Music and Psychology

Music and psychology is a combination that makes particular intellectual sense, because music is one of the most powerful and pervasive psychological phenomena in human experience. Why does music move people emotionally? How is it processed in the brain?

What makes some people musicians and others not? How does music function in social rituals, therapy, and cultural identity? Psychology provides the experimental and theoretical tools to address these questions, while music study develops your understanding of the art form itself: its history, theory, performance practice, and the craft of making and listening.

At Liverpool Hope University, in a city with one of the most celebrated musical heritages in the world, this three-year full-time programme combines serious music study with rigorous psychological science. You will engage with music history and theory, performance or composition depending on your direction, and the critical and musicological study of how music works and means. Your psychology studies will cover cognitive, developmental, social, and biological psychology, along with research methods and the specific area of music psychology.

A sandwich year gives you professional experience, a year abroad broadens your perspectives, and work placement experience is embedded throughout.

Graduates pursue careers in music performance, teaching, and therapy, alongside roles in psychological research, healthcare, community arts, and education. The combination is particularly valuable for those interested in music therapy, where both deep musical skill and psychological understanding are required. Postgraduate study in music, psychology, music therapy, and neuroscience of music is available for those who wish to develop their expertise in either direction or at their intersection.