The Queen has reached her Platinum Jubilee and to celebrate, various musical delights were organised to celebrate her 70 year reign on the throne.

Music has a long tradition of being utilised in celebration and research has shown that experiencing live music collectively with other people can have both positive mental and physiological effects. Experiencing live music apparently can have the effect of ‘calming’ our pain receptors – we experience less pain as a result of going to a gig.

According to Dr Claire Howlin, there are four factors that determine why live music is different to listening to a recording: synchronicity, spontaneity, identity and authenticity. Now that we can collectively experience music together once again (after our two year hiatus due to COVID), this (according to the research) has a positive effect on our mental health AND can have an impact on our physical health too. Experiencing something positive (i.e. a concert) together with other human beings – moving in synchronicity with them – gives us a sense of connection that we rarely experience in any other way and can actually increase our physical pain threshold.

RTE explains more about Dr Howlin’s research here: Why is live music so good for our wellbeing?

And here is a link to more of Dr Howlin’s research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire-Howlin

Here are a couple more articles on the role music plays in our lives and in our celebratory events:

How does music affect society?

How music plays a huge role in celebrations

And here is another article from our Music Makes Lives Better series, that helps to explain why music contributes and is intrinsically linked to positive experiences: Festival Music Makes Lives Better

All in all, music is utilised often to celebrate and create connection with others. There is now research that proves just how much of a benefit that can be to us all.