I have learned throughout my years as a musician that music has a special power that nothing else can convey. It’s often been somewhat of a home base when everything else is crazy. I always know that the music on my phone or in my saxophone will be there and will never change unless I so choose.

But although I have always loved music as a means of consistency, I never really saw much real benefit directly from it, other than it being a bit of a refuge. And then I got to thinking.

What if there really was something truly benefitting from simply hearing music?

I started to get curious and began researching this very topic. I found multiple sources claiming that there were in fact benefits to listening to music, but many of them had no scientific basis, only that from personal experience. Except one.

There was an article posted by Musical Pursuits that demonstrates benefits of playing a musical instrument, and includes links to scientific studies that back up their claims. Multiple of the studies I viewed, however had connections to listening to music.

Some of their points claimed that listening to music can increase memory capability, boost immune system, improve your social life, makes you happy, and more. If you’re anything like me, you’d start to heavily question some of the claims when they mention “improving your social life.” It didn’t help my skepticism to see that the link to the backing information took me to a page that could not be found.

Suspicious claims aside, there were valid points throughout the rest of the article with legitimate scientific studies to back them up.

For example, one of the studies referenced did a test on those that were victims of a stroke and included musical training with conventional therapies for one group and only conventional therapies for the other. They found in the study that the group who had also received music instruction showed increased precision, speed, and motor control in movements after treatment.

However, there are certainly those that question the value of listening to music in everyday life. For those of us that haven’t suffered a severely traumatic injury, is music really helpful, or is it more of a distraction when we’re constantly pushing to be more productive and effective? It seems on the surface that listening to music would only be a distraction as studies show multitasking isn’t real, so we can’t focus on the music and the work at the same time.

This study seems to argue that listening to music while trying to productively work can be a distraction because it reduces your task-switching ability and your ability to ignore irrelevant environmental stimuli, but au contraire, the point of listening to music while working is to have noise in the background and to drown out these “irrelevant emotional stimuli.” I often listen to music because it helps me to tune out the random noises and conversations around me that aren’t pertinent to what I am focused on.

This study from the Journal of Educational Psychology sure makes it appear to be more beneficial than harmful. It proves that high school students had achieve higher and better in their academics if they are involved in music courses, and even more so if they are instrumental courses.

So what? You’re probably thinking, “Cool, you did your homework. What am I supposed to do with this cool information you found and how do they relate to me?” I’d suggest listening to your music of choice next time you sit down to work on a repetitive, time-consuming task. Or, if you’re doing something that requires high cognitive function, try slow, fast music. Regardless of what music or how, try adding more music to your life in this new year (a late New Year’s Resolution, if you will) and see how it affects you. I think you’ll be surprised.

Written by:

Tyler Clotfelter

I am a high school student, an avid saxophonist, and play video games on occasion, though not very often. I have one brother and in the little free time I get I choose to practice saxophone.