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The Top 10 Most Interesting Music Research Topics

Music is a vast and ever-growing field. Because of this, it can be challenging to find excellent music research topics for your essay or thesis. Although there are many examples of music research topics online, not all are appropriate.

This article covers all you need to know about choosing suitable music research paper topics. It also provides a clear distinction between music research questions and topics to help you get started.

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What makes a strong music research topic.

A strong music research topic must be short, straightforward, and easy to grasp. The primary aim of music research is to apply various research methods to provide valuable insights into a particular subject area. Therefore, your topic must also address issues that are relevant to present-day readers.

Also, for your research topic to be compelling, it should not be overly generic. Try to avoid topics that seem to be too broad. A strong research topic is always narrow enough to draw out a comprehensive and relevant research question.

Tips for Choosing a Music Research Topic

• Check with your supervisor. In some cases, your school or supervisor may have specific requirements for your research. For example, some music programs may favor a comparative instead of a descriptive or correlational study. Knowing what your institution demands is essential in choosing an appropriate research topic.
• Explore scientific papers. Journal articles are a great way to find the critical areas of interest in your field of study. You can choose from a wide range of journals such as The Journal of Musicology and The Journal of the Royal Musical Association . These resources can help determine the direction of your research.
• Determine your areas of interest. Choosing a topic you have a personal interest in will help you stay motivated. Researching music-related subjects is a painstakingly thorough process. A lack of motivation would make it difficult to follow through with your research and achieve optimal results.
• Confirm availability of data sources. Not all music topics are researchable. Before selecting a topic, you must be sure that there are enough primary and secondary data sources for your research. You also need to be sure that you can carry out your research with tested and proven research methods.
• Ask your colleagues: Asking questions is one of the many research skills you need to cultivate. A short discussion or brainstorming session with your colleagues or other music professionals could help you identify a suitable topic for your research paper.

What’s the Difference Between a Research Topic and a Research Question?

A research topic is a particular subject area in a much wider field that a researcher chooses to place his emphasis on. Most subjects are extensive. So, before conducting research, a researcher must first determine a suitable area of interest that will act as the foundation for their investigation.

Research questions are drawn from research topics. However, research questions are usually more streamlined. While research topics can take a more generic viewpoint, research questions further narrow the focus down to specific case studies or seek to draw a correlation between two or more datasets.

How to Create Strong Music Research Questions

Strong music research questions must be relevant and specific. Music is a broad field with many genres and possible research areas. However, your research question must focus on a single subject matter and provide valuable insights. Also, your research question should be based on parameters that can be quantified and studied using available research methods.

Top 10 Music Research Paper Topics

1. understanding changes in music consumption patterns.

Although several known factors affect how people consume music, there is still a significant knowledge gap regarding how these factors influence listening choices. Your music research paper could outline some of these factors that affect music consumer behavior and highlight their mechanism of action.

2. Hip-hop Culture and Its Effect on Teenage Behavior

In 2020, hip-hop and RnB had the highest streaming numbers , according to Statista. Without a doubt, hip-hop music has had a significant influence on the behavior of young adults. There is still the need to conduct extensive research on this subject to determine if there is a correlation between hip-hop music and specific behavioral patterns, especially among teenagers.

3. The Application of Music as a Therapeutic Tool

For a long time, music has been used to manage stress and mental health disorders like anxiety, PTSD, and others. However, the role of music in clinical treatment still remains a controversial topic. Further research is required to separate fact from fiction and provide insight into the potential of music therapy.

4. Contemporary Rock Music and Its Association With Harmful Social Practices

Rock music has had a great influence on American culture since the 1950s. Since its rise to prominence, it has famously been associated with vices such as illicit sex and abuse of recreational drugs. An excellent research idea could be to evaluate if there is a robust causal relationship between contemporary rock music and adverse social behaviors.

5. The Impact of Streaming Apps on Global Music Consumption

Technology has dramatically affected the music industry by modifying individual music consumption habits. Presently, over 487 million people subscribe to a digital streaming service, according to Statista. Your research paper could examine how much of an influence popular music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have had on how we listen to music.

6. Effective American Music Education Practices

Teaching practices have always had a considerable impact on students’ academic success. However, not all strategies have an equal effect in enhancing learning experiences for students. You can conduct comparative research on two or more American music education practices and evaluate their impact on learning outcomes.

7. The Evolution of Music Production in the Technology-driven Era

One of the aspects of music that is experiencing a massive change is sound production. More than ever before, skilled, tech-savvy music producers are in high demand. At the moment, music producers earn about $70,326 annually, according to ZipRecruiter. So, your research could focus on the changes in music production techniques since the turn of the 21st century.

8. Jazz Music and Its Influence on Western Music Genres

The rich history of jazz music has established it as one of the most influential genres of music since the 19th century. Over the years, several famous composers and leading voices across many other western music genres have been shaped by jazz music’s sound and culture. You could carry out research on the influence of this genre of music on modern types of music.

9. The Effect of Wars on Music

Wars have always brought about radical changes in several aspects of culture, including music styles. Throughout history, we have witnessed wars result in the death of famous musicians. If you are interested in learning about music history in relation to global events, a study on the impact of wars on music will make an excellent music research paper.

10. African Tribal Percussion

African music is well recognized for its unique application of percussion. Historically, several tribes and cultures had their own percussion instruments and original methods of expression. Unfortunately, this musical style has mainly gone undocumented. An in-depth study into ancient African tribal percussion would make a strong music research paper.

Other Examples of Music Research Topics & Questions

Music research topics.

• Popular musical styles of the 20th century
• The role of musical pieces in political movements
• Biographies of influential musicians during the baroque period
• The influence of classical music on modern-day culture
• The relationship between music and fashion

Music Research Questions

• What is the relationship between country music and conservationist ideologies among middle-aged American voters?
• What is the effect of listening to Chinese folk music on the critical thinking skills of high school students?
• How have electronic music production technologies influenced the sound quality of contemporary music?
• What is the correlation between punk music and substance abuse among Black-American males?
• How does background music affect learning and information retention in children?

Choosing the Right Music Research Topic

Your research topic is the foundation on which every other aspect of your study is built. So, you must select a music research topic that gives you room to adequately explore intriguing hypotheses and, if possible, proffer practically applicable solutions.

Also, if you seek to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in Music , you must be prepared to conduct research during your study. Choosing the right music research topic is the first step in guaranteeing good grades and delivering relevant, high-quality contributions in this constantly expanding field.

Music Research Topics FAQ

A good music research topic should be between 10 to 12 words long. Long, wordy music essay topics are usually confusing. They can make it difficult for readers to understand the goal of your research. Avoid using lengthy phrases or vague terms that could confuse the reader.

Journal articles are the best place to find helpful resources for your music research. You can explore reputable, high-impact journal articles to see if any research has been done related to your chosen topic. Journal articles also help to provide data for comparison while carrying out your research.

Primary sources carry out their own research and cite their own data. In contrast, secondary sources report data obtained from a primary source. Although primary sources are regarded as more credible, you can include a good mixture of primary and secondary sources in your research.

The most common research methods for music research are qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, and analytical. Your research strategy is arguably the most crucial part of your study. You must learn different research methods to determine which one would be the perfect fit for your particular research question.

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• A Research Guide
• Research Paper Topics

120 Music Research Paper Topics

How to choose a topic for music research paper:.

Music Theory Research Paper Topics:

• The influence of harmonic progression on emotional response in music
• Analyzing the use of chromaticism in the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach
• The role of rhythm and meter in creating musical tension and release
• Examining the development of tonality in Western classical music
• Exploring the impact of cultural and historical context on musical form and structure
• Investigating the use of polyphony in Renaissance choral music
• Analyzing the compositional techniques of minimalist music
• The relationship between melody and harmony in popular music
• Examining the influence of jazz improvisation on contemporary music
• The role of counterpoint in the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven
• Investigating the use of microtonality in experimental music
• Analyzing the impact of technology on music composition and production
• The influence of musical modes on the development of different musical genres
• Exploring the use of musical symbolism in film scoring
• Investigating the role of music theory in the analysis and interpretation of non-Western music

Music Industry Research Paper Topics:

• The impact of streaming services on music consumption patterns
• The role of social media in promoting and marketing music
• The effects of piracy on the music industry
• The influence of technology on music production and distribution
• The relationship between music and mental health
• The evolution of music genres and their impact on the industry
• The economics of live music events and festivals
• The role of record labels in shaping the music industry
• The impact of globalization on the music industry
• The representation and portrayal of gender in the music industry
• The effects of music streaming platforms on artist revenue
• The role of music education in fostering talent and creativity
• The influence of music videos on audience perception and engagement
• The impact of music streaming on physical album sales
• The role of music in advertising and brand marketing

Music Therapy Research Paper Topics:

• The effectiveness of music therapy in reducing anxiety in cancer patients
• The impact of music therapy on improving cognitive function in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease
• Exploring the use of music therapy in managing chronic pain
• The role of music therapy in promoting emotional well-being in children with autism spectrum disorder
• Music therapy as a complementary treatment for depression: A systematic review
• The effects of music therapy on stress reduction in pregnant women
• Examining the benefits of music therapy in improving communication skills in individuals with developmental disabilities
• The use of music therapy in enhancing motor skills rehabilitation after stroke
• Music therapy interventions for improving sleep quality in patients with insomnia
• Exploring the impact of music therapy on reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• The role of music therapy in improving social interaction and engagement in individuals with schizophrenia
• Music therapy as a non-pharmacological intervention for managing symptoms of dementia
• The effects of music therapy on pain perception and opioid use in hospitalized patients
• Exploring the use of music therapy in promoting relaxation and reducing anxiety during surgical procedures
• The impact of music therapy on improving quality of life in individuals with Parkinson’s disease

Music Psychology Research Paper Topics:

• The effects of music on mood and emotions
• The role of music in enhancing cognitive abilities
• The impact of music therapy on mental health disorders
• The relationship between music and memory recall
• The influence of music on stress reduction and relaxation
• The psychological effects of different genres of music
• The role of music in promoting social bonding and cohesion
• The effects of music on creativity and problem-solving abilities
• The psychological benefits of playing a musical instrument
• The impact of music on motivation and productivity
• The psychological effects of music on physical exercise performance
• The role of music in enhancing learning and academic performance
• The influence of music on sleep quality and patterns
• The psychological effects of music on individuals with autism spectrum disorder
• The relationship between music and personality traits

Music Education Research Paper Topics:

• The impact of music education on cognitive development in children
• The effectiveness of incorporating technology in music education
• The role of music education in promoting social and emotional development
• The benefits of music education for students with special needs
• The influence of music education on academic achievement
• The importance of music education in fostering creativity and innovation
• The relationship between music education and language development
• The impact of music education on self-esteem and self-confidence
• The role of music education in promoting cultural diversity and inclusivity
• The effects of music education on students’ overall well-being and mental health
• The significance of music education in developing critical thinking skills
• The role of music education in enhancing students’ teamwork and collaboration abilities
• The impact of music education on students’ motivation and engagement in school
• The effectiveness of different teaching methods in music education
• The relationship between music education and career opportunities in the music industry

Music History Research Paper Topics:

• The influence of African music on the development of jazz in the United States
• The role of women composers in classical music during the 18th century
• The impact of the Beatles on the evolution of popular music in the 1960s
• The cultural significance of hip-hop music in urban communities
• The development of opera in Italy during the Renaissance
• The influence of folk music on the protest movements of the 1960s
• The role of music in religious rituals and ceremonies throughout history
• The evolution of electronic music and its impact on contemporary music production
• The contribution of Latin American musicians to the development of salsa music
• The influence of classical music on film scores in the 20th century
• The role of music in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
• The development of reggae music in Jamaica and its global impact
• The influence of Mozart’s compositions on the classical music era
• The role of music in the French Revolution and its impact on society
• The evolution of punk rock music and its influence on alternative music genres

Music Sociology Research Paper Topics:

• The impact of music streaming platforms on the music industry
• The role of music in shaping cultural identity
• Gender representation in popular music: A sociological analysis
• The influence of social media on music consumption patterns
• Music festivals as spaces for social interaction and community building
• The relationship between music and political activism
• The effects of globalization on local music scenes
• The role of music in constructing and challenging social norms
• The impact of technology on music production and distribution
• Music and social movements: A comparative study
• The role of music in promoting social change and social justice
• The influence of socioeconomic factors on music taste and preferences
• The role of music in constructing and reinforcing gender stereotypes
• The impact of music education on social and cognitive development
• The relationship between music and mental health: A sociological perspective

Classical Music Research Paper Topics:

• The influence of Ludwig van Beethoven on the development of classical music
• The role of women composers in classical music history
• The impact of Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions on future generations
• The evolution of opera in the classical period
• The significance of Mozart’s symphonies in the classical era
• The influence of nationalism on classical music during the Romantic period
• The portrayal of emotions in classical music compositions
• The use of musical forms and structures in the works of Franz Joseph Haydn
• The impact of the Industrial Revolution on the production and dissemination of classical music
• The relationship between classical music and dance in the Baroque era
• The role of patronage in the development of classical music
• The influence of folk music on classical composers
• The representation of nature in classical music compositions
• The impact of technological advancements on classical music performance and recording
• The exploration of polyphony in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach

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Best 100 music research topics (just updated).

If you are reading this, you are probably looking for the best music research topics for your next essay. Truth be told, choosing the right topic is very important. It can make the difference between a B and an A, or even between an A and an A+. Unfortunately, choosing the best topics is not as simple as you think. Even though the internet is full of music research topics, most of them are plain and, quite frankly, boring.

Your professor wants more than this. Let’s see why you need the most interesting topics and where you can find them. Of course, you are free to use any of our 100 topics for free and even reword them as you see fit. Read on!

Choosing Good Music Research Topics

By now, you are probably wondering why everyone keeps telling you to come up with the best music topics. The truth is that there are many, many benefits to choosing an awesome topic. Here are just some of them, so you can get a better idea of the importance of a great idea:

• Excellent music research paper topics show your professor that you really did your best to get a top grade.
• A good topic is one that you know much about. It should be relatively easy to you to research it and to write about it.
• An awesome topic will pique the interest of your professor and will keep him or her reading. You will often get bonus points for this.
• Great topics make you stand out from your classmates. Your professor will notice you, and the grade will reflect this.

Where Can You Find Decent Music Topics?

Finding amazing music research topics is easier said than done. Yes, the Internet is full of websites that are offering ideas. There are even websites where you can buy bundles of topics. However, the music argumentative essay topics you will get from these websites are not of the highest quality. Most of them are actually quite boring. And remember, you classmates are probably searching for music history research paper topics on the same websites as you do. You want your research topics on music or book review topics to be original, so your professor can have a reason to award your paper some bonus points. The best place to get excellent music topics to write about is this page. The list of ideas is updated frequently, so you can get an original topic for free right now.

Music History Research Topics

Are you looking for the most interesting music history research topics? If you do, just pick one from our list for free:

• How did the Catholic church influence Renaissance music?
• Social issues described in Baroque-period music.
• Analyze the evolution of Romantic-era music.
• How did the Baroque Opera come to be?
• Who invented Medieval music and when?
• Why has western music almost disappear in the last 10 years?
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Classical era.
• Analyzing violin music performance during the Romantic Era.

Music Argument Topics

Are you looking to find an argument and support it? Then you absolutely need to check out our exceptional list of music argument topics:

• Music today is better than music in the 90s.
• The most lucrative career for a musician.
• Music helps you memorize faster.
• The most popular kind of metal music.
• The evolution of blues songs over the last 30 years.
• Music helps children develop faster.
• Hip-hop is a misunderstood music genre.
• Jazz music is not obsolete.

Music Theory Topics

Interested in writing about music theory? Our amazing academic writers have put together a list of music theory topics for you:

• Analyze the most important aspects of modern music.
• Classical music has specific medical applications.
• Hidden symbols in Renaissance-period music.
• The unique features of Baroque-age music.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Baroque era.
• The best music compositors in the Romantic era.
• Remarkable characteristics of Romantic-age songs.
• The peculiarities of Asian modern music.

Music Industry Topics

Writing about the music industry can be fun and entertaining. Your professor will love it. Pick one of our music industry topics and start writing:

• What do you associate rock music with and why?
• Should the music industry pay songwriters more?
• How does illegal pirating of songs affect the music industry?
• Do music sharing sites help new artists become famous.
• Analyze the evolution of music labels in the US.
• What differentiates a music label from all others?
• Music talent shows and their effects on a musician’s career.
• The difficulties of signing a contract with a major music label in the US.

Research Paper Topics on Music for High School

Are you a high school student? In this case, you will need our research paper topics on music for high school:

• The best compositors of the Baroque Era.
• What differentiates modern music from classical music?
• Notable women in classical music.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Modern age.
• How was Beethoven’s music influenced by his loss of hearing?
• How would our world be without music?
• Does music cause negative effects on US teens?

Music Thesis Topics

Writing a thesis about music is not easy. In fact, it can be one of the most difficult projects in your academic career. Start right now by choosing one of the best music thesis topics:

• What made a musician stand out in the Baroque Age?
• The most notable musical experiments in the Classical age.
• Comparing Renaissance and Medieval music styles.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the Renaissance age.
• How did royalty in the UK benefit from music in the Renaissance era?
• Discuss a folk song from the Renaissance age.
• Differences between Asian and European classical music.

Music Controversial Topics

Music, like most other disciplines, has plenty of controversial topics you can talk about. Don’t waste any time and pick one of these music controversial topics:

• Does digital music cut the profits of musicians?
• Who owns the intellectual property to a song?
• The difficulties of getting songwriting credit.
• Illegal downloads are changing the music industry.
• Should music education still be included in the curriculum?
• Analyze medieval liturgical music.
• Music should be free for everyone to download and use.

Persuasive Speech Topics About Music

Are you required the write a persuasive speech about music? If you are, you may need a bit of help. Pick one of these persuasive speech topics about music (updated for 2023):

• Music has a significant effect on advertising.
• The changes rap music has brought to the US culture.
• Indie is a term that should not apply to music.
• Metal music should be banned from the US.
• Does listening to music have a great influence on mental health?
• The amazing evolution of music in the Medieval age.
• People should be free to listen to the music they like for free.
• The fashion industry wouldn’t be where it is today without music.

Easy Topics About Music

Perhaps you don’t want to spend 5 or 6 hours writing the research paper . You need an easier topic. Choose one of these easy topics about music and write the essay fast:

• How can one become a symbol of modern music?
• My favorite singer today.
• Which musician from the past would you bring back to life and why?
• Do politics influence modern music?
• Compare and contrast two music genres.
• Analyze the evolution of music in the modern age in the United States.
• The side effects of turning the volume too loud.
• How is classical music used in Disney movies?

Music Education Research Topics

Are you interested in talking about music education? Perhaps you’ll have some suggestions to make after you’ve done the research. Just choose one of the music education research topics below:

• Can E-Learning be applied to music education?
• Can music teachers offer distance learning services?
• The advantages and disadvantages of Zoom music lessons.
• Why are music worksheets so important for high school students?
• How did the Internet change music education?
• Why are modern music studies so important?
• Should we learn more about Asian music in school?
• How can students learn music while respecting COVID19 measures?

Highly Interesting Music Topics

We know you want a top grade on your next music research paper. We advise you to select one of these highly interesting music topics and surprise your professor:

• How did pop music came to existence and why?
• Analyze the history of hip-hop music.
• Compare metal music with classical music.
• Why is rock music so popular in the United Kingdom?
• Which song would best present our species to aliens?
• Compare and contrast Korean and Chinese music.
• Analyze the popular themes of Japanese music.
• The stunning rise of K-pop bands.

Informative Speech Topics About Music

It’s difficult to find good informative speech topics about music these days. If you want to stand out from the rest of your classmates, choose one of our topics:

• Discuss the ideas presented in romantic music.
• What do people who appreciate classic music have in common?
• Analyze the most popular Bach music.
• Describe the role of market music in the Baroque era.
• Analyze the evolution of European music.
• Ways to make classical music popular with teens in the UK.
• Discuss the most popular musical instrument in the Classical age.

Music Essay Topics for College

Are you a college student? If you want an A+ on your next research paper, use one of these music essay topics for college students:

• Does modern music contain medieval themes?
• Analyze a song from the Renaissance age.
• Why is blues music so important for our culture?
• Who invented the blues genre and when?
• Analyze the evolution of American folk music.
• Most popular names in Baroque-age songs.
• Modern interpretations of medieval songs.
• Listening to blues music can lead to depression.

Need some more music history paper topics? Or perhaps you need a list of music related research topics to choose from for your thesis. Our best paper writer can help you in no time. Get in touch with us and we guarantee that we will find the perfect music topic for your needs. You will be well on your way to getting the A+ you need. Give us a try and get an amazing research topic on music in 10 minutes or less!

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500+ Music Research Topics

Music is a universal language that has the power to evoke emotions, bring people together, and express complex ideas and feelings. As a result, it has been the subject of extensive research and analysis across a wide range of fields, from psychology and neuroscience to sociology and cultural studies. Whether you are a music student, researcher , or simply a curious enthusiast, there are countless fascinating and important topics to explore within the realm of music research. From the history and evolution of different musical genres to the impact of music on human behavior and cognition, the possibilities for investigation and discovery are virtually endless. In this post, we will highlight some of the most interesting and relevant music research topics that you can explore in your own studies or simply as a way to deepen your appreciation and understanding of this rich and diverse art form.

