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Ana Toscano

Professor Nelson

English 1302-104

8 October 2021

The effects of Music on the Mood

In today's world Music is used to make us feel some sort of emotion and connection to

the genre of the music. A person would listen to music at any point of the day either when they

are alone or in a crowded room. Listening to music helps a person relieve any or all emotions

that they are holding within to feel either happy or sad. A person's current mood can affect the

quality of the music being played. Several researchers have studied that listening to music can

affect a person's emotions. In one of the articles, it states “it has been shown that current mood

states can influence the perception of the affective quality of music in a mood-congruent

manner” (Cohrdes, 22). In addition, in another article it states, “the major area of research is the

management of moods and emotions because moods and emotions are essential components of

everyday life that can have a significant influence on many aspects of psychological well-being

and cognitive functioning” (Campbell, 1133). Furthermore, these researchers in these articles

talk about how music controls a person's mood and attitude when they listen to certain music.

According to the researchers in these next few articles, I agree to say that music can

affect a person's mood depending on the type of music that is being played. A person's mood can

affect the things that they do on a daily basis such as work, school, home, general tasks and

among other things. Many researchers like Caroline Cohrdes and et al argue that listening to

music does have an effect on a person's mood (Cohreds, 22). In addition, another author says that

listening to music does affect an individual's mood even though they may not know it yet
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(Campbell, 5). This lets the person that may be affected by the music to know what is going on

with them during that time either if they are at work, school and or together places that they

listen to the music. In Annemieke J.M. Van den Tol and Jane Edwards article they researched

that older adults tend to listen to music depending on their mood and the tasks they are doing at

that moment and how they can get it done based on their mood. A study that was done by

Cohreds,Wrzus, Wald-Fuhrmann, and Riediger the individuals listened to about 147 affective

sounds along with 465 songs all with different backgrounds. Cohreds, Wrsuz, Wald-Fuhrmann,

and Riediger claimed that listening to happy music the participants of this experiment were

pleased. While others that were listening to sad music were feeling down and some others felt

aggravated (Cohreds, 26-28). Moreover, in Suvi Saarikallio’s article it showed us that playing

happy music gave a person a positive type of emotion such as joy, pleasure and calm. While

playing sad songs gave the listeners a negative emotion being aggressive, frustration and alone

among other things (Saarikallio, 12). This just shows us what a person can feel depending on

what is being played for them in these types of experiments.

In addition, more studies show that music shows us that no matter what the person's

mood is, they tend to listen to music that they want to listen to and not just by their mood

(Garrido, 245). When it comes to music giving us any type of emotions it can really happen to

anyone at any time without them knowing. Authors Tom F. M. ter Bogt, Alessio Vieno and

among other researchers have claimed that listening to music helps a person to be comforted no

matter what kind of music that it may be but it's mainly a reference to sad songs (ter Bogt ,156).

Unlike, in Sandra Garrido and Emery Schubert research article it also states that sad songs just

make a person feel sadder than what they were before (Garrido, 245). A person that is always

listening to music can always change a person's mood constantly due to the types of music that is
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being played at any time of the day. About 50 people out of 335 tested in this experiment said

that sad songs make them sad faster (Sandra Garrido and Emery Schubert, 245). Authors Sandra

Garrido and Emery Schubert state that during their experiment that they tested the results of the

participants that did not listen to music first versus the group that did listen to music (Garrido

and Schubert, 251). Moreover, authors Tom F. M. ter Bogt, Alessio Vieno, Suzan M.

Doornwaard, Massimiliano Pastore and Regina J. J. M. van den Eijnden all did a study with

people of several different ages to test out if they were to listen to sad songs and how much it

does affect a person. The results from this article is that music has been used as a means of

comfort by the majority of youths (69.8%) and millennials (69.2%)(Bogt,163). Furthermore,

both males (58.3%) and females (73.9%) all responded with low results of 71.6% but with about

65.2% telling us that they do use music to comfort them, while the others don't think so (Bogt ,

162-164). The information produced in each of these research backs up the argument that music

has a significant impact on people's lives.

