More threads by David Baxter PhD

David Baxter PhD

Late Founder
Seven Ways Music Influences Mood
By Jeremy Dean

Good music has direct access to the emotions. As such it's a fantastic tool for tweaking our moods. Saarikallio and Erkkila (2007) investigated the ways people use music to control and improve their mood by interviewing eight adolescents from Finland. The participants may be a small, very specific group, but they actually present a really useful list:

  1. Entertainment - At the most fundamental level music provides stimulation. It lifts the mood before going out, it passes the time while doing the washing up, it accompanies travelling, reading and surfing the web.
  2. Revival - Music revitalises in the morning and calms in the evening.
  3. Strong sensation - Music can provide deep, thrilling emotional experiences, particularly while performing.
  4. Diversion - Music distracts the mind from unpleasant thoughts which can easily fill the silence.
  5. Discharge - Music matching deep moods can release emotions: purging and cleansing.
  6. Mental work - Music encourages daydreaming, sliding into old memories, exploring the past.
  7. Solace - Shared emotion, shared experience, a connection to someone lost.
These seven strategies all aim for two goals: controlling and improving mood. One of the beauties of music is it can accomplish more than one goal at a time. Uplifting music can both divert, entertain and revive. Sad, soulful music can provide solace, encourage mental work and discharge emotions. The examples are endless.

Many of Saarikallio and Erkkila's findings chime with previous research. For example, distraction is considered one of the most effective strategies for regulating mood. Music has also been strongly connected with reflective states. These tend to allow us greater understanding of our emotions.

One of the few negative connections Saarikallio and Erkkila consider is that sad music might promote rumination. Rumination is the constant examination of emotional state which, ironically, can lead to less clarity. On the contrary, however, Saarikallio and Erkkila found that music increased the understanding of feelings, an effect not associated with rumination.

Saarikallio, S., & Erkkila, J. (2007). The role of music in adolescents' mood regulation. Psychology of Music, 35(1), 88.
 
music really helped me with depression in that the mornings were so difficult for me until on day i realized that if i had music going, it would actually give me a boost in energy. amazing what music can do.
 

Mubarik

Member
Music definitely influences me.. Before any football game, or rugby game I have, I have to hear some hardcore hip hop, or some hard rock.
 

braveheart

Member
Having creative dance in my blood, I am very sensitive to music [or, perhaps dance is in my blood because I am very sensitive to music....I studied dance all through secondary school- age 11-18].

I have Wagner days, when the original Tristan Und Isolde is very soothing, because the resonance resonates as the ache in my heart, the deep sorrow that only Wagner's music seems to convey completely. It comforts me, like being emotionally mirrored.

But I also have days where my Power Ballads CDs are supreme! I sing along to Bohemian Rhapsody, Holding out for a hero, I don't need another hero...all those....
 

ThatLady

Member
I like most kinds of music. I have to admit, I'm not a fan of RAP music, however. I love classical for when I'm in the car, or when I just need to relax and shed a few anxieties or stresses that have built up on the job, or on the home front. I love rock and roll just because. I even like hard rock, some heavy metal, and general popular music. Heck, I even like Muzak! :D
 

Mubarik

Member
The reason why you probably don't like rap, is because of what you consider it to be. It isnt just the stuff on T.V.. There are many rappers with important messages that don't get recognition. T.V. is ruining hip hop.
 

Halo

Member
I definitely agree with you Mubarik. I am a fan of hip hop and I think that what is potrayed on tv is not necessarily a real or positive reflection of some of the rather good artists and songs that are out there.

Hip Hop is :cool:
 

Halo

Member
But yet claim that Beethoven and Mozart are :rolleyes: :yuck:

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one :)
 
halo, do you have some hip hop songs and artists that you like that you could share? i'm always on the lookout for something new :)

nothing is quite so bad as the grunge of the '90s - man i hated the 'music' that started to come out in those years! i gave up on the charts.

i haven't listened to radio in a few years until recently. what would one classify what's currently popular as? i can't quite seem to nail this genre. maybe it's the '00s style :)
 

Halo

Member
Ladybug,

Although I am not usually a fan of particular artists and more of specific songs, but two artists that I am really taking a liking to are Sean Paul and Ne-Yo. They both exploded on the charts around last year and I happen to like them. I have their better songs downloaded on my home computer if you would like to hear them.

As for particular songs, I would have to go through my playlist on my mp3.

What sort of "grunge" from the 90s are you referring to?
 
Grunge music is ok, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and such like where referred to as grunge and they where ok. Jazz is the one that grates on my nerves and makes me feel sick, Jazz rock is ok, its the trad stuff:eek: Dont like opera either,, Im not even going to comment on hip hop and rap:yikes:
 

David Baxter PhD

Late Founder
Grunge music is ok, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and such like where referred to as grunge and they where ok. Jazz is the one that grates on my nerves and makes me feel sick, Jazz rock is ok, its the trad stuff:eek: Dont like opera either,, Im not even going to comment on hip hop and rap:yikes:

Twins separated at birth? :D

I agree. And of course you can add Neil Young to the grunge list - the grandfather of grunge and garage rock. :)

And he also has the distinction of recording the song with the most distortion ever: Hey Hey (into the black) or whatever it was called.
 
:lol: i thought you would say that:lol: I have tryed to listen to it, i like to give everything a chance but it just does not do anything for me!!
 
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