Music Research Topics

Music Research Topics are as follows:

• The impact of music on memory retention.
• The evolution of hip-hop music and its influence on popular culture.
• The relationship between music and emotions.
• The role of music in religious and spiritual practices.
• The effects of music on mental health.
• The impact of music on athletic performance.
• The role of music in therapy and rehabilitation.
• The evolution of classical music through the ages.
• The impact of technology on music creation and distribution.
• The relationship between music and language acquisition.
• The cultural significance of music in different parts of the world.
• The influence of popular music on politics and social issues.
• The impact of music on academic performance.
• The role of music in film and television.
• The use of music in advertising and marketing.
• The psychology of musical preferences.
• The effects of music on sleep patterns and quality.
• The impact of music on creativity and productivity.
• The influence of music on fashion and style.
• The impact of music education on childhood development.
• The role of music in memory recall and nostalgia.
• The effects of music on physical health.
• The relationship between music and brain development.
• The impact of music on the immune system.
• The influence of music on social behavior.
• The evolution of jazz music and its impact on society.
• The role of music in cultural preservation and identity.
• The effects of music on stress levels and anxiety.
• The relationship between music and social movements.
• The impact of music on language learning and pronunciation.
• The effects of music on learning and cognition.
• The influence of music on political ideologies and movements.
• The impact of music on academic achievement.
• The relationship between music and cultural assimilation.
• The role of music in international diplomacy.
• The effects of music on physical performance and endurance.
• The impact of music on memory consolidation and recall.
• The influence of music on fashion trends and subcultures.
• The role of music in socialization and identity formation.
• The effects of music on perception and attention.
• The impact of music on decision making and judgment.
• The relationship between music and romantic attraction.
• The role of music in social justice movements.
• The effects of music on motor skills and coordination.
• The influence of music on cultural exchange and globalization.
• The impact of music on language and cultural barriers.
• The relationship between music and cultural appropriation.
• The role of music in community building and activism.
• The effects of music on motivation and goal setting.
• The influence of music on fashion advertising and marketing.
• The impact of music on social inequality and discrimination.
• The relationship between music and cultural hegemony.
• The role of music in political propaganda and manipulation.
• The effects of music on physical therapy and rehabilitation.
• The influence of music on cultural diplomacy and international relations.
• The impact of music on the environment and sustainability.
• The relationship between music and social hierarchies.
• The role of music in cultural exchange and intercultural communication.
• The effects of music on creative thinking and problem solving.
• The influence of music on consumer behavior and product preferences.
• The impact of music on social mobility and economic inequality.
• The relationship between music and cultural diversity.
• The role of music in intergenerational communication and conflict resolution.
• The effects of music on mood and emotional regulation.
• The influence of music on cultural authenticity and representation.
• The impact of music on memory in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
• The impact of music on recovery and rehabilitation in individuals with physical injuries.
• The role of music in promoting cultural exchange and understanding in international education.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in international relations.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in international human rights.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with ADHD.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the food and beverage industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-sexual orientations.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and retention in the finance industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in international development.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and depression in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the transportation industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-abilities.
• The impact of music on academic performance and motivation in college students.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural understanding and acceptance in international cooperation.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the entertainment industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-language backgrounds.
• The impact of music on creativity and innovation in the tech startup industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in international peacekeeping.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with traumatic brain injury.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the travel industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-socioeconomic backgrounds.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and productivity in the education industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in international cooperation.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and anxiety in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the home appliance industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-culture backgrounds.
• The impact of music on academic performance and motivation in graduate students.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural understanding and acceptance in international diplomacy.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with attention deficit disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the construction industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-spiritual backgrounds.
• The impact of music on creativity and productivity in the healthcare industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in international justice.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with Parkinson’s disease.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the hospitality industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-political backgrounds.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and retention in the automotive industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in international diplomacy.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and depression in individuals with major depressive disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the telecommunications industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-ethnic and racial backgrounds.
• The impact of music on academic performance and motivation in high school students with disabilities.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural understanding and acceptance in international trade.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with borderline personality disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the fashion industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-heritage backgrounds.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with schizophrenia.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the technology industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-race identities.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and retention in the hospitality industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in global development.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and anxiety in individuals with social phobia.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the toy industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-faith backgrounds.
• The impact of music on academic performance and motivation in high school students.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with oppositional defiant disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the beauty industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-ethnicity backgrounds.
• The impact of music on creativity and productivity in the fashion industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in international aid.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with dementia.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the fitness industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-gender identities.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and productivity in the technology industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in international tourism.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and depression in individuals with anxiety disorders.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the pet industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-education backgrounds.
• The impact of music on academic performance and motivation in middle school students.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the home decor industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-sex identities.
• The impact of music on creativity and innovation in the gaming industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in international conflict resolution.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with bipolar disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the sports industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-nationality and mixed-linguistic backgrounds.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and retention in the retail industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in global governance.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and anxiety in individuals with panic disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the electronics industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-citizenship backgrounds.
• The impact of music on academic performance and motivation in elementary school students.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural understanding and acceptance in international security.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with conduct disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the agriculture industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-religious backgrounds.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with traumatic brain injuries.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with disability identities.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural understanding and acceptance in the healthcare industry.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and anxiety in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with LGBTQ+ identities.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and productivity in the gig economy.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in education policy.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-age identities.
• The impact of music on creativity and innovation in the advertising industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in urban planning.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the food industry.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and retention in the nonprofit sector.
• The role of music in promoting cultural understanding and acceptance in international business.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and depression in individuals with chronic pain.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the gaming industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-sexual orientation identities.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural communication and understanding in foreign policy.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with social anxiety disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the craft industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-disability identities.
• The impact of music on creativity and productivity in the media industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in corporate social responsibility.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with substance use disorders.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the automotive industry.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and productivity in the education sector.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in international law.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the wellness industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-nationality backgrounds.
• The impact of music on academic performance and motivation in adult learners.
• The role of music in promoting cultural understanding and acceptance in global governance.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the furniture industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-generational backgrounds.
• The impact of music on creativity and innovation in the film industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural integration and social cohesion in diverse communities.
• The effects of music on cognitive functioning and mental health in individuals with multiple sclerosis.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the tech industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in second-generation immigrants.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural communication and understanding in diplomacy.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and self-esteem in individuals with eating disorders.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the publishing industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in biracial and multiracial families.
• The impact of music on creativity and innovation in the workplace.
• The role of music in promoting cultural awareness and sensitivity in the criminal justice system.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with schizophrenia.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with refugee backgrounds.
• The role of music in promoting cultural understanding and acceptance in global marketing.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and anxiety in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed religious backgrounds.
• The impact of music on academic achievement and retention in community college students.
• The role of music in promoting cultural exchange and understanding in international development.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with bipolar disorder.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the luxury goods industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with immigrant parents.
• The impact of music on creativity and productivity in the tech industry.
• The role of music in promoting cultural sensitivity and understanding in journalism.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and depression in individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the wine industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with non-binary gender identities.
• The impact of music on job satisfaction and productivity in remote workers.
• The role of music in promoting cultural diversity and understanding in international relations.
• The role of music in promoting cultural awareness and sensitivity in diplomacy.
• The effects of music on emotional regulation and self-esteem in individuals with body dysmorphia.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with immigrant grandparents.
• The role of music in promoting cultural understanding and acceptance in global advertising.
• The effects of music on social skills and behavior in individuals with borderline intellectual functioning.
• The relationship between music and cultural representation in the fragrance industry.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and mental health in individuals with mixed-citizenship status.
• The impact of music on creativity and productivity in the creative industries
• The relationship between music and social cohesion in diverse communities.
• The role of music in social justice movements and protests.
• The effects of music on pain management and perception.
• The influence of music on cultural hybridity and globalization.
• The impact of music on social identity and self-esteem.
• The relationship between music and cultural imperialism.
• The role of music in therapeutic settings for children and adolescents.
• The effects of music on language development in bilingual children.
• The influence of music on cultural representation in the media.
• The impact of music on interpersonal relationships and communication.
• The relationship between music and cultural hegemony in the digital age.
• The role of music in community-based initiatives for social change.
• The effects of music on mental health in marginalized communities.
• The influence of music on cultural identity and self-expression.
• The impact of music on academic engagement and success in at-risk students.
• The relationship between music and cultural appropriation in popular culture.
• The role of music in cultural diplomacy and international relations in the 21st century.
• The effects of music on cognitive processing in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• The influence of music on cultural hybridity and transnationalism.
• The impact of music on social justice advocacy and awareness-raising.
• The relationship between music and cultural resistance in marginalized communities.
• The role of music in the negotiation of cultural identities in the diaspora.
• The effects of music on language processing and learning in second language acquisition.
• The influence of music on cultural exchange and intercultural communication in the digital age.
• The impact of music on academic achievement in students with disabilities.
• The relationship between music and cultural hegemony in the music industry.
• The role of music in the socialization and empowerment of girls and women.
• The effects of music on physical health in individuals with chronic pain.
• The influence of music on cultural authenticity and representation in the tourism industry.
• The impact of music on the construction of gender and sexuality in popular culture.
• The relationship between music and cultural appropriation in the fashion industry.
• The role of music in promoting cross-cultural understanding and empathy.

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Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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25 Most Popular Music Research Paper Topics for Writing

Research papers aren't just for history class or the social sciences. Research papers can be assigned in any course, and that includes music class. The world's musical traditions are fertile ground for research, but because we have been conditioned from childhood to think of music as entertainment rather than a subject for academic research, it is often difficult to come up with interesting and effective topics for a music research paper. Fortunately, music research papers are often more fun to write than other types of research paper because they have such a wide range of interesting topics to explore. 

Choose from these stellar popular music research paper topics

Are you stuck looking for a music research topic? Well, you're in luck. We have twenty-five music research paper topics that will spark your creativity and get you started with your next paper. You can pick up one from this list, you can combine several of them, or maybe you will get inspired by this list and come with several topics on your own. In any case, make sure that the popular music topic for your research paper is interesting to you personally, and doesn't just sound potentially easy to write about. 

1. How is music marketed by demographic? Explore the different ways music companies target various demographic groups such as age and gender. 2. How does the categorization of music affect consumer purchasing decisions? Examine how the emphasis on genre either enhances sales or limits consumer interest. 3. Does the album have a future in the streaming era? Consider whether the album can survive in an era when singles are streamed in customized playlists. 4. How has music changed over the past half century? Explore some of the major themes and developments that have shaped popular music since the dawn of the rock-n-roll era. 5. Research the most influential musicians of a specific era. By comparing and contrasting the careers of key figures from a particular era, you can pain a picture of a moment in time. 6. What makes music "classical"? How we define "classical" music says a lot about power and privilege. Explore who decides and what criteria get used. 7. Does music have an impact on our bodies? Research medical evidence whether music can impact human health. 8. Does music have an impact on our mental health? Examine research on the use of music for mental health and therapeutic purposes. 9. Music and children: Is the Mozart effect real? How can music education impact children's academic and social development? 10. Can music education aid in memory training and memory development? Consider the current academic research and evaluate the validity of claims for music as a memory aid. 11. How does music impact dance? Music and dance are inextricably linked. Look at some of the ways that music impacts the development of dance. 12. How does a musician become successful? Examine key routes to success and what a music student can do to set themselves up for a career. 13. What other careers does a music degree prepare a student for? Research how music degrees can set the stage for careers beyond the music industry. 14. How does music impact fashion? Look at how rock-n-roll and hip hop have shaped fashion trends. 15. How is music used in advertising? Look into the reasons that artists are licensing hit singles to sell products and how that impacts consumers' views of music. 16. Classical music vs. rock-n-roll: Which has been more influential? Examine the arguments for both sides and take a position. 17. Look into the sociology of tribute bands and consider the reasons that people would dedicate their lives to imitating other musicians. 18. It is often said that "music soothes the savage beast," and farmers often use music to calm livestock. Is there truth to the notion that music has a positive impact on animals?  Explore the research and draw conclusions.

19. Music has been an important part of war throughout history, both martial music meant to rally the troops and anti-war songs. Examine the role of music in supporting and opposing war. 20. Music vs. poetry: Can song lyrics be considered a form of poetry? Why or why not? 21. How does hip-hop support African American culture and heritage? 22. Is there a problem with the close association of country music with political conservatism? 23. Select your favorite piece of music and research the influences that played a role in its creation and development. 24. Research the processes that archaeologists have used to reconstruct the sound of ancient music. 25. How do covers transform songs? Explore how covers are created now meaning.

After choosing the topic you like the most, save this list or this page to bookmarks for further references. It is good to have a library of resources at your fingertips.

Let experts rock when you are stuck

If these topics aren't enough to get you started, there is another trick to help you succeed. You can always find someone to help you with your research paper. You can contact a paper writing service online like WriteMyPaperHub and ask a professional essay writer, "Can I pay you to write my paper like an expert?" Once you do, a writer will determine what you need for your project and will begin writing a high-quality music research paper that will address your essay topic quickly, effectively, and with exceptional research and writing. You should feel free to take advantage of services like this whenever you get stuck so you can be successful with each and every music research paper.

Learning from the best and the brightest is more than beneficial. You have an opportunity to see how professional writers elaborate on a particular topic, which references they use, how they structure the whole thing. One ordered paper can be an example for your further works for months. Also, it is proven that students these days are overwhelmed with the number of assignments, and due to continuous lockdowns and limitations have less access to libraries and other necessary resources. If you feel like the pressure is too high, don't hesitate to delegate this assignment.

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160 Hot Music Research Paper Topics For You

Music has been part of human beings since time immemorial. As it evolves, everyone has a specific taste for a specific song, genre, or musical instrument. Some of the top genres include roots, reggae, hip-hop, jazz, and rock music. The evolution and popularity of music have made it become one of the important subjects taught in schools worldwide.

If you are in college, pursuing music as a career, one of the important tasks when writing every research paper is picking the right topic. However, selecting an exciting music topic has always been a challenge for most students. To help you with the problem, we have listed the top 160 music research topics. Go ahead and select any of them or tweak them to reflect your preference.

How To Select The Best Music Topics For Research Paper

• Special Tips to use when Selecting Research Topics about Music

Top Music Research Paper Topics

Music argument topics, music history topics, hip hop research paper topics, jazz research paper topics, music appreciation research paper topics, music education research topics, pop culture research paper topics, rap topics ideas, fun music topics.

The ability to come up with the right topic for your music research paper is an important skill that every student should develop. Here are some steps to follow when looking for the most appropriate music research paper topics.

• Go for the research topic about music that is interesting to you.
• Only pick the music topics to write about if they have ample resources.
• Ensure only to pick interesting music topics that meet your college requirements.
• Go for the topic that you can comprehensively write on.

Special Tips to Use When Selecting Research Topics About Music

If you want to enjoy every moment working on your research papers, it is advisable to cast eyes beyond what is easy and popular. This means trying to check interesting topics that will allow you to answer tough research questions about music. Here are additional tips to help you:

• Brainstorm the current music topics.
• Comprehensively research the subject of interest before starting to develop the topics.
• Consider starting with music thesis topics and finally narrow to the one you consider the best.
• Follow current affairs in the music industry.
• A closer look at the evolution of music over the years.
• Analyzing the most influential musicians of the 20th century.
• Analyzing the relationship between music and dance.
• A closer look at the most lucrative careers for musicians.
• Music and health: What is the relationship?
• How does music impact fashion?
• Which music genre has impacted music more?
• A closer look at music marketing for different genres.
• Does music help learners concentrate when doing assignments?
• How does music affect clothing style?
• Evaluating the influence of music on culture in a country of choice.
• Analyzing the use of music for advancing political propaganda.
• How has production in music changed in the recent past?
• Drawing the connections between popular and contemporary music.
• Comparing music in the US with that of Latin America?
• In what ways are music and poetry related?
• Classical music: Does it still play a major role in music production today?
• Evaluating the main processes used in music production today.
• Analyzing the importance of music theory in music production.
• Music production: Why do some musicians ask others to write their songs?
• Pirating is one of the biggest threats to the growth of the music industry.
• Music can be a great rehabilitation procedure for inmates.
• The cost of music production is a major obstacle to the faster growth of the industry.
• Exploring the factors that have made Chinese music develop slower compared to western music.
• Evaluating the most important skills that an artist needs to produce a song.
• How does music compare to other types of media today?
• How does music impact the way people think?
• What are the most notable challenges in music production?
• How does creating music impact how people think?
• Comparing the roles of women in contemporary and modern music.
• What challenges do minority groups have in music production?
• What are the legal implications of downloading music?
• Music production: How does contemporary and modern music production differ?
• What role do social media platforms play in music distribution?
• Evaluating common traits of people who like listening to classical music.
• How does music affect teen behavior?
• Is music helpful in your daily activities?
• Analyzing music as a tool of advertisement.
• The future of music.
• Exploring the significance of music in education.
• Assessing the contribution of music to the US economy.
• What is the contribution of music to the US economy today?
• A closer look at the impact of pop music on people’s culture.
• What are the key differences between 21 st and 20 th -century pop music?
• How is music production affected by different laws in the US?
• Analyzing the ethical impacts of downloading music.
• Analyzing the evolution of symphonic music.
• A closer look at the use of classical music in the video production industry.
• Women who played significant roles in classical music.
• What differentiates Mozart music from other types of classical music?
• A comparative analysis of two top classical musical producers.
• The economic impacts of free music downloading.
• How does revenue from music and film production compare?
• Analyzing the main characteristics of country music.
• Exploring the relationship between drugs and psychedelic rock.
• A closer look at the merits and demerits of capitalistic perception of the music industry.
• Analyzing the modern approaches to songwriting.
• How has jazz impacted the American culture?
• Exploring the roots of African-American melodies.
• A historical comparison of hip-hop and jazz.
• What does it take for a musician to succeed today?
• Should the government fund upcoming artists?
• Which classical artist has had the biggest impact on you?
• The impact of the British music invasion of the US market.
• How is music used in war?
• Comparing high and low culture in the current music.
• Exploring the difference between music and poetry.
• Comparing the most lucrative careers in the music industry.
• What impact does music has on children’s cognitive development?
• Analyzing the history of American music education.

Different forms of music exist that we learn in various genres. In many institutions, music argument topics are assigned to know a student’s response regarding their opinions towards a genre. These music types range from classical to country, pop, jazz, blues, afro beats, and rock music. Understanding each one and knowing examples will help students choose the right argument. Some topics include;

• Evolution of rock music in comparison with rap music.
• What is behind the various instruments and their history in creating a particular genre of music?
• How the merging of societies and cultures influence native music.
• Reasons why rock music was used in the cinemas for long periods instead of another genre.
• The effect of globalization on pop and jazz music.
• The prominence of jazz music in the US over a short time.
• How black women fought and argued over social injustice through jazz music.
• Does jazz music celebrate black culture or glorify oppression?
• Women or men – who have played more roles in the development of classical music?
• The prominence of rap music in the present generation. Result of depreciated quality of music or evolution?

Music contains a broad history, with studies on performance, composition, reception, and quality over time. The history of music is usually intertwined with the composer’s life and development of the particular genre they create. Some music history topics include;

• History of pop music in America in the 20th century.
• Musical styles of England in the 21st century.
• The history of afro-beat and their development across West Africa and the rest of the world.
• Historical performance of music: the study of Beethoven’s works.
• History of Jazz and its development in the United States.
• Music in Ancient cultures: Native music
• The role of women in music development
• History of classical music
• Different types of music in the 19th century
• Important of renaissance music in history.

Present-day hip-hop music developed its culture and lyrical pattern. The style has evolved and gotten more refined and flexible over the years. Going into its history, many facets inspired it to what it has become today. Some hip hop research paper topics include;

• The history and structure of hip hop music
• Hip hop and its ties with poetry
• Hip hop culture and fashion today
• Old school vs. new school hip hop
• Rap and hip hop culture
• Violence in rap and hip hop
• The evolution of hip hop and rap music
• The positives and negatives of hip hop and its culture
• Bland misogyny in hip hop music lyrics
• The role of hip hop in white and black cultures

Jazz has a rich history in black culture and black liberation and its development led to major cultural shifts across the world. This music genre is refined and is deep-rooted in black history. It is music for the soul. Here are some jazz research paper topics;

• What is jazz music? An explanatory approach to its culture and relevance.
• History of jazz music.
• Jazz music and pop culture
• Jazz music and its listeners: Who listens to modern jazz?
• Why 1959 was a turning point in the history of jazz?
• The significance of jazz on the civil rights movement
• The history of jazz dances in America
• Some of the best jazz musicians of the 20th century
• Development of jazz music into the post-modern era.
• A study and review of the different dimensions of jazz.

Research topics on music appreciation mainly look into the reception and criticism of a given piece of music. This is achieved while examining vital music facets such as rhythm, performance, melody, and instrumentation. Here are some good examples of music appreciation research paper topics.

