Music and health. Phenomenological investigationof a medical humanity

Lucy McLellan • Emma McLachlan • Laurence Perkins •

Tim Dornan

Received: 1 September 2011 / Accepted: 19 February 2012 / Published online: 7 March 2012� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract In response to the tendency for music to be under-represented in the discourse

of medical humanities, we framed the question ‘how can music heal?’ We answered it by

exploring the lived experiences of musicians with lay or professional interests in health.

Two medical students and a medically qualified educationalist, all musicians, conducted a

co-operative inquiry with a professional musician interested in health. All researchers and

six respondents kept audio or written diaries. Three respondents were interviewed in depth.

A medical school head (and experienced musician) critiqued the phenomenological

analysis of respondents’ accounts of music, health, and its relationship with undergraduate

medical education. Respondents experienced music as promoting health, even in seriously

diseased people. Music affected people’s identity and emotions. Through the medium of

structure and harmony, it provided a means of self-expression that adapted to whatever

condition people were in. Music was a communication medium, which could make people

feel less isolated. Immersion in music could change negative states of mind to more

positive ones. A transport metaphor was commonly used; music ‘taking people to better

places’. Exercising control by becoming physically involved in music enhanced diseased

people’s self-esteem. Music was able to bring the spiritual, mental, and physical elements

of their lives into balance, to the benefit of their wellbeing. Music could help medical

students appreciate holistically that the state of health of people who are either well or

diseased can be enhanced by a ‘non-technical’ intervention.

L. McLellanUniversity of Manchester, Manchester, UK

E. McLachlanBrighton Hospitals, Brighton, UK

L. PerkinsManchester Camerata, Manchester, UK

T. Dornan (&)Department of Education Development and Research, Maastricht University,PO Box 610, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlandse-mail: tim.dornan@manchester.ac.uk

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Adv in Health Sci Educ (2013) 18:167–179DOI 10.1007/s10459-012-9359-y

Keywords Co-operative inquiry � Music and health � Medical education �Medical humanities � Phenomenology

Introduction

If medical education is to prepare doctors-to-be to meet society’s needs, it must be attuned

to those needs (Sutton et al. 2011). The Flexner report of a century ago led medical

programmes worldwide to be placed on a strongly bioscientific footing because science—

particularly germ theory—was seen as being able to make a big difference to public health

(Barr 2011; Kuper and D’Eon 2011). Science, medicine, and society have changed so

much since then that arguments are being advanced for a wider array of disciplines to

contribute to the education of doctors (Kuper and D’Eon 2011). The medical programmes

of many institutions now include medical humanities to give a non-scientific perspective

on health, illness, disease, and medical practice (Weisz and Albury 2010). It has been

argued that giving holistic insights into medical practice will result in a more patient-

centred approach (Gordon 2005). Humanities, it is suggested, will make future doctors

more understanding of patients’ circumstances, more open to the use of complementary

and alternative therapies, better equipped to make challenging ethical decisions, (Dellasega

et al. 2007) and more appreciative of quality of life and the potential of different therapies

to improve it (Calman 2005; Bolton 2003). French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty

described the human body as an ‘intertwining’ of the natural (or physical) and the exis-

tential (or experiential) (Evans 2002). Current medical practice has a clear tendency to

focus on the physical rather than the experiential. Introducing the study of medical

humanities, it has been argued, could bridge that gap (Evans 2002). Art, literature,

sculpture, dance, film, photography, and music are all considered medical humanities. This

research concerns music, which is given little attention in contemporary medicine,

considering there has been a link between music and medicine throughout history. Such

notable composers as Alexander Borodin and Hector Berlioz, and performers such as Fritz

Kreisler and Zubin Mehta, studied medicine (Weisz and Albury 2010; Lasseron 2008).

There are thriving doctors’ orchestras in many countries and many medical students are

talented musicians. Research into the relationship between music and the workings of the

brain is giving new insights into the relationship between music and health (Zatorre 2005).

Such insights have contributed to the development of music therapy as a discipline, which

is increasingly supported by research explaining how theory can translate into therapeutic

practice (Bradt et al. 2011).

Not all authorities are convinced there should be a shift of emphasis from science

towards humanities in medical curricula. A leading doctor and biomedical scientist, for

example, argued that biomedical science can, if well taught, induce professional qualities

such as humility (Weatherall 2011). Without decrying the place of humanities in civilised

society, he could see no need to include humanities in medical programmes (Weatherall

2011). Thinking otherwise, we decided to explore how music could contribute to medical

education starting from as few assumptions as possible. For example, we did not orientate

the study towards music therapy (though we included insights from it) because we wanted

to consider healthy as well as sick people. It seemed logical to explore links between music

and health before considering links between music and medical education. Given the

arguments for teaching medical humanities advanced above, it seemed logical to do so

existentially, exploring the lived experiences of people who were interested in that link.

