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The Case for Why Humans Need Music

​(Click on the text to see a selection of research in this area)

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  1. Music is a human universal. Every culture in the world has music

  2. Humans have been making music for thousands of years. Our earliest ancestors made music

  3. Music helps us to form social bonds with each other, and hence to form relationships and communities

  4. Music helps us to communicate (and might be similar to language in some ways, but not so in others). Humans may have developed music before language

  5. Music helps us to manage our mood and our emotions

  6. Music helps baby and infant development, and this is one of the reasons why every culture in the world has lullabies

  7. Music helps children to learn and develop 

  8. Making music aids us in developing important skills

  9. Making and listening to music contributes to our health and well being

  10. Music helps us to do things in time (dancing, hand washing, turn taking)

  11. Music helps us when we are in pain

  12. Music can help to alleviate, manage, overcome or live with symptoms of long term conditions, such as Parkinson's or dementia

  13. Music is a part of our own identity - often the songs we hear in puberty remain important to who we are for our whole lives

  14. Music is key to our economy

  15. Music can have a positive impact on communities and underrepresented groups

  16. Music reaches across boundaries - geographical, cultural, linguistic, generational or otherwise. Music is important and useful to everyone - it is accessible and inclusive

  17. Music can change our perception of aspects of our lives, e.g. our perception of time, which is why companies use music while we are on hold on the telephone

  18. Music therapy helps

  19. Humans weave music into their daily lives; we use music to mark milestones and ceremonies

  20. Music plays a key role in our lives. Musical theatre, reality TV, radio, music streaming, ring tones all rely on music

  21. Music helped us to get through the global COVID-19 pandemic

  22. Live music experiences are special

  23. Music has been linked to climate change awareness and behaviours

  24. Music can be useful in social prescribing

Music is a human universal. Every culture in the world has music

Humans have been making music for thousands of years. Our earliest ancestors made music

  • ​Brown, S. (2000). Evolutionary models of music: From sexual selection to group selection. In Perspectives in ethology: Evolution, culture, and behavior (pp. 231-281). Boston, MA: Springer US.

  • Killin, A. (2018). The origins of music: Evidence, theory, and prospects. Music & Science, 1, 2059204317751971.

  • Tolbert, E. (2001). Music and meaning: An evolutionary story. Psychology of Music, 29(1), 84-94.

Music helps us to form social bonds with each other, and hence form relationships and communities

Music helps us to communicate (and might be similar to language in some ways, but not so in others). Humans may have developed music before language

Music helps us to manage our mood and our emotions ​

Music helps baby and infant development, and this is one of the reasons why every culture in the world has lullabies

Music helps children to learn and develop

Making music aids us in developing important skills

Making and listening to music contributes to our health and well being

Humans latch onto ('entrain') to a beat, and music helps us to do things in time (dancing, hand washing, turn taking)

Music helps when we are in pain

Music can help to alleviate, manage, overcome or live with symptoms of long term conditions, such as Parkinson's or dementia

Music is part of our own identity - often the songs we hear in puberty remain important to who we are for our whole lives

Music is key to our economy

Music can have a positive impact on communities and underrepresented groups

Music reaches across boundaries - geographical, cultural, linguistic, generational or otherwise. Music is important and useful to everyone - it is accessible and inclusive

Music can change our perception of aspects of our lives, e.g., our perception of time, which is why companies use music while we are on hold on the telephone

  • Phillips and Sergeant (eds.) (2022), Music and Time: Psychology, Philosophy, Practice, Boydell & Brewer.

  • Phillips, M. (2022), ‘Music Listening and the Perception of Time: The LEMI Model’, in: Phillips. M., & Sergeant, M. (eds), Music and Time: Psychology, Philosophy, Practice, Boydell & Brewer

  • Silva, L. B., Phillips, M. E., & Martins, J. O. (2023). EXPRESS: The influence of tonality, tempo, and musical sophistication on the listener’s time-duration estimates. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 17470218231203459.