• The best generations of music
• The greatest musical icon: the life and times of Michael Jackson
• Music appreciation in the 21st century
• Music philosophy and its value
• Notable mentions in music evolution
• The theory of music and its importance
• The unique and different eras of music
• Music and its welcomed effect on the brain
• Music in different continents
• The love for opera

Music education is integral and important to enlightening younger generations about musical history, culture, evolution, and present significance to society. Without music to decorate our lives, time is just a dull passage of raw emotions and existence. Music knowledge and understanding is vital, and it affects our culture and way of life. Here are some music education research topics;

• Scope of music therapy
• The role of music in political movements
• Music and society
• Music business and management
• Functions of music therapy relating to intellectual improvement
• Significance of music education
• Contemporary music and its controversies
• Music and human emotion
• Technology and the evolution of music production
• The birth and prominence of music videos

Pop culture comprises numerous categories, including music, fashion, social media, television, language, and many more. It has gradually become an integral facet of our society. It has its perks and criticisms, but it is here to stay and makes our lives a lot more interesting. Some noteworthy pop culture research paper topics are;

• What makes pop culture popular?
• Is pop culture bad or good for the present society?
• Does pop culture disrupt moral values?
• Modern technology and its effects on pop culture
• How does American pop culture affect the global economy?
• Technology and ethical issues in pop culture
• Pop culture and its educational benefits
• How is humanity’s development expressed in pop culture?
• Is it necessary to study pop culture?
• Pop culture and its demerits to the society

Rap has become a mainstay in our music genre today. After its rocky start, it has fully become integrated into our music culture and lifestyle. Rap is an expression of life situations, love, religion, family, and who we are. Some rap topics ideas include;

• Rhythm and melody
• The art of flow and rhyme in rap
• Rap dimensions: tone and delivery
• Evolution and history of rap music
• The negatives and positives of rap music
• Contemporary rap music
• The role of rap music in black communities
• Does rap incite and encourage black violence?
• The history and origin of rap
• Rap as a means of expression

Music will always be an exemplary form of self-expression and art. Over the years, it has progressed and transformed through various dynamics. Today, at least a hundred music genres out there are fun and beautiful in their diversity. There are many fun music topics, and some of them include:

• How music helps fight stress and psychological problems
• The most iconic musical instruments for creating music
• Which music inspires you and why?
• Music in the 21st century
• The most common and popular type of music
• Reflection of social issues in music
• A couple of reasons to listen to music
• What differentiates good music from bad music?
• Different dimensions of music
• Imagining a non-music world.

After selecting the best research topic about music, the next step is writing your paper. This task is even more monumental than selecting the topic. Here, you need to craft an outline, have impeccable writing skills, and complete your task within the stipulated timelines. Is this too much? If you find it a challenge to write your paper, the best option is seeking writing help. The assistance is provided by affordable writing experts who understand how to create a good music thesis statement and have an impressive experience to craft winning papers. Do you want assurance of high grades? If “yes,” it is time to work with experts!

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• Published: 22 June 2021

Mental health and music engagement: review, framework, and guidelines for future studies

• Daniel E. Gustavson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1470-4928 1 , 2 ,
• Peyton L. Coleman   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5388-6886 3 ,
• John R. Iversen 4 ,
• Hermine H. Maes 5 , 6 , 7 ,
• Reyna L. Gordon 2 , 3 , 8 , 9 &
• Miriam D. Lense 2 , 8 , 9  

Translational Psychiatry volume  11 , Article number:  370 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Medical genetics
• Psychiatric disorders

Is engaging with music good for your mental health? This question has long been the topic of empirical clinical and nonclinical investigations, with studies indicating positive associations between music engagement and quality of life, reduced depression or anxiety symptoms, and less frequent substance use. However, many earlier investigations were limited by small populations and methodological limitations, and it has also been suggested that aspects of music engagement may even be associated with worse mental health outcomes. The purpose of this scoping review is first to summarize the existing state of music engagement and mental health studies, identifying their strengths and weaknesses. We focus on broad domains of mental health diagnoses including internalizing psychopathology (e.g., depression and anxiety symptoms and diagnoses), externalizing psychopathology (e.g., substance use), and thought disorders (e.g., schizophrenia). Second, we propose a theoretical model to inform future work that describes the importance of simultaneously considering music-mental health associations at the levels of (1) correlated genetic and/or environmental influences vs. (bi)directional associations, (2) interactions with genetic risk factors, (3) treatment efficacy, and (4) mediation through brain structure and function. Finally, we describe how recent advances in large-scale data collection, including genetic, neuroimaging, and electronic health record studies, allow for a more rigorous examination of these associations that can also elucidate their neurobiological substrates.

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Introduction

Music engagement, including passive listening and active music-making (singing, instrument playing), impacts socio-emotional development across the lifespan (e.g., socialization, personal/cultural identity, mood regulation, etc.), and is tightly linked with many cognitive and personality traits [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. A growing literature also demonstrates beneficial associations between music engagement and quality of life, well-being, prosocial behavior, social connectedness, and emotional competence [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Despite these advances linking engagement with music to many wellness characteristics, we have a limited understanding of how music engagement directly and indirectly contributes to mental health, including at the trait-level (e.g., depression and anxiety symptoms, substance use behaviors), clinical diagnoses (e.g., associations with major depressive disorder (MDD) or substance use disorder (SUD) diagnoses), or as a treatment. Our goals in this scoping review are to (1) describe the state of music engagement research regarding its associations with mental health outcomes, (2) introduce a theoretical framework for future studies that highlight the contribution of genetic and environmental influences (and their interplay) that may give rise to these associations, and (3) illustrate some approaches that will help us more clearly elucidate the genetic/environmental and neural underpinnings of these associations.

Scope of the article

People interact with music in a wide variety of ways, with the concept of “musicality” broadly including music engagement, music perception and production abilities, and music training [ 9 ]. Table 1 illustrates the breadth of music phenotypes and example assessment measures. Research into music and mental health typically focuses on measures of music engagement, including passive (e.g., listening to music for pleasure or as a part of an intervention) and active music engagement (e.g., playing an instrument or singing; group music-making), both of which can be assessed using a variety of objective and subjective measures. We focus primarily on music engagement in the current paper but acknowledge it will also be important to examine how mental health traits relate to other aspects of musicality as well (e.g., perception and production abilities).

Our scoping review and theoretical framework incorporate existing theoretical and mechanistic explanations for how music engagement relates to mental health. From a psychological perspective, studies have proposed that music engagement can be used as a tool for encouraging self-expression, developing emotion regulation and coping skills, and building community [ 10 , 11 ]. From a physiological perspective, music engagement modulates arousal levels including impacts on heart rate, electrodermal activity, and cortisol [ 12 , 13 ]. These effects may be driven in part by physical aspects of music (e.g., tempo) or rhythmic movements involved in making or listening to music, which impact central nervous system functioning (e.g., leading to changes in autonomic activity) [ 14 ], as well as by personality and contextual factors (e.g., shared social experiences) [ 15 ]. Musical experiences also impact neurochemical processes involved in reward processing [ 10 , 13 , 14 , 16 , 17 , 18 ], which are also implicated in mental health disorders (e.g., substance use; depression). Thus, an overarching framework for studying music-mental health associations should integrate the psychological, physiological, and neurochemical aspects of these potential associations. We propose expanding this scope further through consideration of genetic and environmental risk factors, which may give rise to (and/or interact with) other factors to impact health and well-being.

Regarding mental health, it is important to recognize the hierarchical structure of psychopathology [ 19 , 20 ]. Common psychological disorders share many features and cluster into internalizing (e.g., MDD, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)), externalizing (e.g., SUDs, conduct disorder), and thought disorders (e.g., bipolar disorder, schizophrenia), with common variance shared even across these domains [ 20 ]. These higher-order constructs tend to explain much of the comorbidity among individual disorders, and have helped researchers characterize associations between psychopathology, cognition, and personality [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. We use this hierarchical structure to organize our review. We first summarize the emerging literature on associations between music engagement and generalized well-being that provides promising evidence for associations between music engagement and mental health. Next, we summarize associations between music engagement and internalizing traits, externalizing traits/behaviors, and thought disorders, respectively. Within these sections, we critically consider the strengths and shortcomings of existing studies and how the latter may limit the conclusions drawn from this work.

Our review considers both correlational and experimental studies (typically, intervention studies; see Fig. 1 for examples of study designs). We include not only studies that examine symptoms or diagnoses based on diagnostic interviews, but also those that assess quantitative variation (e.g., trait anxiety) in clinical and nonclinical populations. This is partly because individuals with clinical diagnoses may represent the extreme end of a spectrum of similar, sub-clinical, problems in the population, a view supported by evidence that genetic influences on diagnosed psychiatric disorders or DSM symptom counts are similar to those for trait-level symptoms in the general population [ 24 , 25 ]. Music engagement may be related to this full continuum of mental health, including correlations with trait-level symptoms in nonclinical populations and alleviation of symptoms from clinical disorders. For example, work linking music engagement to subjective well-being speaks to potential avenues for mental health interventions in the population at large.

Within experimental studies, music interventions can include passive musical activities (e.g., song listening, music and meditation, lyric discussion, creating playlists) or active musical activities (e.g., creative methods, such as songwriting or improvisation and/or re-creative methods, such as song parody).

The goal of this scoping review was to integrate across related, but often disconnected, literatures in order to propose a comprehensive theoretical framework for advancing our understanding of music-mental health associations. For this reason, we did not conduct a fully systematic search or quality appraisal of documents. Rather, we first searched PubMed and Google Scholar for review articles and meta-analyses using broad search terms (e.g., “review” and “music” and [“anxiety” or “depression” or “substance use”]). Then, when drafting each section, we searched for additional papers that have been published more recently and/or were examples of higher-quality research in each domain. When giving examples, we emphasize the most recent and most well-powered empirical studies. We also conducted some targeted literature searches where reviews were not available (e.g., “music” and [“impulsivity” or “ADHD”]) using the same databases. Our subsequent framework is intended to contextualize diagnostic, symptom, and mechanistic findings more broadly within the scope of the genetic and environmental risk factors on psychopathology that give rise to these associations and (potentially) impact the efficacy of treatment efforts. As such, the framework incorporates evidence from review articles and meta-analyses from various literatures (e.g., music interventions for anxiety [ 26 ], depression [ 27 ]) in combination with experimental evidence of biological underpinnings of music engagement and the perspective provided by newly available methods for population-health approaches (i.e., complex trait genetics, gene–environment interactions).

Music engagement and well-being

A growing body of studies report associations between music engagement and general indices of mental health, including increased well-being or emotional competence, lending support for the possibility that music engagement may also be associated with better specific mental health outcomes. In over 8000 Swedish twins, hours of music practice and self-reported music achievement were associated with better emotional competence [ 5 ]. Similarly, a meta-ethnography of 46 qualitative studies revealed that participation in music activities supported well-being through management of emotions, facilitation of self-development, providing respite from problems, and facilitating social connections [ 28 ]. In a sample of 1000 Australian adults, individuals who engaged with music, such as singing or dancing with others or attending concerts reported greater well-being vs. those who engaged in these experiences alone or did not engage. Other types of music engagement, such as playing an instrument or composing music were not associated with well-being in this sample [ 4 ]. Earlier in life, social music experiences (including song familiarity and synchronous movement to music) are associated with a variety of prosocial behaviors in infants and children [ 6 ], as well as positive affect [ 7 ]. Thus, this work provides some initial evidence that music engagement is associated with better general mental health outcomes in children and adults with some heterogeneity in findings depending on the specific type of music engagement.

Music engagement and internalizing problems

MDD, GAD, and PTSD are the most frequently clustered aspects of internalizing psychopathology [ 19 , 24 , 29 , 30 ]. Experimental studies provide evidence for the feasibility of music intervention efforts and their therapeutic benefits but are not yet rigorous enough to draw strong conclusions. The most severe limitations are small samples, the lack of appropriate control groups, few interventions with multiple sessions, and publications omitting necessary information regarding the intervention (e.g., intervention fidelity, inclusion/exclusion criteria, education status of intervention leader) [ 31 , 32 , 33 ]. Correlational studies, by contrast, suggest musicians are at greater risk for internalizing problems, but that they use music engagement as a tool to help manage these problems [ 34 , 35 ].

Experimental studies

Randomized controlled trials have revealed that music interventions (including both music therapies administered by board-certified music therapists and other music interventions) are associated with reduced depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms [ 26 , 27 , 33 , 36 ]. A review of 28 studies reported that 26 revealed significantly reduced depression levels in music intervention groups compared to control groups, including the 9 studies which included active non-music intervention control groups (e.g., reading sessions, “conductive-behavior” psychotherapy, antidepressant drugs) [ 27 ]. A similar meta-analysis of 19 studies demonstrated that music listening is effective at decreasing self-reported anxiety in healthy individuals [ 26 ]. A review of music-based treatment studies related to PTSD revealed similar conclusions [ 36 ], though there were only four relevant studies. More recent studies confirm these findings [ 37 , 38 , 39 ], such as one randomized controlled trial that demonstrated reduced depression symptoms in older adults following musical improvisation exercises compared to an active control group (gentle gymnastic activities) [ 39 ].

This work is promising given that some studies have observed effects even when compared to traditional behavior therapies [ 40 , 41 ]. However, there are relatively few studies directly comparing music interventions to traditional therapies. Some music interventions incorporate components of other therapeutic methods in their programs including dialectic or cognitive behavior therapies [ 42 ], but few directly compare how the inclusion of music augments traditional behavioral therapy. Still other non-music therapies incorporate music into their practice (e.g., background music in mindfulness therapies) [ 43 , 44 ], but the specific contribution of music in these approaches is unclear. Thus, there is a great need for further systematic research relating music to traditional therapies to understand which components of music interventions act on the same mechanisms as traditional therapies (e.g., developing coping mechanisms and building community) and which bolster or synchronize with other approaches (e.g., by adding structure, reinforcement, predictability, and social context to traditional approaches).

Aside from comparison with other therapeutic approaches, an earlier review of 98 papers from psychiatric in-patient studies concluded that promising effects of music therapy were limited by small sample sizes and methodological shortcomings including lack of reporting of adverse events, exclusion criteria, possible confounders, and characteristics of patients lost to follow-up [ 33 ]. Other problems included inadequate reporting of information on the source population (e.g., selection of patients and proportion agreeing to take part in the study), the lack of masking of interviewers during post-test, and concealment of randomization. Nevertheless, there was some evidence that therapies with active music participation, structured sessions, and multiple sessions (i.e., four or more) improved mood, with all studies incorporating these characteristics reporting significant positive effects. However, most studies have focused on passive interventions, such as music listening [ 26 , 27 ]. Active interventions (e.g., singing, improvising) have not been directly compared with passive interventions [ 27 ], so more work is needed to clarify whether therapeutic effects are indeed stronger with more engaging and active interventions.

Correlational studies

Correlational studies have focused on the use of music in emotional self-regulation. Specifically, individuals high in neuroticism appear to use music to help regulate their emotions [ 34 , 35 ], with beneficial effects of music engagement on emotion regulation and well-being driven by cognitive reappraisal [ 45 ]. Music listening may also moderate the association between neuroticism and depression in adolescents [ 46 ], consistent with a protective effect.

A series of recent studies have used validated self-reported instruments that directly assess how individuals use music activities as an emotion regulation strategy [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. In adults, the use of music listening for anger regulation and anxiety regulation was positively associated with subjective well-being, psychological well-being, and social well-being [ 50 ]. In studies of adolescents and undergraduates, the use of music listening for entertainment was associated with fewer depression and anxiety symptoms [ 51 ]. “Healthy” music engagement in adolescents (i.e., using music for relaxation and connection with others) was also positively associated with happiness and school satisfaction [ 49 ]. However, the use of music listening for emotional discharge was also associated with greater depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms [ 51 ], and “unhealthy” music engagement (e.g., ‘hiding’ in music to block others out) was associated with lower well-being, happiness, school satisfaction, and greater depression and rumination [ 49 ]. Other work has highlighted the role of valence in these associations, with individuals who listen to happier music when they are in a bad mood reporting stronger ability for music to influence their mood than those who listen to sad music while in a negative mood [ 52 , 53 ].

This work highlights the importance of considering individuals’ motivations for engaging with music in examining associations with well-being and mental health, and are consistent with the idea that individuals already experiencing depression, anxiety, and stress use music as a therapeutic tool to manage their emotions, with some strategies being more effective than others. Of course, these correlational effects may not necessarily reflect causal associations, but could be due to bidirectional influences, as suggested by claims that musicians may be at higher risk for internalizing problems [ 54 , 55 , 56 ]. It is also necessary to consider demographic and socioeconomic factors in these associations [ 57 ], for example, because arts engagement may be more strongly associated with self-esteem in those with higher education [ 58 ].

It is also necessary to clarify if musicians (professional and/or nonprofessional) represent an already high-risk group for internalizing problems. In one large study conducted in Norway ( N  = 6372), professional musicians were higher in neuroticism than the general population [ 56 ]. Another study of musician cases ( N  = 9803) vs. controls ( N  = 49,015) identified in a US-based research database through text-mining of medical records found that musicians are at greater risk of MDD (Odds ratio [OR] = 1.21), anxiety disorders (OR = 1.25), and PTSD (OR = 1.13) [ 55 ]. However, other studies demonstrate null associations between musician status and depression symptoms [ 5 ] or mixed associations [ 59 ]. In N  = 10,776 Swedish twins, for example, professional and amateur musicians had more self-reported burnout symptoms [ 54 ]. However, neither playing music in the past, amateur musicianship, nor professional musicianship was significantly associated with depression or anxiety disorder diagnoses.

Even if musicians are at higher risk, such findings can still be consistent with music-making being beneficial and therapeutic (e.g., depression medication use is elevated in individuals with depressive symptoms because it is a treatment). Clinical samples may be useful in disentangling these associations (i.e., examining if those who engage with music more frequently have reduced symptoms), and wider deployment of measures that capture emotion regulation strategies and motivations for engaging with music will help shed light on whether high-risk individuals engage with music in qualitatively different ways than others [ 51 , 57 ]. Later, we describe how also considering the role of genetic and environmental risk factors in these associations (e.g., if individuals at high genetic and/or environmental risk self-select into music environments because they are therapeutic) can help to clarify these questions.

Music engagement and externalizing problems

The externalizing domain comprises SUDs, and also includes impulsivity, conduct disorder, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), especially in adolescents [ 20 , 24 , 60 , 61 ]. Similar to the conclusions for internalizing traits, experimental studies show promising evidence that music engagement interventions may reduce substance use, ADHD, and other externalizing symptoms, but conclusions are limited by methodological limitations. Correlational evidence is sparce, but there is less reason to suspect musicians are at higher risk for externalizing problems.

Intervention studies have demonstrated music engagement is helpful in patients with SUDs, including reducing withdrawal symptoms and stress, allowing individuals to experience emotions without craving substance use, and making substance abuse treatment sessions more enjoyable and motivating [ 62 , 63 , 64 ] (for a systematic review, see [ 65 ]). Similar to the experimental studies of internalizing traits, however, these studies would also benefit from larger samples, better controls, and higher-quality reporting standards.

Music intervention studies for ADHD are of similar quality. Such interventions have been shown to reduce inattention [ 66 ], decrease negative mood [ 67 ], and increase reading comprehension for those with ADHD [ 68 ]. However, there is a great amount of variability among children with ADHD, as some may find music distracting while others may focus better in the presence of music [ 69 ].

Little research has been conducted to evaluate music engagement interventions for impulsivity or conduct disorder problems, and findings are mixed. For example, a music therapy study of 251 children showed that beneficial effects on communication skills (after participating in a free improvisation intervention) was significant, though only for the subset of children above age 13 [ 70 ]. Another study suggested the promising effects of music therapy on social skills and problem behaviors in 89 students selected based on social/emotional problem behaviors, but did not have a control group [ 71 ]. Other smaller studies ( N  < 20 each) show inconsistent results on disruptive behaviors and aggression [ 72 , 73 ].

Correlational studies on externalizing traits are few and far between. A number of studies examined how listening habits for different genres of music relate to more or less substance use [ 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 ]. However, these studies do not strongly illuminate associations between music engagement and substance use because musical genres are driven by cultural and socioeconomic factors that vary over the lifespan. In the previously cited large study of American electronic medical records [ 55 ] where musicianship was associated with more internalizing diagnoses, associations were nonsignificant for “tobacco use disorder” (OR = 0.93), “alcoholism” (OR = 1.01), “alcohol-related disorders” (OR = 1.00), or “substance addiction and disorders” (OR = 1.00). In fact, in sex-stratified analyses, female musicians were at significantly decreased risk for tobacco use disorder (OR = 0.85) [ 55 ]. Thus, there is less evidence musicians are at greater risk for externalizing problems than in other areas.

Regarding other aspects of externalizing, some studies demonstrate children with ADHD have poor rhythm skills, opening a possibility that working on rhythm skills may impact ADHD [ 78 , 79 ]. For example, music might serve as a helpful scaffold (e.g., for attention) due to its regular, predictable rhythmic beat. It will be important to examine whether these associations with music rhythm are also observed for measures of music engagement, especially in larger population studies. Finally, musicians were reported to have lower impulsiveness than prior population samples, but were not compared directly to non-musicians [ 80 , 81 ].

Music engagement and thought disorders

Thought disorders typically encompass schizophrenia and bipolar disorder [ 20 ]. Trait-level measures include schizotypal symptoms and depression symptoms. Much like internalizing, music interventions appear to provide some benefits to individuals with clinical diagnoses, but musicians may be at higher risk for thought disorders. Limitations of both experimental and correlational studies are similar to those for internalizing and externalizing.

