Tag Archives: Mental health

Brian Wilson’s good vibrations

With the passing of Brian Wilson on 11 June 2025–just days before his 83rd birthday–the music world lost one of its most innovative pop composers and producers. As a songwriter, musician, and producer, Wilson co-founded the Beach Boys in 1961 and was the creative force behind the band during its formative years. He wrote, arranged, and produced most of their material during their first five years, crafting a string of 1960s pop classics. The Beach Boys became synonymous with the vibrant themes of Southern California surf culture and youthful fun. With upbeat, danceable hits like Surfin’ U.S.A. (1963), I get around (1964), Fun, fun, fun (1964), California girls (1965), Good vibrations (1966) and many others, they emerged as one of the most successful pop bands of the decade–culminating in a memorable appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

Watch the Beach Boys perform on The Ed Sullivan Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnnFwfewk9c&list=RDQnnFwfewk9c&start_radio=1

The Beach Boys’ carefree, easygoing surf music was characterized by their distinctive vocal harmonies, which quickly became their trademark. Pet sounds–by far the band’s most musically complex and experimental album–was released in 1966 and was deeply inspired by The Beatles’ 1965 album Rubber soul. Widely regarded as one of the most influential records in pop music history, Pet sounds marked a significant artistic leap for the band and for pop as a whole.

Pet sounds cover art.

Wilson also produced singles for other artists, including The Honeys, a female vocal trio that featured his wife, Marilyn, and Glen Campbell. His production style was heavily influenced by Phil Spector; he frequently worked at Gold Star Studios and employed many of the same session musicians Spector used during the 1960s. Wilson recorded all the backing tracks for the Beach Boys’ hits live, without overdubbing, often adding vocals afterward. Due to deafness in one ear, he worked exclusively in mono.

Wilson in the mid-1970s, performing on piano.
Wilson with a goat on the photoshoot for the Pet sounds album cover.

In 1964, Wilson withdrew from live performances to focus on songwriting and studio work. From the late 1960s onward, he also battled depression and substance abuse, eventually stepping away from the music industry entirely for a time. Despite these challenges, he recorded eleven solo albums between 1988 and 2021 and published his autobiography, I am Brian Wilson: A memoir, in 2016. In 2021, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the Beach Boys’ song God only knows at number 11 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

This according to the entry on Brian Wilson by William Ruhlmann in the Encyclopedia of recorded sound (2005, find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias) and a recently published short obituary in MGG Online.

Related Bibliolore posts:

https://bibliolore.org/2018/08/06/psychedelic-vegetables/

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Filed under Performers, Popular music

Emotionality, music, and mental health

Recent research on personality indicates that trait negative emotionality, often referred to as neuroticism, is linked to how young people use music for emotional regulation. This suggests that those with higher levels of neuroticism may turn to music as a way to manage their emotions. However, the emotional factors that connect neuroticism, musical emotion regulation, and mental health remain unclear. Investigating both adaptive and maladaptive forms of musical emotion regulation has revealed potential strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of neuroticism on internalizing symptoms, such as depression and anxiety, in youth.

A study involving 1,137 college undergraduate students aged 17 to 21 identified four forms of emotion regulation related to music listening—rumination, discharging negative emotions, avoidant coping, and a preference for sad music—that may mediate the impact of neuroticism on internalizing symptoms. These findings remained robust even after controlling for general (non-musical) emotion regulation and coping strategies. Overall, the research integrates four complementary perspectives on neuroticism and musical emotion regulation: deductive (from mainstream psychology), inductive (from music psychology), musical coping with stress, and negative trait-congruence (the idea that a preference for sad music reflects negative emotionality). The study also highlighted the potential link between neuroticism and problematic musical emotion regulation strategies, which are often associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety in young people.

This according to “Neuroticism, musical emotion regulation, and mental health” by Dave Miranda (Psychomusicology: Music, mind and brain 31/2 [2021] 59–73; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-8687).

October 10 is World Mental Health Day.

