3.1.4. Perceived Differences in Music-Listening Behavior

There are perceived changes concerning music-listening behavior during the lockdown: 44.4% perceived to at least partly listen to music in other situations and 36.9% for other reasons than before. The most extreme categories ("I listen to music in other situations") were chosen by 26.5% ("does not apply") and 5.8% ("fully applies"). Similar results were seen for reasons for music listening ("I listen to music for other reasons"). Only 2.8% indicate to agree; however, 31.4% disagree. Less than half (41.8%) indicate using other entertainment media to listen to music than before the lockdown and 54.8% indicate missing situations in which they typically listen to music.

Furthermore, there are perceived changes that describe the value of music during the lockdown: for 66.6% of the participants, music is more or at least partly more important during the lockdown. Most (75.9%) indicate that they are at least partly happy to have more time to listen to music; 24.3% totally agree and only 8.3% totally disagree. Half of the participants (53.5%) listen more often or at least partly more often to familiar music, but the most extreme category ("fully applies") is only chosen by 5% in contrast to 19.9% ("does not apply"). More than one-third (36.9%) listen at least partly to music to compensate for missing daily activities. Here again, the most extreme category ("fully applies") is only chosen by 5%. Most (82.6%) of the participants use entertainment media more often than before the lockdown. Different music is at least partly listened to by 30%.

The absence of live music seems to be a strong change in the participants' lives: 68.6% miss live music at least partly during the times of confinement; 35.4% strongly agree. Half of the participants (53%) at least partly agree with the statements that they use records to compensate for missing live events (Table 6).


**Table 6.** Perceived differences in music-listening behavior.

To summarize these findings, we see that between 40% and 50% of the participants report about changes in their everyday lives. Even though the participants in our sample do not suffer from major worries except for worrying that family members or acquaintances might get infected with COVID-19, the impact of the lockdown on daily lives is noticeable. Participants report about changes such as being more often alone or not being able to pursue their hobbies as well as professional changes such as working from home and having more to do than before the lockdown.

Changes in music behavior can be seen regarding media usage, now that live music has become astray, which is missed by many participants. In addition, participants show an adapted music-listening behavior, i.e., concerning situations in which they listen to music and reasons why they do. More than half of the participants indicate missing situations in which they usually listen to music. This rather reflects the consequences of changes in everyday life (routines and habits as well as getting used to a "new normal") than worries that were caused by COVID-19.

#### *3.2. Inferential Statistics*

#### 3.2.1. Factors Predicting Changes in Musical Behavior before and during the Lockdown

The logistic regression models predicting music-related behavior before and during the lockdown showed a significant effect of active engagement (Gold-MSI) revealing that participants were less musically engaged during the lockdown (Odds Ratio = 0.85, *CI* = 0.75–0.95, *p =* 0.005, Tjur's *R*<sup>2</sup> = 0.034). Furthermore, during the lockdown, music was used more to kill time and to overcome loneliness (Odds Ratio = 1.25, *CI* = 1.08–1.45, *p* = 0.003), while before the lockdown, participants listened to music for motor synchronization and to enhance their well-being (Odds Ratio = 0.75, *CI* = 0.61–0.92, *p* = 0.006). Musical attributes did not predict changes in behavior.

To be comparable to other studies, it is of note that 30.6% of the participants listened to music for more than two hours every day during the lockdown, while only 23.6% of the participants listened to music for that long before the lockdown. Hence, music listening time alone slightly increased during the lockdown (see Supplementary Materials).

3.2.2. Effects of Worries, Everyday Life, Personality, and Stress Reactivity on Listening Behavior

The fitted linear models predicting attributes of music showed that depth is positively predicted by the factors 'private' and open-mindedness and negatively by the factors 'uncertainty' and 'work' (Table 7). The models predicting changes in functions of music from before to during the lockdown showed a very low explained variance and could not be interpreted any further (*R*<sup>2</sup> adjusted between −0.003 and 0.010, see Supplementary Materials). Active engagement is not predicted by any factors (*R*<sup>2</sup> adjusted = −0.005, see Supplementary Materials). The models predicting perceived changes in musical behavior showed that extraversion predicts music use, 'uncertainty' predicts the value of music, and 'restrictions' and open-mindedness predict live music (Table 8). Stress reactivity did not become a significant predictor in any model.


