Creating, practicing, and reacting to music: A content analysis of research

Psychology of music, a science of the relations between humans and sound structures, is continuously developing. Given the growing number of publications in this domain, reviews of the literature are of value, as they integrate knowledge, informing and guiding future research endeavors. This article presents the results of a 47-year (1973–2019) content analysis of research on creating, practicing, and responding to music featured in The Psychology of Music journal. The purpose of our study was to identify and describe the themes in research on creating, practicing, and responding to music, indicating which study topics were the most often present in publications. We identified 17 categories of research topics and found that the largest number of publications dealt with predictors of music creating, self-regulated practice, or affective responses to music. Suggestions for developing and bolstering research and practice are provided.