The effect of music in anxiety reduction: A psychological and physiological assessment

Abstract

Extensive research has been published on the effects of music in reducing anxiety. Yet, for most of the existing works, a common methodology regarding musical genres and measurement techniques is missing, which limits considerably the comparison between them. In this study, we assess, for the first time, markedly different musical genres with both psychological and physiological measurements. Three previously studied musical samples from different genres—classical (Pachelbel’s Canon in D), Turkish (Hüseyin Makam), and electroacoustic (pure electronic)—were employed to influence “everyday anxiety” in 50 German participants (25 females, 25 males). Psychological (self-perception assessment) and physiological (heart rate measurement) indicators of anxiety, as most typical of prior work, were considered. Our study shows that listening to Pachelbel’s Canon increases the self-perception of calm, whereas listening to the electroacoustic sample decreases it; the Turkish sample is in between. No differences in heart rate are found for any of the musical genres. Our study also suggests that listeners’ self-perception might be biased by the statements used in the psychological evaluation (positive or negative), which are interpreted differently by the subjects depending on their current state.

An Exploratory Study on the Acoustic Musical Properties to Decrease Self-Perceived Anxiety

“…Confirming previous findings [ 30 , 55 ], Pachelbel’s canon was found to be associated with a decline in self-perceived anxiety in our exploratory study. Differently, the presented outcomes do not confirm the previous results for the Debussy’s sample, which was shown to be efficient in reducing anxiety in previous works [ 63 ].…”

“…Values for the Gregorian sample and the one by Debussy were in between. This might relate to the level of familiarity of the listeners with the musical language: Pachelbel’s canon (in tonal language) is familiar to many listeners, as shown in prior work [ 55 ]; the sample by Schönberg (almost atonal language) is unfamiliar to most; the Gregorian sample and the one by Debussy (based on modal scales) fall between the other two in terms of familiarity.…”

“…Due to the great diversity across classical compositions from different historical periods, four samples written in four contrasting ‘styles’ concerning different composition principles, such as the use of a tonal centre, rhythm regularity, scoring, and orchestration techniques, were selected. As in previous work [ 19 , 55 ], samples of around five minutes were considered.…”

“…Canon in D major (Pachelbel): This Baroque musical sample, characterised by its regular rhythm, gentle melodic contours, tonal harmony, and string timbre, has often been used in previous research on anxiety reduction [ 20 , 30 , 55 , 56 , 57 ]. A historically informed performance, observing the principles from the time when the composition was written, such as temperament and ornamentation, by the ensemble Voices of Music [ 58 ] was considered.…”

“…As only the positive statements yielded meaningful results in [ 55 ], only these were assessed: ‘I feel calm’, ‘I am relaxed’, and ‘I feel content’; thus, the overall score for each user ranged from 3 to 12. To quantify stress relief, we computed score differences between pre- and post-treatment, i.e., the differences between the STAI scores obtained before and after listening to the music (see Section 3.1 ).…”