Nick Blackmer is a librarian, fact-checker, and researcher with more than 20 years of experience in consumer-facing health and wellness content.New research suggests that listening to sad music can positively impact a person’s mood based on the sense of connectedness it provides.Experts agree that music of all kinds can play a role in people’s mental health and mood, but music is a personal, unique experience for each listener.
This is especially true when it comes to sad music. Various features of a song, including tempo, mode, instrument choice, and dynamics, can prompt negative emotions in listeners,, which Venkatesan was a part of, suggests that while listening to sad music can certainly make people feel sad, doing so may also impact a person’s mood positively and allow them to feel a sense of connectedness.
They found that the emotions that make people feel connected in conversation are also the emotions whose expression in music matched the “what music is all about” highly rated songs: sadness, love, joy, “If a piece of music is connected to either of those experiences that could then bring on a real feeling of sadness,” Bennett explained. “But that to me is a more personal experience in terms of how intense that feeling is, how long it lasts, and then importantly what we do with it.”
Sad music can also make people feel connected in the same way a heartfelt conversation makes us feel connected, said Venkatesan. “It is very likely that the sense of connection we experience when listening to sad music has positive health benefits.”