Music is an integral part of our daily lives. We turn on music while driving, having a cup of tea, trying to calm ourselves, or spending time with friends. Music connects people to their surroundings and others. In fact, music therapy for COVID patients is a perfect example of how music connects people.

What is music therapy? Music therapy is a therapy that can be modified based on a patient’s situation. It involves creating, singing, moving, and listening to music in ways to promote physical and psychological healing.

It is widely used for patients who have brain disabilities or patients who have a hard time controlling their emotions.

Reflecting over the past few months, there have been numerous Zoom meetings held among COVID patients telling each other’s stories in a way of music. They created and sang a song of their own and shared it with the other people at the meeting.

They were mostly strange. However, Berman, one of the participants of the meeting said, “I was excited about it because I had been so isolated - that I had an opportunity to connect with other people that were like me.” As you can tell, music therapy really helped patients relieve themselves.

University Jaume I and the University of the Basque Country had an experiment that surveyed participants in Spain, studying how the Spanish perceived music during COVID-19.

Of the participants, 53.1% replied that music helped them relax during the pandemic and 26.8% of respondents said that music helped quite a lot.

Looking at that, only 1% of respondents said that music did not help them at all. With that, it is evident that music has played a powerful role in people’s lives during the pandemic even those who had not been infected by COVID-19.

Music Therapy and music itself proved their strength in affecting people and how effective they are in making people feel relaxed.

Looking at the numbers, there is no doubt that it will be a very popular and perhaps even competitive method in comparison to other therapies. Once it is more developed, it would play a huge role in the medical industry providing relief to numerous people.

<David Kim / Portola HS 10th Grade>