Music intervention studies have been conducted with individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A recent meta-analysis of 18 music therapy studies for schizophrenia (and similar disorders) [ 82 ] demonstrated that music therapy plus standard care (compared to standard care alone) demonstrated improved general mental health, fewer negative symptoms of schizophrenia, and improved social functioning. No effects were observed for general functioning or positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Critiques echoed those described above. Most notably, although almost all studies had low risk of biases due to attrition, unclear risk of bias was evident in the vast majority of studies (>75%) for selection bias, performance bias, detection bias, and reporting bias. These concerns highlight the need for these studies to report more information about their study selection, blinding procedure, and outcomes.

More recent papers suggest similar benefits of music therapies in patients with psychosis [ 83 ] and thought disorders [ 84 ], with similar limitations (e.g., one study did not include a control group). Finally, although a 2021 review did not uncover more recent articles related to bipolar disorder, they argued that existing work suggests music therapy has the potential both to treat bipolar disorder symptoms and alleviate subthreshold symptoms in early stages of the disorder [ 85 ].

Much like internalizing, findings from the few existing studies suggest that musicians may be at higher risk for thought disorders. In the large sample of Swedish twins described earlier [ 54 ], playing an instrument was associated with more schizotypal symptoms across multiple comparisons (professional musicians vs. non-players; amateur musicians vs. non-players; still plays an instrument vs. never played). However, no associations were observed for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder diagnoses across any set of comparison groups. Another study demonstrated that individuals with higher genetic risk for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were more likely to be a member of a creative society (i.e., actor or dancer, musician, visual artist, or writer) or work in a profession in these fields [ 86 ]. Furthermore, musician status was associated with “bipolar disorder” (OR = 1.18) and “schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders” (OR = 1.18) in US electronic health records (EHRs) [ 55 ].

Interim summary

There is promising evidence that music engagement is associated with better mental health outcomes. Music engagement is positively associated with quality of life, well-being, social connectedness, and emotional competence. However, some individuals who engage with music may be at higher risk for mental health problems, especially internalizing and thought disorders. More research is needed to disentangle these contrasting results, including clarifying how “healthy” music engagement (e.g., for relaxation or social connection) leads to greater well-being or successful emotion regulation, and testing whether some individuals are more likely to use music as a tool to regulate emotions (e.g., those with high neuroticism) [ 34 , 35 ]. Similarly, it will be important to clarify whether the fact that musicians may be an at-risk group is an extension of working in an artistic field in general (which may feature lower pay or lack of job security) and/or if similar associations are observed with continuous music engagement phenotypes (e.g., hours of practice). As we elaborate on later, genetically informative datasets can help clarify these complex associations, for example by tested whether musicians are at higher genetic risk for mental health problems but their music engagement mitigates these risks.

Music intervention studies are feasible and potentially effective at treating symptoms in individuals with clinical diagnoses, including depression, anxiety, and SUDs. However, it will be essential to expand these studies to include larger samples, random sampling, and active control groups that compare the benefits of music interventions to traditional therapies and address possible confounds. These limitations make it hard to quantify how specific factors influence the effectiveness of interventions, such as length/depth of music training, age of sample, confounding variables (e.g., socioeconomic status), and type of intervention (e.g., individual vs. group sessions, song playing vs. songwriting, receptive vs. active methods). Similarly, the tremendous breadth of music engagement activities and measures makes it difficult to identify the specific aspects of music engagement that convey the most benefits to health and well-being [ 87 ]. It is therefore necessary to improve reporting quality of studies so researchers can better identify these potential moderators or confounds using systematic approaches (e.g., meta-analyses).

Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain the therapeutic effects of music on mental health, including psychological (e.g., building communities, developing coping strategies) [ 10 , 11 ] and specific neurobiological drivers (e.g., oxytocin, cortisol, autonomic nervous system activity) [ 12 , 13 , 14 ]. However, it will be vital to conduct more systematic research comparing the effects of music interventions to existing therapeutic methods and other types of creative activities (e.g., art [ 88 ]) to quantify which effects and mechanisms are specific to music engagement. Music interventions also do not have to be an alternative to other treatments, but may instead support key elements of traditional interventions, such as being engaging, enjoyable, providing social context, and increasing structure and predictability [ 89 ]. Indeed, some music therapists incorporate principals from existing psychotherapeutic models [ 42 , 90 ] and, conversely, newer therapeutic models (e.g., mindfulness) incorporate music into their practice [ 43 , 44 ]. It is not yet possible to disentangle which aspects of music interventions best synergize with or strengthen standard psychotherapeutic practices (which are also heterogeneous), but this will be possible with better reporting standards and quality experimental design.

To encapsulate and extend these ideas, we next propose a theoretical framework that delineates key aspects of how music engagement may relate to mental health, which is intended to be useful for guiding future investigations in a more systematic way.

Theoretical framework for future studies

Associations between music engagement and mental health may take multiple forms, driven by several different types of genetic predispositions and environmental effects that give rise to, and interact with, proposed psychological and neurobiological mechanisms described earlier. Figure 2 displays our theoretical model in which potential beneficial associations with music are delineated into testable hypotheses. Four key paths characterize specific ways in which music engagement may relate to (and influence) mental health traits, and thus represent key research questions to be addressed in future studies.

Progression of mental health problems is based on a diathesis-stress model, where genetic predispositions and environmental exposures result in later problems (which can be remedied through treatment). Potential associations with music engagement include (Path 1; blue arrows) correlated genetic/environmental influences and/or causal associations between music engagement and trait-level mental health outcomes; (Path 2; red arrows) interactions between music engagement and risk factors to predict later trait-level or clinical level symptoms; and (Path 3; gold arrow) direct effects of music engagement on reducing symptoms or improving treatment efficacy. Path 4 (orange arrows) illustrates the importance of understanding how these potential protective associations are driven by neuroanatomy and function. MDD major depressive disorder, GAD generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD posttraumatic stress disorder, SUD substance use disorder(s).

Path 1: Music engagement relates to mental health through correlated genetic and environmental risk factors and/or causation

The diathesis-stress model of psychiatric disease posits that individuals carry different genetic liabilities for any given disorder [ 91 , 92 , 93 ], with disorder onset depending on the amount of negative vs. protective environmental life events and exposures the individual experiences. Although at first glance music engagement appears to be an environmental exposure, it is actually far from it. Twin studies have demonstrated that both music experiences and music ability measures are moderately heritable and genetically correlated with cognitive abilities like non-verbal intelligence [ 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 ]. Music engagement may be influenced by its own set of environmental influences, potentially including socioeconomic factors and availability of instruments. Thus, music engagement can be viewed as a combination of genetic and environmental predispositions and availability of opportunities for engagement [ 98 ] that are necessary to consider when evaluating associations with mental health [ 54 ].

When examining music-mental health associations, it is thus important to evaluate if associations are in part explained by correlated genetic or environmental influences (see Fig. 3 for schematic and explanation for interpreting genetic/environmental correlations). On one hand, individuals genetically predisposed to engage with music may be at lower risk of experiencing internalizing or externalizing problems. Indeed, music engagement and ability appear associated with cognitive abilities through genetic correlations [ 3 , 99 ], which may apply to music-mental health associations as well. On the other, individuals at high genetic risk for neuroticism or psychopathology may be more likely to engage with music because it is therapeutic, suggesting a genetic correlation in the opposite direction (i.e., increased genetic risk for musicians). To understand and better contextualize the potential therapeutic effects of music engagement, it is necessary to quantify these potential genetic associations, while simultaneously evaluating whether these associations are explained by correlated environmental influences.

Variance in any given trait is explained by a combination of genetic influences (i.e., heritability) and environmental influences. For complex traits (e.g., MDD or depression symptoms), cognitive abilities (e.g., intelligence), and personality traits (e.g., impulsivity), many hundreds or thousands of independent genetic effects are combined together in the total heritability estimate. Similarly, environmental influences typically represent a multitude of factors, from individual life events to specific exposures (e.g., chemicals, etc.). The presence of a genetic or environmental correlation between traits indicates that some set of these influences have an impact on multiple traits. A Displayed using a Venn diagram. Identifying the strength of genetic vs. environmental correlations can be useful in testing theoretical models and pave the way for more complex genetic investigations. Beyond this, gene identification efforts (e.g., genome-wide association studies) and additional analyses of the resulting data can be used to classify whether these associations represent specific genetic influences that affect both traits equally (i.e., genetic pleiotropy ( B )) or whether a genetic influence impacts only one trait which in turn causes changes in the other (i.e., mediated genetic pleiotropy ( C )). Environmental influences can also act pleiotropically or in a mediated-pleiotropy manner, but only genetic influences are displayed for simplicity.

Beyond correlated genetic and environmental influences, music engagement and mental health problems may be associated with one another through direct influences (including causal impacts). This is in line with earlier suggestions that music activities (e.g., after-school programs, music practice) engage adolescents, removing opportunities for drug-seeking behaviors [ 100 ], increasing their social connections to peers [ 101 ], and decreasing loneliness [ 41 ]. Reverse causation is also possible, for example, if experiencing mental health problems causes some individuals to seek out music engagement as a treatment. Longitudinal and genetically informative studies can help differentiate correlated risk factors (i.e., genetic/environmental correlations) from causal effects of music engagement (Fig. 2 , blue arrows) [ 102 ].

Path 2: Engagement with music reduces the impact of genetic risk

Second, genetic and environmental influences may interact with each other to influence a phenotype. For example, individual differences in music achievement are more pronounced in those who engage in practice or had musically enriched childhood environments [ 97 , 98 ]. Thus, music exposures may not influence mental health traits directly but could impact the strength of the association between genetic risk factors and the emergence of trait-level symptoms and/or clinical diagnoses. Such associations might manifest as decreased heritability of trait-level symptoms in musicians vs. non-musicians (upper red arrow in Fig. 2 ). Alternatively, if individuals high in neuroticism use music to help regulate their emotions [ 34 , 35 ], those who are not exposed to music environments might show stronger associations between neuroticism and later depressive symptoms or diagnoses than those engaged with music (lower red arrow in Fig. 2 ). Elucidating these possibilities will help disentangle the complex associations between music and mental health and could be used to identify which individuals would benefit most from a music intervention (especially preventative interventions). Later, we describe some specific study designs that can test hypotheses regarding this gene-environment interplay.

Path 3: Music engagement improves the efficacy of treatment (or acts as a treatment)

For individuals who experience severe problems (e.g., MDD, SUDs), engaging with music may reduce symptoms or improve treatment outcomes. This is the primary goal of most music intervention studies [ 27 , 33 ] (Fig. 2 , gold arrow). However, and this is one of the central messages of this model, it is important to consider interventions in the context of the paths discussed above. For example, if music engagement is genetically correlated with increased risk for internalizing or externalizing problems (Path 1) and/or if individuals at high genetic risk for mental health problems have already been using music engagement to develop strategies to deal with subthreshold symptoms (Path 2), then may be more likely to choose music interventions over other alternatives and find them more successful. Indeed, the beneficial aspects of music training on cognitive abilities appear to be drastically reduced in samples that were randomly sampled [ 103 ]. Therefore, along with other necessary reporting standards discussed above [ 32 , 33 ], it will be useful for studies to report participants’ prior music experience and consider these exposures in evaluating the efficacy of interventions.

Path 4: Music engagement influences brain structure and function

Exploring associations between music engagement and brain structure and function will be necessary to elucidate the mechanisms driving the three paths outlined above. Indeed, there are strong links between music listening and reward centers of the brain [ 104 , 105 ] including the nucleus accumbens [ 106 , 107 ] and ventral tegmental areas [ 108 ] that are implicated in the reward system for all drugs of abuse [ 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 ] and may relate to internalizing problems [ 113 , 114 , 115 ]. Moreover, activity in the caudate may simultaneously influence rhythmic sensorimotor synchronization, monetary reward processing, and prosocial behavior [ 116 ]. Furthermore, music listening may help individuals control the effect of emotional stimuli on autonomic and physiological responses (e.g., in the hypothalamus) and has been shown to induce the endorphinergic response blocked by naloxone, an opioid antagonist [ 18 , 117 ].

This work focusing on music listening and reward processing has not been extended to music making (i.e., active music engagement), though some differences in brain structure and plasticity between musicians and non-musicians have been observed for white matter (e.g., greater fractional anisotropy in corpus callosum and superior longitudinal fasciculus) [ 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 ]. In addition, longitudinal studies have revealed that instrument players show more rapid cortical thickness maturation in prefrontal and parietal areas implicated in emotion and impulse control compared to non-musician children/adolescents [ 122 ]. Importantly, because the existing evidence is primarily correlational, these cross-sectional and longitudinal structural differences between musicians and non-musicians could be explained by genetic correlations, effects of music training, or both, making them potentially relevant to multiple paths in our model (Fig. 2 ). Examining neural correlates of music engagement in more detail will shed light on these possibilities and advance our understanding of the correlates and consequences of music engagement, and the mechanisms that drive the associations discussed above.

New approaches to studying music and mental health

Using our theoretical model as a guide, we next highlight key avenues of research that will help disentangle these music-mental health associations using state-of-the-art approaches. They include the use of (1) genetic designs, (2) neuroimaging methods, and (3) large biobanks of EHRs.

Genetic designs

Genetic designs provide a window into the biological underpinnings of music engagement [ 123 ]. Understanding the contribution of genetic risk factors is crucial to test causal or mechanistic models regarding potential associations with mental health. At the most basic level, twin and family studies can estimate genetic correlations among music ability or engagement measures and mental health traits or diagnoses. Genetic associations can be examined while simultaneously quantifying environmental correlations, as well as evaluating (bidirectional) causal associations, by testing competing models or averaging across different candidate models [ 102 , 124 ], informing Path 1.

By leveraging samples with genomic, music engagement, and mental health data, investigators can also examine whether individuals at higher genetic risk for psychopathology (e.g., for MDD) show stronger associations between music engagement measures and their mental health outcomes (Path 2). As a theoretical example, individuals with low genetic risk for MDD are unlikely to have many depressive symptoms regardless of their music engagement, so the association between depressive symptoms and music engagement may be weak if focusing on these individuals. However, individuals at high genetic risk for MDD who engage with music may have fewer symptoms than their non-musician peers (i.e., a stronger negative correlation). This is in line with recent work revealing the heritability of depression is doubled in trauma exposed compared to non-trauma exposed individuals [ 125 ].

Gene–environment interaction studies using polygenic scores (i.e., summed indices of genetic risk based on genome-wide association studies; GWAS) are becoming more common [ 126 , 127 ]. There are already multiple large GWAS of internalizing and externalizing traits [ 128 , 129 , 130 ], and the first large-scale GWAS of a music measure indicates that music rhythm is also highly polygenic [ 131 ]. Importantly, is not necessary to have all traits measured in the same sample to examine cross-trait relationships. Studies with only music engagement and genetic data, for example, can still examine how polygenic scores for depression predict music engagement, or interact with music engagement measures to predict other study outcomes. Figure 4 displays an example of a GWAS and how it can be used to compute and apply a polygenic score to test cross-trait predictions.

A GWAS are conducted by examining whether individual genetic loci (i.e., single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, depicted with G, A, C, and T labels within a sample (or meta-analysis) differentiate cases from controls. The example is based on a dichotomous mental health trait (e.g., major depressive disorder diagnosis), but GWAS can be applied to other dichotomous and continuous phenotypes, such as trait anxiety, musician status, or hours of music practice. Importantly, rather than examining associations on a gene-by-gene basis, GWAS identify relevant genetic loci using SNPs from across the entire genome (typically depicted using a Manhattan plot, such as that displayed at the bottom of A ). B After a GWAS has been conducted on a given trait, researchers can use the output to generate a polygenic score (sometimes called a polygenic risk score) in any new sample with genetic data by summing the GWAS effect sizes for each SNP allele present in a participant’s genome. An individual with a z  = 2.0 would have many risk SNPs for that trait, whereas an individual with z = −2 would have much fewer risk SNPs. C Once a polygenic score is generated for all participants, it can be applied like any other variable in the new sample. In this example, researchers could examine whether musicians are at higher (or lower) genetic risk for a specific disorder. Other more complex analyses are also possible, such as examining how polygenic scores interact with existing predictors (e.g., trauma exposure) or polygenic scores for other traits to influence a phenotype or predict an intervention outcome. Created with BioRender.com.

Finally, longitudinal twin and family studies continue to be a promising resource for understanding the etiology and developmental time-course of the correlates of mental health problems. Such designs can be used to examine whether associations between music and mental health are magnified based on other exposures or psychological constructs (gene-by-environment interactions) [ 132 ], and whether parents engaged with music are more likely to pass down environments that are protective or hazardous for later mental health (gene-environment correlations) in addition to passing on their genes. These studies also provide opportunities to examine whether these associations change across key developmental periods. The publicly available Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, for example, is tracking over 10,000 participants (including twin and sibling pairs) throughout adolescence, with measures of music engagement and exhaustive measures of mental health, cognition, and personality, as well as neuroimaging and genotyping [ 133 , 134 ]. Although most large samples with genomic data still lack measures of music engagement, key musical phenotypes could be added to existing study protocols (or to similar studies under development) with relatively low participant burden [ 135 ]. Musical questionnaires and/or tasks may be much more engaging and enjoyable than other tasks, improving volunteers’ research participation experience.

Neuroimaging

Another way to orient the design of experiments is through the exploration of neural mechanisms by which music might have an impact on mental health. This is an enormous, growing, and sometimes fraught literature, but there is naturally a great potential to link our understanding of neural underpinnings of music listening and engagement with the literature on neural bases of mental health. These advances can inform the mechanisms driving successful interventions and inform who may benefit the most from such interventions. We focus on two areas among many: (1) the activation of reward circuitry by music and (2) the impact music has on dynamic patterns of neural activity, both of which are likely vectors for the interaction of music and mental health and provide examples of potential interactions.

Music and reward

The strong effect of music on our emotions has been clearly grounded in its robust activation of reward circuitry in the brain, and motivational and hedonic effects of music listening have been shown to be specifically modulated by dopamine [ 16 , 105 , 136 ]. The prevalence of reward and dopaminergic dysfunction in mental illness makes this a rich area for future studies. For example, emotional responses to music might be used as a substitute for reward circuit deficiencies in depression, and it is intriguing to consider if music listening or music engagement could potentiate such function [ 137 , 138 ].

Music and brain network dynamics

The search for neuronally based biomarkers of aspects of mental illness has been a central thrust within the field [ 139 ], holding promise for the understanding of heterogeneity within disorders and identification of common mechanistic pathways [ 140 ]. A thorough review is beyond the scope of this paper, but several points of contact can be highlighted that might suggest neuro-mechanistic mediators of musical effects on mental health. For example, neurofeedback-directed upregulation of activity in emotion circuitry has been proposed as a therapy for MDD [ 141 ]. Given the emotional effects of music, there is potential for using musical stimuli as an adjuvant, or as a more actively patient-controlled output target for neurofeedback. Growing interest in measures of the dynamic complexity of brain activity in health and disease as measured by magnetic resonance imaging or magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) [ 142 ] provides a second point of contact, with abnormalities in dynamic complexity suggested as indicative of mental illness [ 143 ], while music engagement has been suggested to reflect and perhaps affect dynamic complexity [ 144 , 145 ].

The caveats identified in this review apply equally to such neuro-mechanistic studies [ 146 ]. High-quality experimental design (involving appropriate controls and randomized design) has been repeatedly shown to be critical to providing reliable evidence for non-music outcomes of music engagement [ 103 ]. For such studies to have maximal impact, analysis of M/EEG activity not at the scalp level, but at the source level, has been shown to improve the power of biomarkers, and their mechanistic interpretability [ 147 , 148 ]. Moreover, as with genetic influences that typically influence a trait through a multitude of small individual effects [ 149 ], the neural underpinnings of music-mental health associations may be highly multivariate. In the longer term, leveraging large-scale studies and large-scale data standardization and aggregation hold the promise of gleaning deeper cross-domain insights, for which current experimentalists can prepare by adopting standards for the documentation, annotation, and storage of data [ 150 ].

Biobanks and electronic health records

Finally, the use of EHR databases can be useful in quantifying associations between music engagement and mental health in large samples. EHR databases can include hundreds of thousands of records and allow for examination with International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems codes, including MDD, SUD, and schizophrenia diagnoses. This would allow for powerful estimates of music-mental health associations, and exploration of music engagement with other health outcomes.

The principal roadblock to this type of research is that extensive music phenotypes are not readily available in EHRs. However, there are multiple ways to bypass this limitation. First, medical records can be scraped using text-mining tools to identify cases of musician-related terms (e.g., “musician”, “guitarist”, “violinist”). For example, the phenome-wide association study described earlier [ 55 ] compared musician cases and controls identified in a large EHR database through text-mining of medical records and validated with extensive manual review charts. This study was highly powered to detect associations with internalizing and thought disorders (but showed null or protective effects for musicians for SUDs). Many EHR databases also include genomic data, allowing for integration with genetic models even in the absence of music data (e.g., exploring whether individuals with strong genetic predispositions for musical ability are at elevated or reduced risk for specific health diagnosis).

EHRs could also be used as recruitment tools, allowing researchers to collect additional data for relevant music engagement variables and compare with existing mental health diagnoses without having to conduct their own diagnostic interviews. These systems are not only relevant to individual differences research but could also be used to identify patients for possible enrollment in intervention studies. Furthermore, if recruitment for individual differences or intervention studies is done in patient waiting rooms of specific clinics, researchers can target specific populations of interest, have participants complete some relevant questionnaires while they wait, and be granted access to medical record data without having to conduct medical interviews themselves.

