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While music and other art forms have long been associated with health promotion, their place in health practices and the specific constructs that effect healing and wellness have been difficult to define. This guest editorial discusses the arts, and music in particular, in the contexts of traditional cultures and contemporary biomedicine, psychotherapies and community practice. Current research and the trend toward defining two distinct fields of ‘arts therapies’ and ‘arts in healthcare’ practices are discussed, as is the need for more in-depth studies of the effects of such practices in everyday life.