Centre for Music, Mind and Wellbeing

CMMW is a cross-disciplinary research centre exploring the connections between music and wellbeing from a scientific perspective.

Ormond Professor of Music and Head of the School of Music Professor Gary McPherson says that music is a unique human trait and an integral feature of our basic human design.

“Neurological evidence shows how every normal healthy human is musical, while studies involving the foetus suggest that music might be the first intelligence to reveal itself. There is even speculation that the type of communicative musicality we see between mothers and their newborns provides one of the key moments in our development that subsequently shapes our emotions, and the type of person we eventually become. Some even believe that because music has such a deeply emotional component that it may have evolved before language. Whatever might be true, we know that music-making must have developed for a specific reason and purpose – we just don’t know what it is yet.”

Associate Professor Neil McLachlan from the School of Psychological Sciences says one of the key aims of the Centre is to explore those propositions, especially the neurological, sociological, and psychological connections to both individual mental health and societal wellbeing.

“There is evidence to show music-making’s vital roles in enhancing our resilience to depression, and helping with formation of social identity.

The challenge for researchers in this emerging field is to develop methods to build empirical knowledge in a cultural context.”

The Centre for Music, Mind and Wellbeing will be launched by Professor Patrick McGorry in Melba Hall at the University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus, on July 22 at 8pm. General Public welcome to attend.