Concluding remarks

Music engagement, a uniquely human trait which has a powerful impact on our everyday experience, is deeply tied with our social and cultural identities as well as our personality and cognition. The relevance of music engagement to mental health, and its potential use as a therapeutic tool, has been studied for decades, but this research had not yet cohered into a clear picture. Our scoping review and framework integrated across a breadth of smaller literatures (including extant reviews and meta-analyses) relating music engagement to mental health traits and treatment effects, though it was potentially limited due to the lack of systematic literature search or formal quality appraisal of individual studies. Taken together, the current body of literature suggests that music engagement may provide an outlet for individuals who are experiencing internalizing, externalizing, or thought disorder problems, potentially supporting emotion regulation through multiple neurobiological pathways (e.g., reward center activity). Conducting more rigorous experimental intervention studies, improving reporting standards, and harnessing large-scale population-wide data in combination with new genetic analytic methods will help us achieve a better understanding of how music engagement relates to these mental health traits. We have presented a framework that illustrates why it will be vital to consider genetic and environmental risk factors when examining these associations, leading to new avenues for understanding the mechanisms by which music engagement and existing risk factors interact to support mental health and well-being.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NIH grants DP2HD098859, R01AA028411, R61MH123029, R21DC016710, U01DA04112, and R03AG065643, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) research lab grants 1863278-38 and 1855526-38, and National Science Foundation grant 1926794. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or National Endowment for the Arts. The authors would like to thank Navya Thakkar and Gabija Zilinskaite for their assistance.

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Gustavson, D.E., Coleman, P.L., Iversen, J.R. et al. Mental health and music engagement: review, framework, and guidelines for future studies. Transl Psychiatry 11 , 370 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01483-8

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Performing Music Research: Methods in Music Education, Psychology, and Performance Science

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Performing Music Research is a comprehensive guide to research in music performance. It reviews the knowledge and skills needed to critique existing studies in music education, psychology, and performance science, and to design and carry out new investigations. Methodological approaches are highlighted across the book in ways that help aspiring researchers bring precision to their research questions, select methods that are appropriate for addressing their questions, and apply those methods systematically and rigorously. Each chapter contains a study guide, comprising a chapter summary, a list of keywords, and suggestions for further discussion. The book concludes with a resources section, including a glossary and supplementary material to support advanced statistical analysis. The book’s companion website provides information designed to facilitate access to original research and to test knowledge and understanding.

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Music: Developing Topics & Research Questions

• About this Guide
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Developing a Research Question Takes Research

When the scope of your paper is too big, it's hard to dig through information and to write a paper wit any depth. The goal of most research papers in college is to seek a possible answer to a particular questions related to a topic. A research question, when not too broad or too narrow, helps guide and focus your paper.

The question should also be one in which you haven't decided on a pre-determined answer. You may find that looking for sources that provide a certain answer may be too limiting. The answer you are expecting might not be supported by evidence.

Brainstorm & do some pre-research

The research question isn't a question you make up at the top of your head. It's normal to start with a broad topic in mind. After doing some brainstorming about a topic, you will need to do some reading to find an angle to pursue, and, even then, your question may change as you find more information later.

Ask questions

From your pre-research, think about questions you might be able to ask regarding the topic. Most scholarly research examines fairly narrow topics and looks at relationships between concepts. One way to limit the scope of your topic is to ask who, what, where, when, why, and how questions.

Be flexible

It's okay to continue to tweak your question; the end result should be that you have answered the question you've laid out in the introduction, even if the introduction is the last paragraph you actually end up revising in your final paper.

Picking Your Topic IS Research

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OER Book Chapters

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• Research Questions from Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research, Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries

Research is a Process

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Encourages students to develop background knowledge to create a research question.  Research questions should have topic, question and significance.  The narrator suggests using the following formulation:  I’m studying  _______________ to investigate ______________ in order to understand. Complex research questions take time to create.

Keeping your research question in mind, if you can answer TRUE to the statements below, your research question is probably workable.

• It cannot simply be answered with a yes/no. 
• It has social significance/a problem associated with it.
• There is reliable evidence available to address it.
• It has appropriate scope.

Be careful about investigating questions that you think you already have the answer to.

Choosing a Manageable Research Topic

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The psychological functions of music listening

Thomas schäfer.

1 Department of Psychology, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany

Peter Sedlmeier

Christine städtler, david huron.

2 School of Music, Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Laboratory, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Why do people listen to music? Over the past several decades, scholars have proposed numerous functions that listening to music might fulfill. However, different theoretical approaches, different methods, and different samples have left a heterogeneous picture regarding the number and nature of musical functions. Moreover, there remains no agreement about the underlying dimensions of these functions. Part one of the paper reviews the research contributions that have explicitly referred to musical functions. It is concluded that a comprehensive investigation addressing the basic dimensions underlying the plethora of functions of music listening is warranted. Part two of the paper presents an empirical investigation of hundreds of functions that could be extracted from the reviewed contributions. These functions were distilled to 129 non-redundant functions that were then rated by 834 respondents. Principal component analysis suggested three distinct underlying dimensions: People listen to music to regulate arousal and mood , to achieve self-awareness , and as an expression of social relatedness . The first and second dimensions were judged to be much more important than the third—a result that contrasts with the idea that music has evolved primarily as a means for social cohesion and communication. The implications of these results are discussed in light of theories on the origin and the functionality of music listening and also for the application of musical stimuli in all areas of psychology and for research in music cognition.

Introduction

Music listening is one of the most enigmatic of human behaviors. Most common behaviors have a recognizable utility that can be plausibly traced to the practical motives of survival and procreation. Moreover, in the array of seemingly odd behaviors, few behaviors match music for commandeering so much time, energy, and money. Music listening is one of the most popular leisure activities. Music is a ubiquitous companion to people's everyday lives.

The enthusiasm for music is not a recent development. Recognizably musical activities appear to have been present in every known culture on earth, with ancient roots extending back 250,000 years or more (see Zatorre and Peretz, 2001 ). The ubiquity and antiquity of music has inspired considerable speculation regarding its origin and function.

Throughout history, scholars of various stripes have pondered the nature of music. Philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, musicologists, and neuroscientists have proposed a number of theories concerning the origin and purpose of music and some have pursued scientific approaches to investigating them (e.g., Fitch, 2006 ; Peretz, 2006 ; Levitin, 2007 ; Schäfer and Sedlmeier, 2010 ).

The origin of music is shrouded in prehistory. There is little physical evidence—like stone carvings or fossilized footprints—that might provide clues to music's past. Necessarily, hypotheses concerning the original functions of music will remain speculative. Nevertheless, there are a number of plausible and interesting conjectures that offer useful starting-points for investigating the functions of music.

A promising approach to the question of music's origins focuses on how music is used—that is, it's various functions. In fact, many scholars have endeavored to enumerate various musical functions (see below). The assumption is that the function(s) that music is presumed to have served in the past would be echoed in at least one of the functions that music serves today. Of course, how music is used today need have no relationship with music's function(s) in the remote past. Nevertheless, evidence from modern listeners might provide useful clues pertinent to theorizing about origins.

In proposing various musical functions, not all scholars have related these functions to music's presumed evolutionary roots. For many scholars, the motivation has been simply to identify the multiple ways in which music is used in everyday lives (e.g., Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham, 2007 ; Boer, 2009 ; Lonsdale and North, 2011 ; Packer and Ballantyne, 2011 ). Empirical studies of musical functions have been very heterogeneous. Some studies were motivated by questions related to development. Many related to social identity. Others were motivated by cognitive psychology, aesthetics, cultural psychology, or personality psychology. In addition, studies differed according to the target population. While some studies attempted to assemble representative samples of listeners, others explicitly focused on specific populations such as adolescents. Most studies rely on convenient samples of students. Consequently, the existing literature is something of a hodgepodge.

The aim of the present study is to use the extant literature as a point of departure for a fresh re-appraisal of possible musical functions. In Part 1 of our study, we summarize the results of an extensive literature survey concerning the possible functions of music. Specifically, we identified and skimmed hundreds of publications that explicitly suggest various functions, uses, or benefits for music. We provide separate overviews for the empirical literatures and the theoretical literatures. This survey resulted in just over 500 proposed musical functions. We do not refer to each of the identified publications but concentrate on the ones that have identified either more than one single function of music listening or a single unique function that is not captured in any other publication. In Part 2, we present the results of an empirical study whose purpose was to distill—using principal components analysis (PCA)—the many proposed functions of music listening. To anticipate our results, we will see that PCA suggests three main dimensions that can account for much of the shared variance in the proposed musical functions.

Review of the research on the functions of music

Discussions and speculations regarding the functions of music listening can be found in both theoretical literature concerning music as well as in empirical studies of music. Below, we offer a review of both literatures. The contents of the reviews are summarized in Tables ​ TablesA1, A1 , ​ ,A2. A2 . Table ​ TableA1 A1 provides an overview of theoretical proposals regarding musical function, whereas Table ​ TableA2 A2 provides an overview of empirical studies regarding musical function. Together, the two tables provide a broad inventory of potential functions for music.

Theoretical approaches

Many scholars have discussed potential functions of music exclusively from a theoretical point of view. The most prominent of these approaches or theories are the ones that make explicit evolutionary claims. However, there are also other, non-evolutionary approaches such as experimental aesthetics or the uses-and-gratifications approach. Functions of music were derived deductively from these approaches and theories. In addition, in the literature, one commonly finds lists or collections of functions that music can have. Most of these lists are the result of literature searches; in other cases authors provide no clear explanation for how they came up with the functions they list. Given the aim of assembling a comprehensive list, all works are included in our summary.

Functions of music as they derive from specific approaches or theories

Evolutionary approaches. Evolutionary discussions of music can already be found in the writings of Darwin. Darwin discussed some possibilities but felt there was no satisfactory solution to music's origins (Darwin, 1871 , 1872 ). His intellectual heirs have been less cautious. Miller ( 2000 ), for instance, has argued that music making is a reasonable index of biological fitness, and so a manifestation of sexual selection—analogous to the peacock's tail. Anyone who can afford the biological luxury of making music must be strong and healthy. Thus, music would offer an honest social signal of physiological fitness.

Another line of theorizing refers to music as a means of social and emotional communication. For example, Panksepp and Bernatzky ( 2002 , p. 139) argued that

in social creatures like ourselves, whose ancestors lived in arboreal environments where sound was one of the most effective ways to coordinate cohesive group activities, reinforce social bonds, resolve animosities, and to establish stable hierarchies of submission and dominance, there could have been a premium on being able to communicate shades of emotional meaning by the melodic character (prosody) of emitted sounds.

A similar idea is that music contributes to social cohesion and thereby increases the effectiveness of group action. Work and war songs, lullabies, and national anthems have bound together families, groups, or whole nations. Relatedly, music may provide a means to reduce social stress and temper aggression in others. The idea that music may function as a social cement has many proponents (see Huron, 2001 ; Mithen, 2006 ; Bicknell, 2007 ).

A novel evolutionary theory is offered by Falk ( 2004a , b ) who has proposed that music arose from humming or singing intended to maintain infant-mother attachment. Falk's “putting-down-the-baby hypothesis” suggests that mothers would have profited from putting down their infants in order to make their hands free for other activities. Humming or singing consequently arose as a consoling signal indicating caretaker proximity in the absence of physical touch.

Another interesting conjecture relates music to human anxiety related to death, and the consequent quest for meaning. Dissanayake ( 2009 ), for example, has argued that humans have used music to help cope with awareness of life's transitoriness. In a manner similar to religious beliefs about the hereafter or a higher transcendental purpose, music can help assuage human anxiety concerning mortality (see, e.g., Newberg et al., 2001 ). Neurophysiological studies regarding music-induced chills can be interpreted as congruent with this conjecture. For example, music-induced chills produce reduced activity in brain structures associated with anxiety (Blood and Zatorre, 2001 ).

Related ideas stress the role music plays in feelings of transcendence. For example, (Frith, 1996 , p. 275) has noted that: “We all hear the music we like as something special, as something that defies the mundane, takes us “out of ourselves,” puts us somewhere else.” Thus, music may provide a means of escape. The experience of flow states (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2009 ), peaks (Maslow, 1968 ), and chills (Panksepp, 1995 ), which are often evoked by music listening, might similarly be interpreted as forms of transcendence or escapism (see also Fachner, 2008 ).

More generally, Schubert ( 2009 ) has argued that the fundamental function of music is its potential to produce pleasure in the listener (and in the performer, as well). All other functions may be considered subordinate to music's pleasure-producing capacity. Relatedly, music might have emerged as a safe form of time-passing—analogous to the sleeping behaviors found among many predators. As humans became more effective hunters, music might have emerged merely as an entertaining and innocuous way to pass time during waking hours (see Huron, 2001 ).

The above theories each stress a single account of music's origins. In addition, there are mixed theories that posit a constellation of several concurrent functions. Anthropological accounts of music often refer to multiple social and cultural benefits arising from music. Merriam ( 1964 ) provides a seminal example. In his book, The anthropology of music , Merriam proposed 10 social functions music can serve (e.g., emotional expression, communication, and symbolic representation). Merriam's work has had a lasting influence among music scholars, but also led many scholars to focus exclusively on the social functions of music. Following in the tradition of Merriam, Dissanayake ( 2006 ) proposed six social functions of ritual music (such as display of resources, control, and channeling of individual aggression, and the facilitation of courtship).

Non-evolutionary approaches. Many scholars have steered clear of evolutionary speculation about music, and have instead focused on the ways in which people use music in their everyday lives today. A prominent approach is the “uses-and-gratifications” approach (e.g., Arnett, 1995 ). This approach focuses on the needs and concerns of the listeners and tries to explain how people actively select and use media such as music to serve these needs and concerns. Arnett ( 1995 ) provides a list of potential uses of music such as entertainment, identity formation, sensation seeking, or culture identification.

Another line of research is “experimental aesthetics” whose proponents investigate the subjective experience of beauty (both artificial or natural), and the ensuing experience of pleasure. For example, in discussing the “recent work in experimental aesthetics,” Bullough ( 1921 ) distinguished several types of listeners and pointed to the fact that music can be used to activate associations, memories, experiences, moods, and emotions.

By way of summary, many musical functions have been proposed in the research literature. Evolutionary speculations have tended to focus on single-source causes such as music as an indicator of biological fitness, music as a means for social and emotional communication, music as social glue, music as a way of facilitating caretaker mobility, music as a means of tempering anxiety about mortality, music as escapism or transcendental meaning, music as a source of pleasure, and music as a means for passing time. Other accounts have posited multiple concurrent functions such as the plethora of social and cultural functions of music found in anthropological writings about music. Non-evolutionary approaches are evident in the uses-and-gratifications approach—which revealed a large number of functions that can be summarized as cognitive, emotional, social, and physiological functions—and the experimental aesthetics approach, whose proposed functions can similarly be summarized as cognitive and emotional functions.

Functions of music as they derive from literature research

As noted, many publications posit musical functions without providing a clear connection to any theory. Most of these works are just collections of functions of music from the literature. Not least, there are also accounts of such collections where it remained unclear how the author(s) came up with the functions contained. Some of these works refer to only one single function of music—most often because this functional aspect was investigated not with the focus on music but with a focus on other psychological phenomena. Yet other works list extensive collections of purported musical functions.

Works that refer to only one single functional aspect of music include possible therapeutic functions for music in clinical settings (Cook, 1986 ; Frohne-Hagemann and Pleß-Adamczyk, 2005 ), the use of music for symbolic exclusion in political terms (Bryson, 1996 ), the syntactic, semantic, and mediatizing use of film music (Maas, 1993 ), and the use of music to manage physiological arousal (Bartlett, 1996 ).

The vast majority of publications identify several possible musical functions, most of which—as stated above—are clearly focused on social aspects. Several comprehensive collections have been assembled, such as those by Baacke ( 1984 ), Gregory ( 1997 ), Ruud ( 1997 ), Roberts and Christenson ( 2001 ), Engh ( 2006 ), and Laiho ( 2004 ). Most of these studies identified a very large number of potential functions of music.

By way of summary, there exists a long tradition of theorizing about the potential functions of music. Although some of these theories have been deduced from a prior theoretical framework, none was the result of empirical testing or exploratory data-gathering. In the ensuing section, we turn to consider empirically-oriented research regarding the number and nature of potential musical functions.

Empirical investigations

A number of studies have approached the functions of music from an empirical perspective. Two main approaches might be distinguished. In the first approach, the research aim is to uncover or document actual musical functioning. That is, the research aims to observe or identify one or more ways in which music is used in daily life. In the second approach, the research goal is to infer the structure or pattern underlying the use of music. That is, the research aims to uncover potential basic or fundamental dimensions implied by the multiple functions of music. This is mostly done using PCA or factor analyses or cluster analyses that reduce a large number of functions to only a few basic dimensions. In some cases, the analyses are run exploratively whereas in other cases, they are run in a confirmatory way, that is—with a predefined number of dimensions. The empirical studies can be categorized according to several criteria (see Table ​ TableA2). A2 ). However, when discussing some of the most important works here, we will separate studies where respondents were asked for the functions of music in open surveys from studies where the authors provided their own collections of functions, based on either literature research or face validity.

Surveys about the functions music can have

A number of studies have attempted to chronicle the broad range of musical functions. Most of these studies employed surveys in which people were asked to identify the ways in which they make use of music in their lives. In some studies, expert interviews were conducted in order to identify possible functions. Table ​ TableA2 A2 provides a summary of all the pertinent studies including their collections of functions and—where applicable—their derived underlying dimensions. We will restrict our ensuing remarks to the largest and most comprehensive studies.

Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham ( 2007 ) identified 15 functions of music among students and subsequently ran focus groups from which they distilled three distinct dimensions: emotional use, rational use, and background use. Some of the largest surveys have been carried out by Boer ( 2009 ). She interviewed more than a thousand young people in different countries and assembled a comprehensive collection of musical functions. Using factor analysis, she found 10 underlying dimensions: emotion, friends, family, venting, background, dancing, focus, values, politic, and culture. (Lonsdale and North, 2011 , Study 1) pursued a uses-and-gratifications approach. They identified 30 musical uses that could be reduced to six distinct dimensions. In a related study employing a larger sample, the same authors came up with eight distinct dimensions: identity, positive and negative mood management, reminiscing, diversion, arousal, surveillance, and social interaction (Lonsdale and North, 2011 , Study 4). When interviewing older participants, Hays and Minichiello ( 2005 ) qualitatively identified six dimensions: linking, life events, sharing and connecting, wellbeing, therapeutic benefits, escapism, and spirituality.

The various surveys and interview studies clearly diverge with regard to the number of different musical functions. Similarly, the various cluster and factor analyses often end up producing different numbers of distinct dimensions. Nevertheless, the results are often quite similar. On a very broad level, there are four categories that appear consistently: social functions, emotional functions, cognitive or self-related functions, and physiological or arousal-related functions (see also Hargreaves and North, 1999 ; Schäfer and Sedlmeier, 2009 , 2010 ).

Empirical studies using predefined collections of functions of music

Apart from the open-ended surveys and interview methods, a number of studies investigating musical functions begin with researcher-defined collections or even categories/dimensions. Some of these predefined collections or categories/dimensions were simply borrowed from the existing published research, whereas others were derived from specific theoretical perspectives.

Empirical studies on functions of music emerging from specific theoretical approaches. Some of the above mentioned theoretical approaches to the functionality of music have been investigated in empirical studies. Boehnke and Münch ( 2003 ) developed a model of the relationship of adolescents' development, music, and media use. They proposed seven functions of music that relate to the developmental issues of young people (such as peer group integration, physical maturation, or identity development). In two studies with a large number of participants, Lonsdale and North ( 2011 ) applied the model of media gratification (from McQuail et al., 1972 ) and used a collection of 30 functions of music they assembled from literature research and interviews. In both studies, they ran factor analyses—reducing the number of functions to six dimensions and eight dimensions, respectively. Lehmann ( 1994 ) developed a situations-functions-preference model and proposed that music preferences emerge from the successful use of music to serve specific functions for the listener, depending on the current situation. Lehmann identified 68 ways in which people use music, from which he was able to reduce them to 15 music reception strategies (Rezeptionsweisen) such as compensation/escapism, relaxation, and identification. Misenhelter and Kaiser ( 2008 ) adopted Merriam's ( 1964 ) anthropological approach and attempted to identify the functions of music in the context of music education. They surveyed teachers and students and found six basic functions that were quite similar to the ones proposed by Merriam ( 1964 ). Wells and Hakanen ( 1997 ) adopted Zillmann's ( 1988a , b ) mood management theory and identified four types of users regarding the emotional functions of music: mainstream, music lover, indifferent, and heavy rockers.

Empirical studies on functions of music emerging from literature research. A number of studies have made use of predefined musical functions borrowed from the existing research literature. The significance of these functions and/or their potential underlying structure has then been empirically investigated using different samples. As mentioned, not all of those studies tried to assemble an exhaustive collection of musical functions in order to produce a comprehensive picture of the functions of music; but many studies were focused on specific aspects such as the emotional, cognitive, or social functions of music.

Schäfer and Sedlmeier ( 2009 ) collected 17 functions of music from the literature and found functions related to the management of mood and arousal as well as self-related functions to be the ones that people highly ascribe to their favorite music. Tarrant et al. ( 2000 ) used a collection of 10 functions of music from the literature and factor analyzed them resulting in three distinct dimensions of music use: self-related, emotional, and social.

