive Robbins (a teacher of children with special needs from Britain). This is not a ‘method’. It is an approach designed to harness every person’s potential for engagement in active, communicative, expressive music-making.

The Nordoff-Robbins approach began as a form of collaborative music-making used to engage vulnerable and isolated children. Nordoff and Robbins term this ‘therapy in music’.

The Nordoff-Robbins approach emphasizes the importance of music-making in developing skills, a sense of self and a capacity for satisfying social interaction. It recognizes that all people, regardless of pathology, illness, disability, trauma or social isolation have the potential to make music.

The approach is well known for its work with children and adults with learning difficulties. This is because, like all forms of music therapy, the work has a non-verbal basis.

Every music therapist using the Nordoff-Robbins approach thinks strategically. Using their musical abilities, they help people in ways that are specific to each person, each group, or each community.

While most of us would agree that music can be relaxing, how is relaxation promoted with music therapy? To begin with, music can lead to relaxation of tense muscles. When you allow your muscles to relax and loosen your body, your mind relaxes too. Music is fun, cheap, and simple. It can decrease all the tension, worries and stress you may not even have been aware of (Scott, 2018).

Listening to music can also enhance other stress-relieving activities. For example, it can aid in practicing yoga , self-hypnosis or guided imagery . In other words, music can enhance the stress-relieving properties of other relaxing activities (Scott, 2018).

Music can also help the brain reach a meditative state. This promotes relaxation. Listening to music may be a less intimidating way for a client to practice meditation (Scott, 2018).

singalong music therapy for kids

1. Singalong

Fandom (n.d.) suggest that music therapy sessions for groups or individuals may include singing together in a way less formal than a choir.

The singalong may use a songbook of the music therapist’s repertoire, or plain copies of popular song lyrics (Fandom, n.d.). Participants could sing preferred and highly familiar songs by memory, or learn a new song by rote (Fandom, n.d.).

Singalongs encourage participation in a fun, music-making process (Fandom, n.d.). They can be used to meet various goals and objectives, including teaching breathing exercises (Fandom, n.d.).

2. ‘Blackout song-writing’ (Seibert, n.d.).

In this session, the therapist provides clients with the lyrics to 4 – 5 different choices of songs which represent recovery – such as overcoming barriers, support, or struggles. Then, clients are encouraged to take some time to read the lyrics of the song they choose, and to select words from the lyrics to make up their own song.

The idea is to ‘blackout’ the lyrics which the client does not want in the song and to use the words that they have chosen to create their own song.

3. Musical Hangman (Seibert, n.d.).

This idea is to draw a thematic picture on a board, and ask clients to guess the missing word before the picture loses its details – e.g. to try and guess the word before the tree loses all its’ leaves.

Then, choose a thematic word and find songs that start with each letter of that word. The aim is for clients to listen to the songs and try and guess the target word. For example, the word ‘happy’ may have the songs “Hey Jude”, “A Little Ray of Sunshine”, “Praying” and so on.

Each letter that is guessed correctly earns the corresponding song to play and sing. The therapist can even coordinate songs that share a thematic idea as well as matching the letter.

4. Blues Song-writing (Seibert, n.d.).

The music therapist explains the background of the blues, so that the client understands the basics – i.e. having a line A, repeating line A and a subsequent line B. Ask the client to share something that they may be feeling ‘blue’ about, and to think of a solution to the problem or a coping mechanism. Then, brainstorm ideas as to how to make the statements sound poetic in song-writing.

After each client has had a chance to write their ‘blues’, have a continuous improvisation/singalong. Sing each person’s ‘blues’ as a group, following the same melody line. This activity can be extended using an iPad: clients can improvise on the blues scale keyboard on the app ‘ GarageBand ’.

According to Rachel Rambach (2011), the following are twelve songs that every music therapist should know:

  • ‘American Pie’
  • ‘Amazing Grace’
  • ‘Blue Suede Shoes’
  • ‘Blue Skies’
  • ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’
  • ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’
  • ‘Lean on me’
  • ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’
  • ‘Take Me to The Ballgame’
  • ‘This Little Light of Mine’
  • ‘You Are My Sunshine’

The following are research-based music therapy activities (interventions) for adults, found in Wigram and colleagues’ 2002 book.

  • Improvisation
  • Singing well-known songs
  • Vibroacoustic therapy This is a receptive form of music therapy. It involves music being played through speakers which are built into a chair, mattress or bed (which the client lies in). Then, the client directly experiences the vibrations that are brought about by the music (Wigram, Pedersen & Bonde, 2002).
  • Stress-reduction techniques
  • Music and movement
  • Folk dancing or social dancing
  • Vibrotactile stimulation
  • Music reminiscence
  • Music stimulation
  • Songwriting

For more information about any of these activities, Wigram et al. (2002) provide the scientific references associated with each activity on pages 193 – 194.

Music therapy in groups are well-known, and the following activities can help you with your next group session.

1. ‘Beach ball autonomy’ (Seibert, n.d.)

Use a blow-up beach ball and draw on a range of shapes. Inside each, write genres, styles and generic artists. Toss the ball to a client. Whichever shape their thumb lands on describes the next song selection.

The therapist encourages the client to choose a selection of appropriate songs so that the therapist can choose the preferred song for that individual. The client also gets to choose whether the group will play instruments, sing, dance, or just listen.

2. Drumming Emotions (Fandom, n.d.).

Each member of the group writes down one word to describe the emotion that they are feeling on a slip of paper. The paper is then put in a hat/bowl and group members take turns in selecting a different piece of paper. The person will then ‘perform’ (demonstrate) on the drum the emotion that is written on the paper. The rest of the group listens and tries to identify who in the group the emotion belongs to.

3. Conversation Drum Circle (Fandom, n.d.).

The group plays a beat, and in pairs take turns in a ‘musical dialogue’ exchange.

4. Name-That-Tune! (Fandom, n.d.).

The music therapist asks clients to form two or three teams and to come up with a team name. Play appropriate music and each team has a turn at earning points for stating the name of the song, the group or artist, or sharing interesting, relevant facts about the song.

It can also be fun to open up the guessing to the whole group if they are unable to identify the song. You could play “free-for-all” lightning rounds or use TV show themes, or popular movie soundtracks.

5. Music trivia (Fandom, n.d.).

This game challenges teams to answer trivia questions on music and pop-culture.

Quenza Gentle Harmony

Some interventions invite active engagement, such as through dancing or playing instruments, while others require patients simply to listen to music.

Sometimes, music therapists prescribing passive interventions may choose to invite their clients to take part in these interventions outside of scheduled therapy sessions.

Many will do so with the support of technologies that allow them to design and distribute customized interventions digitally.

For example, besides in-person interventions, such as drumming or sing-alongs, a music therapist might invite their client to listen to guided imagery recordings containing music.

Using a digital psychotherapy platform such as Quenza (pictured here), these pre-recorded audio clips can be sent directly to the client’s smartphone or tablet according to a predetermined schedule.

Likewise, therapists can use platforms such as this to design and administer reflections or exercises that invite clients to explore their emotional reactions or cognitive responses to different music therapy interventions, thereby supplementing the in-person therapy experience.

This is just a couple of examples of how music therapists might adapt the functions of a blended care platform like Quenza to design holistic treatment solutions for their clients. If you’d like to learn more about designing different therapy interventions using Quenza, take a look at this dedicated psychoeducation interventions article.

Music therapy can be used with school-aged students in their school setting. Music therapy can be used at school to focus on higher level social and academic skills, including empathy, turn taking, compromise and problem-solving skills in social situations (Jacobson & Artman, 2013).

It can be used to promote academic understanding in mathematics, such as teaching math facts, telling the time, and money concepts. Music therapy can also target academic improvement in reading and writing. For example, music therapy improves phonic and sight words, and story elements (Jacobson & Artman, 2013).

In schools, music therapy can be used to improve children’s behavior and wellbeing. It can help children learn classroom rules, improving attention and focus, and promoting self-expression (Jacobson & Artman, 2013).

Finally, music therapy can be used in schools to improve social skills and communication . For example, it can help with “wh” questions (who, what, where, and when) and develop vocabulary (Jacobson & Artman, 2013).

Music therapy can also be used in Special Education settings. For example, a music therapist may work with a special needs student in the consideration of an Individual Education Program (IEP). They may work with the IEP team and the student’s family throughout the music therapy process (Jacobson & Artman, 2013).

Music therapy kids

Music therapy can be a useful way to meet the various psychosocial needs of children, through engagement in song-writing and improvisation. It can provide children with opportunities for self-expression and communication. Music therapy can also give children the opportunity to identify their strengths , providing a way for them to maintain a sense of self-esteem .

For infants and children, a music therapist can use live, familiar music in conjunction with physical, social and cognitive activities to stimulate development. This also promotes interaction and encourages participation and motivation in young children. In order to reduce irritability, pain or anxiety, the music therapist can use soothing music. This also encourages child and family bonding.

To help develop creative self-expression in infants and young children, the music therapist and child can make music together and write songs.

Adolescents can play a more active role in coming up with their own music therapy program. With a therapist, adolescents can explore a range of musical activities and select what feels right to them.

Possible activities for adolescents are song-writing, improvisation and/or singing the songs by their favorite artists or bands. Adolescents may like to use technology to produce personalized audio/visual projects. The use of live music in addition to relaxation techniques can be an effective way to help reduce pain and anxiety in adolescents.

Clinical music therapy may benefit children who are chronically ill (or are long-term hospital patients) or have a developmental delay. It can help children who have autism or are isolated or bed-bound. Music therapy can be used for children who are anxious or depressed, are physically impaired or are frequently admitted to the hospital. Finally, clinical music therapy may benefit children who have experienced trauma.

Music Therapy and kids. Peanut butter and jelly. Try out these wonderful ideas.

1. Leader of the band (Fandom, n.d.).

The therapist can sing a little song about who’s turn it is to be the ‘leader of the band’. Demonstrate to the group appropriate directions (such as “start”, “stop”, “LOUD”, “fast”, “slooooow”) or anything that the group will understand.

You may choose a child who is cooperating and listening to directions to be the leader. Children are highly reinforced for their behavior when they get to have a turn in communicating their preferred directions to the whole group.

2. “The Hello Song” from Dragon Tales (Fandom, n.d.).

This song, based on simple chords, is a suitable ‘hello’ song for children under 8 years of age. It brings together social skills, interactive responses and allows an opportunity to greet each child individually. This activity also incorporates vocal and musical opposites such as “high” and “low” and “fast” and “slow”.

3. “Hot Potato” (Fandom, n.d.).

The group passes an object around in a circle, and when the music stops the person holding the object can – answer a question; ask a question; say something about themselves, or discuss something related to treatment.

4. ‘Music bingo’ (Fandom, n.d.)

Create bingo sheets for children that use songs instead of letters and numbers.

5. ‘Pictionary’ (Fandom, n.d.).

Prepare cue cards with song titles written on them for individuals to draw pictures of while their team attempts to guess the song.

We all can attest to the power of music, and using it to teach, calm, and encourage recovery, make it a viable therapy to consider.

We hope this article has given you an indication of some of the benefits of music therapy, and look forward to your feedback and examples where music therapy has benefited your clients.

Continue Reading: 17 Best Drama Therapy Techniques, Activities & Exercises

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free .

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Marina

Music therapy is one of the most important alternative therapies. Music, like any art form, is a way to find yourself. In my free time, I usually watch online streaming shows. I recently saw the Madama butterfly through Greek National Opera’s GNOTV

Haley

Thank you for informing on this. I plan on going to college to become a musical therapist.

Nicole Celestine

Hi Haley, Thanks for reading. That’s brilliant — Best of luck with your career journey and studies! – Nicole | Community Manager

ms. kariyawasam.

dear madam, thank you verymuch for giving us the knowledge about a most valuable topic.i am a researcher about music therapy.it is realy interesting to do research about music therapy.i hope you will publish more articles about music therapy,and new things about the topic.thank you again and wish you all the best.

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Effects of music therapy on depression: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Qishou tang.

1 Bengbu Medical University, Bengbu, Anhui, China

Zhaohui Huang

2 Anhui Provincial Center for Women and Child Health, Hefei, Anhui, China

3 National Drug Clinical Trial Institution, The First Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical University, Bengbu, Anhui, China

Associated Data

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

We aimed to determine and compare the effects of music therapy and music medicine on depression, and explore the potential factors associated with the effect.

PubMed (MEDLINE), Ovid-Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Clinical Evidence were searched to identify studies evaluating the effectiveness of music-based intervention on depression from inception to May 2020. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) were estimated with random-effect model and fixed-effect model.

A total of 55 RCTs were included in our meta-analysis. Music therapy exhibited a significant reduction in depressive symptom (SMD = −0.66; 95% CI = -0.86 to -0.46; P <0.001) compared with the control group; while, music medicine exhibited a stronger effect in reducing depressive symptom (SMD = −1.33; 95% CI = -1.96 to -0.70; P <0.001). Among the specific music therapy methods, recreative music therapy (SMD = -1.41; 95% CI = -2.63 to -0.20; P <0.001), guided imagery and music (SMD = -1.08; 95% CI = -1.72 to -0.43; P <0.001), music-assisted relaxation (SMD = -0.81; 95% CI = -1.24 to -0.38; P <0.001), music and imagery (SMD = -0.38; 95% CI = -0.81 to 0.06; P = 0.312), improvisational music therapy (SMD = -0.27; 95% CI = -0.49 to -0.05; P = 0.001), music and discuss (SMD = -0.26; 95% CI = -1.12 to 0.60; P = 0.225) exhibited a different effect respectively. Music therapy and music medicine both exhibited a stronger effects of short and medium length compared with long intervention periods.

