Music Therapy on Stress Reduction For

University Students
1. Background
In 2015-2016, students consecutively committed suicide because of study
pressure. Pupil have tons of homework, exams and mid-terms. They may not find
the ways to relief stress. During 2015-2016, 6 university students decided to end
their life because of study pressure. Stress reduction for students is more
imperative now. The stress from students are mainly from study. However,
students with stress are tend to seek help online instead of finding social workers
or calling hotlines.

Music therapy has widely accepted as a mental therapy in different countries such
as America, Australia, Canada and United Kingdom etc.  Many studies have
proved the music therapy is an effective measure to alleviate pressure and done
experiences to prove that music therapy can decrease in cortisol level and heart
variability.

2. Research questions and Objectives:

2.1. What is Music Therapy?

2.2 What is stress?

2.3 Soft music helps reduce stress

2.4 Effect of music on stress

2.5 Effect of slow tempo music

2.6 Effect on music tempo manipulation

3. Method:
3.1 Analyze music

Music has different kind of music genres. In this project, relaxing music is the
required music. Relaxing music is a kind of soft music which has slow tempo,
low pitch, and no lyrics. The source of music will mainly come from YouTube.
The method of music classification is to analyze bpm (beats per minute).BPM is
used to measure the speed of music. The greater the bpm, the faster speed of the
music.

3.2 Build the website

After analysis, the music will be added to the website. Users can listen the music.
However, repeated listening of music may lead to boredom and irritation because
users can identify and predict sound and then users cannot benefit from the
website. Therefore, there will have admin function that can change the pieces to
prevent users lose interest on the music

3.3 Music Treatment

First, music improvisation is designed for user to improvise and then through the
process, they can relief the stress. Music improvisation is a common music
therapy activity to calm down users’ mood and release tension. According to
study, music improvisation is effective for reducing stress. Drawing and playing
puzzle that can relax stress will be also implemented. This music therapy activity
will let user more comprehensive understanding more about music therapy and
have activities to do while listening to music.

Second, the tempo manipulation treatment will be used as the tempo can affect
the tension and heart rate. The above research shows that tension can be lower if
the tempo is slower. Therefore, the higher the stress level is, the slower the tempo
of the music it should be.

3.4 Questionnaires about the website

There will have evaluation form in the website. After building the website, users
can give their rating and comments in the form. The form is use for improvement
of the website. By collecting users’ feedback, the website can use the feedback to
update the website. The comments will be recorded and used for user friendliness
enhancement.

4. Resources

4.1 Objective

The objective of song analysis is to filter the music before putting into the music
player. The target of music selection is less than 120 beats per minute non-lyrical
soft music. The volume level should be less than 80dB.The duration of the music
will be no more than 30 minutes in length. The selection is first start from music
genre, then bpm, and then spectrogram and waveform.

4.2 Music Analysis

The music analysis is to choose the slow tempo and low frequency music. The
music selection will have three procedures. First, different music genre will be
analyzed based on waveform and timbre to narrow down the selection process
and increase efficiency. Second, 80 music samples are selected to go through the
bpm analysis. Third, the spectrogram analysis will narrow down the music to 30.
The whole process aims to provide high quality and most suitable music for users
to listen.

5. References:

2016, “American music therapy association (AMTA),” 1998. [Online].

Available: http://www.musictherapy.org/. Accessed: Nov. 1, 2016.

Davis WB, Gfeller KE, Thaut MH. An Introduction to Music Therapy.

2nd edition. Boston, McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, 1999.

Australian and T. Association, “What is music therapy?,” 2012. [Online].
Available: http://www.austmta.org.au/content/what-music-therapy. Accessed:
Nov. 1, 2016.

K. J. Kemper and S. C. Danhauer, “Music as therapy,” Southern Medical Journal,

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M. L. Chanda and D. J. Levitin, “The neurochemistry of music,” Trends in

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M. C. Chan, “Academic Stress and Health Outcomes among College Students: A

Comparative Study in Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese Students,” City
University in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Apr. 2009. [Online]. Available:
http://lbms03.cityu.edu.hk/oaps/ss2009-4708-cmc491.pdf. Accessed: Nov. 6,
2016.

U. Nilsson, “Soothing music can increase oxytocin levels during bed rest after
open-heart surgery: A randomized control trial,” Journal of Clinical Nursing, vol.
18, no. 15, pp. 2153–2161, Aug. 2009.

A. et al, “The effect of music on heart rate,” 2013. [Online]. Available:

http://www.emerginginvestigators.org/2013/04/the-effect-of-music-on-heart-
rate/. Accessed: Dec. 5, 2016.