Project Proposal
Music Therapy on Stress Reduction For University Students
In Hong Kong, students have lots of homework and quizzes. In 2015-2016, there has a series of students suicide cases happen. This reflects the stress level of students are quite high. Students are need to relief stress. Music therapy is an effective way to relief stress and relax your mind during study.
Music therapy is accepted and common in foreign countries. However, music therapy is not common in Hong Kong. Also, the fees of music therapy session is too high for students. Although there has a lot of songs claimed to be relax, the songs has not verified or proved to be relaxed.
This project is to provide a music therapy platform to university students to relief stress and let university students know more about music therapy. In the project, the music is being analyzed before putting to the platform. The analysis is conducted through different analysis tool. Users can listen music and play music therapy activities through our platform and give feedback about the platform.
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Liu Yan. I want to show my deepest appreciation to Dr. Liu. Dr. Liu has guided me throughout the project and addressed every concern and problems that happens in the project. She gives me the clear direction of the project. During every meeting, she gives useful and insightful feedbacks and comments to help me improve my project. This project really makes me explore to a new area and enhance my research skills. I learn a lot in this project.
Also, I would like to thank you my project’s co-examiner, Wu Xiaoming for spending precious time to attend my presentation and give insightful opinions and suggestions on my project during the presentation.
Moreover, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my 2nd assessor, Dr. Henry Chan/Dr. Korris Chung to spend valuable time in the presentation and give perceptive comments and suggestions on my project presentation.
Contents
2.3 Soft music helps reduce stress
2.5 Effect of slow tempo music
2.6 Effect on music tempo manipulation
3.4 Questionnaires about the website
5.5 Hardware & Software Requirement
7.1 Unit testing – User System
9.2 Limited mental problems are included
9.3 Limited Song Selection under Copyright Restriction
10.3 Develop Mobile Application
Table of Figures
Figure 1. Drum Kit(left) and Electric Guitar(right) use in Hard Rock
Figure 2. Harp(left) and Flute(right) use in New Age music
Figure 3. Pop song Charlie Puth-One Call Away)
Figure 4. (Hard Rock)ACDC-Highway To Hell
Figure 5-New Age(Calming Sea)
Figure 6-Folk Music (Three Kites Cycling)
Figure 7- Instrumental Music (Piano Music)
Figure 8 – Song BPM Analysis Result
Figure 7- Air.mp3
Figure 8 Scarlet_Sails.mp3
Figure 9 User Case Diagram
Figure 10 -Database Diagram
Figure 11 System Diagram
Figure 12 Sequence Diagram for users
Figure 13 Sequence diagram for admin
Figure 14 Home Page
Figure 15 Music Improvisation
Figure 16 Drawing Panel
Figure 17 Puzzle
Figure 18 About Page
Figure 19 Assessment Page
Figure 20 Music Player Page
Figure 21 Music Player
Figure 22 Profile
Figure 23 Feedback Page
Figure 24 Register Page
Figure 25 View Music
Figure 26 Delete Music
Figure 27 Edit Music
Figure 28 Insert Music
Figure 29 View Feedback
Figure 30 Delete Feedback
Figure 31 Login
Figure 32 Question 3
Figure 33 Question 4
Figure 34 Question 5
Figure 35 Question 6
Figure 36 Question 7
Figure 37 Question 8
Figure 38 Question 9
Figure 39 Question 10
Figure 40 Question 11
List of Tables
Table 1 song table
Table 2 assessment table
Table 3 admin table
Table 4 user table
Table 5 response table
Table 6 Software Requirement
Table 7 Programming Language
Table 8 Music Player Component
Table 9 Test Case for Register Page
Table 10 Test Case for login (Correct)
Table 11 Test Case for login (Incorrect)
Table 12 Test Case for profile
Table 13 Test Case for changing password
Table 14 Test Case for account deletion
Table 15 Test Case for assessment
Table 16 Test Case for music player
Table 17 Test Case for feedback
Table 18 Test Case for view Music
Table 19 Test Case for music Insertion
Table 20 Test Case for music deletion
Table 21 Test Case for music edit
Table 22 Test Case for view feedback
Table 23 Test Case for delete account
Table 24 Test Case for view account
Table 25 Test Case for Integration Testing
Table 26 Browser Testing
In 2015-2016, Hong Kong students consecutively committed suicide because of study pressure. Hong Kong students have tons of homework, exams and mid-terms. They may not find the ways to relief stress. During 2015-2016, 6 university students decided to end their life because of study pressure. Stress reduction for students is more imperative now. The stress from students are mainly from study. However, students with stress are tend to seek help online instead of finding social workers or calling hotlines.