Conclusions

A different effect of music therapy and music medicine on depression was observed in our present meta-analysis, and the effect might be affected by the therapy process.

Introduction

Depression was reported to be a common mental disorders and affected more than 300 million people worldwide, and long-lasting depression with moderate or severe intensity may result in serious health problems [ 1 ]. Depression has become the leading causes of disability worldwide according to the recent World Health Organization (WHO) report. Even worse, depression was closely associated with suicide and became the second leading cause of death, and nearly 800 000 die of depression every year worldwide [ 1 , 2 ]. Although it is known that treatments for depression, more than 3/4 of people in low and middle-income income countries receive no treatment due to a lack of medical resources and the social stigma of mental disorders [ 3 ]. Considering the continuously increased disease burden of depression, a convenient effective therapeutic measures was needed at community level.

Music-based interventions is an important nonpharmacological intervention used in the treatment of psychiatric and behavioral disorders, and the obvious curative effect on depression has been observed. Prior meta-analyses have reported an obvious effect of music therapy on improving depression [ 4 , 5 ]. Today, it is widely accepted that the music-based interventions are divided into two major categories, namely music therapy and music medicine. According to the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), “music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program” [ 6 ]. Therefore, music therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals, and includes the triad of music, clients and qualified music therapists. While, music medicine is defined as mainly listening to prerecorded music provided by medical personnel or rarely listening to live music. In other words, music medicine aims to use music like medicines. It is often managed by a medical professional other than a music therapist, and it doesn’t need a therapeutic relationship with the patients. Therefore, the essential difference between music therapy and music medicine is about whether a therapeutic relationship is developed between a trained music therapist and the client [ 7 – 9 ]. In the context of the clear distinction between these two major categories, it is clear that to evaluate the effects of music therapy and other music-based intervention studies on depression can be misleading. While, the distinction was not always clear in most of prior papers, and no meta-analysis comparing the effects of music therapy and music medicine was conducted. Just a few studies made a comparison of music-based interventions on psychological outcomes between music therapy and music medicine. We aimed to (1) compare the effect between music therapy and music medicine on depression; (2) compare the effect between different specific methods used in music therapy; (3) compare the effect of music-based interventions on depression among different population [ 7 , 8 ].

Materials and methods

Search strategy and selection criteria.

PubMed (MEDLINE), Ovid-Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Clinical Evidence were searched to identify studies assessing the effectiveness of music therapy on depression from inception to May 2020. The combination of “depress*” and “music*” was used to search potential papers from these databases. Besides searching for electronic databases, we also searched potential papers from the reference lists of included papers, relevant reviews, and previous meta-analyses. The criteria for selecting the papers were as follows:(1) randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials; (2) music therapy at a hospital or community, whereas the control group not receiving any type of music therapy; (3) depression rating scale was used. The exclusive criteria were as follows: (1) non-human studies; (2) studies with a very small sample size (n<20); (3) studies not providing usable data (including sample size, mean, standard deviation, etc.); (4) reviews, letters, protocols, etc. Two authors independently (YPJ, HZH) searched and screened the relevant papers. EndNote X7 software was utilized to delete the duplicates. The titles and abstracts of all searched papers were checked for eligibility. The relevant papers were selected, and then the full-text papers were subsequently assessed by the same two authors. In the last, a panel meeting was convened for resolving the disagreements about the inclusion of the papers.

Data extraction

We developed a data abstraction form to extract the useful data: (1) the characteristics of papers (authors, publish year, country); (2) the characteristics of participators (sample size, mean age, sex ratio, pre-treatment diagnosis, study period); (3) study design (random allocation, allocation concealment, masking, selection process of participators, loss to follow-up); (4) music therapy process (music therapy method, music therapy period, music therapy frequency, minutes per session, and the treatment measures in the control group); (5) outcome measures (depression score). Two authors independently (TQS, ZH) abstracted the data, and disagreements were resolved by discussing with the third author (YPJ).

Assessment of risk of bias in included studies

Two authors independently (TQS, ZH) assessed the risk of bias of included studies using Cochrane Collaboration’s risk of bias assessment tool, and disagreements were resolved by discussing with the third author (YPJ) [ 10 ].

Music therapy and music medicine

Music Therapy is defined as the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program. Music medicine is defined as mainly listening to prerecorded music provided by medical personnel or rarely listening to live music. In other words, music medicine aims to use music like medicines.

Music therapy mainly divided into active music therapy and receptive music therapy. Active music therapy, including improvisational, re-creative, and compositional, is defined as playing musical instruments, singing, improvisation, and lyrics of adaptation. Receptive music therapy, including music-assisted relaxation, music and imagery, guided imagery and music, lyrics analysis, and so on, is defined as music listening, lyrics analysis, and drawing with musing. In other words, in active methods participants are making music, and in receptive music therapy participants are receiving music [ 6 , 7 , 9 , 11 – 13 ].

Evaluation of depression

Depression was evaluated by the common psychological scales, including Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D), Cornell Scale (CS), Depression Mood Self-Report Inventory for Adolescence (DMSRIA), Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15); Geriatric Depression Scale-30 (GDS-30), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD/HAMD), Montgomery-sberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS), Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), Short Version of Profile of Mood States (SV-POMS).

Statistical analysis

The pooled effect were estimated by using the standardized mean differences (SMDs) and its 95% confidence interval (95% CI) due to the different depression rate scales were used in the included papers. Heterogeneity between studies was assessed by I-square ( I 2 ) and Q-statistic (P<0.10), and a high I 2 (>50%) was recognized as heterogeneity and a random-effect model was used [ 14 – 16 ]. We performed subgroup analyses and meta-regression analyses to study the potential heterogeneity between studies. The subgroup variables included music intervention categories (music therapy and music medicine), music therapy methods (active music therapy, receptive music therapy), specific receptive music therapy methods (music-assisted relaxation, music and imagery, and guided imagery and music (Bonny Method), specific active music therapy methods (recreative music therapy and improvisational music therapy), music therapy mode (group therapy, individual therapy), music therapy period (weeks) (2–4, 5–12, ≥13), music therapy frequency (once weekly, twice weekly, ≥3 times weekly), total music therapy sessions (1–4, 5–8, 9–12, 13–16, >16), time per session (minutes) (15–40, 41–60, >60), inpatient settings (secure [locked] unit at a mental health facility versus outpatient settings), sample size (20–50, ≥50 and <100, ≥100), female predominance(>80%) (no, yes), mean age (years) (<50, 50–65, >65), country having music therapy profession (no, yes), pre-treatment diagnosis (mental health, depression, severe mental disease/psychiatric disorder). We also performed sensitivity analyses to test the robustness of the results by re-estimating the pooled effects using fixed effect model, using trim and fill analysis, excluding the paper without information on music therapy, excluding the papers with more high biases, excluding the papers with small sample size (20< n<30), excluding the papers using an infrequently used scale, excluding the studies focused on the people with a severe mental disease. We investigated the publication biases by a funnel plot as well as Egger’s linear regression test [ 17 ]. The analyses were performed using Stata, version 11.0. All P-values were two-sided. A P-value of less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

Characteristics of the eligible studies

Fig 1 depicts the study profile, and a total of 55 RCTs were included in our meta-analysis [ 18 – 72 ]. Of the 55 studies, 10 studies from America, 22 studies from Europe, 22 studies from Asia, and 1 study from Australia. The mean age of the participators ranged from 12 to 86; the sample size ranged from 20 to 242. A total of 16 different scales were used to evaluate the depression level of the participators. A total of 25 studies were conducted in impatient setting and 28 studies were in outpatients setting; 32 used a certified music therapist, 15 not used a certified music therapist (for example researcher, nurse), and 10 not reported relevent information. A total of 16 different depression rating scales were used in the included studies, and HADS, GDS, and BDI were the most frequently used scales ( Table 1 ).

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PRISMA diagram showing the different steps of systematic review, starting from literature search to study selection and exclusion. At each step, the reasons for exclusion are indicated. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052562.g001.

Note: BDI = Beck Depression Inventory; CDI = Children’s Depression Inventory; CDSS = depression scale for schizophrenia; CES-D = Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression; CS = Cornell Scale; DMSRIA = Depression Mood Self-Report Inventory for Adolescence; EPDS = Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale; GDS-15 = Geriatric Depression Scale-15; GDS-30 = Geriatric Depression Scale-30; HADS = Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; HRSD (HAMD) = Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression; MADRS = Montgomery-sberg Depression Rating Scale; PROMIS = Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System; SDS = Self-Rating Depression Scale; State-Trait Depression Questionnaire = ST/DEP; SV-POMS = short version of Profile of Mood States; NA = not available.

Of the 55 studies, only 2 studies had high risks of selection bias, and almost all of the included studies had high risks of performance bias ( Fig 2 ).

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The overall effects of music therapy

Of the included 55 studies, 39 studies evaluated the music therapy, 17 evaluated the music medicine. Using a random-effects model, music therapy was associated with a significant reduction in depressive symptoms with a moderate-sized mean effect (SMD = −0.66; 95% CI = -0.86 to -0.46; P <0.001), with a high heterogeneity across studies ( I 2 = 83%, P <0.001); while, music medicine exhibited a stronger effect in reducing depressive symptom (SMD = −1.33; 95% CI = -1.96 to -0.70; P <0.001) ( Fig 3 ).

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Twenty studies evaluated the active music therapy using a random-effects model, and a moderate-sized mean effect (SMD = −0.57; 95% CI = -0.90 to -0.25; P <0.001) was observed with a high heterogeneity across studies ( I 2 = 86.3%, P <0.001). Fourteen studies evaluated the receptive music therapy using a random-effects model, and a moderate-sized mean effect (SMD = −0.73; 95% CI = -1.01 to -0.44; P <0.001) was observed with a high heterogeneity across studies ( I 2 = 76.3%, P <0.001). Five studies evaluated the combined effect of active and receptive music therapy using a random-effects model, and a moderate-sized mean effect (SMD = −0.88; 95% CI = -1.32 to -0.44; P <0.001) was observed with a high heterogeneity across studies ( I 2 = 70.5%, P <0.001) ( Fig 4 ).

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Among specific music therapy methods, recreative music therapy (SMD = -1.41; 95% CI = -2.63 to -0.20; P <0.001), guided imagery and music (SMD = -1.08; 95% CI = -1.72 to -0.43; P <0.001), music-assisted relaxation (SMD = -0.81; 95% CI = -1.24 to -0.38; P <0.001), music and imagery (SMD = -0.38; 95% CI = -0.81 to 0.06; P = 0.312), improvisational music therapy (SMD = -0.27; 95% CI = -0.49 to -0.05; P = 0.001), and music and discuss (SMD = -0.26; 95% CI = -1.12 to 0.60; P = 0.225) exhibited a different effect respectively ( Fig 5 ).

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Sub-group analyses and meta-regression analyses

We performed sub-group analyses and meta-regression analyses to study the homogeneity. We found that music therapy yielded a superior effect on reducing depression in the studies with a small sample size (20–50), with a mean age of 50–65 years old, with medium intervention frequency (<3 times weekly), with more minutes per session (>60 minutes). We also found that music therapy exhibited a superior effect on reducing depression among people with severe mental disease /psychiatric disorder and depression compared with mental health people. While, whether the country have the music therapy profession, whether the study used group therapy or individual therapy, whether the study was in the outpatients setting or the inpatient setting, and whether the study used a certified music therapist all did not exhibit a remarkable different effect ( Table 2 ). Table 2 also presents the subgroup analysis of music medicine on reducing depression.

In the subgroup analysis by total session, music therapy and music medicine both exhibited a stronger effects of short (1–4 sessions) and medium length (5–12 sessions) compared with long intervention periods (>13sessions) ( Fig 6 ). Meta-regression demonstrated that total music intervention session was significantly associated with the homogeneity between studies ( P = 0.004) ( Table 3 ).

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A, evaluating the effect of music therapy; B, evaluating the effect of music medicine.

Sensitivity analyses

We performed sensitivity analyses and found that re-estimating the pooled effects using fixed effect model, using trim and fill analysis, excluding the paper without information regarding music therapy, excluding the papers with more high biases, excluding the papers with small sample size (20< n<30), excluding the studies focused on the people with a severe mental disease, and excluding the papers using an infrequently used scale yielded the similar results, which indicated that the primary results was robust ( Table 4 ).

Evaluation of publication bias

We assessed publication bias using Egger’s linear regression test and funnel plot, and the results are presented in Fig 7 . For the main result, the observed asymmetry indicated that either the absence of papers with negative results or publication bias.

