Music Impact Research Center

WAAM’s Music Impact Research Center (MIRC) funds, researches, aggregates, and disseminates data measuring music’s influence through rigorous, scientific means.

We have formed a community of domain experts to develop and guide priorities. The team is responsible for curating leading third-party research, as well as producing original content to illustrate and substantiate the tangible link between music and key success metrics. Our analysis is publicly available; it is also shared with our grantees and factors into the evaluation of program delivery.

Music Impact Research Center

WAAM’s Music Impact Research Center (MIRC) funds, researches, aggregates, and disseminates data measuring music’s influence through rigorous, scientific means.

We have formed a community of domain experts to develop and guide priorities. The team is responsible for curating leading third-party research, as well as producing original content to illustrate and substantiate the tangible link between music and key success metrics. Our analysis is publicly available; it is also shared with our grantees and factors into the evaluation of program delivery.

Metrics Linking Guitars Over Guns to Broader Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

Improving Capacities and Experiences During Covid

The We Are All Music Foundation, in partnership with Hello Insight, recently undertook a case study of one of our Power of Music Grantees – Guitars Over Guns – to showcase how their music mentoring program has helped bring about some striking improvements across key metrics showing progress towards Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) during Covid.

For CORE SEL, 58% of participants showed improvement in this umbrella category.

Core SEL is further broken down into the follow sub-categories:

Contribution

Measures a young person’s desire to engage with and contribute to family, community, and society

of participants reported improvement

Self-Management

Measures the ability of a young person to regulate their emotions and behavior, take positive risks, and persist through life’s challenges

of participants reported improvement

Positive Identity

Measures a young person's internal sense of who they are and confidence to explore the multiple facets of their identities

of participants reported improvement

Academic Self-Efficacy

Measures a young person's motivation and perceived mastery over their own learning, school performance, and potential to attain academic success

of participants reported improvement

Social Skills

Measures the ability of a young person to take others’ perspectives into account, and to develop a sense of caring and empathy

of participants reported improvement

Music Therapy Improves Pain Coping Ability for Patients with Sickle Cell Disease: Study

Sickle cell anemia is an inherited red blood cell disorder, in which there aren’t enough healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout your body. A new study from University Hospitals (UH) Connor Whole Health found that patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) who participated in music therapy learned new self-management skills and improved their ability to cope with pain.

Spoke Launches Music Therapy App for Gen Z, Raises $1.5M Round Led by Ada Ventures

Apps like Calm and Endel are exploring an expanding new universe of what’s becoming known as “functional sound”. Calm and others are doing it in the meditation and sleep space, while Endel, which has raised $7.5 million, creates “functional sound” to enhance working or other activities.

Introducing Social Emotional Learning to Music Education Professional Development

There are more knowledge bases, skills, and dispositions that teachers need to have than can be covered in undergraduate music teacher education. One knowledge base that music teachers could benefit from, which is rarely covered in preservice teacher education, is social emotional learning (SEL) and techniques to implement it in their classrooms. Professional development (PD) can help provide career-long growth.

Music Education and Social Emotional Learning

Music educators are in a prime position to help students become socially and emotionally competent while at the same time develop excellent musicianship. For every child to be successful in the music classroom, teachers need to be aware of the whole student.

Effects of Music Therapy on Depression and Duration of Hospital Stay of Breast Cancer Patients After Radical Mastectomy

Breast cancer remains the most important cancer among women worldwide. The disease itself and treatment may have a profound impact on the patients’ psychological well being and quality of life. Depression is common in breast cancer patients and affects the therapeutic effects as well as prolongs the duration of hospital stay.

Doctors Develop Music-Making App To Battle Brain Fog In Cancer Patients

Doctors from the University of Cincinnati are researching innovative ways to battle brain fog, and a new study has tested the waters of virtual music therapy.

Music and Environmental Studies

The use of music in environmental education (EE) can help to inform students through ideas incorporated in musical lyrics, while also enhancing interest in environmental topics. Music can also enhance perceptions of the value of the natural world, especially when nature itself is recognized as being musical.

