Sir, I enjoyed the paper entitled *Experience of listening to music on patient anxiety during minor oral surgery procedures: a pilot study* by Gupta and Ahmed^[@CR24187]^ and feel that music can be an invaluable tool in calming patients during procedures. Using music as medicine is a safe and non-pharmacological method of managing anxiety during complex dental procedures and the potential for research in this area is wide. Regarding the study, I pose a question to the authors: I was interested to read that almost half of the participants (48%) reported that music made communication easier and wonder if they could elaborate on this? In my experience, when patients wear headphones and listen to music for distraction and relaxation, communication is negatively affected to some degree in terms of gaining the patient\'s attention and I wondered how the authors overcame this challenge.

Additionally, it is no secret that dentistry can be a stressful career, now more than ever due to the coronavirus. Stress is believed to be one of the major factors that negatively affect our health, contributing to conditions such as cardiovascular disease, chronic pain and burn out to name but a few.^[@CR24199]^ The calming and stress reducing effects of listening to music have been widely studied and this simple and cost-effective method of relaxation is something easily accessible to all members of the dental team. Well-being is always an important consideration and fundamental to happiness and good mental health. There are so many benefits linked to the simple pleasure of listening to our favourite music and I would encourage my colleagues and peers to think about capitalising on these benefits.

*The authors Bilal Ahmed and Ashana Gupta respond: we would like to thank Dr Houlston for her question. We too were surprised that 48% of participants found that music made communication easier. We did check the volume with the patient such that there was a balance of listening to the music track and communication with the dental team was clear. Our project involved a surgical motor which is quieter than high speed handpieces.*

*If we can add there are various genres of music, but our track was instrumental, earth and nature sounds similar to music heard in a spa. There were no spoken words nor an excessive drum beat or bass. Had our music track been heavy metal or hard rock our result may well have been very different.*

*Our study only investigated the effect on the patient of music via headphones, not on the dentist. We would agree that dentistry is a stressful profession, but stress is generally hard to measure and includes so many variables outside clinical factors. At our teaching and training centre in Birmingham, we do not play music as this can lead to distraction for our students, trainees and staff. Moreover, playing music in a hospital or clinic does require a licence. As our project suggests patients are welcome to bring their own music using their smart phone and play various tracks using their own headphones.*
