1

Jeremiah Tacey

Ifeoluwa Ayandele

ENC 2135

March 20th, 2024

Rhetorical Analysis of Music Listening Artifacts

Music is something that is important to everyone and everyone encounters it in some way

in their own lives. Many find that interacting with music makes them feel better, whether that be

through listening, playing, or writing music. Two artifacts are presented to show how music is

used to help people with their emotions and mood. The first is an article entitled “Listening to

sad music in adverse situations: How music selection strategies relate to self-regulatory goals,

listening effects, and mood enhancement” by Annemieke J.M. Van den Tol and Jane Edwards

from the Psychology of Music. In the article the author discusses the reasons people listen to

music and how music is used to regulate emotions and mood. The second is a music therapy

infographic from APMhealth.com detailing how music therapy can benefit mental health and

how to practice music therapy by yourself. They both highlight the connection between music

and emotions and how it can be used for the better. The knowledge of how music can make

people feel better gives an easy way for people to get help for regulating emotions when regular

therapy might not be an option.

The text based artifact I’ve selected is from the Psychology of Music. In the article, a poll

is described where adults were asked the motivations behind choosing certain music to listen to..

The results showed that most people choose their music based on goals for self-regulation, very

commonly being mood enhancement. The authors go into detail about how many choose to listen
 2

to sad music when they are feeling sad and are more likely going to listen to upbeat, happy music

in more casual situations. Many adults reported that they would listen to sad music to be more in

touch with their feelings when they are sad as well as to have something to identify with in that

moment, almost as if it was someone who understood what they were going through during that

time. The article includes all the details from the study as well as charts showing all of the data

collected from the study. The authors further explain how many of the findings were expected as

well as bringing things to light such as people listening to music for nostalgic purposes as well as

distraction and friendship. All of the data and explanations are used to show how music choice

changes based on goals and how people use it as a way to feel better and to accomplish those

goals, whether they be emotional or physical.

The authors have a very scientific approach to delivering the information, meaning they

rely heavily on certain rhetorical strategies more than others. Logos is the most predominant

rhetorical appeal used in the article by the authors. Lots of data and organization is used to

display lots of information to the audience, which makes the audience much more likely to see

the information being presented as being fact, and making the audience take the information

much more seriously than just taking the author’s word for the results. The authors take lots of

time to describe specifically every detail of the study, including hypotheses, participants,

measures, procedures and results to hide nothing from the audience and give them a clear

understanding of everything the study did. They also use multiple ways of explaining the results,

through both charts and worded explanations to give the audience multiple way of seeing the

data collected so that it can be understood to its fullest. This type of logos used is very common

in research articles like these published in journals, where the data and the experiment is the
 3

main focus of the article. The authors however, also employ a degree of ethos in their

presentation of data. Because the article is an explanation of an experiment and the data found,

the article shows very little bias towards a certain idea, making it more credible. The authors also

publishing their data through a long-standing journal like the Psychology of Music also makes

the article more credible and trustworthy, making readers believe even more that everything

being shared is indeed fact. Both of the authors are also attached to universities making their

credibility as authors and researchers stronger than if they were on their own. The very scientific

and data oriented nature of the article and the authors provides a strong credibility to the

information provided about the choices people make when listening to music.

The visual-based artifact is an infographic from APMhealth.com, which is a health

wellness website. The infographic contains lots of information pertaining to music therapy and

how it can help people. The artifact describes all of the benefits for the brain that are gained by

listening to music, as well as showing photos relating to each of those benefits. These benefits

include music being a distraction or, reminding people of fond memories, as well as releasing

dopamine which is a chemical that makes people feel good. It lists additional facts about music

therapy including the oldest music therapy program established at Michigan State University and

also the average amount of music people listen to in a day. At the bottom of the infographic,

different ways are suggested to practice music therapy on your own and how it can be different

for different people. It describes how you can both play or listen to music, as well as even

writing your own music. The infographic has lots of bright colors and fun shapes with all of the

information it is portraying. The infographic is a fun and casual way of showing how great music

therapy is for people and how simple it can be for people to experience the benefits it provides.
 4

The infographic, while seeming simple, employs

multiple rhetorical techniques to help make the information stick with people and convince

people that music therapy is good for them. The fun, bright colors give a playful and fun feeling

to the poster, which triggers a pathological appeal as the infographic looks happy, giving people

a warm feeling which makes them feel that if the poster is happy, they might also be able to

achieve that happiness by indulging in music therapy. The infographic also uses logos in its

appeal structure with facts pertaining to music therapy for people which gives them more

understanding. The poster also has logical ways of telling people to practice music therapy,

giving people a sense of how easy it is, making the infographic even more convincing. The

website gives a small sense of ethos as it is a pain management website but isn’t very commonly
 5

known making it not as strong as the other appeals in the artifact but still present with the other

rhetorical appeals. The infographic uses multiple strategies to make people understand the

benefits of music therapy and how it can help their daily lives.

Both artifacts use rhetorical methods to show the ability of music to improve mood and

health, but go about it in very different ways. While the text-based artifact shows the impact

through experimental data convincing readers, the infographic relies more on fun images to show

it’s argument that music therapy is something more people should be doing. Both artifacts

however do use data to give a sense of credibility to their respective source. The text-based

artifact has a stronger sense of ethos than the visual-based artifact due to the legitimacy of the

journal as well as the university background of the authors, which the infographic does not have.

But the infographic has the advantage of being simple, and easy to digest, making it a more

accessible source, while the wordy article makes it much harder to understand with lots of data

and technical terms. While the pieces do have the same overall goal of improving mental health,

they use different topics to do so. While the journal entry discusses music listening habits for

people, the infographic talks about music therapy and builds off of more than just listening

music, but writing music and playing music to be more involved with the music, making it

connect more deeply. The artifacts both make convincing arguments to the use of music in

people’s lives, even if in two very different ways.

Both the article from the Psychology of Music and the infographic from APMhealth.com

both use a variety of rhetorical methods to convince their respective audience on the impact of

music for the brain. Even though they use different strategies to get their point across, both show

how people use music for self-improvement and mood enhancement. Music is an important part
 6

of people’s lives and both artifacts clearly demonstrate just how it helps people to be their best

selves.
 7

Works Cited

Van Del Tol, Annemieke J.M. “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, 2015

“Music Therapy Infographic” Advanced Pain Management,

https://www.learningsuccessblog.com/23-ways-music-can-be-positive-body-infograph-0