Daniel Bendersky
Speakers That Bump Hearts
Although we listen to it every day, we rarely stop to think about why music is so entrancing. Every song has a certain magic that keeps us coming back for more. Whether weâre relaxing, working, studying, or partying, our emotions are constantly shifting throughout the day. Music is a useful tool for smoothing out these transitions; it can even evoke nostalgia for past experiences and shift our perspective. Music has become more accessible than ever and holds a significant cultural presence, especially among teenagers. Not only does music occupy the public dialogue, but it also consistently influences our emotions and occupies the back of our minds. This strong, underlying connection makes music a powerful tool that can be harnessed for positive impact by both mental health professionals and individuals without access to professional care. By combining emotion recognition and targeted listening treatment, music can improve the mental health of young adults and adolescents while developing healthy emotion regulation habits.
Musicâs powerful effects are achieved through two mediums: abstract forms of words and notes (Lee 1). While many past efforts have been made to classify emotion in songs, music has become more complex with time. Modern songs often feature a wide gap between lyrical content and melodic tone. One example is âNot Todayâ by Twenty One Pilots, an extremely catchy tune with an upbeat rhythm in a major key. However, the lyrics convey a melancholy lament about depression and lack of motivation. The song even explicitly nods to this emotional irony: âThis one's a contradiction because of how happy it sounds/But the lyrics are so downâ (Twenty One Pilots 13-14). Different genres interpret sounds with distinct emotional nuances, and the wide variety of experimental music makes tracking these patterns challenging. With the rise of machine learning, recent studies have begun classifying emotion in music using neural networks. These complex algorithms are able to adapt to rare music genres, but require precise âfeature extraction and dataset qualityâ to achieve a high âaccuracyâ (Lee 2). With both audio and lyrical algorithms combined, researchers have developed a model with an impressive 98.79% accuracy (Agarwal Table 6). The results of these studies have been summarized to create a table showing the relationship between certain musical qualities and the emotions they evoke. (Lee Fig. 4).
This data would be valuable in creating a reverse search tool for music based on emotion. Such a tool would return song recommendations based on an input of emotional keywords rather than genre or audio similarity. If this application were developed to recommend music based on specific emotional goals, it could aid in managing emotionsâa process often referred to as emotion regulation.
Emotion regulation (ER) is when individuals use âinteractive,â âgoal-orientedâ methods to initiate a shift in mood. It can strengthen emotions users label as âgoodâ or diminish âbadâ emotions (Peters 554). We engage in this process on a daily basis, both implicitly and explicitly. An implicit form of ER would be daydreaming, which the brain automatically uses to reduce boredom. An explicit example is meditation, which is often practiced to remain calm and reset the mind from negative thoughts. Emotion regulation is a skill that can be developed through therapy and guided practice:
The primary window for ER occurs during infancy, toddlerhood, and preschool years, and atypical ER is a risk factor associated with mental health problems. ER skills are linked to higher social competence, more prosocial behavior, and socioemotional adjustment in adolescence. (Peters 555)
Music directly associates with memories, and imagining a song can bring us back to a moment and the emotions tied to it. By creating these links early in life, music can have a lasting impact later on. However, itâs never too late to begin making these connections. With a music search tool, we could find music that aligns with a target emotion, explicitly managing emotions in the present while creating an implicit link between memory and music.
Many studies have attempted to utilize music for emotion regulation, with various methods and environments; however most studies only focused on âreflecting, talking, and writing about the use of musicâ instead of using âactive musicking interventionsâ to explore the effects of listening to or creating music on emotions (Peters 556). However, one unique 2013 study focused on using music to create a reflective environment for listeners, finding that using âMP3 playersâŚwas highly efficient in regulating affect, creating private spaces for listeners to focus on their own emotional states of mind without being influenced by surroundingsâ (Peters 553). Listeners would choose music that matched either their âcurrent or desired affects,â and the music helped them achieve their target emotional state (Peters 553). However, this study only tracked short-term emotional effects. There is a lack of research on the long-term impact of music on implicit emotional regulation. Because emotion regulation development is most effective in the early years, music plays a significant role in early childhood. Only one large study has ever been conducted on school children using active musicking, with authors noting that âactive listening, singing or playing for specific emotion regulation purposes in education or therapy, in schools or clinical settings are rare ⌠[and] very poorly researched and documentedâ (Uhlig 2). However, âadolescent participants identified music listening as one of their most important coping strategies, including helping them to deal with life stressâ (Peters 556). A meta-study found that âmusic continues to be used as a coping mechanism related to negative affective states and to achieve desirable moodsâ (Peters 556). Despite the common use of music as a tool, we know very little about the long-term effects of this strategy. Even though there is a ârarity of existing empirical studies of good qualityâ on musicking for ER, a meta-study indicated that it has a âmoderate impactâ (Peters 561). Given their popularity and effectiveness, more research on the long-term effects of these interventions is clearly needed.