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A, evaluating the publication bias of music therapy; B, evaluating the publication bias of music medicine; BDI = Beck Depression Inventory; CDI = Children’s Depression Inventory; CDSS = depression scale for schizophrenia; CES-D = Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression; CS = Cornell Scale; DMSRIA = Depression Mood Self-Report Inventory for Adolescence; EPDS = Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale; GDS-15 = Geriatric Depression Scale-15; GDS-30 = Geriatric Depression Scale-30; HADS = Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; HRSD (HAMD) = Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression; MADRS = Montgomery-sberg Depression Rating Scale; PROMIS = Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System; SDS = Self-Rating Depression Scale; State-Trait Depression Questionnaire = ST/DEP; SV-POMS = short version of Profile of Mood Stat.

Our present meta-analysis exhibited a different effect of music therapy and music medicine on reducing depression. Different music therapy methods also exhibited a different effect, and the recreative music therapy and guided imagery and music yielded a superior effect on reducing depression compared with other music therapy methods. Furthermore, music therapy and music medicine both exhibited a stronger effects of short and medium length compared with long intervention periods. The strength of this meta-analysis was the stable and high-quality result. Firstly, the sensitivity analyses performed in this meta-analysis yielded similar results, which indicated that the primary results were robust. Secondly, considering the insufficient statistical power of small sample size, we excluded studies with a very small sample size (n<20).

Some prior reviews have evaluated the effects of music therapy for reducing depression. These reviews found a significant effectiveness of music therapy on reducing depression among older adults with depressive symptoms, people with dementia, puerpera, and people with cancers [ 4 , 5 , 73 – 76 ]. However, these reviews did not differentiate music therapy from music medicine. Another paper reviewed the effectiveness of music interventions in treating depression. The authors included 26 studies and found a signifiant reduction in depression in the music intervention group compared with the control group. The authors made a clear distinction on the definition of music therapy and music medicine; however, they did not include all relevant data from the most recent trials and did not conduct a meta-analysis [ 77 ]. A recent meta-analysis compared the effects of music therapy and music medicine for reducing depression in people with cancer with seven RCTs; the authors found a moderately strong, positive impact of music intervention on depression, but found no difference between music therapy and music medicine [ 78 ]. However, our present meta-analysis exhibited a different effect of music therapy and music medicine on reducing depression, and the music medicine yielded a superior effect on reducing depression compared with music therapy. The different effect of music therapy and music medicine might be explained by the different participators, and nine studies used music therapy to reduce the depression among people with severe mental disease /psychiatric disorder, while no study used music medicine. Furthermore, the studies evaluating music therapy used more clinical diagnostic scale for depressive symptoms.

A meta-analysis by Li et al. [ 74 ] suggested that medium-term music therapy (6–12 weeks) was significantly associated with improved depression in people with dementia, but not short-term music therapy (3 or 4 weeks). On the contrary, our present meta-analysis found a stronger effect of short-term (1–4 weeks) and medium-term (5–12 weeks) music therapy on reducing depression compared with long-term (≥13 weeks) music therapy. Consistent with the prior meta-analysis by Li et al., no significant effect on depression was observed for the follow-up of one or three months after music therapy was completed in our present meta-analysis. Only five studies analyzed the therapeutic effect for the follow-up periods after music therapy intervention therapy was completed, and the rather limited sample size may have resulted in this insignificant difference. Therefore, whether the therapeutic effect was maintained in reducing depression when music therapy was discontinued should be explored in further studies. In our present meta-analysis, meta-regression results demonstrated that no variables (including period, frequency, method, populations, and so on) were significantly associated with the effect of music therapy. Because meta-regression does not provide sufficient statistical power to detect small associations, the non-significant results do not completely exclude the potential effects of the analyzed variables. Therefore, meta-regression results should be interpreted with caution.

Our meta-analysis has limitations. First, the included studies rarely used masked methodology due to the nature of music therapy, therefore the performance bias and the detection bias was common in music intervention study. Second, a total of 13 different scales were used to evaluate the depression level of the participators, which may account for the high heterogeneity among the trials. Third, more than half of those included studies had small sample sizes (<50), therefore the result should be explicated with caution.

Our present meta-analysis of 55 RCTs revealed a different effect of music therapy and music medicine, and different music therapy methods also exhibited a different effect. The results of subgroup analyses revealed that the characters of music therapy were associated with the therapeutic effect, for example specific music therapy methods, short and medium-term therapy, and therapy with more time per session may yield stronger therapeutic effect. Therefore, our present meta-analysis could provide suggestion for clinicians and policymakers to design therapeutic schedule of appropriate lengths to reduce depression.

Supporting information

S1 checklist, funding statement.

The Key Project of University Humanities and Social Science Research in Anhui Province (SK2017A0191) was granted by Education Department of Anhui Province; the Research Project of Anhui Province Social Science Innovation Development (2018XF155) was granted by Anhui Provincial Federation of Social Sciences; the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Research Youth fund Project (17YJC840033) was granted by Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. These funders had a role in study design, text editing, interpretation of results, decision to publish and preparation of the manuscript.

Data Availability

  • PLoS One. 2020; 15(11): e0240862.

Decision Letter 0

PONE-D-20-17706

Effects of music therapy on depression: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Dear Dr. Ye,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Author,

Thank you for your valuable submission. I think it would be appropriate to emphasize the main problem first. Various musical interventions are used in medical settings to improve the patient's well-being, and of course, there are many publications on this subject. However, it is important to properly differentiate between these interventions for some important reasons I have pointed out below.

The music therapy definition you made, as "Music therapy was defined as music therapy provided by a qualified music teacher, psychological therapist, or nurse" is not universally accepted specific definition for music therapy. Moreover, the specific methods used in receptive music therapy include music-assisted relaxation, music and imagery, and Guided Imagery and Music (Bonny Method). Each of these may have different levels of effects on depression. It is not clear that which receptive music therapy studies in your review have used which of these methods. So, the majority of studies that you accepted as the receptive music therapy seems to be music medicine studies indeed. Similar critiques may also be apply to some of the studies you describe as active music therapy. Today, it is widely accepted that these music-based interventions should be divided into two major categories, namely music therapy (MT) and music medicine (MM). MM mainly based on patients' pre-recorded or rarely listening to live music and the direct effects of the music they listen to. In other words, MM aims to use music like medicines. It often managed by a medical professional other than a music therapist, and not needed a therapeutic relationship with the patients. Conversely, music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed music therapist who has completed an approved music therapy program. So, music therapy is a relational, interaction based form of therapy within a therapeutic relationship between the therapist and the client, and includes the triad of the music, the client and the music therapist. Since music therapy interventions is an evidence-based procedure using special music therapy methods of interventions and a more pragmatic approach than other music-based interventions, their effect levels and results are also different.

In the context of the above mentioned explanations, it is clear that to evaluate the effects of music therapy and other music based intervention studies together on depression can be misleading. The subjects I have mentioned so far have never been addressed in the introduction and discussion sections of your manuscript. I think that will be perceived as a major deficiency at least by the readers who are closer to the subject. In this sense, I think that an attentive revision considering the following views will be valuable and needed:

- The universally accepted definitions of music therapy (including active and receptive music therapy) and music medicine should be taken into account.

- It should be clarified that how many studies in your review did included a certified music therapist.

- Analyses, results and discussion should be submitted to the readers in accordance with all this distinctions and definitions. (The way to this seems to be to compare the effects of music medicine and music therapy on depression in parallel with the possible differences of music interventions used, and to discuss their possible implications on the results.)

- Another important point is that you did not mention nor discuss any of important reviews on same subject (for example please see: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858. {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"CD004517","term_id":"30321255"}} CD004517 .pub3/epdf/full or https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01109/full or https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858. {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"CD006911","term_id":"30323649"}} CD006911 .pub3/full)

I am aware that such a major revision will, in a sense, be a challenging way that may require a new analysis of your data. However, I believe you would appreciate that a study aimed at shedding light on potential music-based interventions in an important public health problem such as depression should not be misleading.

Thank you for your effort in advance.

Besides, according to the statistical reviewer who only reviewed the statistical approach used in this paper, there are two caveats:

1. The authors state that they excluded studies with fewer than 20 participants in one place in the paper (page 4), but fewer than 30 participants in another place in the paper (Table 4). This needs to be corrected for consistency.

2. The authors mention stronger effects of short and medium length vs. long music therapy periods in their results but there is no accompanying figure. I think it would be beneficial to show these findings in a figure (Forest plot).

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"This work was supported by the Key Project of University Humanities and Social Science

Research in Anhui Province (SK2017A0191), Research Project of Anhui Province Social Science

Innovation Development (2018XF155), Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences

Research Youth fund Project (17YJC840033)."

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #2: Yes

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Thank you for conducting this research and submitting it for publication consideration.

I recognize that English may not be the primary language of the authors. There are a few instances where the language could be improved, but that is mostly a copy-editing issue. There is also a lot of passive voice in the paper. I recommend making the voice active. This will enhance the readability of the paper.

I have a few comments that I hope will improve the paper.

1. Not all countries have an established music therapy profession. I recognize that this creates challenges for the authors! I'm wondering if the authors might consider including this as a factor in the analysis? For example, if a nurse provides "music therapy" in a country that does not have music therapy as a profession, is the effect equivalent as when a qualified music therapist in a country that has music therapy as a profession provides it? This might provide some incentive for occupational regulation and establishing professional music therapy associations.

2. please fix the "short title" (oxygen)

3. Music therapy with fewer minutes might yield superior effects. This may be misleading. Is there a minimum number of minutes? How many minutes might be optimal for therapeutic outcome? I believe it does make sense that longer sessions may result in less impact - quantity/duration does not always result in enhanced outcome.

4. I believe a stronger case needs to be made for the study. There are existing meta-analyses of MT for depression (Aalbers et al., 2017 Cochrane Review). What makes the current study unique and different? What are the gaps in the literature that warrant this study? Have there been a lot of recent additions to the literature that warrant a new meta-analysis?

5. A stronger discussion of the limitation of this study. Many studies did not evaluate a group with major depression/major depressive disorder (music therapy for chronic pain is important, but the variance of the populations under study does constitute a limitation). So, this study is not exclusive to adults with a major mental health condition. Might effects be different for people who are depressed versus people who are not depressed?

6. Instead of "blinding/blinded" please use "masking/masked."

7. Is there a citation that supports your classification of active versus receptive? (I would think Bruscia would be a good place to start with that...)

8. One item that I am not seeing is group therapy versus individual therapy. Did the authors screen for that? If so, is there an optimal group size? Are effects stronger when in a group format versus an individual format? This would have serious implications for clinical practice.

9. What about inpatient settings (such as a secure [locked] unit at a mental health facility) versus outpatient settings?

10. One item that I believe is missing is the dose. Not necessarily the duration (number of minutes) of each session, but the total number of sessions a participant has received. Gold has done some work in this area. Is there is a certain number of sessions that are needed to reach a therapeutic outcome? The number of sessions/week is good, but the number of total sessions is important.

11. Table 1 has the mean age. I recommend including the SD as well.

Thank you for taking the time to consider these suggestions. While receiving critical feedback can be difficult, please understand that my intentions are to improve the paper and ensure it has maximum impact. This is an important addition to the literature and I am grateful to the authors for their scholarship. I wish you the best!

Reviewer #2: This article addresses an important topic that is of interest to music therapists, psychiatrists and teachers and metal health practitioners. The statistics look promising. However, the major concern is that the definition of music therapy is theoretically and practically incorrect and misleading:

"7 Music therapy was defined as music therapy provided by a qualified music teacher, psychological

8 therapist, or nurse. " The study is missing several research studies that I am aware of and this makes its content suspicious. Also missing is a more depth-ful analysis of what active and passive music therapy is, and if it is indeed performed by those in other professions who have no training in 'musuc therapy;'-than the contents and findings are misleading and irrelevant.

Reviewer #3: I only reviewed the statistical approach used in this paper, which appeared appropriate for the research question under study. There are two caveats:

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Author response to Decision Letter 0

29 Sep 2020

Response to Reviewers

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled " Effects of music therapy on depression: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (PONE-D-20-17706)".

Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made revision which we hope meet with approval. All the revised portions were marked in red font in the new document. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

Response:We have studied comments carefully and revised the manuscript extensively according to the reviewer’s comments.

Firstly, We have amended the music therapy definition mainly based on the World Federation of Music Therapy (WFMT) and The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), WFMT defines music therapy as “the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention inmedical, educational, and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families, or communities who seek to optimize their quality of life and improve their physical, social,communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health and wellbeing”. AMTA defines music therapy as “Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program”. [American Music Therapy Association (2020). Definition and Quotes about Music Therapy. Available online at: https://www.musictherapy.org/about/quotes/ (Accessed Sep 13, 2020).][van der Steen, J. T., et al. (2017). "Music-based therapeutic interventions for people with dementia." Cochrane Database Syst Rev 5: {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"CD003477","term_id":"30320215"}} CD003477 .]

Secondly, we have re-studed all included papers carefully and added the specific intervention methods of each paper in table 1 (Table 1. Characteristics of clinical trials included in this meta-analysis). Two main types of music therapy were distinguished in our present study - receptive (or passive) and active music therapy. The specific methods used in receptive music therapy in our included papers including music-assisted relaxation, music and imagery, and guided imagery and music (Bonny Method), while the specific methods used in active music therapy included recreative music therapy, improvisational music therapy, song writing, and so on.

Thirdly, we have added some contents regarding the distinction between music therapy and music medicine in introduction and discussion sections of our manuscript.