**Table 7.** Results of the linear models predicting changes in musical attributes.

Significant *p*-values are indicated in bold.

#### **Table 8.** Results of the linear models predicting perceived changes in musical behavior.



**Table 8.** *Cont.*

Significant *p*-values are indicated in bold.

#### **4. Discussion**

This study investigated music-listening behavior during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic from April to May 2020 in Germany. In the current study, we put the emphasis on the direct comparison between aspects of music-listening behavior (active musical engagement, functions of music listening, attributes of chosen music) from before and during the lockdown. The current study shows how music-listening behavior adapts to changed daily routines and habits as well as to the burdens of the lockdown. A summary of the results is depicted in Figure 1.

**Figure 1.** Changes in musical behavior during the lockdown and effects of worries, everyday life, and personality.

The figure shows factors significantly predicting changes in musical behavior from before to during the lockdown (top three boxes) and effects of worries, aspects of everyday life, and personality dimensions on music listening behavior (bottom boxes, pink lines). Green arrows show an increase during the lockdown, red arrows a decrease during the lockdown.

#### *4.1. Decrease in Active Musical Engagement and Changes in Functions of Music Listening*

Active engagement was investigated with a broad concept of being engaged with music, such as time spent on musical activities, including writing and reading about music, but excluding music making (Gold-MSI; [35,38]). We saw an overall decrease in active engagement with music during the lockdown compared to before.

If current behavioral studies report on changes in musical behavior before and during the lockdown, they have shown that the majority of participants listened to music as much or more than before restrictions [34] or show a perceived increase in musical activity [31,32], i.e., between 34% and 57% of the participants reported about adapted musical behavior during the lockdown. This is comparable to the current study, where participants report about changes in musical behavior related to different listening situations (30%) and reasons for music listening (37.6%), and missing situations in which they otherwise listen to music (54.8%). However, when comparing these results between the studies, the different assessments of musical activity need to be taken into account, as, for example, the pure listening time also slightly increased in the current study but not the overall engagement with music as measured with the Gold-MSI. By assessing active musical engagement with this standardized measure, it is investigated as a broad phenomenon and not reduced to music listening time. As no other study used this particular factor of an otherwise often cited assessment of musical sophistication, and the current study design differed from previous studies (retrospective assessment of behavior from before the lockdown), comparisons are not entirely valid.

However, the decrease in active engagement in music reflects other findings in relation to the lockdown such as a decrease in music streaming [29,30] and might be explained by the finding that people in Germany spent on average over four hours per day thinking about COVID-19 [7], indicating a permanent distraction that leaves little time and space for musical engagement.

Therefore, the reported changes in everyday life in the present study, such as missing the possibilities to pursue hobbies (52%) and changes in the working situation (64.6% working at least partly from home), have affected daily routines and habits, i.e., activities that have been shown to be tightly connected with music listening (e.g., [8,10,14]). Hence, these constraints have obviously affected music-listening routines, which need a new adjustment over time. Some adjustments could be seen in the current study, which comprise two important functions of music listening.

First, people listen to music more for the function of killing time and overcoming loneliness. Music being used to cope with negative feelings [9,16], for distraction, for filling the silence, and overcoming loneliness [9,10] are well-known functions of music listening, which were also found to be important in other recent investigations on the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., [31,33]). Although our sample is not that strongly affected by worries concerning COVID-19, concern about changes in daily life as well as worrying that relatives and acquaintances will become infected show that participants had to deal with major constraints in their lives. Changes in private life concerning spatial distancing such as being bored (here, 52.4%) and often alone (52.9%) show moreover that people had to adapt to a "new normal". Additionally, the current study shows that for 66.6% of the participants, music is more important, which fits with the results of Fink et al. (2021) [31] and Mas-Herrero (2020) [32], who show that music is used to deal with the consequences of the pandemic and may reflect the role of music serving as a socio-emotional and distressregulating coping strategy during troubling times.

