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By Nuné NikoghosyanThis contribution is based on a talk at the panel “Music and wellbeing – an interdisciplinary approach” together with participants Marc Scialom (musician, therapist) and Denis Chappuis (sound therapist) on the 27.09.2016, during the week themed “Arts and health: the role of music in the promotion of health and wellbeing” of the Master of Advanced Studies in Public Health at the Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva.In the context of an interdisciplinary panel discussion, in front of an audience that consists mainly of medical practitioners, what may sociology have to say about the link between music and health? It must perhaps first of all be mentioned that the link between music (or culture) and health is somewhat less studied to this day from a sociological perspective compared to other disciplines, such as psychology, medicine, psychotherapy, and neurosciences. Sociology has quite abundant studies and writings in these two fields separately – sociology of music, and sociology of health – but much fewer that combine the two. Sociologist Tia DeNora is one of the few to have done this, and to have built a research group around such questions and to “examine music and the arts in situations of action”. There are also sociological studies that discuss these two aspects (music and wellbeing), though the link remains more implicit and needs to be carved out. Pity, because from the few studies we have today, there seems indeed to be much more to be said on this from a sociological viewpoint. The field remains most fruitful for sociology.To explain the reasons why, let us make use of the list of arguments justifying “Why music?” in the introduction of the edited book Music, Health, and Wellbeing (eds R. MacDonald, G. Kreutz, L. Mitchell, 2012).First of all, because music is everywhere, it is ubiquitous. It is on the street, in our headphones, on the radio, in supermarkets, train stations… Anywhere where there might otherwise have been noise or, worse yet, silence. As Anahid Kassabian argues in Ubiquitous Listening (2013), we don’t even notice this music anymore, but we still listen to it – it still gets inside our brains and affects our perception, be it for the better or worse. But, as much as music is everywhere nowadays, so are questions of health and wellbeing. The number of magazines, websites, blogs, TV shows etc. that give us advice on how to live better (eat, drink, move, relax…) has become abundant nowadays, and is probably growing by the hour. Everyday, “sensational diets” and “scientific discoveries” flood in with the best way to live longer and healthier. We may even have got to a point where we don’t notice these anymore, or not as much, being now too used to the idea. Our smartphones now even keep count of the number of steps we’ve walked during the day, without even us knowing! We can then compare and contrast our physical activity with others’, beat our own personal records and generally make sure we move enough to stay healthy.Second, both health and music have an emotional side to them. Both can stir feelings, to say the least. But emotions are more social and sociological than we may think. In fact, they most often guide us in our social practices and interactions, according to what our “gut tells” us to do, with whom to talk, how to behave, etc., bringing us to sociological basics. This brings us to another point: music can both engage us with and distract from others, hence with an imminent effect on wellbeing, especially psychological. Engagement itself, again, brings us to social interactions, networks, collectives, and other sociological notions.Third, music is a social production and activity – it takes more than one to make music. There is a strong need to communicate, interact, understand one another, come to an agreement… work together, that is. Let us not forget the works of Howard S. Becker on art as collective action in his famous Art worlds (1982). All art is the result of cooperation, according to the author, though this does not necessarily imply pleasure in doing so. Even when we think the artist is alone, the final work is always the result of a chain of actions done by different people. A musician who, technically, may be playing alone still needs this cooperation and a background work done collectively and/or by others: someone invented the instrument to play on, someone else produced it, someone has surely sold it somewhere for the musician to buy, someone taught the technique (be it a teacher or the author of a written manual), not to mention that the whole notation system pre-exists musicians today. Listening to music has a similar chain of actions and cooperation, for a number of material objects, actions, social procedures and instances are needed for someone to listen to a piece of music, recorded or live. Whether we play or listen to music alone or in groups, we are always doing it with others. Mutual understanding, as implied by the notion of collective action, is essential for social