Study Calls Superiority of Classical Music for Psychedelic Therapy Sessions into Question

Western classical music, largely viewed as the best music to accompany psychedelic therapy sessions, might not actually offer unique benefits in comparison to other genres, per the findings of a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The study was published this week in the American Chemical Society journal Pharmacology and Translational Science.

Researchers analyzed the results of playing two genres of music for 10 patients engaging in a psilocybin study for tobacco smoking cessation. The genres were Western classical and overtone-based. Patients were treated in three sessions. In the first two sessions, each of the genres was played once. Patients were given a choice of music genre for the third session. The researchers found that mystical experience scores were higher in the overtone-based sessions, and when given an option, 6 of 10 participants chose overtone-based music for their third session. Further, eight weeks after completing their first session, 2 of the 4 patients who chose Western classical for the third reported that they were abstinent at the end of treatment. Meanwhile, 5 of 6 who chose overtone-based were abstinent.

“Western classical music has long been assumed to be the standard in psychedelic therapy,” the researchers wrote. “The present data challenge this notion that Western classical music, or for that matter any specific genre of music, is an intrinsically superior form of music to support psychedelic therapy, at least for all people at all times.”

Moreover, the researchers noted that some of the overtone-based tracks played lacked a traditionally identifiable rhythm or melody, suggesting that sounds to support psychedelic therapy sessions might not need to be confined to traditionally defined music genres.