Benefits of listening to a recording of euphoric joint music making in polydrug abusers

Abstract

Background and Aims: Listening to music can have powerful physiological and therapeutic effects. Some essential features of the mental mechanism underlying beneficial effects of music are probably strong physiological and emotional associations with music created during the act of music making. Here we tested this hypothesis in a clinical population of polydrug abusers in rehabilitation listening to a previously performed act of physiologically and emotionally intense music making.Methods: Psychological effects of listening to self-made music that was created in a previous musical feedback intervention were assessed. In this procedure, participants produced music with exercise machines (Jymmin) which modulate musical sounds.Results: The data showed a positive effect of listening to the recording of joint music making on self-efficacy, mood, and a readiness to engage socially. Furthermore, the data showed the powerful influence of context on how the recording evoked psychological benefits. The effects of listening to the self-made music were only observable when participants listened to their own performance first; listening to a control music piece first caused effects to deteriorate. We observed a positive correlation between participants’ mood and their desire to engage in social activities with their former training partners after listening to the self-made music. This shows that the observed effects of listening to the recording of the single musical feedback intervention are influenced by participants recapitulating intense pleasant social interactions during the Jymmin intervention.Conclusions: Listening to music that was the outcome of a previous musical feedback (Jymmin) intervention has beneficial psychological and probably social effects in patients that had suffered from polydrug addiction, increasing self-efficacy, mood, and a readiness to engage socially. These intervention effects, however, depend on the context in which the music recordings are presented.

The Band Effect—Physically Strenuous Music Making Increases Esthetic Appreciation of Music

“…Such enhanced mood could also be observed in a patient group listening passively to a recording of a previous Jymmin session, more specifically we observed a positive correlation between participants' mood and their desire to engage in social activities with their former training partners after listening to the self-made music (Fritz et al, 2015 ). Furthermore, listening to the recording increased self-efficacy, and a readiness to engage socially (note, however, that these effects depended on the context in which the recordings were presented).…”

“…While exercising, physical movements of all three patients were transformed by the software into immediate musical feedback depending on the degree of weight displacement. Musical parameters such as pitch and cutoff-filter of the musical sounds played could be altered by the movements (for more detail see Fritz et al, 2013a , b , 2015 ). Music during the experimental and control condition was audible over loudspeakers.…”

“…In recent years a musical feedback intervention has been developed further that has been demonstrated to be highly emotionally engaging across individuals and does not require any type of previous musical education and even rhythmical skills, and can quite easily be adapted to individual motor skills (e.g., after stroke or in elder participants). This intervention, called Jymmin (mixture of jammin and gym), allows participants to express themselves musically by exercising on fitness machines that have been modified to transform physical movements into musical sounds and thus allow music to be played interactively in a group (Fritz et al, 2013a , b , 2015 ). Musical expression during this procedure may for example be realized by mapping the degree of weight displacement (thus an alteration of position) onto sound effects to change the timbre of the sound, the pitch of the sound, the number of delays of a sound, etc.…”

Effects of music therapy and music-based interventions in the treatment of substance use disorders: A systematic review

“…Two studies did not report any measures of central tendency [ 55 , 63 ] and one reported a median age of 46.4 years [ 62 ]. Age ranges (when reported) differed only slightly from 28 years [ 65 ] (20–47) to 33 years [ 64 ] (27–59).…”

Hypothesizing Music Intervention Enhances Brain Functional Connectivity Involving Dopaminergic Recruitment: Common Neuro-correlates to Abusable Drugs

“…In the future, genetic and epigenetic testing for specific polymorphic and DNA methylation of reward genes like the DRD2, DAT1, and COMT, may help provide further evidence of the importance of music and even music therapy. The reason being this modality may play a significant role in reducing relapse to RDS behaviors [55]. …”