The following contents are added in introduction section, “Today, it is widely accepted that the music-based interventions should be divided into two major categories, namely music therapy and music medicine. According to the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), “music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program”. Therefore, music therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individualst, and includes the triad of the music, the client and the qualified music therapist. [American Music Therapy Association (2020). Definition and Quotes about Music Therapy. Available online at: https://www.musictherapy.org/about/quotes/ (Accessed Sep 13, 2020).] While, music medicine is defined as mainly listening to prerecorded music provided by medical personnel or rarely listening to live music. In other words, music medicine aims to use music like medicines. It often managed by a medical professional other than a music therapist, and not needed a therapeutic relationship with the patients. Therefore, the essential difference of music therapy and music medicine is whether a therapeutic relationship is developed between a trained music therapist and the client.

[Bradt, J., et al. (2015). "The impact of music therapy versus music medicine on psychological outcomes and pain in cancer patients: a mixed methods study." Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer 23(5): 1261-1271.

[Yinger, O. S. and L. Gooding (2014). "Music therapy and music medicine for children and adolescents." Child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of North America 23(3): 535-553.]

【Tony Wigram.Inge Nyggard Pedersen&Lars Ole Bonde,A Compmhensire Guide to Music Therapy.London and Philadelphia:Jessica Kingsley Publishen.2002:143.】

In the context of the clear distinction between these two major cagerories, it is clear that to evaluate the effects of music therapy and other music based intervention studies together on depression can be misleading. While, the distinction was not always clear in most of prior papers, and we found that no meta-analysis comparing the effects of music therapy and music medicine was conducted. Just a few studies made a comparison of music-based interventions on psychological outcomes between music therapy and music medicine. We aimed to (1) compare the effect between music therapy and music medicine on depression; (2) compare the effect between different specific methods used inmusic therapy on depression; (3) compare the effect of music-based interventions on depression among different population.

[Bradt, J., et al. (2015). "The impact of music therapy versus music medicine on psychological outcomes and pain in cancer patients: a mixed methods study." Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer 23(5): 1261-1271.[Yinger, O. S. and L. Gooding (2014). "Music therapy and music medicine for children and adolescents." Child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of North America 23(3): 535-553.]

The last, we have made a new analysis of our data. 1) including three new papers and re-analying of our data, 2) adding the comparison of music therapy and music medicine, 3) adding the comparison of impatient setting and outpatients setting, 4) adding the comparison of depressed people and not depressed people, 5)adding the comparison of countries have having music therapy profession and not, 6) adding the comparison of group therapy and individual therapy, 7) added the comparison of different intervention dose, and so on.

Response: (1)We have amended the of definitions of music therapy. The revised difinitons of music therapy was “Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program”. [American Music Therapy Association (2020). Definition and Quotes about Music Therapy. Available online at: https://www.musictherapy.org/about/quotes/ (Accessed Sep 13, 2020).]

We have added some contents on the distinction between music therapy (MT) and music medicine (MM) in introduction and discussion sections of our manuscript.

We have added the analysis of the comparion of music therapy (MT) and music medicine (MM) in Methord and Results sections

Response: we have re-studed all included papers carefully and added a new varible (Intervenor or therapist) into table 1, and the corresponding description was addded in the results section. Of 55 studies, 32 used a certified music therapist, 15 not used a certified music therapist (for example researcher, nurse), and 10 not reported relevent information.

Response: We have divided music-based interventions into two major categories, namely music therapy and music medicine according to the difinition. With respect to specific methods used in music therapy, we also have divided music therapy into receptive (or passive) and active music therapy. The specific methods used in receptive music therapy in our included papers including music-assisted relaxation, music and imagery, and guided imagery and music (Bonny Method), and the specific methods used in active music therapy included recreative music therapy and improvisational music therapy.

We have added some sub-group analyses by different music intervention categories, different music therapy categories, and specific music therapy methords.

The the above mentioned content have been added to Intruduction Analyses, results and discussion section.

Response: we are very sorry for not mentioning these important reviews. We have studied these reviews carefully and discussed these reviews in Discussion sections.

Some prior reviews have evaluated the effects of music therapy for reducing depression. Aalbers and colleagues included nine studies in their review; they concluded that music therapy provides short-term benefificial effects for people with depression, and suggested that high-quality trials with large sample size were needed. However, this review was limited to studies of individuals with a diagnosis of depression, and did not differentiate music therapy from music medicine. Another paper reviewed the effectiveness of music interventions in treating depression. The authors included 26 studies and found a signifiant reduction in depression in the music intervention group compared with the controp group. The authors made a clear distincition on the definition of music therapy and music medicine; however, they did not include all relevant data from the most recent trials and did not conduct a meta-analysis. A recent meta-analysis compared the effects of music therapy and music medicine for reducing depression in people with cancer with seven RCTs; the authors found a moderately strong, positive impact of music intervention on depression , but found no difference between music therapy and music medicine.

【Aalbers, S., et al. (2017). "Music therapy for depression." Cochrane Database Syst Rev 11: {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"CD004517","term_id":"30321255"}} CD004517 .】

【Leubner, D. and T. Hinterberger (2017). "Reviewing the Effectiveness of Music Interventions in Treating Depression." Front Psychol 8: 1109.】

【Bradt, J., et al. (2016). "Music interventions for improving psychological and physical outcomes in cancer patients." Cochrane Database Syst Rev(8): {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"CD006911","term_id":"30323649"}} CD006911 .】

To date, many new trials focued on music therapy and depression in differnt poupulation (such as people with cancer, people with dementia, people with chronic disease, and so on ) have been performed, but they have not yet been systematically reviewed.

Response: Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made revision according to the comments.

Response: We are sorry for making this mistake. In the Methord section, we defined exclusive criteria as studies with a very small sample size (n<20),while in table 4 we performed the sensitivity analyses by excluding the papers with smale sample size ( 20< n<30). We have amended the table 4.

Response: We have added these findings with a forest plot (figure 6) according to the comment.

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Response: we are sorry for making this mistake, we have amended our list of authors on the manuscript accordingly.

Response: We have checked the refer to Figure 5 and found that the refer to figure 5 was a mistake, and we have amended it.

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Response: Thinks very much for your comment.

Response: Thinks very much for your comment. Our manuscript have been edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by one qualified native English speaking editors.

Response: This suggestion is valuable and we have tried to judge if the countries in our inluded papers have an established music therapy profession by checking the author's work address, literature review, visiting the important website about music therapy, and consulting to some famous music therapist via emails. The following table showed that four countries may be not have a music therapy profession. We have added the comparison of the country having music therapy profession and not.

https://erikdalton.com/find-a-certified-therapist/

https://www.musictherapy.org/about/listserv/

Table 1. The information on the music therapy profession in the inluded papers

Country Country having music therapy profession

Korea Korean Music Therapy Association

South Korea Korean Music Therapy Association

UK British Association for Music Therapy

Australia Australian Music Therapy Association

Canada Canadian Association of Music Therapists

China Chinese Professional Music Therapist Association

Taiwan China Chinese Professional Music Therapist Association

Denmark Dansk forbund for musikterapie

Finland Finnish Society for Music Therapy

Hong Kong China Hong Kong Music Therapy and Counseling Association

Serbia Music Therapists of Serbia organize workshops

Switzerland Swiss Association of Music Therapy

USA The American Music Therapy Association

Singapore The Association for Music Therapy (Singapore)

Brazil Uniao Braileira Das Associacoes De Musicoterapia

Germany YES

Northern Ireland YES

Spanish YES

Venezuela No

2.please fix the "short title" (oxygen)

Response: We’re sorry for making this mistake, and we have corrected this mistake.

Music therapy with fewer minutes might yield superior effects. This may be misleading. Is there a minimum number of minutes? How many minutes might be optimal for therapeutic outcome? I believe it does make sense that longer sessions may result in less impact - quantity/duration does not always result in enhanced outcome.

Response: In 33 included trials, intervention time each session was different, the mimimum time was 15 minutes in only one study (Burrai et al., 2019b), followed by 20 minuters in four studies (Chirico et al., 2020; Guétin et al., 2009; Hanser et al., 1994; Sigurdardóttir et al., 2019). In our subgroup analysis by time per session (minutes), we divided time per session into three groups, namely 15-40, 41-60, >60, and this presentation might be unclear.

In order to respond this comment, we have re-divided the time per session into four groups, namely 15-40, 41-60, 61-120, to explore the optimal minuter per session for therapeutic outcome.

I believe a stronger case needs to be made for the study. There are existing meta-analyses of MT for depression (Aalbers et al., 2017 Cochrane Review). What makes the current study unique and different? What are the gaps in the literature that warrant this study? Have there been a lot of recent additions to the literature that warrant a new meta-analysis?

Response: Some prior reviews have evaluated the effects of music therapy for reducing depression. Aalbers and colleagues (Aalbers et al., 2017)included nine studies in their review; they concluded that music therapy provides short-term benefificial effects for people with depression, and suggested that high-quality trials with large sample size were needed. However, this review was limited to studies of individuals with a diagnosis of depression, and did not differentiate music therapy from music medicine.

Another paper reviewed the effectiveness of music interventions in treating depression. The authors (Leubner D., 2017) included 26 studies and found a signifiant reduction in depression in the music intervention group compared with the controp group. The authors made a clear distincition on the definition of music therapy and music medicine; however, they did not include all relevant data from the most recent trials and did not conduct a meta-analysis. A recent meta-analysis (Bradt et al., 2016) compared the effects of music therapy and music medicine for reducing depression with seven RCTs; the authors found a moderately strong, positive impact of music intervention on depression , but found no difference between music therapy and music medicine. However, this review was limited to studies of individuals with a diagnosis of cancer.

Figure 1 presents the number of published paper ( search from Pubmed) focued on music therapy and depression from 1983 to 2020, the published paper was in the rapidly growing stage during the past five years. While, the above mentioned reviews all included papers published before 2017. To date, many new trials focued on music therapy and depression in differnt poupulation (such as people with cancer, people with dementia, people with chronic disease, and so on ) have been performed, but they have not yet been systematically reviewed.

While, no meta-analysis compared the the difference of music therapy on depression in differnt poupulation (such as people with depression, people with dementia, people with chronic disease, health people, and so on ) have been performed.

Figure 1 The pubished papers from 1983 to 2020 focused on music therapy and depression (searched from Pubmed)

In our persent meta-analysis, we aimed to (1) compare the effect between music therapy and music medicine on depression; (2) compare the effect between different specific methods used inmusic therapy on depression; (3) compare the effect of music-based interventions on depression among different population.

We have added the above content to Intruduction and Dissussion sections.

5.A stronger discussion of the limitation of this study. Many studies did not evaluate a group with major depression/major depressive disorder (music therapy for chronic pain is important, but the variance of the populations under study does constitute a limitation). So, this study is not exclusive to adults with a major mental health condition. Might effects be different for people who are depressed versus people who are not depressed?

Response: This is a very important comment. According to this comment, we have made some revision.

Firstly, we have added a sensitivity analysis by excluding the studes focused on the people with a major mental health condition.

Secondly, we have re-grouped the populations into three groups, namely mental health, severe mental disease /psychiatric disorder, and depression and we have added the subgroup analysis (table 2 in revised manuscript)..

Thirdly, we have added the analysis of the difference between people who are depressed versus people who are not depressed accordingly (table 2 in revised manuscript).

6.Instead of "blinding/blinded" please use "masking/masked."

Response: We have replaced "blinding/blinded" with "masking/masked" according to this comment.

Response: In active methods (improvisational, re-creative, compositional), participants are ‘making music’ , and in receptive music therapy (music-assisted relaxation, music and imagery, guided imagery and music, lyrics analysis ), participants are ‘receiving’ (e.g. listening to) music (Bruscia 2014; Wheeler 2015).

We have amended the difinition and added the citation to the Result section according to this commment.

[Bruscia KE. Defining Music Therapy. 3rd Edition.University Park, Illinois, USA: Barcelona Publishers, 2014.]

[Wheeler BL. Music Therapy Handbook. New York, New York, USA: Guilford Publications, 2015.]

Response: Of the 55 studies, 38 used group therapy, 17 used individual therapy, and 2 not reported. We have added the comparison of group therapy versus individual therapy according to this comment (table 2 in revised manuscript).

Response: Of 55 studies, a total of 25 studies were conducted in impatient setting,28 studies were in outpatients setting setting, and 2 studies not repoted the setting. We have added the subgroup analysis by inpatient settings (secure [locked] unit at a mental health facility versus outpatient settings) according to this comment (table 2 in revised manuscript).

Response: We have added the subgroup analysis by total sessions a participant has received according to this comment.

Response: We have added the SD in table 1

Response: Thanks very much for your important comments, these comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches.

Response: (1) We have amendded the difinition of music therapy. According to the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), “music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program”.. [American Music Therapy Association (2020). Definition and Quotes about Music Therapy. Available online at: https://www.musictherapy.org/about/quotes/ (Accessed Sep 13, 2020).]