Second, in contrast to before the lockdown, music was listened to for the function of motor synchronization and enhanced well-being during the lockdown (i.e., how music triggers movement, enhances the mood, and enables listeners to feel fit, let off steam, and sing along). Even though it was previously shown that music, in comparison to other activities such as entertainment media, was found to be the most effective activity for three out of five well-being goals, that is enjoyment, venting negative emotions, and selfconnection [33], the current results show how some of these goals have changed from before to during the lockdown. Furthermore, the function used in the current study connects well-being to certain situations in which music activates people (e.g., at parties and musical events, or at the gym). As about half of the current participants miss situations in which they usually listen to music and about a third indicate listening to music in different situations and for other reasons than before, this finding contributes to the assumption that people have lost their musical as well as their activity routines during the lockdown [15]. Findings by Fink et al. (2021) [31] also show that music-listening situations changed for 42% of the participants to the extent that private music listening sessions became more likely compared to social music listening events.

#### *4.2. Changes in Musical Behavior Depending on Personal Situation*

The current results show only a few significant effects of the personal situation on music-listening behavior. Interestingly, the attribute of depth in music was one of the few significantly predicted changes: Music with depth was chosen by people who reported about changes in private life and those higher in open-mindedness. Similarly, people higher in open-mindedness and those with higher fear of further restrictions also miss live music more than others. Previous research has shown that people higher in openness were linked to self-reported musical sophistication and are known for their higher engagement and interest in music and the arts [21,22]. Granot et al. (2021) [33] also found that because music is more important for people higher in openness, the music's efficiency is also higher during the lockdown. Hence, these are the ones in the current study who miss the possibility of a higher engagement with music more strongly (such as live events), and listen to music with depth (reflective, emotional, clever music), reflecting their perceptiveness of emotion expression in music (e.g., [41], in the context of sad music).

On the other hand, people being worried by uncertainties about the future and reported changes in work life listened less to music with depth than before the lockdown. Being occupied with work or worries about the future has the effect that these people do not have the mental capacity to engage in a content-related confrontation with music (see [42,43]). Nonetheless, people who worry about the future value music more in general during the lockdown. Since private music listening provides one of the possibilities to engage with music during the lockdown, it can be used to convey some sort of normalcy and familiarity (e.g., half of the participants report listening to more familiar music during the lockdown). Particularly these people who fear an uncertain future possibly seek security or distraction by musical engagement without deeper confrontation (and therefore avoid music with depth).

Furthermore, people higher in extraversion, i.e., higher in sociability, energy level, and assertiveness [37], perceived using music differently during the lockdown. These results reflect the changes in daily life related to missing social (music listening) events and the resulting need to adapt music listening routines, as well as the need to compensate with different activities.

Overall, the small differences between differently affected groups can be explained with the current sample, which overall did not seem to be that worried by existential changes due to COVID-19 during the first lockdown in Germany. For example, while changes in the job situation are rated as unpleasant, people are still glad to have the possibility to work from home (probably to protect themselves from getting infected). Participants only partly suffer from more stress in daily family life compared to before the lockdown, which can be explained by most participants not having to take care of children

and to being confronted with the balance between work and homeschooling. Furthermore, Giordano et al. (2020) [44] shows that for achieving well-being goals such as reducing tiredness, sadness, fear, and worries of clinical staff during the pandemic, the direct use of music (self-administration) is not effective compared to receptive music therapy. Hence, music listening without intervention might not be a useful strategy to deal with worries and changes in daily life in the current sample.
