Abstract
Although music is known to be a part of everyday life and a resource for mood and emotion management, everyday life has changed significantly for many due to the global coronavirus pandemic, making the role of music in everyday life less certain. An online survey in which participants responded to Likert scale questions as well as providing free text responses was used to explore how participants were engaging with music during the first wave of the pandemic, whether and how they were using music for mood regulation, and how their engagement with music related to their experiences of worry and anxiety resulting from the pandemic. Results indicated that, for the majority of participants, while many felt their use of music had changed since the beginning of the pandemic, the amount of their music listening behaviors were either unaffected by the pandemic or increased. This was especially true of listening to self-selected music and watching live streamed concerts. Analysis revealed correlations between participants’ use of mood for music regulation, their musical engagement, and their levels of anxiety and worry. A small number of participants described having negative emotional responses to music, the majority of whom also reported severe levels of anxiety.
Highlights
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organize declared a global pandemic due to the spread of COVID-19, an infectious disease caused by a novel strain of coronavirus which was first identified in China near the end of the previous year
The current study aims to contribute to the development of this understanding by addressing the following research questions: 1) Has the coronavirus pandemic had an influence on individuals’ musical engagement, and if so, how?
Results indicated that participants were engaging with music in a variety of ways, and that their engagement with music had changed in a variety of ways as a result of the pandemic
Summary
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organize declared a global pandemic due to the spread of COVID-19, an infectious disease caused by a novel strain of coronavirus which was first identified in China near the end of the previous year. In response to the pandemic, many countries instituted lockdown measures, closing non-essential businesses and schools, and cautioning citizens to stay at home, in order to slow the spread of the virus. Such measures have proven to effective when strictly implemented (Alfano and Ercolano, 2020; Sjödin et al, 2020), but for many countries has come at high cost to economic and social wellbeing The mental health effect of the pandemic may be exacerbated by the necessity to remain in social isolation to prevent the spread of the virus (White and Van Der Boor, 2020). It is imperative to understand the strategies individuals use to cope with the negative psychological consequences of the pandemic, in order to support resilience on individual and community levels (Vinkers et al, 2020)
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