Sun and Lull ( 1986 ) collected 18 functions of music videos and were able to reduce them to four dimensions: social learning, passing time, escapism/mood, and social interaction. Melton and Galician ( 1987 ) identified 15 functions of radio music and music videos; and Greasley and Lamont ( 2011 ) collected 15 functions of music, as well. Ter Bogt et al. ( 2011 ) collected 19 functions of music from the literature and used confirmatory factor analysis to group them into five dimensions. In a clinical study with adolescents, Walker Kennedy ( 2010 ) found 47 functions of music that could be reduced to five dimensions.

By way of summary, extant empirical studies have used either an open approach—trying to capture the variety of musical functions in the course of surveys or questionnaire studies—or predefined collections of functions as they resulted from specific theoretical approaches or from literature research. These different approaches have led to quite heterogeneous collections of possible musical functions—from only few functions posited by a specific hypothesis, to long lists arising from open surveys. Moreover, although the many attempts to distill the functions of music to fewer dimensions have produced some points of agreement, the overall picture remains unclear.

The structure among the functions of music

With each successive study of musical functions, the aggregate list of potential uses has grown longer. Questionnaire studies, in particular, have led to the proliferation of possible ways in which music may be relevant in people's lives. Even if one sidesteps the question of possible evolutionary origins, the multitude of hundreds of proposed functions raises the question of whether these might not be distilled to a smaller set of basic dimensions.

As noted earlier, previous research appears to converge on four dimensions: social functions (such as the expression of one's identity or personality), emotional functions (such as the induction of positive feelings), cogni tive or self-related functions (such as escapism), and arousal-related functions (such as calming down or passing time). These four dimensions might well account for the basic ways in which people use music in their daily lives.

Notice that cluster analysis and PCA/factor analysis presume that the research begins with a range of variables that ultimately capture all of the factors or dimensions pertaining to the phenomenon under consideration. The omission of even a single variable can theoretically lead to incomplete results if that variable proves to share little variance in common with the other variables. For example, in studying the factors that contribute to a person's height, the failure to include a variable related to developmental nutrition will led to deceptive results; one might wrongly conclude that only genetic factors are important. The validity of these analyses depends, in part, on including a sufficient range of variables so that all of the pertinent factors or dimensions are likely to emerge.

Accordingly, we propose to address the question of musical functions anew, starting with the most comprehensive list yet of potential music-related functions. In addition, we will aim to recruit a sample of participants covering all age groups, a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, and pursue our analysis without biasing the materials to any specific theory.

Fundamental functions of music—a comprehensive empirical study

The large number of functions of music that research has identified during the last decades has raised the question of a potential underlying structure: Are there functions that are more fundamental and are there others that can be subsumed under the fundamental ones? And if so, how many fundamental functions are there? As we have outlined above, many scientists have been in search of basic distinct dimensions among the functions of music. They have used statistical methods that help uncover such dimensions among a large number of variables: factor analyses or cluster analyses.

However, as we have also seen, the approaches and methods have been as different as the various functions suggested. For instance, some scholars have focused exclusively on the social functions of music while others have been interested in only the emotional ones; some used only adolescent participants while others consulted only older people. Thus, these researchers arrived at different categorizations according to their particular approach. To date, there is still no conclusive categorization of the functions of music into distinct dimensions, which makes psychological studies that rely on the use of music and its effects on cognition, emotion, and behavior still difficult (see also Stefanija, 2007 ). Although there exist some theoretically driven claims about what fundamental dimensions there might be (Tarrant et al., 2000 ; Laiho, 2004 ; Schubert, 2009 ; Lonsdale and North, 2011 ), there has been no large-scale empirical study that analyzed the number and nature of distinct dimensions using the broad range of all potential musical functions—known so far—all at once.

We sought to remedy this deficiency by assembling an exhaustive list of the functions of music that have been identified in past research and putting them together in one questionnaire study. Based on the research reviewed in the first part of this study, we identified more than 500 items concerned with musical use or function. Specifically, we assembled an aggregate list of all the questions and statements encountered in the reviewed research that were either theoretically derived or used in empirical studies. Of course, many of the items are similar, analogous, or true duplicates. After eliminating or combining redundant items, we settled on a list of 129 distinct items. All of the items were phrased as statements in the form “I listen to music because … ” The complete list of items is given in Table ​ TableA3, A3 , together with their German versions as used in our study.

Participants were asked to rate how strongly they agreed with each item-statement on a scale from 0 ( not at all ) to 6 ( fully agree ). When responding to items, participants were instructed to think of any style of music and of any situation in which they would listen to music. In order to obtain a sample that was heterogeneous with regard to age and socioeconomic background, we distributed flyers promoting the Internet link to our study in a local electronics superstore. Recruitment of participants was further pursued via some mailing lists of German universities, students from comprehensive schools, and members of a local choir. As an incentive, respondents got the chance to win a tablet computer. A total of 834 people completed the survey. Respondents ranged from 8 to 85 years of age ( M = 26, SD = 10.4, 57% female).

Notice that in carrying out such a survey, we are assuming that participants have relatively accurate introspective access to their own motivations in pursuing particular musical behaviors, and that they are able to accurately recall the appropriate experiences. Of course, there exists considerable empirical research casting doubt on the accuracy of motivational introspection in self-report tasks (e.g., Wilson, 2002 ; Hirstein, 2005 ; Fine, 2006 ). These caveats notwithstanding, in light of the limited options for gathering pertinent empirical data, we nevertheless chose to pursue a survey-based approach.

Principal component analysis revealed three distinct dimensions behind the 129 items (accounting for about 40% of the variance), based on the scree plot. This solution was consistent over age groups and genders. The first dimension (eigenvalue: 15.2%) includes statements about self-related thoughts (e.g., music helps me think about myself), emotions and sentiments (e.g., music conveys feelings), absorption (e.g., music distracts my mind from the outside world), escapism (e.g., music makes me forget about reality), coping (e.g., music makes me believe I'm better able to cope with my worries), solace (e.g., music gives comfort to me when I'm sad), and meaning (e.g., music adds meaning to my life). It appears that this dimension expresses a very private relationship with music listening. Music helps people think about who they are, who they would like to be, and how to cut their own path. We suggest labeling this dimension self-awareness . The second dimension (eigenvalue: 13.7%) includes statements about social bonding and affiliation (e.g., music helps me show that I belong to a given social group; music makes me feel connected to my friends; music tells me how other people think). People can use music to feel close to their friends, to express their identity and values to others, and to gather information about their social environment. We suggest labeling this dimension social relatedness . The third dimension (eigenvalue: 10.2%) includes statements about the use of music as background entertainment and diversion (e.g., music is a great pastime; music can take my mind off things) and as a means to get into a positive mood and regulate one's physiological arousal (e.g., music can make me cheerful; music helps me relax; music makes me more alert). We suggest labeling this dimension arousal and mood regulation . All factor loadings are reported in Table ​ TableA3 A3 .

In order to analyze the relative significance of the three derived dimensions for the listeners, we averaged the ratings for all items contained in each dimension (see Figure ​ Figure1). 1 ). Arousal and mood regulation proved to be the most important dimension of music listening closely followed by self-awareness. These two dimensions appear to represent the two most potent reasons offered by people to explain why they listen to music, whereas social relatedness seems to be a relatively less important reason (ranging below the scale mean). This pattern was consistent across genders, socioeconomic backgrounds, and age groups. All differences between the three dimensions are significant (all p s < 0.001). The reliability indices (Cronbach's α) for the three dimensions are α = 0.97 for the first, α = 0.96 for the second, and α = 0.92 for the third dimension.

The three distinct dimensions emerging from 129 reasons for listening to music . Error bars are 95% confidence intervals. Self-awareness: M = 3.59 ( SE = 0.037); social relatedness: M = 2.01 ( SE = 0.035); arousal and mood regulation: M = 3.78 ( SE = 0.032).

General discussion

Since the earliest writing on the psychology of music, researchers have been concerned with the many ways in which people use music in their lives. In the first part of this paper, we reviewed literature spanning psychological, musicological, biological, and anthropological perspectives on musical function. The picture that emerged from our review was somewhat confusing. Surveying the literature from the past 50 years, we identified more than 500 purported functions for music. From this list, we assembled a somewhat catholic list of 129 non-redundant musical functions. We then tested the verisimilitude of these posited functions by collecting survey responses from a comparatively large sample. PCA revealed just three distinct dimensions: People listen to music to achieve self-awareness , social relatedness , and arousal and mood regulation . We propose calling these the Big Three of music listening.

In part one of our study we noted that several empirical studies suggest grouping musical functions according to four dimensions: cognitive, emotional, social/cultural, and physiological/arousal-related functions. This raises the question of how our three-dimensional result might be reconciled with the earlier work. We propose that there is a rather straightforward interpretation that allows the four-dimensional perspective to be understood within our three-dimensional result. Cognitive functions are captured by the first dimension (self-awareness); social/cultural functions are captured by the second dimensions (social relatedness); physiological/arousal-related functions are captured by the third dimension (arousal and mood regulation); and emotional functions are captured by the first and third dimensions (self-awareness + arousal and mood regulation). Notably—as can be seen with the items in Table ​ TableA3—there A3 —there is a dissociation of emotion-related and mood-related functions. Emotions clearly appear in the first dimension (e.g., music conveys feelings; music can lighten my mood; music helps me better understand my thoughts and emotions), indicating that they might play an important role in achieving self-awareness, probably in terms of identity formation and self-perception, respectively. However, the regulation of moods clearly appears in the third dimension (e.g., music makes me cheerful; music can enhance my mood; I'm less bored when I listen to music), suggesting that moods are not central issues pertaining to identity. Along with the maintenance of a pleasant level of physiological arousal, the maintenance of pleasant moods is an effect of music that might rather be utilized as a “background” strategy, that is, not requiring a deep or aware involvement in the music. The regulation of emotions, on the other side, could be a much more conscious strategy requiring deliberate attention and devotion to the music. Music psychology so far has not made a clear distinction between music-related moods and emotions; and the several conceptions of music-related affect remain contentious (see Hunter and Schellenberg, 2010 ). Our results appear to call for a clearer distinction between moods and emotions in music psychology research.

As noted earlier, a presumed evolutionary origin for music need not be reflected in modern responses to music. Nevertheless, it is plausible that continuities exist between modern responses and possible archaic functions. Hence, the functions apparent in our study may echo possible evolutionary functions. The three functional dimensions found in our study are compatible with nearly all of the ideas about the potential evolutionary origin of music mentioned in the introduction. The idea that music had evolved as a means for establishing and regulating social cohesion and communication is consistent with the second dimension. The idea of music satisfying the basic human concerns of anxiety avoidance and quest for meaning is consistent with the first dimension. And the notion that the basic function of music could have been to produce dissociation and pleasure in the listener is consistent with the third dimension.

In light of claims that music evolved primarily as a means for promoting social cohesion and communication—a position favored by many scholars—the results appear noteworthy. Seemingly, people today hardly listen to music for social reasons, but instead use it principally to relieve boredom, maintain a pleasant mood, and create a comfortable private space. Such a private mode of music listening might simply reflect a Western emphasis on individuality: self-acknowledgement and well-being appear to be more highly valued than social relationships and relatedness (see also Roberts and Foehr, 2008 ; Heye and Lamont, 2010 ).

The results of the present study may be of interest to psychologists who make use of music as a tool or stimulus in their research. The way people usually listen to music outside the laboratory will surely influence how they respond to musical stimuli in psychological experiments. For those researchers who make use of music in psychological studies, some attention should be paid to how music is used in everyday life. The three dimensions uncovered in this study can provide a parsimonious means to identify the value a person sets on each of three different types of music use. It is also conceivable that individual patterns of music use are related to personality traits, a conjecture which may warrant future research.

With regard to music cognition, the present results are especially relevant to studies about aesthetic preferences, style or genre preferences, and musical choice. Recent research suggests that musical functions play an important role in the formation and development of music preferences (e.g., Schäfer and Sedlmeier, 2009 ; Rentfrow et al., 2011 ). It will be one of the future tasks of music cognition research to investigate the dependence of music preference and music choice on the functional use of music in people's lives.

By way of summary, in a self-report study, we found that people appear to listen to music for three major reasons, two of which are substantially more important than the third: music offers a valued companion, helps provide a comfortable level of activation and a positive mood, whereas its social importance may have been overvalued.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Overview of theoretical contributions that have derived, proposed, or addressed more than one function or functional aspect of music listening .

Overview about empirical studies that have identified and/or investigated more than one function or functional aspect of music listening .

In some places, we could only provide exemplary functions because either the total number of functions was too large to be displayed here or not all functions were given in the original publications .

The 129 statements referring to the functions of music exhaustively derived from past research, together with their means, standard deviations, and factor loadings (varimax rotated) .

Dimension 1, self-awareness; Dimension 2, social relatedness; Dimension 3, arousal and mood regulation .

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Research questions will keep you focused and on task. Sometimes your professor will include specific questions they want addressed within the prompt.  A research librarian can also help you develop questions based on the parameters of the assignment. Below are some generic questions that can help you get started.

• What biographical/historical  information is important to understanding your composer?
• What or who were the musical influences for your composer?
• What education & training did your composer receive?
• What are your composer’s  major works ?
• What is the most significant contribution of  your composer? Why?
• Did  your composer’s music change over time? How? Why?
• What specific musical elements does  composer incorporate into their work? To what effect?
• What styles/themes does  your composer explore?
• What other musicians have been influenced by  your composer

Below are some basic search terms that work well in our databases. A research librarian can also help you identify additional terms supporting your specific assignment.

Music -- History and criticism

Classical music

Music appreciation

Music theory

World music 

Composers and Women Composers

music - Combine this subject term with names of specific artistic movements, geographic regions, time periods, etc. (for example: Rap Music  or Music, Africa)

names of specific composers/musicians 

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Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-NC 4.0 Licenses .

Music Research Guide

• Construct a Research Question
• Source Selection & Evaluation
• Search Tips & Strategies
• Online Sources
• Data & Statistics
• Citing Sources [opens a new window] This link opens in a new window

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Characteristics of a Research Question

Research questions have a few characteristics.

• They're open-ended . (They can't be answered with a simple yes or no response.)
• They're often measurable through quantitative data or qualitative measures.
• They summarize the issue/topic being researched.
• They may take a fresh look at an issue or try to solve a problem.

In addition, research questions may . . .

• answer how or why questions.
• fit within a cause/effect structure.
• have a pro/con format.
• introduce an argument that is then supported with evidence .

Topic Selection

Topic selection is the process you use to choose your topic. This is the more creative side of topic development. There are several steps to this process.

• Brainstorming. Start a list of topics that interest you and are within the guidelines of the assignment. They could be personal, professional, or academic interests. Researching something that interests you is much more enjoyable and will keep you interested in the research process. Write down related words or phrases. These will be useful at the research stage.
• Reshaping the topic. Sometimes you'll choose a topic that's either too narrow or too broad. Find out ways to broaden or narrow the topic so that it's a better size to fit your research assignment. This is where Wikipedia and generic Google searches are okay. You can use those sites to get other ideas of how your topic idea may work. Perform some simple searches to see what information is out there. (Just be sure not to cite Wikipedia or Google.)
• Looking at the body of research. Once you have a topic that you think is a good size, take a look at the body of research that's available for the topic. Check in catalogs and databases. Look at reputable websites. You want to be sure that your topic has an adequate amount of research before you invest too much time into the idea.
• Revising. Throughout this process, be prepared to revise your topic. Don't think that you have to keep the same topic that you started with. Topic revision happens all the time. In fact, we often develop better topics as a result of this revision!

Topic Verification

Topic verification is the process you use to confirm your topic is viable for research. This is the more technical side of topic development. There are also several steps to this process.

• Using search strategies. Do some experimental searching in the databases using search strategies . Try different combinations to see what you find. Use your notes from your brainstorming to search for different synonyms or phrases.
• Locating relevant and reliable information. At this stage, you want to see if you can find both a good quality and good quantity of sources. You don't need to read the entirety of the sources right now. Just read their abstracts and identifying information. Confirm that the sources you find support each other. Double-check the authority of the authors. This is the source evaluation stage.
• Verifying information. Once you've confirmed that the sources are reliable and relevant, decide whether or not you can verify the information in the sources. If your sources corrobate each other, you have a good topic. In fact, even if they dispute each other, that is sometimes okay. It just depends on your topic's goal. However, if you cannot verify the reliability of any of your sources' information, then you may need to start over again with a new topic idea.
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• Last Updated: Dec 7, 2023 11:04 AM
• URL: https://libguides.columbiastate.edu/music

Music Research Topics

Published by Boni on October 31, 2022 October 31, 2022

Music is a highly influential aspect of our society today. It has been part of our lives for a long time now. As music evolves, everyone has their specific taste for a given genre, musical instrument or song. Some common genres may include hip-hop, rock, reggae or roots. The evolution of music has led to the subject being incorporated in the school curriculum.

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For any student pursuing a career in music, one of the important aspects of the degree is the research paper. Getting the right topic for your research essay is always a challenge to most students however, this article will have relevant examples you can get inspiration from.

Tips on how to Select the Best Music Research Paper Topic?

Choosing a good topic for any research paper is essential, especially if you aim to attain good results in your paper. The following tips will guide you in choosing the most appropriate music research topic. 

1. Be clear on your topic

Be sure of your topic before starting to write your paper; this means that you should have adequate knowledge of what type of research you are planning to conduct. For example, if you plan to include information about the impact of music on criminal behavior, then be sure that you have sufficient knowledge about music in criminal behavior. 

2. Use sources

Make sure that you have sufficient material to use in your paper. You should use sources such as books, journals, and websites containing information on the topic you plan to write about. These sources will help with your research, as they will provide well-written articles to develop your topic.

3. Develop sources

If you do not have any material to use in your paper, there are many places where you can get sources. In this case, you have to develop your sources. For example, if the topic is about the effect of music on plastic surgery, you can use research papers on medical concepts and statistics about plastic surgery performed by newspapers and magazines. You can also conduct interviews with experts in these areas of study; however, make sure that they are reliable.

4. Seek help from a professional

The professional help you should consider getting is that of a reviewer. A music research paper is more challenging than other academic papers; it requires greater attention to detail and a deeper understanding of your research topic. Therefore, you should get a professional from a reputable service to help you review your work before submitting it. Gudwriter has the best research paper essay writing service that gurantees you quality music research papers from our qulified team of experts.

Music Research Topics Examples

Below are some of the most popular music research topics:

Music History Research Topics

History is known for its accurate records, and this is also applicable to music research. For example, if you want to write a paper on the history of Broadway musicals, you should have information about the different shows produced in the past and their influences on performers. This will ensure that you get your paper done properly.

A list of topics relating to music history would include:

1. The history of the synthesizers

2. The history of music in the United States

3. The evolution of classical music

4. The history of pop music styles

5. The evolution of folk music in America

6. How technology has influenced the evolution of music styles

7. The development and influence of hip-hop

8. The history of European classical music

9. The history of African-American music

10. The history of Latin American music

11. The effect of the digital age on the evolution of music styles

Music Therapy Research Topics

These are brilliant essay topics that research on how therapeutic music can be in the society. Examples of these topics could be:

• How does music treat psychological conditions?
• How can you calm an individual using the theme?
• What do people love most about classical music?
• Does listening to music affect your effectiveness?
• What is the impact of music as a subject in schools?
• Can music help reduce stress?
• Can an individual use music to heal eating disorders?
• Why do most psychologists prefer using music when performing their work?
• Can music lyrics help enhance your brain capacity?
• Music and therapy
• How does music help students in education?
• Scientific research and music
• How does music help learn psychology?
• What music genre is written in different countries?
• How music affects student’s productivity

Music Theory Topics

This music category is for the music theory lovers. It may help investigate the theories in music such as characteristics of music in different eras and crucial aspects of music in societies. Great examples may include:

• Brilliant characteristics of Romantic-age songs
• How music evolved in the Baroque Era
• Who were the top compositors during the Romantic era?
• Remarkable features of Baroque-age music
• Uncovering symbols during the Renaissance-period music
• How classical music relates to medical applications
• Major music directions during the 20 th century
• What are the crucial aspects of music?
• History of modern hip-hop
• Why is it that most intellectuals prefer rock music?

Music History Research Paper Topics

This is another field where you can find plenty of research topics to work on. History offers us the chance to examine and understand the origin of a particular music genre or issue related to music. You can pick any of the following topics for your music history research paper:

• Origin of black music
• History of musical instruments
• What is the female impact on the jazz music genre?
• Imperial Japanese and Chinese Music
• Who created the music?
• Music as it was used in the Holy Roman Empire
• Main aspects of modernism music
• How politics influenced music back then?
• Modern music culture
• Why are music studies important?
• Conventional archetypes in music
• How is music connected to important functions and events?
• Genius of Bach
• Folk music and how it impacts the population

Music Psychology Research Topics

Connecting psychology and music is not something new. However, the category has not been researched as it should be. Researchers have barely scratched the ground on the music psychology research topics. That is why this is a good topic to research on. Consider the following suggestions:

• Are sound therapies efficient?
• Does music education impact our abnormal activities in the brain?
• Does music impact our state of mind, mood, and overall mental health?
• How tones affect mental development in teens, children, and toddlers
• How does playing a piano enhance communication skills of individuals with communication issues?
• What are cultural differences in music?
• Changes in music consumption patterns in young people
• How has music changed how students think and act?
• Can music enhance your sleep at night?
• Does a specific genre of music champion for drug abuse that affects our psychology?

