My online survey ran from April 2nd to April 10th, collecting a total of 277 responses. The age range varied from 14 to 89, with 69% of participants being Female and 31% being Male. Over 50% of respondents currently reside in South America, with the next largest group residing in North America (34%). 53% of respondents were between the ages of 18-24, while the next largest age group was 45-54 with 20%. Almost 90% of respondents identified their ethnicity as Hispanic/Latino.

 

Music has the capacity to elicit strong emotions in individuals (Scherer, Zentner & Schact, 2001) and is the main reason behind people’s choice to listen to music on a daily basis (Juslin & Laukka, 2004). Out of the 277 respondents, 258 (93%) stated listening to music is part of their daily habits, while only 19 stated it wasn’t. 52% of respondents stated they listen to one to two hours of music every day, on average, or put another way, most individuals spend one entire month of the year listening to music. These results suggest that music must be rewarding for its listeners since it occupies such a big space in their lives (Zentner, Grandjean, Schere, 2008). However, one could also argue that humans are uncomfortable with prolonged silence and that music just provides background noise. Survey results do not support this argument since 79% of respondents stated there is always/often a connection between music and their emotional state and only 2% said there is hardly ever/never a connection between music and their emotional state. Of the 272 individuals that agreed that there is a connection between music and their emotional state, 7% stated they choose their music to elicit a specific emotion, 24% stated they choose their music based on emotions they’re already feeling, while 69% chose both (they choose their music to elicit a specific emotion and they also choose their music based on emotions they’re already feeling). With regards to choosing music based on a present mood or emotional state, 83% of respondents stated they have different playlists which are tailored for a variety of moods/emotional states including but not limited to: to party, to get pumped up, to calm down, to work out, to study, and to cry.

 

The data collected in this survey corroborate what we know from numerous areas of research and what perhaps we know intuitively that the connection between music and human emotion is undeniable. Almost 80% of respondents believe there is a connection between music and their emotional state, with 75% of them stating listening to music is part of their daily habits. One of the earliest pieces of evidence attesting to the importance of music for humans dates to around 35,000 years ago during the Paleolithic archeological stage. Excavations in the Vogelherd caves of the Jura region in Germany recovered beautifully carved flutes made from mammoth bone at a site populated by homo sapiens. Researchers argue that “the evidence even at this time, 35,000 years ago, is completely unambiguous: music really was a key part of human life……perhaps music helped to form the glue that held these people together.” (Roberts, 2010, p.233 and p. 236). The connection between music and something inside of us, whether it is just emotion or something far deeper, has been used throughout history to unite people. We can think of the use of music in the form of bugles, pipes and drums to unite soldiers before battle, the national anthems that all countries have to try and express in one song what is defining for that country, the development of anthems for major sporting events, and the importance of hymns and music in religion. At the individual level, while people in the survey recognize their choice of music is influenced by their emotional state or need, at the end music is part of humans’ response to the search for meaning and is a means by which people may gain a glimpse of something greater, more mystical, beyond the scope of our human existence.

 

The survey demographics were dominated by a Hispanic/Latino population and slightly skewed to the female gender. As indicated in a recent analysis of sentiment related to music (The Economist, 2019), while all demographics do have an emotional connection with music, the Hispanic/Latino population seems to have a more consistently positive emotional relationship with music, reflecting this culture’s general level of happiness. In other cultures, the emotional connection is just as strong, but encompasses a wider range of feelings.

 

This survey explored the connection between music and human emotion, finding strong evidence to support such a connection. The survey results are backed up by research in various disciplines, including social sciences and archaeology. Music is part of human language and continues to evolve and develop, being a fundamental part of what it means to be human.