(2)We are very sorry for missing several research studies in our present meta-analysis. According to this comment, we have performed more extensive electronic search using the following terms: depression or mood disorders or affective disorders and music. We also performed manual search for the reference of all relevent reviews. In order to ensure the study quality of included papers, we excluded the studies with a very small sample size (n<20), we also excluded the non-english papers due to our language barrier. We included 23 new papers and deleted 1 old paper, in the last a total of 55 paper were included in our present analysis. The following are the new included papers and some excluded papers:

New-included papers

1)Albornoz Y. The effects of group improvisational music therapy on depression in adolescents and adults with substance abuse: a randomised controlled trial. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 2011;20(3):208–24.

2)Hendricks CB, Robinson B, Bradley B, Davis K. Using music techniques to treat adolescent depression. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development 1999; 38:39–46. (unavaliable)

3)Hendricks CB. A study of the use of music therapy techniques in a group for the treatment of adolescent depression. Dissertation Abstracts International 2001;62(2-A):472.

4)Radulovic R. The using of music therapy in treatment of depressive disorders. Summary of Master Thesis. Belgrade: Faculty of Medicine University of Belgrade, 1996.

5)Zerhusen JD, Boyle K, Wilson W. Out of the darkness: group cognitive therapy for depressed elderly. Journal of Military Nursing Research 1995;1:28–32. PUBMED: 1941727]

6)Chen SC, Yeh ML, Chang HJ, Lin MF. Music, heart rate variability, and symptom clusters: a comparative study. Support Care Cancer. 2020;28(1):351-360. doi:10.1007/s00520-019-04817-x

7)Chang, M. Y., Chen, C. H., and Huang, K. F. (2008). Effects of music therapy on psychological health of women during pregnancy. J. Clin. Nurs. 17, 2580–2587. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2007.02064.x

8)Chen XJ, Hannibal N, Gold C. Randomized Trial of Group Music Therapy With Chinese Prisoners: Impact on Anxiety, Depression, and Self-Esteem. Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol. 2016;60(9):1064-1081. doi:10.1177/0306624X15572795

9)Esfandiari, N., and Mansouri, S. (2014). The effect of listening to light and heavy music on reducing the symptoms of depression among female students. Arts Psychother. 41, 211–213. doi: 0.1016/j.aip.2014.02.001

10)Fancourt, D., Perkins, R., Ascenso, S., Carvalho, L. A., Steptoe, A., and Williamon, A. (2016). Effects of group drumming interventions on anxiety, depression, social resilience and inflammatory immune response among mental health service users. PLoS ONE 11:e0151136. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151136

11)Giovagnoli AR, Manfredi V, Parente A, Schifano L, Oliveri S, Avanzini G. Cognitive training in Alzheimer's disease: a controlled randomized study. Neurol Sci. 2017;38(8):1485-1493. doi:10.1007/s10072-017-3003-9

12)Harmat, L., Takács, J., and Bodizs, R. (2008). Music improves sleep quality in students. J. Adv. Nurs. 62, 327–335. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04602.x

13)Liao J, Wu Y, Zhao Y, et al. Progressive Muscle Relaxation Combined with Chinese Medicine Five-Element Music on Depression for Cancer Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Chin J Integr Med. 2018;24(5):343-347. doi:10.1007/s11655-017-2956-0

14)Lu, S. F., Lo, C. H. K., Sung, H. C., Hsieh, T. C., Yu, S. C., and Chang, S. C. (2013). Effects of group music intervention on psychiatric symptoms and depression in patient with schizophrenia. Complement. Ther. Med. 21, 682–688. doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2013.09.002

15)Mahendran R, Gandhi M, Moorakonda RB, et al. Art therapy is associated with sustained improvement in cognitive function in the elderly with mild neurocognitive disorder: findings from a pilot randomized controlled trial for art therapy and music reminiscence activity versus usual care. Trials. 2018;19(1):615. Published 2018 Nov 9. doi:10.1186/s13063-018-2988-6

16)Nwebube C, Glover V, Stewart L. Prenatal listening to songs composed for pregnancy and symptoms of anxiety and depression: a pilot study. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2017;17(1):256. Published 2017 May 8. doi:10.1186/s12906-017-1759-3

17)Porter S, McConnell T, McLaughlin K, et al. Music therapy for children and adolescents with behavioural and emotional problems: a randomised controlled trial. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2017;58(5):586-594. doi:10.1111/jcpp.12656

18)Raglio A, Giovanazzi E, Pain D, et al. Active music therapy approach in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a randomized-controlled trial. Int J Rehabil Res. 2016;39(4):365-367. doi:10.1097/MRR.0000000000000187

19)Torres E, Pedersen IN, Pérez-Fernández JI. Randomized Trial of a Group Music and Imagery Method (GrpMI) for Women with Fibromyalgia. J Music Ther. 2018;55(2):186-220. doi:10.1093/jmt/thy005

20)Verrusio, W., Andreozzi, P., Marigliano, B., Renzi, A., Gianturco, V., Pecci, M. T., et al. (2014). Exercise training and music therapy in elderly with depressive syndrome: a pilot study. Complement. Ther. Med. 22, 614–620. doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2014.05.012

21)Wang, J. , Wang, H. and Zhang, D. (2011) Impact of group music therapy on the depression mood of college students. Health, 3, 151-155

22)Yap AF, Kwan YH, Tan CS, Ibrahim S, Ang SB. Rhythm-centred music making in community living elderly: a randomized pilot study. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2017 Jun 14;17(1):311. doi: 10.1186/s12906-017-1825-x. PMID: 28615007; PMCID: PMC5470187.

23)Koelsch, S., Offermanns, K., and Franzke, P. (2010). Music in the treatment of affective disorders: an exploratory investigation of a new method for music-therapeutic research. Music Percept. Interdisc. J. 27, 307–316. doi: 10.1525/mp.2010.27.4.307

Excluded papers:

24)Bally, K., Campbell, D., Chesnick, K., and Tranmer, J. E. (2003). Effects of patient controlled music therapy during coronary angiography on procedural pain and anxiety distress syndrome. Crit. Care Nurse 23, 50–58. (not provide useable data)

25)Atiwannapat P, Thaipisuttikul P, Poopityastaporn P, Katekaew W. Active versus receptive group music therapy for major depressive disorder - a pilot study. Complementary Therapies in Medicine 2016;26:141–5. (sample size<20)

26)Garrido S, Stevens CJ, Chang E, Dunne L, Perz J. Music and Dementia: Individual Differences in Response to Personalized Playlists. J Alzheimers Dis. 2018;64(3):933-941. doi:10.3233/JAD-180084 (not randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials)

27)Sánchez A, Maseda A, Marante-Moar MP, de Labra C, Lorenzo-López L, Millán-Calenti JC. Comparing the Effects of Multisensory Stimulation and Individualized Music Sessions on Elderly People with Severe Dementia: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Alzheimers Dis. 2016;52(1):303-315. doi:10.3233/JAD-151150 (the control group also received music intervention)

28)Mondanaro JF, Homel P, Lonner B, Shepp J, Lichtensztein M, Loewy JV. Music Therapy Increases Comfort and Reduces Pain in Patients Recovering From Spine Surgery. Am J Orthop (Belle Mead NJ). 2017;46(1):E13-E22. (No full text available)

29)Castillo-Pérez, S., Gómez-Pérez, V., Velasco, M. C., Pérez-Campos, E., and Mayoral, M. A. (2010). Effects of music therapy on depression compared with psychotherapy. Arts Psychother. 37, 387–390. doi: 0.1016/j.aip.2010.07.001 (not provide useable data)

30)Alcântara-Silva TR, de Freitas-Junior R, Freitas NMA, et al. Music Therapy Reduces Radiotherapy-Induced Fatigue in Patients With Breast or Gynecological Cancer: A Randomized Trial. Integr Cancer Ther. 2018;17(3):628-635. doi:10.1177/1534735418757349(not provide useable data)

31)Cheung CWC, Yee AWW, Chan PS, et al. The impact of music therapy on pain and stress reduction during oocyte retrieval - a randomized controlled trial. Reprod Biomed Online. 2018;37(2):145-152. doi:10.1016/j.rbmo.2018.04.049(not provide useable data)

32)Pezzin LE, Larson ER, Lorber W, McGinley EL, Dillingham TR. Music-instruction intervention for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder: a randomized pilot study. BMC Psychol. 2018;6(1):60. Published 2018 Dec 19. doi:10.1186/s40359-018-0274-8 (the control group also received music intervention)

33)Silverman, M. J. (2011). Effects of music therapy on change and depression on clients in detoxification. J. Addict. Nurs. 22, 185–192. doi: 10.3109/10884602.2011.616606 (the control group also received music intervention)

34)Särkämö T, Laitinen S, Numminen A, Kurki M, Johnson JK, Rantanen P. Clinical and Demographic Factors Associated with the Cognitive and Emotional Efficacy of Regular Musical Activities in Dementia. J Alzheimers Dis. 2016;49(3):767-81. doi: 10.3233/JAD-150453. PMID: 26519435.

35)Tuinmann G, Preissler P, Böhmer H, Suling A, Bokemeyer C. The effects of music therapy in patients with high-dose chemotherapy and stem cell support: a randomized pilot study. Psychooncology. 2017 Mar;26(3):377-384. doi: 10.1002/pon.4142. Epub 2016 May 5. PMID: 27146798.(not provide useable data)

36)Hsu, W. C., and Lai, H. L. (2004). Effects of music on major depression in psychiatric inpatients. Arch. Psychiat. Nurs. 18, 193–199. doi: 10.1016/j.apnu.2004.07.007(not provide useable data)

(3)We have added some new analyses of our data. 1) including three new papers and re-analying of our data, 2) adding the comparison of music therapy and music medicine (figure 3 in revised manuscript) , 3) adding some subgroup analyses by country having music therapy profession, intervention settings, therapy mode, specific music therapy methord, intervenor /therapist, and total intervention session (table 2 in revised manuscript) .

Response: We are sorry for making this mistake. In the Methord section, we defined exclusive criteria as studies with a very small sample size (n<20),while in table4 we performed the sensitivity analyses by excluding the papers with smale sample size ( 20< n<30). We have amended the table 4.

Response: We have added these findings with a forest plot (figure 6 in revised manuscript) according to the comment.

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essay on music therapy

79 Music Therapy Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best music therapy topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 good research topics about music therapy, 🔍 interesting topics to write about music therapy, ❓ music therapy research questions.