wellbeing, or for the individual’s wellbeing in a social context, for if we don’t understand one another, the dissonance will undoubtedly not only affect our psychological wellbeing, but also make all things social and collective harder to do. Furthermore, from a sociological perspective, wellbeing in itself can be said to be a social activity rooted in mundane everyday occupations (DeNora 2007) – what we do, and don’t do or avoid, for our health.Fourth, music in itself can be a communication tool, hence as such cannot and shall not escape rigorous analysis by the social sciences. But health and wellbeing also depend on communication between individuals, not only to pass viruses to each other, but also to find and learn how to cure illness, what to do and what to avoid for a better health, etc. We may not find the answers in music itself, but… the communicative dimension of both gives food for thought.Fifth, both music and wellbeing represent a physical dimension. Playing an instrument or singing are already physical activities, some more intense than others, depending on the instrument. This can even lead to problems of health for professionals who spend long working hours practising (Gembris 2012). But listening also quickly becomes a physical activity: tapping our fingers or feet, getting up to dance and move to the rhythm, eventually leading to distraction and a sense of lightness if stressed (DeNora 2007). The link with wellbeing is apparent here. But, sociology also intervenes as soon as we consider the social side of the human body – how we see, work and control our bodies, especially when music becomes a tool in doing so. Moreover, music, be it through playing or listening, requires embodied knowledge from us, one that we may not even be aware of, as Pierre Bourdieu (1979) explains in his concept of habitus. Music may literally become part of our body by the knowledge it requires and what it makes us do (move, dance, hum, distract ourselves...).Sixth, and related to the previous point: music can influence behaviour. We find ourselves between different disciplines here – psychology, medicine, neurosciences, sociology, etc. Again, the link between behaviour and wellbeing should be clear enough for us not to detail it further, not to say the least because most often behaviour affects health and health affects behaviour. But behaviour is as much individual as social, implying social interactions, our relations to others, social norms, ways of thinking, and much more that lie in the realm of sociology.Lastly, music influences identities. When we meet someone for the first time, especially at a younger age, and we try to make out what the person is like (in terms of personality, behaviour, etc.), one of the first questions we ask, if not the first question, is “What do you listen to?” It is perhaps more rare to ask from the beginning “What do you read?” or “What do you watch?” In fact, we often use elements of cultural taste to judge and categorize people and their personalities (even sociologists do it in private!). But music seems to be the most influential item in cultural taste for doing this. According to our judgement of the artist or musical genre the person listens to (“cool”, “modern”, “nerdy”, “outdated” etc.), we categorize the individual similarly. There perhaps should be no doubt that such categorization, of which music is only one example, has its own influence on the individual’s wellbeing, especially at a psychological level. Let us not forget sociologist Erving Goffman’s writings on the perception of self (1956), arguing that individuals act according to what they think is expected of them within a given social situation, hence how they think others see them. How the shaping of identity relates to the perception of the self and the body should be apparent enough if we think of the example of what is commonly known as body image disorders, which in turn can easily lead to both psychological and physical ill health.Before going further, let us briefly stop to highlight the need to differentiate between certain notions for a better understanding of what music can and can not do for health, especially from a sociological viewpoint (on this, see DeNora &#38; Ansdell 2014). We must first and foremost differentiate between the activities being discussed: are we talking about listening to, playing or composing music? Then, the degree of practice: there is a vast palette, or rather a continuum, between “amateur” and “professional” in any cultural activity. This becomes even more important when we consider that the benefits may surpass drawbacks in the case of amateurs who listen to, play or compose for leisure, but the effect may even be reversed in the case of professionals (Gembris 2012). The third distinction concerns the type of music: is it a song or an instrumental piece? In case of a song, what language are the lyrics in? Do we understand the language and the lyrics? Would we have liked or disliked the same song if the lyrics were written in another language or translated? And so on… Lastly, we