Music does have a significant effect on a person's mood though the different types of music

that they listen to. In many studies it shows us that an individual's mood can change based on the

music at hand. In Caroline Cohrdes article she states that there are certain features of music that

can affect such as the tempo and mode of the music that can affect a person's mood (Cohrds, 24).

Emotional impact of listening to music can make a person dependent on many different emotions

that they may be experiencing (Campbell,1135). Furthermore, in Van de Tol and Edwards

article they state that music more particularly, it's possible some people would actively choose

music featuring strong aesthetic appeal to improve their emotions after such an unpleasant

encounter (Van De Tol and Edwards, 475). One among genre's main significant motivational

purposes for everyday life involves internal self, therefore musical hearing has already proved to
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become an excellent tool for such a behavior (Saarika and Brattico, 28). Moreover, Garrido and

Schubert wanted to see how self-selected sad music by the participants can affect a mood using a

mood scale (Garrison and Schubert,259). Sarrika-Brattico and Garrido-Schubert both show us

how self-selected music does have both a positive and negative effect on a person's mood.

Just by reading about all these articles it shows us that music is quite the mood changer.

Due to the results and studies given to us from researchers it shows us in what ways music has an

influence on people of all ages in many ways. It's an exceptionally significant topic since many

individuals are unaware of the impact that music has on an individual. In a person's lifetime they

go through many emotions that are coming from many things in life, but the main thing that does

give them emotions always comes from listening to music. It's important for people to know

about how much music does affect one person's mood at any point during their life. Since they

will continue to choose to listen to music either to boost it or to lower it depending on the

situation. When people choose to listen to music more often than others may feel better since

they are getting all types of emotion out. In the end the researchers of all of these papers used

other research work and built it on that a lot more in different ways to expand information for

their experiments that show us how music works on a person's mood.

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Works Cited

Campbell, Elizabeth Ann, , Elizaveta Berezina and C M Hew D Gill “The Effects of Music

Induction on Mood and Affect in an Asian Context.” Psychology of Music, vol. 49, no. 5,

Sept. 2021, pp. 1132–1144, doi:10.1177/0305735620928578.

Cohrdes, Caroline,Wrzus,Wald-Fuhrmann, Riediger “‘The Sound of Affect’: Age Differences

in Perceiving Valence and Arousal in Music and Their Relation to Music Characteristics

and Momentary Mood.” Musicae Scientiae, vol. 24, no. 1, Mar. 2020, pp. 21–43,

doi:10.1177/1029864918765613

Garrido, Sandra, and Emery Schubert. “Moody Melodies: Do They Cheer Us up? A Study of the

Effect of Sad Music on Mood.” Psychology of Music, vol. 43, no. 2, Mar. 2015, pp. 244–

261, doi:10.1177/0305735613501938.

.Saarikallio, Suvi, Sirke Nieminen and Elvira Brattico. “Affective Reactions to Musical Stimuli

Reflect Emotional Use of Music in Everyday Life.” Musicae Scientiae, vol. 17, no. 1,

Mar. 2013, pp. 27–39, doi:10.1177/1029864912462381.

ter Bogt, Tom F. M.Alessio Vieno, Suzan M. Doornwaard, Massimiliano Pastore2 and Regina

J. J. M. van den Eijnden “‘You’re Not Alone’: Music as a Source of Consolation among

Adolescents and Young Adults.” Psychology of Music, vol. 45, no. 2, Mar. 2017, pp.

155–171, doi:10.1177/0305735616650029.

Van den Tol, Annemieke J. M., and Jane Edwards. “Listening to Sad Music in Adverse

Situations: How Music Selection Strategies Relate to Self-Regulatory Goals, Listening

Effects, and Mood Enhancement.” Psychology of Music, vol. 43, no. 4, July 2015, pp.

473–494, doi:10.1177/0305735613517410.