  • Music Therapy: Where Words Cease In spite of the fact that, as a rule, one indulges into art to find the shelter from the reality, the author of the book called The Soloist explores quite a different issue of the […]
  • Music Therapy throughout The Soloist Globally, classical music in its sense has always been known to adjoin the listener to some transcendent understanding of the world order, the feeling of integrity with the Universe and enormous delight rising up from […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
  • Sound as an Element of Music Therapy This is one of the reasons why in the Abrams study the participants explained that they preferred the sound of rain, ocean waves and the soft strumming of a guitar as compared to the work […]
  • Music Therapy Effectiveness In addition to this, research has shown that stroke patients become more involved in therapy sessions once music is incorporated in the treatment program; this is the motivational aspect of music.
  • The Role of Music Therapy as Alternative Treatment Music therapy is the use of music interventions to achieve individualized goals of healing the body, mind, and spirit. Thereafter, several developments occurred in the field of music therapy, and the ringleaders founded the American […]
  • Music Therapy as a Social Work Intervention One of such interventions is music therapy which is aimed at helping people in a sensitive way accurately adjusting the possibilities this therapy may offer to the requirements of a particular client of a group […]
  • Music Therapy: Alternative to Traditional Pain Medicine The sources underline that therapists should pay attention to the subjects of music and their impact on the health of clients.
  • Music Therapy: The Impact on Older Adults There is therefore the need to focus more energy to aid more understating on the role of music therapy on older residents.”The recent qualitative review of literature in the area of music and music therapy […]
  • Substance Use Disorder: Possibility of Using Music Therapy In their study, Bourdaghs and Silverman address the possibility of using music therapy as the tool for promoting the socialization of people with a substance use disorder.
  • Music Therapy as a Related Service for Students With Disabilities From a neuroscientific perspective, how would music intervention improve classroom behaviors and academic outcomes of students with ADHD as a way to inform policy-makers of the importance of music therapy as a related service?
  • Music Therapy for Children With Learning Disabilities This review includes the evidence supporting music therapy as an effective strategy for promoting auditory, communication, and socio-emotional progression in children with ASD.
  • Music Therapy in Healthcare Therefore, the article suggests that music can be used for relaxation, as well as managing the health issues that may arise due to the lack of relaxation.
  • Art and Music Therapy Coverage by Health Insurance However, I do believe that creative sessions should be available for all patients, and I am going to prove to you that music and art are highly beneficial for human health.
  • Music Therapy for Schizophrenic Patients’ Quality of Life Consequently, the purpose of the project will be to review the existing literature and prepare a document with recommendations regarding MT in the discussed population, including psychiatric nurses’ acceptable role in delivering such interventions.
  • Active Music Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease
  • Effectiveness of Music Therapy for Survivors of Abuse
  • Music Therapy Effectiveness of Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease
  • The Link Between Ancestral Hormones and Music Therapy
  • Analysis of the Effectiveness of Art and Music Therapy
  • Music Therapy Usefulness for Cancer Patients
  • Music Therapy Impact on Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
  • How Music Therapy Can Be Used to Reduce Pre-Operative Anxiety
  • Healing Chronic Pain With Music Therapy
  • Music Therapy Effect on the Wellness and Mood of Adolescents
  • Comparing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Music Therapy
  • Constructing Optimal Experience for the Hospitalized Newborn Through Neuro-Based Music Therapy
  • Music Therapy: Considerations for the Clinical Environment
  • “Dementia and the Power of Music Therapy” by Steve Matthews Analysis
  • Music Therapy for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
  • Discussing Music Therapy Reducing Stress Health and Social Care
  • Does Music Therapy Help Children With Special Needs?
  • Music Therapy for Delinquency Involved Juveniles Through Tripartite Collaboration
  • Heidelberg Neuro-Music Therapy Enhances Task-Negative Activity in Tinnitus Patients
  • Music Therapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • How Does Music Therapy Promote Positive Mental Health?
  • Music Therapy and Its Positive Effects on the Brain
  • The Relationships Between Learning and Music Therapy
  • Music Therapy for Sexually Abused Children
  • Managing Sickle Cell Pain With Music Therapy
  • Music Therapy: How Does Music Impact Our Emotions
  • Dealing With Depression With the Help of Music Therapy
  • Effectiveness of Music Therapy and Drug Therapy for Children With Autism
  • Music Therapy and Its Effect on the Levels of Anxiety
  • The Link Between Music Therapy and Personality Theory Psychology
  • How Music Therapy Improves Depression Among Older Adults
  • Music Therapy: The Best Way to Help Children With Mental Illness
  • Interventions of Music Therapy for Stress Reduction
  • The Real Science Behind the Theory of Music Therapy
  • Music Therapy Should Not Be Considered a Therapy
  • Neurologic Music Therapy Training for Mobility and Stability Rehabilitation
  • Nursing Theory for Music Therapy Quality Improvement Program
  • The Help of Music Therapy in Pain Management
  • Relationship Between Hypertension and Music Therapy
  • Yoga and Music Therapy as Effective Methods of Stress Management
  • What Is Music Therapy Used For?
  • What Are Some Examples of Music Therapy?
  • What Kind of Music Is Used in Music Therapy?
  • What Are the Side Effects of Music Therapy?
  • What Mental Illnesses Does Music Therapy Help?
  • Can Music Therapy Help With Anxiety?
  • What Type of Music Therapy Helps Depression?
  • Does Music Therapy Actually Work?
  • Do Psychiatrists Use Music Therapy?
  • Do Doctors Recommend Music Therapy?
  • How Long Does Music Therapy Last?
  • Why Is Music Therapy Not Used?
  • What Is a Typical Music Therapy Session Like?
  • What Are the Two Main Benefits of Music Therapy?
  • How Can Music Therapy Be Done at Home?
  • What Does Music Therapy Do to the Brain?
  • Is Music Therapy Good for Stress?
  • Can Music Therapy Help With Trauma?
  • What Ages Benefit From Music Therapy?
  • What Is the First Step of Music Therapy?
  • Does Music Therapy Include Talking?
  • What Instruments Are Used for Music Therapy?
  • What Is the Difference Between Sound Therapy and Music Therapy?
  • Can You Do Music Therapy Without a Degree?
  • Why Is Music Therapy Better Than Medicine?
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The Role of Art and Music Therapies in Mental Health and Beyond

musical notes and earphones

Prescribing art therapy , yoga, and music lessons is truly a breakthrough for mental health treatment . I want to be completely clear here, this is a breakthrough, but not a breakthrough therapy per se. It is a huge step forward, on the level of readjusting our mental health system, it is really a systems course correction at the root of it. Art therapy, music, etc., all are tested modalities for improving mental health conditions; almost all of them. For chronic, highly disordered and severely dysfunctional patients, this is not a miracle cure. These are, at best, supplementary, tandem, and co-functioning treatment methods to mitigate the severity and intensity of symptoms.

I am not knocking or trying to minimise the importance of this breakthrough. These are not only important modalities in and of themselves, but also support the creativity , independence, and freedom of patients to not only choose their own method of care but also nourish their capacity to carry on treatment more autonomously without being under direct supervision . 

Even more importantly, the system is broken, in total if not complete disarray, and needs to be revised urgently if we are to advance treatment at the speed it requires to meet the mental health crisis where it’s at. These new prescribed modalities will not only serve to add ‘person-centredness’ to the paradigm but also new flexibility within the limits of the system.

Even highly disordered patients are extremely creative during their darkest hour. Art therapy, music, and all of these modalities which draw upon creativity and promote purposeful free-flowing ideas are as self-soothing as they are productive in reducing the negative impact of active symptoms.

I can tell you that I have benefited from a music or art group on an inpatient unit in the hospital many times. Some of my fondest memories from experiencing first-episode psychosis in the hospital were singing and dancing to Stevie Nicks , at my request, when I could barely speak from word salad symptoms and was just a few moments away from being transferred to a higher level of inpatient care for unresolved psychosis. But I danced and laughed like the floor was on fire.

Art, music, yoga, all of these modalities are terribly inaccessible to most patients living off state benefits, who are consigned to a life shut-in and isolated in their homes. Aside from ‘getting out more’, these patients simply don’t have the resources to pay for and maintain a connection to art therapists and other more non-traditional treatment in the community. Unless you are connected to a special service or have the best insurance, these modalities simply aren’t an option for most service users and people with a severe mental health condition.

I truly applaud this shift in the systems paradigm that for so long was all about medication and traditional psychotherapy. We really need more of this in countries supposedly promoting better mental health treatment.

I also want to suggest that therapists who practice traditional talk therapy , straight CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) can continue to add new self-soothing and proven techniques to their toolkit. I am always encouraging my student therapists to do artwork, let their children dance in therapy. Yes, you read this right, just dance, when the time is right and fits the course of treatment.

We need to get out of this traditional black and white thinking of what therapy is and is not . Therapy is what people need in the moment, to feel and behave in a manner that better suits their goals, chosen lifestyle, and needs. So with this said, why not let a child who is struggling to adjust to a new foster parent, dance in session when he can’t play at home. Sure, not for every session and for the duration of every patient contact, but sometimes, when it will benefit the patient, you just have to do it. 

Yes, this is truly a breakthrough in thinking among us practitioners and the higher-ups in our discipline who say what’s what in mental health treatment. It signals that we need to be dynamic, and shift our thinking as practitioners, peers, and anyone charged with providing therapeutic intervention . It is high time we see more of it, from government-sponsored care and any system which is charged with the care of people with a psychiatric disability, or who needs therapeutic intervention to find relief from whatever problem in their life is causing them distress.

Max E. Guttman, LCSW  is a psychotherapist and owner of Recovery Now, a mental health private practice in New York City.

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ESSAY SAUCE

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FOR STUDENTS : ALL THE INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD ESSAY

Essay: Music therapy

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  • Subject area(s): Health essays
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  • Published: 19 November 2015*
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  • Words: 2,015 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 9 (approx)

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The topic that I choose for my project is Music Therapy. I choose this topic because I really enjoy music, I grew up listening to all types of genre of music, my father was really interested in music which influenced me. I used to play flute in grade school, I was in the choir and I was in a few musical plays. My father was in a band for years and then when I was born he would sing to me every night, and I just grew up to like music. There is all kinds of music for different occasions and can put you in different moods. I listen to all kinds of genre of music, it puts me in a different mood and music can also remind me of different memories that have happened in my life whether it’s good or bad. I sing, I dance, I use my lap as a drum, air guitar, and I listen to it to relax and also to get some energy. Music is very powerful for everyone, it really is a therapy for people and for me personally I love music it’s so inspiring and soothing I really don’t know what my life would be like if I didn’t have music. As I researched for this paper I realized music is so magical and it can really change people’s lives drastically and it can be used as a treatment for many different people, whether they have mental disorders, learning disabilities, addictions, dementia, Alzheimer’s, depression, and anxiety. Music is a medicine and everyone can benefit from enjoying the sound of music. The first question is, what is Music Therapy? Music Therapy is used to notice emotional, cognitive and social issues in people of all ages. This therapy is used for people that have disabilities and illnesses, but music can be enjoyed by anyone (Health Services). It helps to motivate and encourage people with specific goals that are nonmusical related, in which Music therapist use their training to effect changes in the cognitive, physical, communication, social, and emotional skills (peacefulmind.com). When it comes to music it’s very educational and creative and it helps people of all ages and abilities to grow socially, mentally and physically which leads it to be used as a technique to affect children and adults. Music is an activity that involves using the brain (eMedExpert). Music affects the brain, it captivates and helps maintain attention, stimulating and utilizing many parts of the brain. It reflects a person’s ability, music provides a meaningful context, encourages movement, it brings back memories and emotions and people of all ability levels can participate. Music bypasses the intellectual stimulus in the brain and moves to our subconscious. Music Therapy has been recognized to be a healing power in different cultures and it has been shown to have influences on the immune system, blood pressure, heart and respiratory rate and pain perception (peacefulmind.com). Music can be distracting if it’s loud and it can compete for a person’s attention with the activities they are to accomplish, but overall music can be beneficial. (eMedExpert). When it comes to the history of Music Therapy it’s as old as the writings of Aristotle and Plato. Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle, they all wrote how music affects a person’s health and behavior (Health Services). It began after World War I and World War II when community musicians went to Veteran hospitals around the country to play for the Veterans who were suffering physical and emotional trauma from the wars. The patient’s had a physical and emotional response to music that led the doctors to request the hiring of musicians by the hospitals (History of Music Therapy). The earliest known music therapy appearance was in 1789 in an unsigned article in Columbian Magazine. In the early 1800s there were writing on the therapeutic value of music that appeared, the first one was published by Edwin Atlee and the second by Samuel Mathews. The 1800s saw the first recorded music therapy intervention and the first recorded systematic experiment in music therapy. In 1903 Eva Augusta Vescelius founded the National Society of Musical Therapeutics. Another founder named Isa Maud IIsen started a National Association for Music in Hospitals in 1926. Years later, the first music therapy college training programs were created in the 1940s. The first academic program in music therapy was established in 1944 by Michigan State University and then other universities started to establish the same programs including University of Kansas, Chicago Musical College, and College of the Pacific and Alverno College. National Association for Music Therapy was founded in New York on June 2, 1950. American Association for Music Therapy was established in 1971, this organization was similar to National Association for Music Therapy. Certification Board for Music Therapists was established in 1983. Lastly there is American Music Therapy Association was organized in 1998 and is current it’s the home of and serves over 5,000 music therapists. This association is the largest music therapy organization in the world, it’s in over 30 countries around the world (History of Music Therapy). In today’s world, music has grown so rapidly and music therapists work in different settings including schools, hospitals and clinics, substance abuse centers, nursing homes and private practices (Health Services). When it comes to music therapy it is a healing process for different types of people. Music does have a positive outcome and effect on people with depression, pain mentally and emotionally, mental disorders, dementia, anxiety disorders and insomnia. There are theories when it comes to music being positively affective to pain, it can produce revulsive effect, give the patient a sense of control, music can cause the body to release endorphins which will counteract with pain and slow music relaxes the body by slowing the breathing and heartbeat. Music is so powerful and good for the heart that it has so many effects on people’s bodies. It can reduce blood pressure, help migraines and headaches, boost immunity, improves memory performances, improves concentration and attention, improve athletic performances, improves to work more productively, improve body movement and coordination, induces sleep, improves mood and decreases depression, enhances intelligence and learning and reduces stress (eMedExpert). Music therapy is such a great medicine for the body and the mind and not a lot of people look at it that way, when you hear a song your whole mood and attitude changes and sometimes you can’t help it, your brain just automatically switches. Music has an influence on people and it is a very helpful treatment for many times of people, especially for autistic children, it helps children communicate and be coordinated whether it’s with rhythm, pronouncing words or just engaging in conversation. Music therapy can open up the mind and allow yourself to communicate in a way that you never thought you could. Children with Autism and others with mental disorders have very low self-esteem and music therapy can effect a person to increase their self-esteem. Examples of Music therapy for mental disorders are singing, dancing and group activities involving movements to the music. It will help with feedback, and identifying a person’s confidence. This therapeutic approach can also help people express their feelings about what they are thinking or how the music made them feel. It brings back memories for people and they can remember the moments they shared, and it can relax the mind to release the stress and pain they keep bottled up inside (peacefulmind.com). Music is meditation for the brain and the body and it’s a great treatment for everyone whether they need therapy or not. The population that I would use this approach on would be children with Autism. Before I discuss how I would use this approach, I want to define what Autistic disorder is, it’s a neurodevelopment condition marked by social and communication problems as well as restricted interests and behaviors (Neha Khetrapal pg. 11). Autism is diagnosed before three years old and has a lifelong persistence. The characteristics of Autism is failure to develop normal social interactions, language delay and communication disability, restricted; repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. Children and adults with Autism show poor awareness and often fail to recognize vocal and facial expressions and emotions. When it comes to Music therapy and treating autism there are two main goals to succeed in, improving communication/language and improving socio-behavioral skills (Neha Khetrapal pg. 11). After researching and learning about Music therapy I found it really interesting and educating on how it affects different people and different ways, especially individuals with Autism. I love music and how it affects the body and mind and learning how it affects Autistic children is amazing. I have family that are Autistic and how they have a hard time speaking, interacting with others and have a hard time expressing themselves; so reading and learning that music can have a big impact on their lives makes me want to learn this approach. The method that I would take to use this approach would be by learning what the child lacks in. The child may know how to express his or her feelings but may not be able to speak what he or she is feeling. I would use Music therapy by using words with tones of the music and sentences with the melodies which will improve their speech (Suzanne B. Hanser pg. 4). I would play music with the child or children and have them move or dance to the music to improve their coordination and also get them involved with others by clapping together or singing along to build up their self-esteem and increasing their communicating skills. I would also get some instruments involved, including hand drums, cow bell, or sticks and having the group play them together to learn how to express themselves since they have a speech deficit and have a hard time speaking fluently. Music will help them express their feelings and also learning how to work with others, it will help the children to interact and have fun. Autistic children also have a hard time remembering things so I would use music approach by singing a sentence, or playing an instrument and having them repeat the sentence or the music sound from the instrument. It’s all about educating and helping the children learn different ways to show emotions. I would have children pick music that they enjoy listening to and make a game out of the song, whether it’s clapping to the beat and singing, doing funny dances or just playing duck, duck, goose to the music. It’s getting the children involved and interacting with the music and I would love to do this approach. What I like about this approach is that knowing music can help someone that has a disorder and that it can be fun is so inspiring. When I think of therapy I think of children being scared and nervous talking to someone for hours and they get irritated because they just want to have fun. Then knowing that there is Music therapy for not just children but adults and they can learn and improve their life skills and have fun at the same time, it’s so interesting to me and inspires me to really try a music approach on someone that is not just Autistic but someone that is depressed or just has a hard time sleeping. I never realized how music can help someone so much without them feeling like they are worthless or embarrassed because they have to go to therapy for their problems. Music helps me all the time, when I’m feeling stressed, I can’t sleep and even having a bad headache; music makes me feel like a new person, different music helps me and sometimes gets me through the day if I’m having a bad day. Knowing that I use music as a therapy for myself without a therapist I know I can influence someone to use music to heal themselves if they are feeling down.