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We were concerned that recruiting musical doctors as our main research respondents

would, perhaps tacitly, replicate contemporary discourses (Gee 2005) of medical curric-

ulum and humanities so we chose to address the question ‘how can music heal?’ by

exploring the lived experiences of musicians with an interest in health. We researchers all

had rich, lived experiences of music and health so we had to choose whether to ignore

those experiences, try consciously to set them aside, or handle them consciously within the

research design. It is doubtful we could have approached the topic from an objective

standpoint no matter how hard we tried. Since medical humanities are concerned with rich

human experience, it can be argued that the research would have been poorer for trying to

do so but some methodology was needed that allowed all parties involved to express their

subjective experiences whilst seeking their ‘essence’ through rigorous, qualitative analysis.

We chose to couple cooperative inquiry with phenomenology.

Methods

This research was undertaken as part of LM’s 4th year medical student studies.

Ethics approval

The project was approved by the University of Manchester Faculty of Medical and Human

Sciences Research Ethics Committee.

Research team

As well as being a 4th year medical student, LM is a pianist trained to the level of

conservatoire graduate. As well as being a 5th year medical student close to qualification,

EM has expertise in phenomenology and is a singer. As well as being principal bassoonist

of a professional orchestra, LP has participated in national projects on music and health

and, as a volunteer, regularly uses music to promote wellbeing among cancer patients. As

well as being a professor of medical education, internist, and endocrinologist, TD plays

bassoon to a high non-professional standard.

Phenomenology

The analysis of a phenomenon from the perspective of the person experiencing it arose

from the work of an early twentieth century philosopher, Edmund Husserl. His ‘tran-

scendental phenomenology’ required a researcher to rise above their personal precon-

ceptions of the phenomenon under investigation in order to see its essence (Manen 1990).

There has, however, been debate amongst Husserl’s successors about the extent to which it

is possible to set aside one’s preconceptions. Existential phenomenologists changed the

focus from uncovering the essence of a phenomenon to understanding the phenomenon as

it appeared to people’s consciousness. Existential phenomenology is concerned with

describing and interpreting a person’s ‘lifeworld’ in order to understand the lived expe-

rience of the phenomenon being studied (King and Horrocks 2009). The specific meth-

odology adopted for this research was interpretive phenomenology, a type of existential

phenomenology that explores people’s reflections to find out how they make sense of life

experiences. The method maintains Husserl’s view that experiences cannot be fitted into

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predefined categories so it is important to ‘go back to the things themselves’ (Smith et al.

2009). Interpretive phenomenology acknowledges that subjective opinions influence

researchers’ interpretation of data and encourages them to reflect on their own subjectiv-

ities as part of the research process.

Cooperative inquiry

Co-operative inquiry is a methodology that was introduced by Heron in the early 1970s and

subsequently developed and expanded by Reason (2002). Its main principle is to integrate

the roles of researcher and subject into a group of participants who act as co-researchers

and co-subjects (Reason 1999). Participants, then, are active in research decisions as well

as providing data (Heron 1996). Its goal is to arrive at a deep understanding of human

experience through joint reflection, rather than unilateral interpretation by researchers

(Reason and Bradbury 2001). Co-operative Inquiry has an ‘extended epistemology’, which

goes beyond pure propositional knowledge (logical ideas, theories and concepts) to include

three other types of knowledge, (Reason 1999, 2002; Heron 1996; Reason and Bradbury

2001) all of which are self-evidently pertinent to our research: Practical knowledge (gained

from exercising a skill or activity); Experiential knowledge (gained from feedback and

interaction with people, places and things); and Presentational knowledge, (knowing

something through artistic processes such as art, dance, stories, and music). We were only

partially successful in involving research recruits in research thinking and decision making

but inclusion in the research team of a musician with no health professional qualification or

formal role in the healthcare system and health professionals who are musicians but not

music therapists went some way to compensate. Nevertheless, we can only claim a ‘partial’

implementation of the methodology (Oates 2002).