must be clear on the musical genre in question, from pop to classical, not forgetting all the hundreds of sub-genres in-between.Let us now turn our attention to the practices of cultural activities, because health and wellbeing, as mentioned above, are rooted in everyday actions, including cultural ones (Macdonald et al. 2012b: 6). In fact, music is the most consumed form of culture today. Around 2,5 billion CDs were shipped around the world in 1999 (Kassabian 2013: 1) and online streaming services make music even easier to find today. Switzerland is no exception in terms of the importance of music in the people’s cultural activities. According to the statistical data on cultural practices and activities in Switzerland, in 2008 every one in five people played a musical instrument, and around 16% of the population practised singing (OFS 2011). Some years later, in 2014, the numbers are still quite high, though the tendency is reversed and there are now more people who sing (19%) than play an instrument (17%) (OFS 2016). But, the approximate proportion of 16-20% of individuals that practice music more or less regularly is high enough for us to consider its effects seriously. In fact, some studies in psychology argue that people who regularly engage in a cultural activity declare feeling less lonely than those who don’t (Kreutz et al. 2012: 458), which should not surprise us considering the social aspects of cultural activities, especially music, or art as collective action as discussed above.We can thus further argue, following Tia DeNora’s writings (2007), that music is a “technology of self”, or a technology that allows us to consciously regulate our mood, feelings, interactions, etc. It is a tool for the active construction of identity. The examples are numerous when it comes to our everyday use of music for such ends, from putting music on to dance to, to cook and clean up to, to do aerobics to, etc. Music is what helps keep the rhythm, for everyone to do the same movement at the same time and in the same way during aerobics classes, for example. But it can also help us do our work! Some 80% of people say they listen to music at work, about 35% of the time (Hallam 2016: 496). Listening to music during work may help concentrate, cut off the noise, create a pleasant atmosphere in the office, avoid boredom, etc. (Kassabian 2013: 9). This brings us back to the argument of music as “technology of self”, especially in certain social contexts such as when we use music to calm ourselves before speaking in public or participating in an event that may cause stress and anxiety.To sum up, music is not only in itself a social activity, requiring shared understandings and ways of doing, but may further help regulate individual behaviour, collective activities and social situations. Health, too, can be seen as a social activity that is carried out in everyday situations and through mundane activities, including cultural. While the mutual influences between music and health have been studied from different disciplinary perspectives, still more work remains to be done, especially for the social sciences.&#160;ReferencesBecker, Howard S. (1982) Art worlds, University of California Press.Bourdieu, Pierre (1979) La Distinction, Les Editions de Minuit.DeNora, Tia (2007) “Health and Music in Everyday Life – A Theory of Practice”, Psyke &#38; Logos, vol. 28, 271-287.DeNora, Tia, Gary Ansdell (2014) “What can’t music do?”, Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice, vol. 4, n° 23.Gembris, Heiner (2012) “Music-Making as a Lifelong Development and Resource for Health”, in MacDonald, R., G. Kreutz, L. Mitchell, eds. (2012) Music, Health, and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, 367-382.Goffman, Erving (1956) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Anchor Books.Hallam, Susan (2012) “The Effects of Background Music on Health and Wellbeing”, in MacDonald, R., G. Kreutz, L. Mitchell, eds. Music, Health, and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, 491-501.Kassabian, Anahid (2013) Ubiquitous Listening, University of California Press.Kreutz, Gunter, Cynthia Quiroga Murcia, Stephan Bongard (2012) “Psychoneuroendoctrine Research on Music and Health: An Overview”, in MacDonald, R., G. Kreutz, L. Mitchell, eds. Music, Health, and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, 457-476.MacDonald, Raymond, Gunter Kreutz, Laura Mitchell, eds. (2012) Music, Health, and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press.MacDonald, Raymond, Gunter Kreutz, Laura Mitchell (2012) « What is Music, Health, and Welbeing and Why is it Important ? », in MacDonald, R., G. Kreutz, L. Mitchell, eds. Music, Health, and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press.Office fédéral de la statistique (2011) Les Pratiques culturelles en Suisse. Analyse approfondie – enquête 2008, OFS, Neuchâtel.Office fédéral de la statistique (2016) Pratiques culturelles et de loisirs en Suisse, premiers résultats de l’enquête 2014, OFS, Neuchâtel.Featured image: "Ukulele on a hammock", Freestocks.org 