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Essay on Music Therapy

Students are often asked to write an essay on Music Therapy in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Music Therapy

Introduction.

Music therapy is a therapeutic technique that uses music to improve health. It’s used by certified professionals to promote emotional, cognitive and social well-being.

Types of Music Therapy

There are two types: active and receptive. In active therapy, individuals make music using instruments. In receptive therapy, individuals listen to music and discuss feelings.

Benefits of Music Therapy

Music therapy helps reduce stress and anxiety. It can also improve mood, concentration, and communication skills. It’s beneficial for all, especially those with mental health conditions.

Music therapy is a powerful tool for healing. It’s a unique way to express emotions and improve overall health.

250 Words Essay on Music Therapy

Music therapy is an evidence-based, clinical use of musical interventions to improve clients’ quality of life. Therapists are professionals trained in psychology and music, using the transformative power of music to enhance health and wellbeing in various settings.

Music Therapy: A Multifaceted Approach

Music therapy is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It can be passive, where individuals listen to music, or active, involving music creation. Techniques are tailored to individual needs, whether it’s to improve cognitive functioning, motor skills, emotional development, or social skills.

Neurological Underpinnings

Music therapy’s effectiveness is rooted in neurology. Music stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, promoting neural plasticity and aiding in recovery from neurological damage. The “Mozart Effect”, a theory suggesting that listening to Mozart’s music can increase IQ, exemplifies the potential neurological benefits of music.

Therapeutic Applications

Music therapy is used in diverse settings like hospitals, schools, and rehabilitation centers. It has proven beneficial for a range of conditions, from autism and dementia to depression and PTSD. The non-verbal, creative, and emotional qualities of music provide unique avenues for therapy.

The power of music therapy lies in its ability to tap into the fundamental human connection to music. This innovative therapy approach has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, offering a holistic, patient-centered method to enhance quality of life. As research continues, it’s clear that the therapeutic power of music is only beginning to be understood.

500 Words Essay on Music Therapy

Introduction to music therapy.

Music therapy, a rapidly evolving field in the realm of health and wellness, is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional. It is an intersection of music, psychology, and healthcare, aiming to improve the quality of life for individuals.

The Mechanism of Music Therapy

Music therapy operates on the principle that our brains process music in a unique way. It stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, making it a holistic treatment approach. Music can evoke emotions and memories, stimulate the release of endorphins, and alter our mood. These effects can be harnessed for therapeutic purposes, helping individuals express feelings they might struggle to put into words.

Applications of Music Therapy

Music therapy has a broad range of applications. It can be used in mental health treatment, aiding in managing stress, anxiety, and depression. It’s also employed in the field of neurology, where it helps patients with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and other cognitive disorders improve motor function and memory recall. In palliative care, music therapy can provide comfort and pain relief. Moreover, in educational settings, it can enhance learning and development in children with special needs.

Evidence Supporting Music Therapy

Empirical evidence validates the effectiveness of music therapy. A meta-analysis published in the Cochrane Library showed that music therapy improves social interaction, verbal communication, and initiating behavior in autistic children. Another study published in the Journal of Music Therapy demonstrated that music therapy can reduce anxiety levels in patients undergoing invasive procedures.

Challenges and Future Directions

Despite its potential, music therapy faces several challenges. The lack of standardized protocols, limited understanding of its mechanisms, and skepticism about its efficacy are some of the hurdles. However, with ongoing research and increasing acceptance in mainstream healthcare, the future of music therapy looks promising.

More research is needed to develop standardized treatment protocols and to understand the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning music therapy. Furthermore, interdisciplinary collaboration between music therapists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and healthcare professionals can foster a more comprehensive understanding of this field.

Music therapy is a potent tool in the arsenal of healthcare, offering a unique approach to treatment. It transcends traditional boundaries of therapy, harnessing the universal language of music to heal and uplift. As we continue to explore its potential, we can expect to see music therapy become an integral part of holistic healthcare, enhancing the quality of life for countless individuals.

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Processing Therapy

What is the conclusion of music therapy?

Table of Contents

In conclusion, music therapy has brought a tremendous impact on people’s psychological health, enabled patients to suffer less pain, anxiety, and feeling stressful and thus improves our emotional states, bringing psychological health to the patients. According to the American Music Therapy Association,2 research shows music therapy can be used to help: Improve overall physical rehabilitation. Facilitate movement. Increase motivation to engage in treatment. How does music affect our lives? Music has the ability to deeply affect our mental states and raise our mood. When we need it, music gives us energy and motivation. When we’re worried, it can soothe us; when we’re weary, it can encourage us; and when we’re feeling deflated, it can re-inspire us. Music is an excellent therapeutic tool for the brain, because it activates so many parts of it. Music’s pitch, rhythm, meter and timbre are processed in both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Listening to music triggers the areas of the brain that have to do with spatial reasoning.

What is the conclusion of music therapy for mental health?

Studies on patients diagnosed with mental disorders have shown a visible improvement in their mental health after interventions using music as primary tool. Other studies have demonstrated the benefits of music, including improved heart rate, motor skills, brain stimulation, and immune system enhancement. Music Therapy can benefit the following populations and conditions: children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly with mental health needs, developmental and learning disabilities, Alzheimer’s disease and other aging related conditions, substance abuse problems, brain injuries, physical disabilities, and acute and … It has the power to heal our mind, body and soul by its soothing effect. Different people have different taste in music and it works as a therapy for them. Music aids in expressing ourselves. It can help in healing conditions like depression, Alzheimer and insomnia. Answer: Music unites different people in different cultures in a peaceful manner. I learnt that, by playing a musical instrument it can benefit one’s health, cognitive skills, and mental functioning. It has the power to cure diseases such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, etc. The power of Music can be testified by the legends about Tansen of his bringing the rains by singing Raag Megh Malhar and lighting lamps by Raga Deepak. It also helps in improving the concentration and is thus of great help to the students. What is the Purpose of Music? There are four obvious purposes: dance, personal or communal entertainment, communication, and ritual.

What is the goal of music therapy?

Music therapy is the clinical use of music to accomplish individualized goals such as reducing stress, improving mood and self-expression. It is an evidence-based therapy well-established in the health community. Music therapy experiences may include listening, singing, playing instruments, or composing music. Cognitive behavioral music therapy (CBMT): This approach combines cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with music. In CBMT, music is used to reinforce some behaviors and modify others. This approach is structured, not improvisational, and may include listening to music, dancing, singing, or playing an instrument. Music is a form of art that uses sound organised in time. Music is also a form of entertainment that puts sounds together in a way that people like, find interesting or dance to. Most music includes people singing with their voices or playing musical instruments, such as the piano, guitar, drums or violin. One of the most important benefits of music is its ability to create a sense of belonging between individuals. Music has been linked to forming both social closeness and familial bonds. Kids typically have a different taste in music than adults, and they use it more to bond with their friends. I love listening to music especially because of this reason. Music has the power to unite people, make us feel at peace, make us feel understood; it is something to dance to, bond over, and even listen to when alone. Music is not just sound, it is its own language and it communicates so much; it is a beautiful thing. music, Art concerned with combining vocal or instrumental sounds for beauty of form or emotional expression, usually according to cultural standards of rhythm, melody, and, in most Western music, harmony.

Does music therapy improve quality of life?

This recent systematic review and meta-analysis (a study of studies) showed that the use of music interventions (listening to music, singing, and music therapy) can create significant improvements in mental health, and smaller improvements in physical health-related quality of life. According to the American Music Therapy Association,2 research shows music therapy can be used to help: Improve overall physical rehabilitation. Facilitate movement. Increase motivation to engage in treatment. music therapy, clinical discipline in which music is used to address nonmusical goals. Therapists use music listening, songwriting, improvisation, and lyric analysis as means of fulfilling goals in movement, cognition, speech and language, and mental health. Listening to music also triggers a release of hormones, like dopamine, that can make us feel good! Studies have shown that not only is dopamine released when we listen to a preferred song, but it may be released as often as each beat of that song! Music and Mood Listening to (or making) music increases blood flow to brain regions that generate and control emotions. The limbic system, which is involved in processing emotions and controlling memory, “lights” up when our ears perceive music.

What are the social benefits of music therapy?

Positive emotional behavior development Emotional awareness and nonverbal expression are also part of emotional behavior. Music therapy can help people learn to securely communicate their feelings vocally and nonverbally to improve emotional regulation. Importance of Music: Music has great qualities of healing a person emotionally and mentally. Music is a form of meditation. While composing or listening music ones tends to forget all his worries, sorrows and pains. But, in order to appreciate good music, we need to cultivate our musical taste. The overarching goal of music therapy is to achieve the objectives that meet the needs of the individual (Therapedia, n.d.). This may include, for example, improving motor function, social skills, emotions, coordination, self-expression and personal growth (Therapedia, n.d.). The researchers found that the people who listened to music recovered faster from the stress of the experience than those who didn’t. And many studies have shown that listening to music can lower your blood pressure and your heart rate (both spike when you’re stressed), and even lower stress hormones in your body. Music has become an important part of many people’s lives. There are many reasons for this. It can help us sleep, get pumped up for school/work, calm us down after a bad day, keep our spirits up when we’re feeling low, and encourage socialization between people.

How music helps with mental health?

Music can be distracting and lower your stress In fact, research has shown that it can lessen the impact of depression and anxiety. A study done in 2019 found that college students who listened to classical music every day for two months lowered their levels of anxiety significantly. Music also benefits you in many ways. These benefits include mental benefits, such as reducing stress, improving mood, helping depression, and improving IQ/memory. There are also physical benefits to music. Active music-making positively affects neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, that influence mood. Dopamine influences focus, concentration, memory, sleep, mood and motivation. Likewise, serotonin impacts mood, sleep patterns, anxiety and pain. Music has the ability to bring us joy and comfort, to motivate us and to help us relax. It has the power to transport us back in time, to calm our worried minds or boost our moods. There really is a song for every emotion. Science has even backed these benefits of music. The role of oxytocin Perhaps when feelings of insecurity about separation are eased, people will simply have more friendly social interactions. Soothing music can release oxytocin in the brain. Music is a tool that provides a sense of comfort and social connection among people. The future of music therapy includes a wellness model that follows individuals throughout their lifespan and their everchanging needs. This future enables music therapists to more actively engage services at the corporate wellness level.

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Essay on Music and its Importance in English for Children and Students

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Music is one of the most beautiful creations of art. It has the power to heal our mind, body and soul by its soothing effect. Different people have different taste in music and it works as a therapy for them. Music aids in expressing ourselves. It can help in healing conditions like depression, Alzheimer and insomnia. It also helps us rejuvenate and connect with ourselves as well as those around us.

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Long and Short Essay on Music and its Importance in English

Here are essay on music and its importance of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exam.

After going through these music and its importance essay you will know the benefits of music as a medium of connecting to self and others; music as a therapy for many physiological and psychological ailments; healing and calming power of music and its several other benefits.

You can go through all these essay to get the best one for you:

Short Essay on Music and its Importance (200 words) – Essay 1

Music has a divine power. It is a great source of entertainment. It binds people together. It brings back several fond memories from the past. It helps us connect with our inner self and also serves as an excellent medium of self expression. Music is loved by the mankind and is essential for its well being.