Recruitment and conduct of the study

Participants were recruited through personal contacts and by email to the European Piano

Teachers’ Association. A recruitment letter sent to those who expressed interest explained

the objectives of the research and the consequences of agreeing to participate. After giving

written consent, recruits received an information sheet explaining the finer details of

participation and assuring confidentiality and the right to withdraw. All four researchers

and ten volunteers agreed to carry a digital recording device for a week and record

whatever came to mind regarding music and its relationship with health (verbally or

musically) coupled with some explanation of what the recording meant in relation to the

research. Respondents were asked to maintain the anonymity of any people they talked

about in their recordings. All recorded materials were transcribed verbatim and three

musicians who had given particularly rich accounts of their experiences of music and

health and held slightly different perspectives on the topic were invited for 30–60 min

qualitative research interviews with LM. One interview took place in person, one via the

Internet, and one by telephone. All of them were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Respondents were given a written report of the emerging interpretation of their audio diary

material and asked to comment and add to it. In keeping with phenomenological meth-

odology, the interviews were minimally structured, allowing respondents’ personal views

of music and health to shape the study findings.

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Data analysis

Analysis was by a ‘Template Method’ developed specifically for phenomenological

research (Cassell and Symon 2004). We conformed to the principles of cooperative inquiry

by recording our own audio diaries in the reflection phases of the research and reflecting

jointly on our subjectivities as we developed the analysis. We used e-Llaborate, a web-

based wiki and collaborative authoring technology, to debate the interpretation and build

consensus. Three of the four researchers read all diaries, wrote comments about them, and

met regularly as a team to discuss the evolving interpretation. In accordance with template

method, we populated a template with some preliminary themes then LM coded all

materials as she received them and refined the template by comparing it constantly against

‘raw’ data. When all the audio diaries had been analysed, the team judged the amount of

data to be sufficient to support a coherent interpretation so they used the three (previously

described) interviews to involve subjects more actively in the analysis. LM then carried out

a more complete analysis of the whole dataset. Two further validation steps followed. The

first was independent scrutiny, which is a recommended way of quality-checking a tem-

plate analysis, encouraging reflexivity amongst the research team, and helping researchers

to be more aware of their analytical decisions and the influences on their interpretation

(King; Bolton 2003). To that end, EM, who had remained naive to the evolving inter-

pretation until that stage, re-read the raw data and critiqued the interpretation against them.

We then recruited a doctor, who was both head of a medical school and a musician, to

critique the interpretation and comment on its relevance to medical humanities. The final

interpretation was sent to all respondents, who were invited to add further comments. In the

results that follow, a phrase such as ‘Music helps people be themselves’ should be read as

shorthand for ‘Respondents experienced music as helping people be themselves’.

Results

Four respondents were unable to keep audio-diaries because of time constraints. Of the

remaining ten diaries, one was handwritten and two were typed because participants felt

more comfortable writing than recording their thoughts. So, a total of 11 participants

informed the interpretation; four researchers, six primary respondents (two of whom were

music therapists), and one validator. Table 1 shows the final coding template, which had

four first level codes, each subdivided into second and third level codes.

Music, self and emotions

Affects

Identity Music helps people be themselves:

S6: ‘‘From speaking to his mum, he wasn’t really presenting himself a lot of the time

and this really seemed able to help him.’’

Music can help people gain a better sense of identity and understand themselves better:

S4: ‘‘I think they can really recognise something very integral about themselves

which is coming through in my music. This is laying down some foundation for

greater self-understanding.’’

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Music is an integral part of cultural identity:

R2: ‘‘the magical, unique nature of music, and its fundamental place in the human

condition and civilisation.’’

Emotions Music can elicit a whole spectrum of emotions including negative ones:

R1: ‘‘Music can generate fantastic ‘feel good’. It can also, of course, generate ‘feel

bad’, basically because it’s so good at creating within us powerful images and

feelings and emotions.’’

The emotions people experience when they hear music are influenced by how they are

feeling at the time:

R4: ‘‘You have a different emotional response to it each time (depending) on how

you’re feeling and your emotional state at the time and where you are.’’

Music can also reinforce how one is feeling as well as changing emotions or inducing

new ones:

R3: ‘‘sometimes listening to music that’s in tune with my mood makes me feel quite

supported’’

Self-expression Music is a medium for self-expression that adapts to people’s mood and

circumstances, a topic that is explored further under ‘communication’.