Overall, studies fall into two intervention types: primary and complementary. Primary interventions use music âas a standalone tool to address a mental health outcome,â emphasizing the âtherapeutic capacity of sound, pitch, rhythm, and tempo as a tool to improve emotional wellnessâ (Rodwin 8). Complementary interventions, in contrast, âserve as an âadd-onâ component to supportâŚtraditional treatment,â and âdescribe music as a tool to provide an additional outlet for self-expression, social support, and engagementâ (Rodwin 8). While both are explicit methods for emotion regulation, primary studies focus on simple short-term emotions, whereas complementary studies focus on the abstract long-term mental health benefits of music. âTwenty-three out of the twenty-sixâ (88%) studies on music for emotional regulation in adolescents reported âpositive effects that were statistically significant for at least one main outcomeâ (Rodwin 8). Additionally, âprevious systematic reviews and meta-analyses have found similar results for children, younger adolescents, and adults with internalizing disorders (Belski, 2021; Geipel, 2018; Gold, 2004; Maratos, 2008; Tang, 2020)â (Rodwin 8).
These meta-analyses illustrate the numerous potential benefits of music for mental health, including short-term emotion regulation, self-expression, engagement with treatment, and fostering implicit self-regulation habits. However, music is currently underutilized in actual treatment. Many studies âunderscore the need to build bridges between researchers, educators, and therapists, to propose applications for real-world contexts, where music might be used as a resource for ER, to contribute to positive adjustment and adaptation and overall well-beingâ (Peters 556). More studies are needed to examine the long-term effects of music, and âimprove the understanding of how and for whom music-based interventions workâ (Rodwin 1). Creating a music search tool based on emotion would assist clinicians in providing goal-oriented emotion regulation musicking in an efficient, cost-effective, and accessible manner. Rodwin emphasizes the âneed for more education, dissemination, and training focused on music and expressive therapies to help clinicians develop the skills needed to use these strategiesâ (9). Such tools could also consider a userâs previous listening habits to provide personalized recommendations and could benefit individuals without primary care access if they have a clear emotional target. There is currently a shortage of mental health care: many struggle to access it with issues of cost, availability of professionals, or time commitment. Music offers a self-applied, flexible, affordable, and accessible mental health tool that could be integrated with telehealth applications. Mental health is a critical issue for todayâs youthâstatistics reveal a troubling rise in suicide and depression rates over the past decade. Music already enriches our lives, and could become a key resource for emotional stability in the face of lifeâs challenges. Letâs make it happen.
Works Cited
Gaurav Agarwal and Hari Om. âAn efficient supervised framework for music mood recognition using autoencoder-based optimised support vector regression model.â IET Signal Processing, vol. 15, iss. 2, 19 Mar. 2021, pp. 98-121.
https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1049/sil2.12015.
Lee, Nicholas, and Rohana Mahmud. âEnhancing Music Emotion Classification with Lyrics and Audio Features.â 2024 3rd International Conference on Digital Transformation and Applications, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Piscataway, 20 Mar. 2024, pp. 1-5. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10470614.
Peters, Valerie, et. al. âThe impact of musicking on emotion regulation: A systematic review and meta-analysis.â Psychology of Music 2024, vol. 52, no. 5, 2024, pp. 548-568. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/03057356231212362.
Rodwin, Aaron, et. al. âA Systematic Review of MusicâBased Interventions to Improve Treatment Engagement and Mental Health Outcomes for Adolescents and Young Adults.â Child & Adolescent Social Work Journal, vol. 40, 16 Nov. 2022, pp. 537-566. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-022-00893-x.
Twenty One Pilots. âNot Today.â Blurryface, Fueled By Ramen, 2015. Spotify.
Uhlig, Sylka, et. al. (2013, June 11â15). âEffects of music on emotion regulation: Asystematic literature review.â 3rd International Conference on Music & Emotion, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, 15 Jun. 2013, pp. 441-445. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201305291836.