The pandemic spread of the novel coronavirus and associated COVID-19 disease in 2020 prompted governments around the world to pursue strict containment protocols to minimize contagion risk. Although restrictions were interpreted more strictly in some countries than in others, widespread social isolation resulted on an unseen scale, leading to severe negative mental health consequences such as loss of hope, increased anxiety, stress, depressive symptoms, and sleep disturbance. During this time, while governments were battling the health crisis, musical engagement provided key, individualized coping strategies for laypeople. This was first demonstrated anecdotally in captivating balcony music videos from Italy and Spain and later substantiated in large scale, multi-country survey studies. This chapter reviews the emerging research literature on music listening and making during pandemic lockdown to establish how music became a compensatory source of hedonic pleasure and how it satisfied the need for eudaimonic meaning in life during socially and psychologically impoverished times.
Niels Chr. Hansen (Sat,) studied this question.