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Filed under Medicine and health, Science

Microaggressions and mental health risks faced by LGBTQ+ music teachers

Music teachers are generally exposed to work-related stressors sufficient to negatively impact their mental health, and both the COVID-19 pandemic and culture wars have amplified the likelihood of teacher-targeted bullying and harassment. LGBTQ+ teachers, however, have been historically more likely to experience workplace discrimination, and many are even more at risk since the advent of the third wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the United States. For instance, 588 antitransgender laws were introduced across the United States, 85 of which passed in 2023.

Given the absence of a body of LGBTQ+ music teacher mental health research, a review of the literature on teacher mental health, music teacher mental health, LGBTQ+ teacher mental health, and LGBTQ+ music teacher studies reveal the threats to mental health that LGBTQ+ music teachers may encounter as a result of their work. Microaggressive stress theory is used to consider the ways that harassment and discrimination can lead to mental distress. Microaggressions can be delivered verbally, nonverbally, and environmentally. Although verbal and nonverbal microaggressions are more easily defined and noticed, environmental microaggressions include demeaning and threatening social, educational, political, or economic cues that are communicated individually, institutionally, or societally to marginalized groups. Microaggressions may be conveyed both consciously and unconsciously and can take the forms of microinsults, microassaults, and microinvalidations. Recommendations to prevent such stressors include implementing microintervention education and expanding access to mentorship, support groups, and mental health care.

This according to “Microaggressive stress and identity trauma: The work-related mental health risks of LGBTQ+ music teachers” by Tawnya D. Smith (Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education 238 [fall 2023] 7–22; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text, 2023-19631).

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Filed under Gender and sexuality, Music education

Wrocławska Muzykoterapia

Muzykoterapia

In 2014 Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Lipińskiego in Wrocław launched the series Wrocławska Muzykoterapia with Muzykoterapia: Stałość i zmiana (Music therapy: Stability and change), edited by Paweł Cylulko and Joanna Gładyszewska-Cylulko.

This inaugural volume presents papers read at the VII Międzynarodowe Forum Muzykoterapeutów (International Forum of Music Therapists), which was held from 23 to  25 April 2010 at the Akademia Muzyczna im. Karola Lipińskiego.

The series is addressed to music therapists, music therapy students, and professionals in other fields who want to expand the scope of their knowledge and skills. It hopes to inspire studies that would deepen and broaden the discipline as well as contribute to therapeutical practice in Poland.

Below, the Polish band Muzykoterapia may or may not figure in future books in the series.

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Filed under New periodicals, Therapy

Praxis der Musiktherapie

Hogrefe Verlag für Psychologie inaugurated its series Praxis der Musiktherapie in 2009 with Spiel—Musik—Therapie: Methoden der Musiktherapie mit Kindern und Jugendlichen by Sandra Lutz Hochreutener. The book explores numerous approaches to music therapy for children and adolescents, including silence, improvisation, song composing, instrumental music, body-centered music games, language, and role-playing.

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Filed under New series, Science

Journal of applied arts and health


Intended for a wide community of artists, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers, the Journal of applied arts and health (ISSN 2040-2457) was launched by Intellect in 2010. Seeking to provide a forum for interdisciplinary studies of arts in health care and health promotion, it defines health broadly to include physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, occupational, social, and community health.

The journal’s inaugural issue includes two music-related articles: “Choral singing and psychological well-being: Quantitative and qualitative findings from English choirs in a cross-national survey” by Stephen M. Clift, Grenville Hancox, Ian Morrison, Bärbel Hess, Gunter Kreuz, and Don Stewart; and “Emotional responses to music listening: A review of some previous research and an original, five-phase study” by Michael J. Lowis.

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Music and medicine

Launched in 2009, Music and medicine (ISSN 1943‑8621) is a peer-reviewed journal published by the International Association for Music and Medicine (IAMM). The journal is intended for medical professionals, aiming to be “an integrative forum for clinical practice and research initiatives related to music interventions and applications of clinical music strategies in medicine.” While it naturally includes research in music therapy, the journal also invites work on “cultural implications of music in medicine in research and practice” as well as opinion papers on controversial topics.

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Filed under New periodicals, Science