Music therapy helps

Humans weave music into their daily lives; we use music to mark milestones and ceremonies

Music plays a key role in our lives. Musical theatre, reality TV, radio, music streaming, ring tones all rely on music

Music helped us to get through the global COVID-19 pandemic

Live music experiences are special

  • Chabin, T., Gabriel, D., Comte, A., Haffen, E., Moulin, T., & Pazart, L. (2021). Your pleasure is mine; when people share a musical emotional experience during a live music performance in a concert hall. Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.26.436975

  • Haferkorn, J. (2023) ‘Livestreaming Music and Classical Music Performance’, in Herr, C., Fuhrmann, W. and Keller, V. (eds.) Music's Roles and Functions in the Digital Era. Baden Baden: Rombach.

  • Haferkorn, J., Kavanagh, B. and Leak, S., 2021. Livestreaming Music in the UK: Report for Musicians.

  • O’Neill, K., & Egermann, H. (2022). Development of the Social Experience of a Concert Scales (SECS): The Social Experience of a Live Western Art Music Concert Influences People's Overall Enjoyment of an Event but not Their Emotional Response to the Music. Music & Science, 5.

  • Onderdijk, K. E., Swarbrick, D., Van Kerrebroeck, B., Mantei, M., Vuoskoski, J. K., Maes, P. J., and Leman, M. (2021). Livestream experiments: the role of COVID-19, agency, presence, and social context in facilitating social connectedness. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 1741.

  • Phillips, M., and Krause, A., Audiences of the future – how can streamed music performance replicate the live music experience? MCICM Futuring Classical Music edited collection, forthcoming.

  • Pitts, S. E., & Price, S. M. (2020). Understanding audience engagement in the contemporary arts. Routledge.

  • ​Siedenburg, K., Bürgel, M., Özgür, E., Scheicht, C., & Töpken, S. (2024). Vibrotactile enhancement of musical engagement. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 7764. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-57961-8

  • Swarbrick, D., Bosnyak, D., Livingstone, S. R., Bansal, J., Marsh-Rollo, S., Woolhouse, M. H., & Trainor, L. J. (2019). How live music moves us: head movement differences in audiences to live versus recorded music. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2682.

  • Swarbrick, D., Seibt, B., Grinspun, N., & Vuoskoski, J. K. (2021). Corona concerts: The effect of virtual concert characteristics on social connection and Kama Muta. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 648448.

  • Trost, W., Trevor, C., Fernandez, N., Steiner, F., & Frühholz, S. (2024). Live music stimulates the affective brain and emotionally entrains listeners in real time. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(10), e2316306121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316306121

Music has been linked to climate change awareness and behaviours

Music can be useful in social prescribing

  • Chatterjee, H. J., Camic, P. M., Lockyer, B., & Thomson, L. J. M. (2018). Non-clinical community interventions: a systematised review of social prescribing schemes. Arts & Health, 10(2), 97–123. https://doi.org/10.1080/17533015.2017.1334002

  • Dingle, G. A., & Sharman, L. S. (2022). Social Prescribing: A Review of the Literature. In R. G. Menzies, R. E. Menzies, & G. A. Dingle (Eds.), Existential Concerns and Cognitive-Behavioral Procedures (pp. 135–149). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06932-1_8

  • Kellezi, B., Wakefield, J. R. H., Stevenson, C., McNamara, N., Mair, E., Bowe, M., Wilson, I., & Halder, M. M. (2019). The social cure of social prescribing: a mixed-methods study on the benefits of social connectedness on quality and effectiveness of care provision. BMJ Open, 9(11), e033137. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033137

  • Sonke, J., Manhas, N., Belden, C., Morgan-Daniel, J., Akram, S., Marjani, S., Oduntan, O., Hammond, G., Martinez, G., Davidson Carroll, G., Rodriguez, A. K., Burch, S., Colverson, A. J., Pesata, V., & Fancourt, D. (2023). Social prescribing outcomes: a mapping review of the evidence from 13 countries to identify key common outcomes. Frontiers in Medicine, 10, 1266429. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2023.1266429

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