In a survey about academic stress level and health outcomes among university students, using 230 college students from year 1 to year 3 in Hong Kong and mainland China. Participants are needed to answer the 23 items by rating each item in a 5-point Likert scale (1=never, 5=most of the time) to measure the five types of stressors that are frustrations, conflicts, pressures, changes and self-imposed stress. Hong Kong students (Stress score: 70.5) have significantly higher levels of stress than their mainland China students (Stress score: 67.5). This shows that the stress level of university students is high [9].
Music therapy has widely accepted as a mental therapy in different countries such as America, Australia, Canada and United Kingdom etc. Many studies have proved the music therapy is an effective measure to alleviate pressure and done experiences to prove that music therapy can decrease in cortisol level and heart variability.
Lack of knowledge in Music Therapy
Many Students do not know music therapy. There have only few students understand how music therapy can benefit them. Students are usually listen music in online platform such as YouTube, Spotify etc. When they are stress, they usually seek help online. This system can promote music therapy and relief their stress.
Music Therapy is expensive to students
Music therapy is usually held by music therapists. Each session costs £40 which is quite expensive to students. Also, music therapy is a long-term treatment that is about 10 sessions. Students are hard to afford the music therapy.
Current relaxing music in online platform is not proved to be relax
Although there has a lot of music in YouTube for relaxation, the effectiveness of the music is questionable. There has a lot of relax music videos in YouTube but they are not verified to be relaxing music.
The aim of this project is to propose the idea of online platform of stress reduction for university students by providing soft music. Soft music is defined as a kind of music that has slow tempo and approximately 60-70 beats per minute (bpm).This project target is university students who have pressure on study. The web-based platform includes self-assessment, music player for users to reduce their stress. Also, it can allow users to interact with social media. The system can let users listen relaxing music through internet anytime and free of charge.
Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program [1].Music therapy is recognized as an established allied health profession that uses music to facilitate therapeutic processes [2]. Music therapy is a research-based practice and profession in which music is used to actively support people as they strive to improve their health, functioning and wellbeing.
Stress is the feeling we have under pressure. The stresses exists when we think that we are overloaded and we may not cope with the pressures. Stress is currently defined as the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change by Hans Selye in 1936. Physically, stress will cause rising blood pressure, more rapid breathing, rising heart rate, weak immune system, tense muscles and insomnia. Psychologically, stress will make you feel insecure, sad, fatigue, restless, angry and depressed.
A journal states that “Listening to classical music increases heart rate variability, a measure of cardiac autonomic balance (in which increased levels reflect less stress and greater resilience), whereas listening to noise or rock music decreases heart rate variability (reflecting greater stress) [4].Another review indicates that listening to ‘relaxing music’ (generally considered to have slow tempo, low pitch, and no lyrics) has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety in healthy subjects [5]. The study shows that they found that sedative music contrasted with simulative music had a higher effect on decreasing tension and increasing relaxation. Moreover, listening to preferred music resulted in reduced tension compared to listening to unpreferred music, while there was no significant difference in relaxation level between listening to preferred and unpreferred music [6].
Four studies evaluated the effect of music on patient stress by measuring various blood indicators. Cortisol was the most commonly measured stress indicator, and one study reported a significant reduction in blood Cortisol levels. Other stress indicators included blood glucose, prolactin, and catecholamine. One study reported a significant reduction in blood glucose [7]. The concentration of cortisol to relaxing music is lower than listening to nothing and the stress response of listening relaxing music is unchangeable and it indicates music can help to calm stress effectively [8]. Another study shows that all participants who experience new-age style music for 30 minutes, and played with a volume of 50 to 60 dB can reduce stimuli and more relaxed[12].