Music Therapy as Postvention for Survivors of Suicide: A Group Case Study

The bereaved and those who have experienced trauma have received support through music therapy. However, there has been no research on the effectiveness of music therapy as a therapeutic intervention for those who have experienced the loss of a loved one by suicide.

Effects of Music Therapy on Depression: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

The paper aimed to determine and compare the effects of music therapy and music medicine on depression, and explore the potential factors associated with the effect. The results show that music therapy and music medicine both exhibited a stronger effects of short and medium length compared with long intervention periods.

Case Study: Social and Emotional Learning in the Age of Covid

This paper examines how two organizations, Hello Insight and Guitars Over Guns, have teamed up to measure the impact of Guitars Over Guns’ music mentoring programs on their participants and specifically through the lens of Social and Emotional Learning and the Theory of Change. Both of these important concepts are described in the body of this document.

Search Research Topics

Music, Rhythm and Trauma: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of Research Literature

Musical Pride: Music Education in Plural Communities

The Study of Music Therapy: Current Issues and Concepts

Music Therapy Improves Pain Coping Ability for Patients with Sickle Cell Disease: Study

Sickle cell anemia is an inherited red blood cell disorder, in which there aren’t enough healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout your body. A new study from University Hospitals (UH) Connor Whole Health found that patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) who participated in music therapy learned new self-management skills and improved their ability to cope with pain.

Spoke Launches Music Therapy App for Gen Z, Raises $1.5M Round Led by Ada Ventures

Apps like Calm and Endel are exploring an expanding new universe of what’s becoming known as “functional sound”. Calm and others are doing it in the meditation and sleep space, while Endel, which has raised $7.5 million, creates “functional sound” to enhance working or other activities.

Introducing Social Emotional Learning to Music Education Professional Development

There are more knowledge bases, skills, and dispositions that teachers need to have than can be covered in undergraduate music teacher education. One knowledge base that music teachers could benefit from, which is rarely covered in preservice teacher education, is social emotional learning (SEL) and techniques to implement it in their classrooms. Professional development (PD) can help provide career-long growth.

Music Education and Social Emotional Learning

Music educators are in a prime position to help students become socially and emotionally competent while at the same time develop excellent musicianship. For every child to be successful in the music classroom, teachers need to be aware of the whole student.

Effects of Music Therapy on Depression and Duration of Hospital Stay of Breast Cancer Patients After Radical Mastectomy

Breast cancer remains the most important cancer among women worldwide. The disease itself and treatment may have a profound impact on the patients’ psychological well being and quality of life. Depression is common in breast cancer patients and affects the therapeutic effects as well as prolongs the duration of hospital stay.

Doctors Develop Music-Making App To Battle Brain Fog In Cancer Patients

Doctors from the University of Cincinnati are researching innovative ways to battle brain fog, and a new study has tested the waters of virtual music therapy.

Music and Environmental Studies

The use of music in environmental education (EE) can help to inform students through ideas incorporated in musical lyrics, while also enhancing interest in environmental topics. Music can also enhance perceptions of the value of the natural world, especially when nature itself is recognized as being musical.

Music Therapy as Postvention for Survivors of Suicide: A Group Case Study

The bereaved and those who have experienced trauma have received support through music therapy. However, there has been no research on the effectiveness of music therapy as a therapeutic intervention for those who have experienced the loss of a loved one by suicide.

Effects of Music Therapy on Depression: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

The paper aimed to determine and compare the effects of music therapy and music medicine on depression, and explore the potential factors associated with the effect. The results show that music therapy and music medicine both exhibited a stronger effects of short and medium length compared with long intervention periods.

Case Study: Social and Emotional Learning in the Age of Covid

This paper examines how two organizations, Hello Insight and Guitars Over Guns, have teamed up to measure the impact of Guitars Over Guns’ music mentoring programs on their participants and specifically through the lens of Social and Emotional Learning and the Theory of Change. Both of these important concepts are described in the body of this document.

Search Research Topics

Music, Rhythm and Trauma: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of Research Literature

Musical Pride: Music Education in Plural Communities

The Study of Music Therapy: Current Issues and Concepts