Table 1 Coding template

First level code Second level code Third level code

Music, self and emotions Affects Identity

Emotions

Self-understandingand expression

Musical Structure

Music, emotions, other people and health Communication Self-expression

Connection Isolation

Unity

Music, immersion, transport and health Immersion

Escapism and transport

Physical involvement Control and influence

Self-esteem

Holism, health and disease Physical, emotional andpsychological wellbeing

Positive physical effects

Universalism Role alongside medicaltherapy

Integrative theme: The beneficial roleof music on health.

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Musical structure

The structural form of music and harmony conveys emotion and promotes wellbeing and

self-esteem:

S4: ‘‘the reassurance that’s offered by a home key.’’

Among children on a psychiatry ward, a structured music session instilled pride and

confidence:

S6: ‘‘I often use quite structured activities here because I feel that that’s what they

need to be able to actually access their creativity and feel proud of themselves.’’

In a therapeutic context, musical structure can engage seriously diseased people:

S4: ‘‘one of the people that I work with erm, who is non-verbal but who can sing,

really has a sense of that structure, of knowing when a piece is coming to an end.’’

A respondent, who herself had autism, talked about how musical composition could

benefit her wellbeing:

S1: ‘‘I like Bach and Mozart because they are full of regular rhythms, patterns and

scales.’’

Music, emotions, other people and health

Communication

Music communicates at a deep level that allows people to express—and others to respond

with—their whole selves. Music allows other people to listen very profoundly to a person

and show them they have been heard:

S4: ‘‘This is really important in terms of healing because you’re listening at a really

deep level.’’

Music-making can communicate profound emotions and elicit them in listeners. Expert

musical performance can lift listeners to a higher state of being. Music can turn anger and

frustration into pleasure and trust. In that way, music goes deeper than other forms of

communication:

S3: ‘‘the listener, maybe bedridden or in pain, is lifted into a different plane by this

communication and intensity of experience.’’

S1: ‘‘he was such an angry, frustrated little child and it really helped to build our

relationship… …he learned to trust me.’’

Communicating through music can express things that are difficult to put into words:

S4: ‘‘Music enables us to express those things which can’t be put into words……they don’t have to be very specific about what they’re expressing and yet it can be

immensely powerful.’’

The ability to communicate using music is particularly important for people who have

difficulty communicating in more conventional ways. By taking the place of words, music

can connect sick people with something external to themselves, and rebuild a means of

communication that allows ill or non-communicative people to ‘be in the world’:

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S4: ‘‘a child has even spoken for the first time because they realised there really is

something external to them who they can be communicative to.’’

S1: ‘‘it gave me a form of communication that I didn’t have with the rest of the

world, if you can see what I mean, with language and speech.’’

Connection

Music can engender a deep, intuitive sense of connection that removes boundaries between

people:

S4: ‘‘When I’m playing a melody in thirds with the first violin somehow we’re

having to make a connection which is very deep… …I think by doing that we lose a

certain aspect of our boundary.’’

Such connections may be one-to-one or communal, tacit or explicit, between similar or

different people, between players and listeners, or between different people taking turns in

a single musical activity. Connections forged by music are not just a medium for healing

activities but may, themselves, have a healing effect:

R2: ‘‘the relationship (is) almost more than a medium for healing but almost healing

itself.’’

Isolation Connecting with isolated people through the medium of music can help them

feel part of a unity, involved and included, even when the environment they are in is an

alien one. It can give them a means of self-expression, make them feel more positive about

themselves and reduce their sense of isolation. All those things can be therapeutic:

R4: ‘‘For people who feel very isolated and are in very alien, confusing environ-

ments, communication and feeling included is really important. I think the active role

of listening to or playing music must play a big part in feeling involved and included

in something and being united with others who are sharing in the musical

experience.’’

Connection with music itself can offer companionship to isolated people:

R4: ‘‘Sometimes this experience can be uplifting and can alter the way I feel, but

more often I think that the relationship with music is almost like a companionship in

some ways.’’

Unity Connections are frequently formed between people who are united through the

experience of making music together and this sense of unity has therapeutic effects:

R3: ‘‘When I sing with a chorus I have the same sense of… belonging and a sort of

sense of unity with the rest of the chorus.’’

Music, immersion, transport and health

Immersion

Music can engage every aspect of a person’s being, displacing thoughts and feelings, and

leaving them satisfied, calm, refreshed, and rested:

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S4: ‘‘using music as a therapy (is) not simply… taking peoples’ minds off their

situation or their pain but it’s literally engaging every aspect of their being.’’

Escapism and transport

By engaging people’s emotions, music allows them to forget unpleasant things for a little

while and escape to places where they would rather be. It can also transport people to

different forms of consciousness, planes of emotion, and times of their lives:

S4: ‘‘It’s affecting you emotionally, spiritually, taking you onto a different plane.’’