A study shows that open-heart surgery patients who listened passively to experimenter-selected ‘soothing’ music (i.e., soft, relaxing, of 60 to 80 beats per minute, with a volume of 50–60 dB) for 30 minutes one day after surgery had higher levels of serum oxytocin compared to bed-rest alone [10]. The song’s rhythm begins with a beat of 60 beats per minute and then falls gradually to 50 beats per minute. Lyz Cooper, founder of the British Academy of Sound Therapy, believed that the heart rate slowly comes down to match the beat [11]. The two studies show that listening 60 bpm music has physically change and physically relax. A study also shows that slow tempo hastens the recovery of physical parameters like pulse rate and blood pressure[17].
A research shows that tempo change and mood mediation are relatively affected. The research experiment shows that same pieces played at a faster or slower tempo will result in relaxed mood is better when playing slower piece [13]. Another study creates a study that six men and six women listen to one of two sound pattern conditions that are either increase or decrease in tempo. It shows that same music piece with decreasing tempo are consistently slower heart rate [14]. In a study, it shows that a single piece of music with two different version of tempo cause different blood pressure. The tension level tends to increase when the tempo increases while slowing down music tempo indicates rapidly decreasing levels of tension [15].
Music has different kind of music genres. In this project, relaxing music is the required music. Relaxing music is a kind of soft music which has slow tempo, low pitch, and no lyrics. The source of music will mainly come from YouTube. The method of music classification is to analyze bpm (beats per minute).BPM is used to measure the speed of music. The greater the bpm, the faster speed of the music. Also, the Also, the goal of this analysis is to obtain slow tempo music through analysis tool.
After analysis, the music will be added to the website. Users can listen the music. However, repeated listening of music may lead to boredom and irritation because users can identify and predict sound and then users cannot benefit from the website. Therefore, there will have admin function that can change the pieces to prevent users lose interest on the music. Each music will last no less than 30 minutes. If original music exceeds the length and bpm, music will be adjusted. Also, there will have self-assessment about stress for users to know the stress level they are. Social media functions will be added in the website. Web programming languages such as HTML,PHP, JAVASCRIPT,JQUERY, CSS BOOTSTRAP and MYSQL are used in the website. A user-friendly and simple interface will be built.
The aims of the music treatment is to relief stress to students.
First, music improvisation is designed for user to improvise and then through the process, they can relief the stress. Music improvisation is a common music therapy activity to calm down users’ mood and release tension. According to study, music improvisation is effective for reducing stress[16]. Drawing and playing puzzle that can relax stress will be also implemented. This music therapy activity will let user more comprehensive understanding more about music therapy and have activities to do while listening to music.
Second, the tempo manipulation treatment will be used as the tempo can affect the tension and heart rate. The above research shows that tension can be lower if the tempo is slower. Therefore, the higher the stress level is, the slower the tempo of the music it should be.
There will have evaluation form in the website. After building the website, users can give their rating and comments in the form. The form is use for improvement of the website. By collecting users’ feedback, the website can use the feedback to update the website. The comments will be recorded and used for user friendliness enhancement.
The objective of song analysis is to filter the music before putting into the music player. The target of music selection is less than 120 beats per minute non-lyrical soft music. The volume level should be less than 80dB.The duration of the music will be no more than 30 minutes in length. The selection is first start from music genre, then bpm, and then spectrogram and waveform.
The music analysis is to choose the slow tempo and low frequency music. The music selection will have three procedures. First, different music genre will be analyzed based on waveform and timbre to narrow down the selection process and increase efficiency. Second, 80 music samples are selected to go through the bpm analysis. Third, the spectrogram analysis will narrow down the music to 30. The whole process aims to provide high quality and most suitable music for users to listen.