Classical Music Research Topics

For the classical sounds’ lovers, this is the category to research on. You can research on how this music works, when it started, its history, and the traits of the listeners. Below are some common example topics to pick from:

• What songs fall under the classical genre?
• What is the history of the classical music category?
• Is classical music impactful today?
• What role does classical sound play in Disney production?
• Most impactful classical projects
• Character traits of classical music listeners
• Role of women in the classical genre
• Are classical sounds and metal the same?
• How modern melodies differ from classical music
• Why is Mozart different from other composers in the classical genre

Music Thesis Topics

Other excellent research topics you can handle include the music thesis topics. These topics typically cover a wide range of areas in the music field from analysis of specific genres to examination of cultural implications. Examples may include:

• A comparative study of traditional music practices in different ethnic communities
• The psychological effects of listening to music on emotional well-being and mood regulation
• What is music’s role in the LGBTQ+ community?
• Examining how music is a catalyst for change in the Hip-Hop culture
• Investigating effects of music training on neural development and cognitive abilities
• The impact of live music performances on audience emotional response and engagement
• Use of music as a mnemonic device
• What role does music play in promoting cognitive development in children?
• A comparative study of traditional and digital distribution models
• Tracing the origin of jazz music and its influences from African Roots to modern interpretations
• Examining female empowerment in pop music lyrics

Music Controversial Topics

Popular music is always being criticized and is often the focus of research discussions. While this is normal and not uncommon, such criticism can also be turned into a paper used in studies. Below are some examples of topics related to popular music research:

1. The use of information technology (IT) in today’s music industry

2. The politics behind the use of the word “pop” in mainstream U.S. pop culture

3. The effect of hip-hop on today’s society

4. The origins of dance music

5. The use of metaphors in today’s music

6. The role of the internet in pop music

7. The effect of lyrics on the music style

8. The impact of sex and drugs in the creation of pop music and its stereotypes

9. The influence of the Beatles on other bands and musicians

10. How racism affected black musicians during the 1960s and has affected them today 

Music Argument Topics

This type of music research focuses on the use of statistical analysis, as well as on other methods such as opinion surveys and field studies. Below are some examples of argumentative research topics:

1. The evolution of music piracy over time

2. The impact of digital piracy on the evolution of music and other elements related to it

3. How access to free, illegally downloaded music has affected the sales of CDs and records

4. The effect of parental guidance on censorship in music lyrics

5. The role that education systems worldwide play in the promotion or censoring of certain genres

6. The importance and effectiveness of copyright laws in preventing illegal downloads

7. The impact of music piracy on the global music market

8. How the evolution of technology has affected the sales of CDs and records

9. The effect of global warming on musical genres

10. The dangers that peer-to-peer networks pose to the online security of users’ computers 

Learn the basic steps to follow in writing your research paper .

Hip-Hop Research Topics

Hip-hop is a music style that originated in the United States. Its popularity has spread globally, and its music is easily recognized nowadays. It is based on African American tradition and culture, and its roots can be traced to the blues music of the 1960s. The strong beat in hip-hop music was influenced by the funk music that was popular then.

Depending on your interest, you can conduct research on a wide range of topics related to hip hop; these include, but are not limited to:

1. The history of hip hop

2. The origins of hip-hop and its influences on the world’s culture

3. The impact of hip-hop on various aspects of society, including politics, music, and language

4. How hip hop has influenced the evolution of music styles around the world

5. The effect that hip hop and other forms of music have had on other aspects of culture around the world

6. The effect that social change, technology, and political powers have had on hip-hop culture 

7. The effect of hip-hop on the body image of women

8. The impact of hip-hop on the culture around the world 

9. How hip hop has affected the media and its portrayal of women

10. The use of sampling in pop music genres 

Debatable Music Topics

Debatable topics are those that people have different feelings about. For example, while some people think rap music is harmful to children, others believe it’s a positive influence in their lives. The same applies to other genres of music.

Below are several examples of debatable music topics:

1. The impact of MP3s and peer-to-peer networks on the sales of CDs and records 

2. The effects of hip-hop on society and its stereotypes 

3. The psychology behind the creation of pop music 

4. The use of sampling in pop music genres 

5. The impact of sex and drugs in the creation of pop music and its stereotypes 

6. The role that education systems worldwide play in the promotion or censoring of certain genres 

7. The effect of media censorship on hip-hop culture 

8. The influence of the law on music genres, such as hip-hop, rap, and rock-and-roll 

Music Appreciation Research Topics

Many people enjoy music and want to learn more about worldwide music styles. If you are interested in pursuing a music appreciation research topic, here are some additional topics that you may explore:

1. The history of music and how it has changed the world

2. How pop music styles differ from one country to another 

3. The effects of global warming on musical genres

4. How hip-hop has shaped modern culture, such as language and fashion

5. The impact of social change on the emergence and development of new music styles and genres 

6. How the internet has influenced the evolution of music styles

7. The use of metaphors in music 

8. How technology has influenced the evolution of music styles

9. The impact of hip-hop on modern society, including politics and language 

10. How African-American music has shaped modern cultures, such as language and fashion 

Music Education Research Topics

If you are a student in a music program, you can research your music skills and improve them. Here are several ideas for topics that you could discuss:

1. The effect of hip-hop on education and its impact on the language spoken by children

2. The history of rap music, from its roots to modern times

3. The composition of rhythm and blues songs and their histories

4. The musical arrangement of rap songs throughout history

5. The role that race plays in the creation of rap music 

6. How sex and drugs affect the creation of pop music and influence its lyrics

7. The influence of rock-and-roll on other genres, such as jazz, blues, and country 

8. The history of sampling and its importance in the creation of hip hop 

9. The history of copyright laws and their impact on musical piracy 

Pop Culture Research Topics

You can research pop culture’s appeal, from films and television shows to music. Below are examples of topics that may interest you:

1. The history of film, including horror and action movies

2. The psychology behind the creation of pop music and its components

3. The impact that different types of music have had on society, such as race and sex 

4. How technology has influenced the evolution of music styles throughout history 

5. The role that education systems worldwide play in the promotion or censoring of certain genres 

6. The creativity involved in the composition and arrangement of pop songs

7. How pop culture has influenced language around the world

8. The history of hip-hop and its impact on modern languages

9. How African-American music has shaped modern cultures, such as language and fashion 

10. The history of sampling and its importance in the creation of hip hop 

Rap Topics Ideas

Many people enjoy listening to rap music. If you are interested in learning more about this genre, here are several topics that you may discuss:

1. How rap music has evolved throughout history

2. The role that sampling has played in the creation of various hip-hop styles 

3. How societal changes have affected rap music and its lyrics

4. How sampling has influenced modern music styles around the world 

5. The evolution of hip-hop, including its impact on popular culture

6. How rap music has influenced the language of African-Americans

7. The political overtones behind rap music and its impact on modern society

8. The effect that sex and drugs have had on the creation of rap music and its content 

If you are interested in pursuing a research topic about music, you now have several ideas to help guide you. Remember that topics should be able to answer your research questions, so make sure to explore those ideas thoroughly.

You should also remember that research is an opportunity for personal growth. If you take the time to conduct thorough research and include quality sources in your project, you will learn more about these topics and yourself.

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• 10 Research Question Examples to Guide Your Research Project

10 Research Question Examples to Guide your Research Project

Published on October 30, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on October 19, 2023.

The research question is one of the most important parts of your research paper , thesis or dissertation . It’s important to spend some time assessing and refining your question before you get started.

The exact form of your question will depend on a few things, such as the length of your project, the type of research you’re conducting, the topic , and the research problem . However, all research questions should be focused, specific, and relevant to a timely social or scholarly issue.

Once you’ve read our guide on how to write a research question , you can use these examples to craft your own.

Note that the design of your research question can depend on what method you are pursuing. Here are a few options for qualitative, quantitative, and statistical research questions.

Other interesting articles

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Impact of background music on reading comprehension: influence of lyrics language and study habits.

• 1 Department of Applied Psychology, College of Sports and Health, Shandong Sport University, Jinan, China
• 2 School of Physical Education, Shandong University, Jinan, China
• 3 Department of Insurance, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China
• 4 School of Psychology, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China
• 5 Zizhong Middle School, Linqing, China
• 6 College of Physical Education and Health, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China

Numerous studies have explored the effects of background music on reading comprehension, however, little is known about how native language (L1) lyrics and second language (L2) lyrics in background music influence reading comprehension performance for college students. The present study used a mixed experimental design to examine the effects of listening habits (between-participants variable: non-listeners or listeners), music type (between-participants variable: L1 (Mandarin) pop music, L2 (English) pop music or no music) and text language (within-participants variable: L1 or L2) on reading comprehension of college students in East China. A total of 90 participants (50 females) were screened into non- listeners ( n  = 45) and listeners ( n  = 45), and then were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Mandarin pop music group ( n = 30), English pop music group ( n  = 30) and no music group ( n  = 30). The results showed that reading comprehension performance was negatively affected by music with lyrics compared to the no music condition. Furthermore, Chinese/English reading comprehension was reduced more by pop music in the same language as the written texts. As expected, non-listeners were more negatively affected by music with lyrics than listeners. For both listeners and non-listeners, average reading comprehension accuracy rates were the lowest in the condition of music with native language lyrics. Overall, our research findings indicate that listening to pop music with lyrics reduces reading comprehension performance. However, listening to background music cause much less distraction if the students commonly listen to music while reading. The current study supports the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.

1 Introduction

Listening to music while studying is a common and popular trend for college students. Calderwood et al. (2014) found that 59% of the college students chose to listen to music during a 3-h study session, with 21% listening for more than 90% of the time. Although several studies have demonstrated positive effects of background instrumental music on reading comprehension ( Carlson et al., 2004 ; Khaghaninejad et al., 2016 ) and second language learning ( Kang and Williamson, 2012 ), irrelevant sound from vocal music may cause auditory distraction from the task at hand ( Martin et al., 1988 ; Furnham and Strbac, 2002 ; Perham and Currie, 2014 ; Zhang et al., 2018 ; Du et al., 2020 ). Efficient learning is extremely important for college students. However, high levels of auditory distraction will not only affect efficient learning, but also impair mental and physical function and cause irritation and headaches in schools ( Astolfi et al., 2019 ). Thus, it is important to explore the mechanisms that produce auditory distraction. According to the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, the disruptive effect can be induced by interference-by-process or attentional capture ( Marsh et al., 2008 , 2009 ). To date, previous studies investigating the impact of music on reading comprehension have primarily focused on differences between instrumental and lyrical music (e.g., Erten et al., 2015 ), as well as the influence of differences in musical volume and speed (e.g., Thompson et al., 2012 ). Notably, these studies have not taken into consideration differences in participant preferences for listening to music while reading. In contrast, the present study investigated how differences in the lyrical language of the same song differentially influence reading comprehension based on reported music-listening habits. With the aim of testing the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, our study explored the interactive effects of native language (L1) lyrics and second language (L2) lyrics in music on reading comprehension performance in L1 and L2 for listeners and non-listeners by using a 3-factor mixed experimental design.

1.1 A duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction

According to the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, there are two functionally different types of auditory distraction. Interference-by-process occurs when a similar process used consciously to complete a focal task competes with the involuntary processing of sound. On the other hand, regardless of the task processes involved, attentional capture occurs when the sound triggers a disengagement of attention from the dominant task ( Hughes, 2014 ). For example, semantic speech (e.g., “orange, banana, strawberry”) can cause distraction effects on semantic-based cognitive tasks (e.g., free recall of visually presented words “apple, mango, pear”) ( Marsh et al., 2008 ). According to the interference-by-process theory, semantically similar speech automatically spreads activation through a long-term semantic network, interfering with the similar process of navigating such networks to retrieve information for the focal task ( Marsh and Jones, 2010 ; Hughes, 2014 ). Interference-by-process explains the semantic distraction effects. Attentional capture falls into two categories: When a sound’s unique content (such as one’s name or one’s native language) gives it the ability to deflect attention, a specific attentional capture takes place. In contrast, when an occurrence draws attention despite having nothing inherently attention-grabbing about it, but rather because of the context in which it takes place, nonspecific attentional capture is created ( Eimer et al., 1996 ). For example, a sound “B” in “CCCCCBCC” or a sound “C” in “BBBBBCBB.” Our study focused on interference-by-process and a specific attentional capture.

1.2 The impact of background music on reading comprehension

Reading comprehension, an important and necessary skill for effective academic learning in college, refers to the active process by which individuals understand and construct the meaning of texts based on prior knowledge and experience ( Perfetti et al., 2005 ). Kämpfe et al. (2010) claimed that reading might be more disturbed by vocal music than by instrumental music ( Kämpfe et al., 2010 ). The duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction has been supported by research evidence demonstrating the disruptive effects of background speech on various memory tasks such as serial short-term memory tasks. However, little is known about supporting evidence from the distraction effects of L1/L2 lyrics on L1/L2 reading comprehension among listeners and non-listeners. According to the simple view of reading model, reading comprehension consists of only two parts, word recognition and language comprehension, and both parts are necessary for reading success ( Hoover and Gough, 1990 ). For college students, mature readers whose word recognition has attained to a level of automation, language comprehension plays the more important role in reading comprehension. Lyrics in music contain semantic information, which will interfere with language comprehension ( Martin et al., 1988 ; Oswald et al., 2000 ). Thus, we expect that lyrics will induce semantic distraction effects on reading comprehension performance. Our first hypothesis was that the accuracy rates in music conditions would be significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music for college students (H1).

The impact of background music on reading comprehension is generally contingent on multiple factors such as music types (instrumental or lyric music with various tempos, intensity, familiarity) ( Banbury et al., 2001 ; Hallam and Mac Donald, 2009 ). In addition to music types, previous studies have confirmed that the effects of music on reading comprehension can be significantly different in various levels of individual diversity (e.g., personality and music preferences) or difficulty of the reading comprehension task ( Kiger, 1989 ; Kallinen, 2002 ; Anderson and Fuller, 2010 ). For example, Anderson and Fuller (2010) suggested that disruptive effects of background lyrical music on reading comprehension was more pronounced for 7th- and 8th-grade students exhibiting a stronger preference for the lyrical music, compared with their performance in a quiet environment. Our experimental work focused on identifying interactive effects of music (pop music with L1/L2 lyrics), individual habits (e.g., listening to music in daily study) and tasks (L1/L2 written texts), which helps test whether interference-by-process and a specific attentional capture occurs.

First, pop music is the preferred music genre for most college students ( Etaugh and Michals, 1975 ; Wang and Wang, 2015 ). For example, Wang and Wang (2015) surveyed 3,688 Chinese college students in Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Shanghai, Henan and Jiangxi regions of Mainland China, and found that: (1) the proportion of college students who liked pop music was as high as 65.05%; (2) 35.23% college students chose “love” as their favorite pop music theme comparing with themes “nostalgic” 33.21%, “witty/humorous” 14.27%, “alternative” 9.49%,“other” 15.73%; (3) 47.85% college student’ favorite singers are from “Hong Kong and Taiwan.” Thus, we choose a masterpiece of classic Mandarin pop music “The Goodbye Kiss” (sung by Jacky Cheung) as the music. Although the song was released in 1993, from its release to 2020, there have been covers of the song by well-known singers almost every year. Specially, this song was covered by Michael Learns to Rock (MLTR) in 2004, and the English version of this song “Take me to your heart” became a classic of international music. Comparing the lyrics of the two songs, the Mandarin lyrics of “The Goodbye Kiss” have a total of 52 sentences, and the whole song is divided into two subsections. The shortest sentence in Mandarin lyrics has a total of five Chinese words, and the longest sentence has 19 words; the English lyrics reproduce the characteristics of the original Chinese sentence well in terms of sentence length and neatness, the shortest sentence consists of four words, and the longest is only 10 words ( Wei, 2012 ). Thus, we chose the pop music with lyrics “The Goodbye Kiss” as our vocal music.

Second, Mandarin Chinese (L1) and English (L2) are the top 2 most spoken languages in the world, and belong to two different language families ( Ethnologue, n.d. ). Additionally, all Chinese students begin their English study in their third year of primary school or even earlier, and studying English is a key subject for the Chinese college entrance examination required for admission to the university. They will continue to study English to pass College English Test Band 4/6 (CET- 4/6, essential English exams for Chinese college students) in college, and have considerable exposure to English music. English is the most important and widely studied second language for most Chinese college students. Hence, we chose Chinse college students from Mainland China who learn English as a second language for the experiment. Based on the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, when a similar process is used purposefully to accomplish a focal cognitive task and the involuntary processing of sound competes with it, interference-by-process occurs ( Hughes, 2014 ). In our experiment, interference-by-process is produced when lyrics are presented to college students who are deliberately completing a focal reading comprehension task, especially when the lyrics language is the same as the text language in the reading comprehension tasks. That is, the semantic activation of lyrics competes with the semantic access of reading comprehension tasks with the same language as lyrics. Thus, our hypothesis is that Chinese/English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language would be significantly lower than that in different languages or no music (H2). To be specific, we hypothesized that Chinese reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music with Mandarin lyrics would be significantly lower than when listening to music with English lyrics, and English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to English music would be significantly lower than when listening to Mandarin music.

Third, students frequently report that listening to music while studying is useful ( Etaugh and Ptasnik, 1982 ), and these students are more likely to form the habit of listening to music in daily study. However, students without the habit instinctively think that music listening can provide a distraction that might affect reading comprehension. Individual differences in inhibitory control may exist between two groups. Inhibitory control refers to the ability to suppress an inappropriate reaction or disregard distracting or irrelevant information, and increased inhibitory control in students probably makes it easier for them to ignore distractions in their surroundings and concentrate on tasks inside and outside of the classroom ( Privitera et al., 2022b ). However, non-listeners do not develop the habit of listening to music while studying, probably because they have a low level of inhibitory control to concentrate on the focal tasks. Thus, we hypothesized that college students who typically did not report listening to music during study (non-listeners) would have lower reading comprehension accuracy rates than listeners when music was present (H3).

Based on the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, regardless of the quality of target tasks (e.g., Chinese/English comprehension), auditory attentional capture happens whenever a sound produces a disengagement from tasks. Numerous sound varieties (e.g., one’s own name, or her own infant’s screams for a mother) have abilities to specifically captivate attention ( Hughes, 2014 ). Native language (Mandarin Chinese) is familiar and highly dominant, and may cause a specific attentional capture. We expect that both non-listeners and listeners may be more susceptible to auditory distraction when Mandarin music is present rather than English music. That is, in general, people’s ability to understand what they read was worse when they listened to music with native language compared to music in a second language or no music at all. Thus, for both non-listeners and listeners, we hypothesized that average reading comprehension accuracy rates (without distinction between Chinese and English) would be the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with the English/no music condition (H4).

1.3 Research questions

In sum, it is worth examining the effects of different habits of listening to music on reading comprehension performance, which can help clarify whether cultivating habits of listening to music while studying is valuable or not. In addition, few studies used both lyrics languages and music-listening habits while study to explore distractive effects of music on reading comprehension. To solve this problem, in this paper, we designed an experiment to explore the effects of music type, written text language and listening habits on reading comprehension among Chinese college students. Our research questions are: (1) would the accuracy rates in music conditions be significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music for college students? (2) would Chinese/English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language be significantly lower than that in different languages or no music? (3) would non-listeners have lower L1 and L2 reading comprehension accuracy rates than listeners when music was present? (4) would average reading comprehension accuracy rates (without distinction between Chinese and English) be the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with the English/no music condition?

2.1 Participants

Before the experiment, we calculated the minimum sample size of each group of participants using G*Power 3.1.9.7 software ( Faul et al., 2007 ) to reach the statistical power. For observing a similar effect to relevant studies ( Peng et al., 2017 ), we use Effect size f  = 0.22, ɑ = 0.05, 1-β = 0.8 as parameters, number of groups = 6, number of measurements = 2, non-sphericity correction = 1; under the F test of ANOVA: repeated measures, within-between interaction ( Faul et al., 2021 ). Hence the total minimum number of participants should be 72, and the minimum number of participants in each large group should be 36.

The participants were screened by filling out a researcher-designed questionnaire of background music listening habits. All participants were recruited randomly from Shandong Sport University in Shandong Province of Mainland China. A total of 90 participants (50 females) between 18 to 21 years of age (Mean = 19.14, SD = 0.92) were selected. Our experiment divided the participants into 2 large groups first: listeners (45 participants) and non-listeners (45 participants). Participants in each large group were randomly assigned to one of three groups: 15 Mandarin pop music group, 15 English pop music group and 15 no music group. All six groups of participants were assigned Chinese and English texts.

Participants were native Mandarin Chinese speakers who started learning English in the third grade of primary school. None of the participants were music majors and English majors, and none of the participants had any formal musical training. They were all right-handed with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. The experimental protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Shandong Sport University in China, and conducted in compliance with institutional guidelines and regulations. All participants signed an informed consent form prior to the experiment.

