What is the relationship between music and trauma? This may seem like a strange question, but music is something that gets brought up quite a bit when discussing mental health. For example, the way music seems to help humans heal from obstacles they’ve overcome. Or how certain songs can bring back memories from a specific time in our lives. Or how we can connect and relate to specific lyrics that make us feel like we’re not alone, and make us realize that someone in this world has gone through the same things as us.
The fact that music can reach certain parts of our brains in a way that human interaction cannot, is so fascinating to me. Music is a topic that I’m very passionate about, and I also love learning about psychology, and how our brains work. Music has helped so many trauma survivors heal, and grow, and I want to have a better understanding of the impact of music on our lives. There are so many studies that show that music can rewire a person’s brain, and I want to understand how that can happen, and why it happens.
Personally, music has helped me in more ways than I can explain, which is the reason why this question is so interesting to me, and I love hearing about the ways that music has changed a person’s life. While researching this topic, I hope to raise awareness about trauma and music, and give people a better understand of it, and hopefully get more people interested in this subject!
Hi Shalia,
As an amateur composer who has played instruments for as long as she can remember, this is a fascinating new topic to me, and I would love to hear about your own relationship with music.
– Amy
Hi Shaila!
I am beyond fascinated by you’re inquiry question for this semester. As someone who frequently listens to music, I can relate to this topic. Whenever I listen to music it can help me heal/recover from a hard time, or even bring back a memory from my past. I love how you incorporated your question (music and trauma) into something you are passionate about, and relating it to a topic that you like to learn about (psychology)! I noticed that you touched on how music can reach beyond human connection and how it can change a person’s life. A few suggestions and helpful links for future research are:
– Asking around and collecting information (from classmates, peers, etc.) on how music has helped them in their life, and what it does for them daily. This can help get a live consensus and more interactive component to your research, and how music effects our specific generation.
– (https://pitchfork.com/features/overtones/can-music-heal-trauma-exploring-the-therapeutic-powers-of-sound/) This link is helpful because it focuses on the effect of therapeutic sounds (calming music, lofi, pop music, etc) and the powers it has on others!
– (https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/53880/how-making-music-can-help-students-cope-with-trauma) This link can provide you with information about students and the relation of music and trauma. This is helpful because it can help your research while connecting it to our generation, and people closer to your age.
I hope this helps with your question this semester!
– Rhea🙂
Hey Rhea,
Thank you so much for your comment! I really appreciate your suggestion and I’m planning on using it for my future posts! And I think it’s awesome that you also love music and can relate to how it can help people. Music is truly amazing!
Good luck with your own project, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you write!
Hi Shaila!! I love your topic, I can totally relate when it comes to music helping with the mental mind. It is definitely something unexplainable, but the feeling you get from it calms, and keeps you going, so I am excited to see you do more about this topic.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/keep-your-brain-young-with-music
When i went to search more about this topic, this article came up, kind of explaning the “scientific” method of why music helps so much the way it does, and also what it does to the brain!! I hope you find this helpfiul, and wish to see more about this topic!!!
Hello!
I absolutely love this idea for a project! I personally love music so much and feel so connected to it but I don’t know why.
I think it would be awesome if you went in depth about how music affects us and stays with us when we are children. I think it would be really cool to see if music can shape the way we grow up to think and act. I wonder how someone who had never heard music in their life would act as an adult compared to everyone else in the world. It is impossible to reach adulthood without ever hearing a song, a melody, or even a hum but if someone did, how would they act? These are just some things I personally would be interested in learning!
I just know this will be an awesome project!
-Natalie:)