The timbre of an instrument determines the middle part of the music. Different musical instruments can create different level of amplitude. For example, hard rock is constructed by electric guitar, bass guitar, drums etc. The attack of a hit on the drums is strong. The attack and decay of a plucked electric guitar string can create a large sound. With the combination of strong sound of musical instrument will create very loud and excited sound, in the waveform, the attack is throughout the whole song and the decay is very small proportion . Another example, new age music is constructed by piano, flute, harp and sounds of nature. The attack is much softer-sounding. The timbre of these kind of instruments are smooth and soft. The attack is given only a steady rise on the amplitude and the decay is throughout the whole song. Therefore, a smooth and soft timbre of the song selection is a must. In the below figure, the two figures show the drum kit and electric guitar. Another two figures show the flute and harp.
Figure 1. Drum Kit(left) and Electric Guitar(right) use in Hard Rock
Figure 2. Harp(left) and Flute(right) use in New Age music
The songs can be analyzed by waveform. Waveform can be formed by showing signal such as wave moving. The waveform can be shown using Audacity. The waveform width is the time. The waveform height is the amplitude.
Case 1- Pop Song
Figure 3- Pop song(Charlie Puth-One Call Away)
The amplitude of the song is increasing from the beginning and stay in a high level until the end of the song . The wave, indicated in blue color almost covers the whole graph. The peak is in a high level. The decay or the ending of the song is ends in a sudden short way.
Case 2-Hard Rock Song
Figure 4- (Hard Rock)ACDC-Highway To Hell
Compared to case 1, the amplitude of the song are much higher. The blue wave part has larger than case 1.The whole song is very intense and in a high energy level. The starting point of the music element is very high onset level after a constant low amplitude in the very beginning.
Case 3-New Age Music
Figure 5-New Age (Calming Sea)
Compared to the above cases, the amplitude of the song is much slower than the other songs. The energy level is very constant and stable. The rhythmic pattern is very repetitive. The whole song is in a non-intense level.
Case 4- Folk Music
Figure 6-Folk Music (Three Kites Cycling)
The folk music shows the low amplitude and low intense level. The music genre is soft .
Case 5- Instrumental Music
Figure 7- Instrumental Music (Piano Music)
The instrumental music is showing the piano music. The music is not intense and the music genre is soft.
Beats per minute is a measurement of the music tempo. The faster the tempo is, the higher the bpm is. The 50 pieces of music is analyzed from the software bpm counter. The cut-off line is in less than 98 bpm. It is based on basic Italian tempo marking. It defines slow tempo in less than 98 bpm. The following diagram extracts from BPM Counter:
Figure 8 – Song BPM Analysis Result
The bpm analysis result shows that the range of 80 samples of music is from 86.40 to 163.64 bpm. The difference is quite large. The percentage of music selected in first phase is 54%. It shows that most songs are belong to music genre. The music analysis is generated by BPM counter which is a bpm analyzer software.
Spectrogram is to measure spectrum of frequency in sound and fundamental frequency and amplitude in 60-80dB. This software uses Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) convert the signal from its original domain. The algorithm uses symmetry that reducing runtime from O(n2) to O(n log n). The higher decibel the music is, the louder the music is. The aim of this is to analyze the music whether it is under 80 dB. The music selection is using spectrogram generator software, Spek. For more sound, the following pictures are some songs extract from the suitable songs.
Case 1: Accepted
Figure 7- Air.mp3 (New Age)
This song has low frequency and it implies low decibel on the song. As the green area represent 60 dB, the green proportion of the music is in high proportion which means low music intensity level. The spectrum density in blue area is sparse but the spectrum density in green area is concentrated.
Case 2: Not Accepted
Figure 8 Scarlet_Sails.mp3
Although this song is below 98 bpm, the blue area means high dB level has high proportional compared to green area. The song shows that it is about 20 kilohertz This means that the spectrum of energy of the music is high. The graph shows that the music may exceed 80dB range and nearly 100 dB.
In conclusion, the music is suitable for system when the decibel is not intense and strong. The range is within 60 dB to 80 dB. The more concentrated the blue area is, the stronger the music is.
The analysis result is narrow down to 30 songs in the selection process. The 30 songs are classified into different stress level according to the chronological order of bpm.
There has two types of users, admin and visitors. Admin has more rights than common users. Admin can modify information while visitor only can register.
Users can listen music in the system. There has a music list that has already in the system.
Users can do self-assessment in the system. The assessment is displayed in the assessment page and result of the self-assessment will be displayed.