It has the capacity to reawaken memories, conjure up images, and be a magical or

spiritual experience:

R1: ‘‘music is a real magic because it taps into the inner cinema which each one of us

has. And you can go to anywhere you want just with a simple piece of music.’’

Physical involvement

Musical engagement can be physical as well as mental. People can lead or respond to

music with movement in a way that allows them to communicate. When physical disability

is very restrictive, even small movements in musical contexts can allow sick people to

participate in social activity. Music therapists are able to use movement to lead or respond

to music:

S4: ‘‘The way she moves her body demonstrates to me very much what’s going on

inside her.’’

S6: ‘‘if they had even tiny movements I could respond to that musically, perhaps with

a bigger sound than they are able to actually make.’’

Control and influence There are times when music is one of the few ways sick people are

able to exercise control and it can be very positive for them to see they are influencing

someone else:

S6: ‘‘He could actually be the leader and he could actually experience an adult

following him and taking his lead.’’

Self-esteem Performing as an expert musician can create mountains that it is very sat-

isfying to climb; working through a piece and really thinking about it in depth can have a

therapeutic effect that increases self-esteem:

R1: ‘‘that sense of deep satisfaction and a feeling as though you’ve really achieved

what you wanted to do, has to be a really positive therapeutic feeling.’’

Holism, health and disease

Music balances the spiritual, mental, and physical elements of people’s lives. It can

enhance the emotional, physical, and psychological health of well people and make very

sick people healthier without curing their disease:

S3: ‘‘Wholeness is a state that most people aspire to, a balance of spiritual, mental,

physical elements of life. Music plays an important part in this.’’

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R1: ‘‘A wonderful feel good factor is the essence of what music and healing is all

about.’’

Music can help sick people recover by benefiting their mental health:

S6: ‘‘I’ve been thinking about the general aim of all of the sessions that I’m doing

here, which is to impact on the mental health of each patient, to assist in recovery.’’

Music has positive physical effects—on coordination, bodily awareness, spatial

awareness, balance, and breathing. Its benefits can be applied to anyone—seeing them as

they are and accepting what they want to do:

S4: ‘‘It’s about you being looked after properly you know as much as it is about the

symptoms of your condition.’’

Music as therapy does not preclude any particular medical therapy:

R2: ‘‘We concentrate on the whole individual and think about those things we can do

that might have some benefit: and they may be chemotherapy, they may be music, it

may be one or the other.’’

Validation

The validator strongly endorsed the interpretation of music’s effect on individual people

but was uncertain of its relevance to medical education and clinical medicine. All

respondents at the validation stage supported the conclusions apart from minor details of

wording. One respondent (S6) added a further comment that every sound a person makes in

music therapy can be musical and therefore, in the context of music therapy, ‘music’ does

not necessarily mean intentional and recognisable music-making.

Discussion

Principal findings and meaning

The experience that emerged strongly from this investigation was of music promoting

better health, regardless of a person’s preceding state of disease, illness, or wellness.

Within our culture, we have access to a rich and varied selection of music and have chosen

to explore music and health without restricting our study to particular genres. It is apparent

that different music may affect individuals in a variety of ways and the experience of music

can be very personal. Given the healing potential of music, it is probable that individuals

will find certain music less healing, or even harmful, although this is not something we

chose to explore in detail. Music was experienced as having a holistic effect on people,

which contrasts with the very organ-focused nature of contemporary medicine. Given that

the latter tends also to be strongly focused on the identification and treatment of disease

rather than the promotion of health, our findings suggest an important way in which music,

as a medical humanity, could augment undergraduate medical programmes. It is such a

ubiquitous part of contemporary human experience that music could link commonplace

human experience to the goals of clinical practice.

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Strengths and limitations

We made a number of methodological choices, which we regard as strengths. We chose a

theoretical orientation towards phenomenology, which has deep roots in philosophy and

allowed participants to provide rich accounts of human experience. We deliberately

included a variety of perspectives within the research team and used co-operative inquiry

to capitalise on them. Collectively, we were able to develop an interpretation, consider our

own influence on the research and reflect on the meaning of our findings. That approach

went beyond handling the ubiquitous problem of subjectivity in research to harnessing our

subjectivities into a rigorous research design and enriching the findings. Finally, we opened

the research to criticism from outside the team.

As well as being a strength of the research, cooperative inquiry could also be considered a

limitation since our close collaborative working may have blinded us to other perspectives.

