The psychological impact of ney music

Abstract

The current study investigated whether music therapy carried with the Ney (a wind instrument used in classical Turkish music) has a positive effect on decreasing people's anger and psychological symptoms. The Ney is a Turkish folk instrument and known as a great symbol of Sufi music. In Mevlana philosophy, the Ney makes people feel at ease, and make them feel closer to God. The participants were 14 university students, who were randomly assigned to two groups. This experimental group received music therapy sessions twice a week during 7 weeks, resulting in a total of 14 sessions. The control group did not receive any therapy. The research instruments were administered as a pre-test, a post-test, and a follow-up test. The findings revealed that music therapy carried with Ney music has a considerable long term effect on reducing the participants' anger and psychological symptoms.