When the user finish using the system, users can give feedback to the system. The feedback form is available in the evaluation page.
User can like and share the link of the system using their Facebook and Twitter account. The function is to promote the page and interact with users’ friends.
User can login to the music system.
User can register to the system
User can change password in the system
User can delete account in the system.
User can play music therapy activities in the system.
Admin can manage the feedback by viewing, deleting the feedback from the users.
Admin can type user id and password to login to the system.
Admin can view account information of user.
Admin can upload, view, delete and edit music .
Figure 9 User Case Diagram
Users can login, do assessment, listen to the music and play game. Also, users can change password and delete account. Visitor has only right to register and then become a user. Admin has more rights than users and visitors. They can view, delete feedback and insert, edit and delete music. The user account can be viewed by admin.
Figure 10 -Database Diagram
The relationship between song and user is zero to many and one to many respectively as at least one user can listen zero to many song. Also, the relationship between response and user is zero to many users gives zero or one response. The user does not require to give response. Also, one user can listen no song. But songs are required at least one user to listen. The user and assessment is linked in zero to many to one to many relationship.
Song
| Attributes | Datatype | Primary Key | Description |
| songid | INTEGER | | The id of the song |
| songname | VARCHAR(45) | X | The name of the song |
| genre | VARCHAR(45) | X | The type of the song |
| songlink | VARCHAR(45) | X | The link of the song |
| songlength | VARCHAR(45) | X | The length of the song |
| speedlevel | VARCHAR(45) | X | The stress level the song belongs |
Table 1 song table
Assessment
| Attributes | Datatype | Primary Key | Description |
| aid | INTEGER | | The assessment id |
| id | INTEGER | X | Foreign key references user |
| assessresult | VARCHAR(45) | X | The assessment result |
| Therapy | VARCHAR(500) | X | The therapy |
| Speedlevel | VARCHAR(45) | X | The stress level |
Table 2 assessment table
Admin
| Attributes | Datatype | Primary Key | Description |
| userid | INT | | Unique identifier is automatically generated to the system. |
| username | VARCHAR(45) | X | The name of user |
| password | VARCHAR(45) | X | The password of the user |
Table 3 admin table
User
| Attributes | Datatype | Primary Key | Description |
| id | INTEGER | | The unique identifier of user |
| Username | VARCHAR(45) | X | The username |
| Password | VARCHAR(45) | X | The password |
| firstname | VARCHAR(45) | X | The first name of user |
| lastname | VARCHAR(45) | X | The last name of user |
| VARCHAR(100) | X | The email of user |
Table 4 user table
Response
| Attributes | Datatype | Primary Key | Description |
| rid | INT | | The unique identifier of response |
| category | VARCHAR(45) | X | The category of the response |
| rating | VARCHAR(45) | X | The user rating on the system |
| comment | VARCHAR(500) | X | The comment from user |
| effectiveness | VARCHAR(45) | X | The effectiveness of the therapy |
| musicselect | VARCHAR(45) | X | The music selection rating |
| id | INTERGER | X | The foreign key references user |
Table 5 Response Table
Figure 11 System Diagram
The system will have sent http request to the web server and application server will process the http request. Also, a database server is for storing the information and retrieve the data if receiving command.
Figure 12 Sequence Diagram for users
The diagram shows the login process from step 1 to 5. The login process is assume the username and password are correct. The validation on the password are true. Then, users will login direct to index page. The next steps from 7 to 9 are assessment. After submitting assessment, the score will be calculated and display the stress level and therapy to users. For the next part (Steps 10-14) of music listening, the music will be shown required song and users can listen it. In the diagram, the system and interface will be transacted very frequently.
Figure 13 Sequence diagram for admin
In the diagram, it shows part of the admin functions. When admin submits login form, the interface will connect to system to request validation to the database. When the database validates, the admin index page will be redirected. For upload music function, the music will be uploaded to the system. The database will be requested by system to insert data to database. Then, it will display successful message to admin. The music deletion will be submitted data to system and then send delete request to database. Then database will perform the action and then inform the system. The interface will display the successful message to admin.
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