2.2 Experimental design

This study used a mixed factorial experimental design. There were two between-participants independent variables and a within-participants independent variable. The between-participants variables were listening habits (with two levels: listeners or non-listeners) and music type (with three levels: Mandarin pop music, English pop music or no music). The within-participants variable was text language (with two levels: Chinese or English). The dependent variable was accuracy rates for the reading comprehension tasks. Accuracy rates were defined as the mean percentage of the number of Chinese (English) reading comprehension items answered correctly in the total number of Chinese (English) reading comprehension items.

2.3 Materials and apparatus

Materials consisted of a questionnaire, pop music stimuli and written texts. The questionnaire was Researcher-designed Background Music Listening Habits Questionnaire, a self-report survey that was developed to assess participants’ habits of listening to music during study. This scale contained 15 items, each item rated on a Likert 5-point scale ranging from 1 to 5 (1 = Do not agree at all, 2 = Hardly agree, 3 = not sure, 4 = Mostly agree, 5 = Completely agree), and was scored as a continuous variable from 15 (minimum score) to 75 (maximum score). The Cronbach’s ɑ of the scale was 0.87. We used the questionnaire to screen listeners (a total score higher than 60, 60 is the average score of selecting option 4) and non-listeners (a total score lower than 30, 30 is the average score of selecting option 2) to examine distinct effects of listening habits on reading comprehension performance in the formal experiment.

Mandarin song “The Goodbye Kiss” (Mandarin name “Wen3 Bie2,” sung by Jacky Cheung) and English song “Take Me to Your Heart” (sung by Michael Learns to Rock) were used as background music stimuli, as these two songs have the same rhythm and tempo. The two songs were once popular music that are familiar to most Chinese college students. We used a music editor software Adobe Audition CS6 (Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, CA, United States) to delete the blank space of “The Goodbye Kiss,” and the part with lyrics was kept to ensure that the participants could always be in a music environment with lyrics while carrying out reading comprehension tasks.

Chinese texts (300 character for each text) were selected from simulated tests of the College Entrance Examination; these texts are all about science and technology. English texts (150 words for each text) about education were selected from Public English Test System 3 (PET-3) tests. Preliminary tests were conducted on 120 college students, and finally 7 Chinese texts (coefficient of difficulty between 0.81 and 0.87) and 7 English texts (coefficient of difficulty between 0.85 and 0.90) were selected. There are no significant differences in difficulty coefficient of the 14 written texts. The difficulty coefficient of each text was estimated by the mean number of correct answers/4 (total number of questions). The coefficient of difficulty 0.81 indicates that, on average, three questions were correctly answered by college students. Participants read passages that were two paragraphs long, and then answered four true or false items following each passage. The items include both literal and inferential comprehension questions. Answers to literal questions involve facts such as who, when, where and what, and they can always be found in the texts. For example, “As early as 1909, Max Mow confirmed that there are some cells in the blood that can make blood, True or False.” For inferential questions, participants are required to determine a text’s meaning indirectly by using the information provided in the text. For example, “By the time most students graduate from high school, they spend less time watching TV than they do in class, True or False.” 3 Chinese texts and 3 English texts were used for assessing the levels of reading comprehension of all three groups (L1 pop music, L2 pop music and no music) of participants before the formal experiments. This was done to make sure that there were no significant differences of Chinese and English reading comprehension levels among the three groups. A different set of 3 Chinese texts and 3 English texts were used for the formal experiments. A Chinese text (difficulty coefficient 0.84) and an English text (difficulty coefficient 0.90) were selected for use in the practice phase.

The apparatus consisted of Lenovo laptops (Yoga 14 s, Lenovo Group Ltd., Beijing, China), noise-canceling headphones (SONY WH-1000XM3, Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan) and E-prime 2.0. The music stimuli, instructions, texts and questions were all presented on Lenovo laptops using programs written in E-prime 2.0 (Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, PA, United States) ( Schneider et al., 2012a , b ).

2.4 Procedure

Participants filled out the informed consent for participating in the study, then were screened by filling out the Questionnaire of Background Music Listening Habits online. Based on the questionnaire total score, the participants were divided into two large group: listeners and non-listeners. Participants in each large group were randomly assigned to one of three groups (Mandarin music, English music and no music). All three groups of participants completed Chinese and English reading comprehension tasks without music before formal experiments, and no significant differences of Chinese and English reading comprehension performance were observed among the three groups.

In the formal experiment phase, all participants were asked to complete experiment tasks in a quiet lab, with 10 participants in each group seated at individual tables with Lenovo laptops and headphones. First, participants were told to put on headphones and conduct the experiment on Lenovo laptops individually. All music was played between 60 dB ~ 65 dB(A), each participant first put on the headphones and checked to see whether the playback function of the headphones was normal. Then, Participants completed Chinese and English reading comprehension test items under each condition of music type. For each condition, half of the participants read the Chinese text first and the other half read the English text first. The 3 Chinese texts and 3 English texts were presented to participants randomly. After reading each passage, participants pressed the spacebar to end the reading (The maximum reading time for each text is 5 min), and proceeded to answer comprehension questions by pressing “T” (indicating truth) or “F” (indicating false) on keyboards. The flow chart of the experimental procedure presented using E-prime 2.0 was shown in Figure 1 .

Figure 1 . The flow chart of the experimental procedure presented using E-prime 2.0.

Participants were asked to answer questions as accurately as possible after reading the passages and to ignore the music. The accuracy rate of each participant was calculated by the total number of Chinese/English items answered correctly/12 (the total number of Chinese/English reading comprehension items). Every participant completed both Chinese texts and English texts in one of three conditions (Mandarin Chinese pop music, English pop music and no music). We tested the effects of listening to music in the same language conditions (L1 music + L1 texts, L2 music + L2 texts) or different language conditions (L1 music + L2 texts, L2 music + L1 texts). For example, participants listening to L1 (Mandarin Chinese) pop music completed L1 (Chinese) texts (the same as lyrics language) and L2 (English) texts (different from lyrics language). Music was played until all participants finished reading comprehension test items.

2.5 Statistical analyses

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS, version 23.0; IBM SPSS, Armonk, NY, United States) was used for analysis of the data. The assumptions of ANOVA (homogeneity of variances and normal distribution) were tested. Then the reading comprehension accuracy rates were analyzed using a three-way mixed ANOVA with a within-participants factor (two types of written text language) and two between-participant variables (listening habits and music type). The alpha criterion was set to 0.05. Bonferroni correction was carried out for all post hoc analyses.

One-way ANOVA revealed that baseline reading comprehension performances of three groups (Mandarin music group, English music group and no music group) have no significant difference [Chinese: F (2, 87) = 0.226, p  = 0.718; English: F (2, 87) = 0.217, p  = 0.806].

3.1 Descriptive statistics

Means and standard deviations of the reading comprehension accuracy rates are shown in Table 1 . A three-way mixed ANOVA for reading comprehension accuracy rates, including two between-participants factors (2 listening habit, 3 music type) and one within-participants factor (2 written text language) was performed ( Table 2 ).

Table 1 . Reading comprehension accuracy rates [mean (standard deviations)] by group and condition.

Table 2 . A three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) of reading comprehension accuracy rates.

3.2 Main effect analysis and interactive effect analyses

3.2.1 main effects of music type.

We tested our hypothesis (H1) that the accuracy rates in music conditions would be significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music for college students. We performed a three-way mixed ANOVA for reading comprehension accuracy rates to obtain the main effects and interactive effects. Significant main effects of music type [ F (2, 87) = 232.791, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.847] were observed as shown in Table 2 . Post hoc analyses revealed the accuracy rates in Mandarin and English music conditions are significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music ( ps < 0.01). A mean difference of accuracy rates was −0.081 between Mandarin music and English music condition (95% CI: [−0.110, −0.051]), and was −0.175 between English music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.205, −0.145]). Thus, the results confirmed our hypothesis H1. The result reveals that music with lyrics decreased reading comprehension performance as compared to no music.

3.2.2 Interactive effects of music type and text language

Our second hypothesis (H2) was confirmed by using a three-way mixed ANOVA. H2 was that Chinese/English reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language would be significantly lower than those with different languages. We observed a significant interaction between music type and text language [ F (2, 87) = 113.829, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.730] as shown in Table 2 . For Chinese reading comprehension, as shown in Figure 2 , post hoc analyses showed that the accuracy rates in Mandarin music group were significantly lower than English music group [ t (58) = −5.526, p < 0.001] and no music group [ t (58) = −8.420, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of Chinese reading accuracy rates was −0.286 between Mandarin music and English music condition (95% CI: [−0.392, −0.180]), and was −0.378 between Mandarin music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.484, −0.272]). For English reading comprehension, the accuracy rates in the English music group were significantly lower than the Mandarin music group [ t (58) = −2.385, p = 0.023 < 0.05; Figure 2 ] and the no music group [ t (58) = −7.041, p < 0.001; Figure 2 ]. A mean difference of English reading accuracy rates was −0.125 between English music and Mandarin music condition (95% CI: [−0.234, −0.016]), and was −0.258 between English music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.367, −0.150]). These results confirmed our hypothesis H2, and suggested that college students were more distracted by music in the same language as the written texts.

Figure 2 . Accuracy rates of Chinese reading comprehension and English reading comprehension for different music types. ** p  < 0.01; *** p  < 0.001.

3.2.3 Main effects of listening habits and interactive effects of listening habits and music type

Three-way mixed ANOVA was also used to test our third hypothesis (H3) that non-listeners would have lower reading comprehension accuracy rates than listeners when music was present. The results in Table 2 showed that a significant main effect of listening habits [ F (1, 88) = 634.331, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.883]. Post hoc analyses revealed that reading comprehension accuracy rates were lower in non-listeners than listeners ( p < 0.001). The Table 2 also showed that the interactive effects of listening habits and music type were significant [ F (2, 87) = 160.672, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.793]. Post hoc analyses showed significantly lower reading comprehension accuracy rates in the non-listeners compared to listeners, in conditions of music as shown in Figure 3 [Mandarin music: t (58) = −138.782, p < 0.001; English music: t (58) = −99.729, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of accuracy rates between non-listeners and listeners was −0.430 in the Mandarin music condition (95% CI: [−0.464, −0.396]), and was −0.309 in the English music condition (95% CI: [−0.343, −0.274]). These results suggest that reading comprehension performance was more negatively affected by music in the non-listeners than in the listeners, confirming our third hypothesis (H3).

Figure 3 . Reading comprehension accuracy rates in different music type groups for different listening habits. *** p  < 0.001.

Significant interaction effects between listening habits and music type [ F (2, 87) = 160.672, p < 0.001, η 2 p = 0.793] were observed as shown in Table 2 . For the non-listeners, as shown in Figure 4 , post hoc analyses revealed the accuracy rates while listening to Mandarin music are significantly lower than with English music [ t (58) = −45.508, p  < 0.001] and significantly lower than accuracy rates with no music [ t (58) = −150.401, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of reading accuracy rates was −0.142 between Mandarin music and English music condition (95% CI: [−0.183, −0.100]), and was −0.467 between Mandarin music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.508, −0.425]); For the listener, post hoc analyses revealed the accuracy rates while listening to Mandarin music are significantly lower than accuracy rates with no music [ t (58) = −14.524, p < 0.001]. A mean difference of reading accuracy rates was −0.045 between Mandarin music and no music condition (95% CI: [−0.086, −0.003]). Thus, the results also supported our hypothesis H4 that average reading comprehension accuracy rates (without distinction between Chinese and English) would be the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with the English/no music condition for both non-listeners and listeners. These results suggested that music with native language lyrics negatively affected the reading comprehension performance of college students.

Figure 4 . Reading comprehension accuracy rates in different listening habits groups for different music types. * p  < 0.05; *** p  < 0.001.

4 Discussion

The main purpose of this study was to explore the disruptive effects of background music lyrics on first language (L1) and second language (L2) reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students. We also included the influence of music-listening habits by using a 3-factor mixed factorial experimental design. First, our results showed that reading comprehension accuracy rates in music conditions are significantly lower than the accuracy rates with no music. Second, L1/L2 reading comprehension accuracy rates when listening to music in the same language are significantly lower than when listening to a different language. Third, the results showed that significantly lower accuracy rates in non-listeners than listeners when music was played. Finally, for both the non-listeners and listeners, average reading comprehension accuracy rates are the lowest in the condition of Mandarin music compared with English/no music condition. Our results provide experimental evidence in support of distraction effects of L1 or L2 music on L1 and L2 reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students. In addition, our findings also offer additional evidence in favor of the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction. Overall, the results support our hypotheses.

4.1 The effect of music type

Compared to the no music condition, reading comprehension performance were reduced by music with lyrics. This result is consistent with previous studies which found disruptive effects of vocal music on reading comprehension ( Anderson and Fuller, 2010 ; Perham and Currie, 2014 ; Ren and Xu, 2019 ; Dong et al., 2022 ). Thompson et al. (2012) showed that fast and loud instrumental music disrupts reading comprehension more than slow-tempo music ( Thompson et al., 2012 ). However, though the music in our study is slow-tempo, disruptive effects on reading comprehension were still observed. Lyrics had a significantly detrimental effect on reading comprehension. The finding of the current study supports the interference-by-process in the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction. According to the interference-by-process, music with lyrics in both L1 and L2 detracted from the performance because semantically processing of the lyrics in these two languages conflicts with semantic processing and access that reading demands ( Quan and Kuo, 2023 ). For comparison, some researchers used musical excerpts in combination with meaningless words as music stimuli. The musical excerpts with meaningless lyrics were unknown to the participants to avoid any associations between the music and semantic or episodic memory. Their results showed neither an enhancing nor a detrimental effect on verbal learning when different styles of background music were played ( Jäncke and Sandmann, 2010 ). However, the present study indicated that music with meaningful lyrics interferes with reading comprehension performance. Language comprehension plays an important role in reading comprehension performance ( Hoover and Gough, 1990 ), and both lyrics and written texts contained semantic information. According to the duplex-mechanism account, from the perspective of the interference-by-process, the semantic interference effects can be explained by assuming that semantic speech triggers automatic spreading of semantic activation over a long-term semantic network that interferes with the analogous process of steering such networks for the purpose of retrieval in the reading comprehension tasks ( Marsh and Jones, 2010 ; Hughes, 2014 ). Therefore, the lyrics act as competing stimuli with written texts and impair their access to word meaning.

4.2 The interaction between music type and text language

Regardless of whether the music and texts were in their L1 or L2 language, Chinese college students were more distracted by music in the same language as the texts. This result indicates that a more detrimental effect on reading comprehension occurred when the auditory input (music lyrics) is the same as the written text language. Based on interference-by-process, the irrelevant semantic information from the speech creates competition for the primary tasks’ dynamic semantic encoding and retrieval processes. As they both vie for semantic access, impairment can therefore be explained in terms of a relative difficulty in choosing the appropriate source of semantic information ( Marsh et al., 2009 ). When lyrics language is the same as the text, the competition process becomes stronger and thus the selection process is more difficult, which causes a more disruptive effect on reading performance. We used music lyrics with L1/L2 as different potential sources of auditory distraction, and the finding provides a further strand of support for interference-by-process.

4.3 The effect of listening habits

Our results revealed that reading comprehension performance by the non-listeners were more negatively affected by music than the listeners. These findings are in line with the results of previous studies which showed that people who seldom studied in the presence of background music performed better on reading comprehension tasks in silence ( Etaugh and Michals, 1975 ; Etaugh and Ptasnik, 1982 ). These results indicate that background music caused detrimental effects for individuals who normally study without music. In contrast, college students who regularly listen to music while studying have much experience of listening to music, and the top-down features (e.g., high working memory and high inhibitory control) can lessen the interference to cognitive activities caused by shared processing of irrelevant information ( Quan and Kuo, 2023 ; Privitera et al., 2023b ). Specifically, differences in working memory/inhibitory control between non-listeners and listeners may lead the differential effects of music on reading comprehension, because working memory may generally have an impact on individual ability to carry out cognitive tasks while listening to music ( König et al., 2005 ; Christopher and Shelton, 2017 ), and it is generally observed that those with high working memory capacity are less easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli ( Hughes, 2014 ). Recent studies also revealed that differences in inhibitory and/or attentional control could predict academic performance including reading (e.g., Privitera et al., 2023b ), thus, the relatively low working memory/inhibitory control may make non-listeners were more disrupted by music compared with listeners. In other words, though listeners are negatively affected by music, they are accustomed to reading in the presence of music, thus background music sounds are less distracting for them.

4.4 The interaction between listening habits and music type

Our results indicated that for both non-listeners and listeners, music with native language lyrics negatively affected the average reading comprehension performance. The results provide support for the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction: in addition to interference-by-process, sound can also produce unnecessary distraction by attentional capture. Music lyrics with the same language as the written texts distract college students by interfering specifically with the similar semantic access processes involved in the reading comprehension task. In contrast, music with native language lyrics disengages students from reading comprehension tasks. Compared to L2 lyrics, native language lyrics are high dominant and more familiar, which may make students rely too much on music rather than keeping them from reading due to music. Thus, a specific attentional capture also caused the auditory distraction. This finding of auditory distraction in different lyrics language conditions provides additional evidence in favor of the duplex-mechanism account.

4.5 Limitations and further research

Several limitations should be noted. First, the participants’ English language proficiency, cognitive control and working memory were not assessed. In future study the L2 proficiency can be balanced to explore unique music lyrics effects on reading comprehension, because recent studies have shown that L2 proficiency are correlated to inhibition and attentional control ( Privitera et al., 2022a , 2023a ), and cognitive control has been found to have a significant impact on academic performance including reading ( Privitera et al., 2023b ). Working memory/cognitive control can be included as a key variable to explore its effect on reading comprehension while listening to music among non-listeners/listeners. Second, sound without lyrics (e.g., pop music without lyrics or white noise) was not included as one level of music type. Future study can compare reading comprehension performance differences between sound without lyrics group and music with lyrics/no music group to explore the various effects of sound. Third, questions about what music genres participants listen to and their relative frequencies were not included in the researcher-designed questionnaire of background music listening habits. The questionnaire needs to be modified, and should include questions on music genres in future study. Fourth, music type should be manipulated as a within-subject factor instead of a between-subject factor in future study. Finally, this is a behavioral experiment examining music lyrics effects on reading comprehension. With the aim of obtaining the brain and neuroscience evidence to support the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, future studies could explore differences in brain and neural activities when students complete reading comprehension while listening to L1/L2 music, and identify the precise locus of the interference-by-process and attentional capture. These differences may indicate that interference-by-process and attentional capture obtain the functional support of different brain regions which further supports duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.

4.6 Implications

The current study benefits from several strengths. It is the first study to explore effects of L1 or L2 music lyrics on L1/L2 reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students with different listening habits. For reading comprehension with L1/L2, L1/L2 reading comprehension performance reduced more when the music lyrics language was the same as the written texts. For example, L2 reading performance decreased more when both lyrics and written texts language is L2. In general, for average reading comprehension performance, music with native language lyrics affected it negatively more than L2 music/no music. The current study provided experimental evidence to support the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction, and revealed that the duplex-mechanism account can also be applied to auditory distraction of reading comprehension tasks other than serial short-term tasks. The novelty of our study is to distinguish effects of lyrics with native language/s language on L1/L2 reading comprehension. Reading performance difference in lyrics with L1/L2 conditions suggests that auditory distraction has two functionally distinct forms: interference-by-process and attentional capture. The contribution of our research is that choosing music and written texts with L1/L2 helps methodically separate the potential individual contributions of interference-by-process and attentional capture to the overall disruption of task performance.

Our other findings were that reading comprehension performance was reduced by pop music lyrics. In addition, non-listeners were more distracted by lyrics than listeners. These findings have practical implications. Though most college students love pop music, and they usually report that listening to music while studying is beneficial, for college students and educators, it is better not to play pop music with lyrics while students, especially students without music-listening habits, are reading articles whether in their native languages or a second language.

5 Conclusion

The present study is an important first step in examining the effects of music with L1 or L2 lyrics on L1/L2 reading comprehension performance among Chinese college students with different listening habits. By using a 3-factor mixed factorial experimental design, we showed that the results verified our hypotheses. Specifically, the key findings are: (1) reading comprehension performance was negatively affected by music with lyrics compared to the no music condition; (2) L1/L2 reading comprehension was more affected by music in the same language as the texts; (3) Non-listeners were more negatively affected by music with lyrics than listeners; (4) For both non-listener and listeners, average reading comprehension accuracy rates are the lowest in the condition of music with native language lyrics. These findings support the claim that college students’ reading performance suffers when they listen to pop music with lyrics compared to no music, and provide experimental evidence support for the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Research Ethics Committee of Shandong Sport University. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

YS: Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. CS: Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. CL: Methodology, Writing – review & editing. XS: Investigation, Writing – review & editing. QL: Investigation, Writing – review & editing. HL: Methodology, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by Shandong University undergraduate teaching reform (grant numbers: 2023Y251; 2023YJJGND07) and undergraduate teaching reform in Shandong province (grant number: Z2022096).

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Pamela Holt for useful discussions and critically reading the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: reading comprehension, study habits, pop music with lyrics, native language lyrics, second language lyrics, written text language, Chinese college students

Citation: Sun Y, Sun C, Li C, Shao X, Liu Q and Liu H (2024) Impact of background music on reading comprehension: influence of lyrics language and study habits. Front. Psychol . 15:1363562. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1363562

Received: 13 January 2024; Accepted: 25 March 2024; Published: 05 April 2024.

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Copyright © 2024 Sun, Sun, Li, Shao, Liu and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Chuanning Sun, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.