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Andrew Verba

Professor Vicki Stalbird

English 1201

20 January 2019

Research Proposal

Music has always been something I fall back on at the end of each day. Sophomore year

of high school was around the time I really started to enjoy music and learned what the fuss was

about. Through music, I have been able to expand my mind in different ways. I listen to many

different genres of music, and I really cannot pin point a specific that I hate. Every genre has its

own niche of people that listen to it. Because of my diverse look on music, I think this helps me

in the way I perceive people. It is very easy to put a label on someone based on the music they

listen to, and I do not see the point. If I were to say my favorite genres, you may think I am a

completely different person than I really am. Music is something that connects cultures around

the world, and research over why is crucial for our understanding.

Other than just listening to music, music has a way of being beneficial to us with

different uses. Music can keep you motivated on a hard task, or it can help you get through a

tough time. Music, to me, is something that I strongly recommend in everyone’s daily life. Music

therapy seems to be something that people still need to learn about. Music therapy is a type of

therapy that mainly helps elders with dementia and other illnesses. Informing the public about

this can help bring attention to the good it may already be doing. I also believe that music

separates us into many sub-cultures. Pushing this idea out of the general public’s heads may lead

to everyone accepting each other more. Overall, I know that people listen to music for their own
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benefits and that music is being used to help heal patients, but pushing this idea on people can

help make music become a large “peace maker.”

Besides the adrenaline of listening to music while running, learning about what genres

best fit specific tasks can help us utilize music in more efficient ways. Besides statistics and how

music affects the public, what is music therapy? Music therapy seems like a simple concept, but

what exactly is happening in those sessions? Do the patients listen to music that is given to

them? Does the patient learn how to play an instrument? These questions can be asked within a

few articles over the entire topic. Using music in a more medical way may be how we heal

injuries that we thought we could not heal in the first place.