Music has been one of the main sources of entertainment since the ancient times. During the earlier times, when there were no televisions, internet connection, video games or any other way to keep oneself entertained, music helped people combat boredom. It also helped them connect better with each other. People sung folklores and danced to their tunes.

Musical instruments came into shape slowly and they took music to a different level. Today, music is a full-fledged industry which has become a source of income for many. Besides offering entertainment, music is also known for its therapeutic power. It calms the nervous system and heals many physical and mental ailments.

Doctors around the world have started including music therapy as a part of various medical treatments as it helps in a speedy recovery. As a part of this therapy, the patients listen to music. They also compose music, play different musical instruments, and write lyrics, dance and chant. Music is indeed a great way to boost the quality of life.

Essay on Music and its Importance (300 words) – Essay 2

Introduction.

Music is a great medium to connect better with oneself. It is also a fun way to connect with our friends and family and make new connections. Two people with similar taste in music connect instantly. Those who are fond of playing the same instrument or have flair in writing same kind of poetry also gel along really well.

Music Helps Establish a Connection with Self

Connecting with one’s inner self is an essential factor in leading a positive and wholesome life. The best way to go deep down and connect with oneself is through meditation. While many people try to meditate only few are able to do it successfully. Most people find it hard to sit in silence and dive deep inside. Their thoughts usually wander making it impossible to concentrate. Many people find this activity boring and tend to give up after few attempts. Music can make this process easier.

Music can calm the mind and help us focus better. There are many guided meditation audios and videos that can help you meditate with ease and develop a connection with your inner self.

Music Helps Establish a Connection with Those Around

Why do you think social gatherings have soft music being played in the background or a full blown DJ installed? Well, this is because music has the power to build a positive atmosphere and also connects people instantly. People often make new friends on the dance floor and also strengthen their bond with the existing ones.

Many songs make us feel nostalgic. This feeling of nostalgia binds us with our friends and family. Listening to such songs in their company is a great way to connect with them even if we meet them after a long time. Music helps in making several new memories too.

If you find it hard to meditate and establish a connection with your inner self or are trying hard to recreate that bond with your old friends then try music as a medium to further these aims.

Essay on Music and its Importance (400 words) – Essay 3

How music aids in self expression.

One of the problems people face today is lack of self expression. Most hesitate communicating their inner most feelings due to the fear that no one will understand. In fact, in this fast paced world, people are so busy that no one even bothers to listen to what the other person has to say. Holding on to thoughts and bottling up feelings is the worst a person can do to himself. Self expression is necessary and one of the best ways to do so is by way of music.

Why is Self Expression Important?

We are all dealing with something or the other. While we may be capable of handling our issues on our own; however, sharing our feelings and coping mechanism with others can help in lowering our stress to a large extent. It serves as a vent.

It also fetches support from those around us. Research shows that people who have someone to hear them out are happier compared to those who don’t. Those who keep their feelings to themselves often end up lonely and many even develop conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Music Can Help with Self Expression

Now, even if you have people around to hear you, you may not be able to share your thoughts and feelings with ease. Self expression is important but not easy. However, it can be made easy with the help of music. Music has proved to be of great help when it comes to self expression.

The power of music is such that just by playing a musical instrument such as drums or flute or guitar, you can convey how you are feeling or what you going through. You can express even the most intense feelings with the help of music. Another way in which you can express your self is by writing lyrics. This is a great way to communicate your feelings. You can write the lyrics of an existing song or a mix of different songs or even spin new lyrics. The idea always is to express yourself.

You don’t have to be a great musician or writer to do all this. Don’t worry about the outcome. Just follow the process and it will help in true expression of self. This is a way to liberate oneself and see things from a different perspective. Whether someone hears out your composition or not, you will feel liberated once you express it and vent it out by way of music.

The importance of self expression needs to be understood by everyone. Expressing self can be difficult for many but it is essential. Music definitely serves as a good medium for self expression.

Essay on Music and its Importance (500 words) – Essay 4

The healing power of music.

Music is not just a source of entertainment but has an amazing power to heal. Music therapy has been declared as a therapy that can work wonders on people suffering from different kinds of mental as well as physical ailments. Many institutes run special music therapy sessions to help people get rid of conditions such as depression, anxiety, cardiovascular problem and insomnia. Music also forms a part of many other medical treatments.

Types of Music Therapy

Music therapy is broadly divided into two categories. These are as follows:

  • Active Music Therapy

In active music therapy, the participants (those receiving the therapy) create music using different musical instruments. They also write lyrics and sing songs. This includes working on new compositions or remixing the earlier ones. The idea is to shift the patient’s focus from his physical or mental condition to something positive. Creating music can be therapeutic. Since these are group activities, they help participants connect with each other and make new friends. This also helps in the healing process.

  • Receptive Music Therapy

During this type of music therapy session, the therapist plays musical instruments and sings songs. The participants sit quietly and listen to him. Many times soft healing music is played on a recorder and the participants enjoy it. This is often followed by a discussion between the participants and the therapist.

Both types of music therapy offer a calming effect on the patients. They work on different levels and help in healing various medical conditions. Most music therapists offer a mix of both these therapies to heal their patients. Many music therapy sessions also include dancing, clapping and chanting loudly. Clapping and Chanting fill the atmosphere with positive energy and render a soothing effect.

Impact of Music Therapy

The effects of music therapy have been astonishing. Research shows that patients who received music therapy as a part of their overall medical treatment recovered faster compared to those who only received other medication. It has largely been accepted that music can heal both physical and emotional pain.

More and more hospitals, clinics and rehabilitation centres have thus started incorporating music therapy as a part of many treatments. They also recommend people to inculcate the practice in their routine life even after they recover. This is because it boosts health and offers better quality of life. A music therapist or coach can help in this direction.

How Does Music Therapy Work?

These days, most of the physical as well as mental ailments stem from stress. Stress mostly occurs when a person fears about the upcoming events in his life or is unable to cope up with the bad experiences of the past. In today’s times, very few people are able to enjoy the moment they are living in. They continually fret about the future or regret their past.

Music helps in shifting the focus to the present moment. So, it helps in combating stress that arises from the fears that lie ahead and the guilt or resentment from the past events. The decrease in the stress level plays a vital part in the healing process. This is a great way to improve both mental and physical health.

Music therapy works for people of all age groups. It is an effective way to relax, combat stress and fight various illnesses. It is recommended for everyone whether he/she is suffering from some ailment or not.

Long Essay on Music and its Importance (600 words) – Essay 5

Music calms our mind and relaxes our body. It is one of the best forms of art. Composing music can be as great an experience as listening to it. Singing can be even more exhilarating. Both verbal and non-verbal forms of music offer a soothing effect to our senses. The benefits of music are uncountable. Here are some of its benefits for which we should be truly thankful.

Music Calms Our Mind

Music helps in getting rid of negative thoughts and emotions. During our day we are faced with several situations that raise our stress levels. Small things such as getting stuck in a traffic jam, clash of opinion with friends/siblings/parents or even a piece of news read in the newspaper can cause stress. Music helps us unwind. It makes us forget these unnecessary things that can otherwise keep our mind occupied the whole day and hamper work.

It is a good idea to turn on your favourite song or play a musical instrument of your choice whenever you are feeling low. This will distract you from the unnecessary thoughts in your mind and calm your senses. It can uplift the mood instantly.

Music Improves the Power to Concentrate

Studies reveal that music can boost your power to concentrate. As we sit to study or work, our thoughts often wander and we are unable to maintain focus. This way a work that can be accomplished in one hour may take two-three hours or even longer. Music has the power to keep us focused in the here and now. It does not let our mind wander and thus helps us concentrate on what we are doing rather than thinking about something completely different. It also increases our attention span.

Music Creates Better Self Image

Music has the power to connect us with our inner self. It takes us to the deep recesses of our mind and helps us understand who we really are and our purpose in life. It also helps us find out our hidden strengths. Thus, it serves as a great means to create a better self image. This further helps in boosting our confidence level.

Music Helps Combat Fears

Each one of us is dealing with some fear or the other. While some are worried about their future others keep stressing about their past events. People also suffer from different kinds of fears such as fear of walking on a busy road, fear of staying home alone, fear of travelling via aeroplane, fear/ nervousness of attending a social event.

While some of these fears are momentary others are inherent and difficult to overcome. Music can help combat fear and make you feel better during situations that make you anxious. Just keep your earphones with you. Plug them in and play your favourite music to distract your mind and calm down during such situations.

Music Renders Strength

Music renders strength by helping people connect better with themselves as well as those around. It aids in better self expression. One can express verbally as well as non-verbally by way of music.

Music also serves as a coping mechanism for things we cannot let go. Many such things keep our energy levels down and hinder our productivity. Music helps us cope up with such feelings and thus renders strength. It can bring about a positive change in our life and increase our sense of control. It supports healthy feelings and hence bars the possibility of various physical as well as mental health problems.

The best thing about music is that it can be listened to anytime and anywhere. You can hear it while driving or travelling by a public transport or when you are exercising in the gym or trying to relax at home. Just turn on your favourite track and enthuse yourself with positivity. Music works on different levels to promote a healthy life.

FAQs on Essay on Music

Why music is important.

Music is important because it can evoke emotions, relieve stress, and enhance creativity, making it an integral part of human culture.

What is music 5 lines?

Music is an art form that uses sound, rhythm, melody, and harmony to convey emotions, tell stories, and connect with people on a profound level.

Is music useful in life?

Yes, music is useful in life as it can improve mood, aid relaxation, and serve as a means of self-expression and communication.

What are the 3 main types of music?

The three main types of music are classical, pop, and folk, but there are countless other genres and styles to explore.

Why music is so powerful?

Music is powerful because it has the ability to trigger strong emotional responses, influence behavior, and serve as a universal language that transcends boundaries.

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    Music therapy was the last thing that Julia Justo, a graphic artist who immigrated to New York from Argentina, expected when she went to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Union Square Clinic for treatment ...

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    The present study is a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of music therapy on both physiological stress-related arousal (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate, hormone levels) and psychological stress-related experiences (e.g., state anxiety, restlessness or nervousness) in clinical health care settings.

  3. Music Therapy: Definition, Types, Techniques, and Efficacy

    Music therapy is a relatively new discipline, while sound therapy is based on ancient Tibetan cultural practices.; Sound therapy uses tools to achieve specific sound frequencies, while music therapy focuses on addressing symptoms like stress and pain.; The training and certifications that exist for sound therapy are not as standardized as those for music therapists.

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  7. Effectiveness of music therapy: a summary of systematic reviews based

    These examined effects of music therapy over the short-to medium-term (1-4 months), with treatment "dosage" varying from seven to 78 sessions. Music therapy added to standard care was superior to standard care for global state (medium-term, one RCT, n=72, RR 0.10, 95% CI 0.03-0.31; NNT 2, 95% CI 1.2-2.2).

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    Search strategy and selection criteria. PubMed (MEDLINE), Ovid-Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Clinical Evidence were searched to identify studies assessing the effectiveness of music therapy on depression from inception to May 2020. The combination of "depress*" and "music*" was used to search potential papers from these databases.

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    Now many music therapy training programmes are led by people with practice experience along with research qualifications, and some universities offer music therapy doctoral pathways. Music therapy research capacity has expanded through a notable increase in PhD graduates as well as an increase in funded research in music therapy. This chapter ...

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    The Effect of Music on Decreasing Arousal Due to Stress: A Meta-Analysis. Relaxing Music Prevents Stress-Induced Increases in Subjective Anxiety, Systolic Blood Pressure, and Heart Rate in Healthy Males and Females. The Effects of Music Therapy on the Quality and Length of Life of People Diagnosed with Terminal Cancer.

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    One of these healing methods is music therapy. Music therapy is the prescribed use of music and melodies to help restore, maintain and improve the emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual well being of an individual. Music therapy is a popular form of healing, it can affect our health in ways medicine cannot, and can also be performed ...

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    691 Reading Time: 3 minutes. Prescribing art therapy, yoga, and music lessons is truly a breakthrough for mental health treatment.I want to be completely clear here, this is a breakthrough, but not a breakthrough therapy per se. It is a huge step forward, on the level of readjusting our mental health system, it is really a systems course correction at the root of it.

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    This page of the essay has 2,015 words. Download the full version above. The topic that I choose for my project is Music Therapy. I choose this topic because I really enjoy music, I grew up listening to all types of genre of music, my father was really interested in music which influenced me. I used to play flute in grade school, I was in the ...

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  21. What is the conclusion of music therapy?

    What is the conclusion of music therapy?In conclusion, music therapy has brought a tremendous impact on people's psychological health, enabled patients to suffer less pain, anxiety, and feeling stressful and thus improves our emotional states, bringing psychological health to the patients. According to the American Music Therapy Association,2 research shows music therapy can be used

  22. Essay on Music and Its Importance for Children and Students in English

    Short Essay on Music and its Importance (200 words) - Essay 1. Music has a divine power. It is a great source of entertainment. It binds people together. It brings back several fond memories from the past. It helps us connect with our inner self and also serves as an excellent medium of self expression.

  23. Essay On Music Therapy And Autism

    1549 Words 7 Pages. This review paper discusses music therapy as an intervention for autistic children to support their psychological, cognitive, and physical development. Autism affects 1% of the population in the United States. Autism is a mental condition that varies in degrees in young children and as of right now, they have it for life.