Since only one researcher communicated directly with the respondents, ours was not a full

implementation of cooperative inquiry, which calls for a close working relationship between

respondents and researchers. Other limitations included the relatively small numbers

involved, although we deliberately used three different types of respondent to inform the

analysis and add richness and variety. We spoke only to people with an expressed interest in

music and health, which means we have to be cautious about extrapolating the findings

beyond the type of respondent included in the research. Although their experiences had been

very varied, the means of selecting respondents makes it unsurprising there was such strong

consensus on how music can benefit the human condition. So, our results can really only be

extrapolated to people who are open to the beneficial effects of music, and to such a broad

interpretation of the task of medicine. While we made a conscious effort not to restrict the

study to certain musical genres, our method of recruitment makes it unlikely that our

respondents represented a wide range of musical tastes.

Relation to other publications

We are not aware of any other research that has used phenomenological methodology to

explore music and health; indeed, the relationship between music and health is a relatively

young research discipline, the majority of work focusing on the progression of specific

diseases or on chemical/physical aspects of bodily function. Health research is now wid-

ening to take an approach that is more holistic and attuned to the ‘human effects’

of therapies (Dixon and Sweeney 2000). The same trend is also occurring in medical education

research, with a wealth of recent literature on the inclusion of medical humanities in under-

graduate curricula (Ousager and Johannessen 2010). Our findings are consonant with two

themes in medical practice. ‘Patient-centred method’, by distinguishing the presence of disease

in the body (‘the broken part’) from illness (the patient’s experience), (Stewart 2003) helps

explain our apparently anomalous proposal that music can have beneficial effects on incurably

diseased people. Medical care has to give due attention to both disease and illness but some

situations call for a primary focus on one or other. The fact of a disease being incurable does not

preclude an intervention having a beneficial effect on a patient’s experience of illness, which is

exactly what was described by our respondents. Patient-centred method is, in that sense,

holistic. It provides a framework for our principal finding: that music, by promoting wellbeing,

complements conventional disease-focused medicine. We use the term ‘wellbeing’ to

emphasise that we are referring to peoples’ whole state of being, not just physical health. The

subjective experience of wellbeing is often independent of traditional (objective) measures of

health. A second theme was termed by Sweeney and Dixon the ‘Human effect in medicine’

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(Dixon and Sweeney 2000). Sweeney framed medicine’s long history as a struggle for domi-

nance between the schools of the two daughters of the Greek God Aesclepius—Hygeia and

Panacea—the first standing for the promotion of health and the second standing for the alle-

viation of disease (Dixon and Sweeney 2000). Music, according to Sweeney’s formulation, is

firmly in the school of Hygeia, but not at odds with Panacean practice.

Wider implications

This research has implications for medical humanities in educational practice. We have

shown a connection between music and health, which remains a ‘blind spot’ for the

majority of doctors. It may be possible, through the inclusion of music in medical

humanities education, to broaden the life experience of medical students and encourage a

more holistic approach to clinical medicine. The clinical impact of this could be that future

doctors will have greater understanding of when music may be an appropriate therapy to

recommend for a patient, in order to promote their wellbeing alongside dealing with their

disease. There are many doctors with a strong interest in music and yet they may struggle

to link music with the clinical practice of medicine. Perhaps educating future doctors in the

humanities (including music) will help them apply their cultural experiences to their

clinical work. Our research showed the huge variety of emotions that can be experienced

through music and raises the possibility that it could help doctors empathise better with

patients. The question remains how broad a section of society would share the views

expressed in this research. Our study only included individuals who were musicians and

already had an interest in music and health. Future research could investigate the response

of people less committed to music as a method of healing. It would be interesting to

explore the views of patients who had access to music therapy. An alternative approach

could be to investigate the views of medical professionals who did not take an active

interest in the health benefits of music.

Conclusion

This research presents evidence for a link between music and health and suggests why it is

important in a medical context. We have proposed that music can have a wide variety of

beneficial effects, regardless of the degree of illness or disability an individual may have. In

that respect, music could be considered a widely applicable therapy. Those findings are based

on the lived experience of people who are involved in music on a regular basis and take an

active interest in its healing properties; therefore it is currently unclear whether our results

represent the views of a wider spectrum of people. It is, however, apparent that the signifi-

cance of music is not well understood in the medical context, even amongst medical pro-

fessionals who are themselves musical. A convincing case can be made for the inclusion of

music in the medical humanities component of undergraduate medical education.

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