Music is universal. As a successor to the book The Social Psychology of Music, this book aims to provide social psychological answers to the numerous questions concerning music. Given the prominence music plays in our lives, it is still however imperilled by modern culture. Forewarning an imminent danger to music, it was warned in the previous book that the digital revolution would pave the way for legal and illegal online music stores and computer applications that would completely change the way people accessed music. With its ubiquity, music has been downgraded as insignificant or ‘cheap’. ... More

Music is universal. As a successor to the book The Social Psychology of Music, this book aims to provide social psychological answers to the numerous questions concerning music. Given the prominence music plays in our lives, it is still however imperilled by modern culture. Forewarning an imminent danger to music, it was warned in the previous book that the digital revolution would pave the way for legal and illegal online music stores and computer applications that would completely change the way people accessed music. With its ubiquity, music has been downgraded as insignificant or ‘cheap’. This book deems that the best way to safeguard music is to comprehend the rightful place it occupies in our everyday modern life, and those more complex factors that rationalize our most profound experiences of music. The chapters in this book argue that the social and applied psychology approach to music can tackle issues such as: why some pieces elicit strong emotional reactions; what makes a good musician, or why some composers are forgotten easily; whether music can boost retailers' profits; whether there is a link between musical subculture and suicide; and whether music can be used to help sick patients. Using social and applied psychology to understand some questions about music helps to safeguard it by allowing people to make effective arguments concerning ‘music as a manifestation of the human spirit’; against modern-day pressures such as neo-conservative protesters, accountants, and the digital revolution by demonstrating its social and financial value.