I’ve always been interested in the strength of these memories, what is the unique power music holds? How exactly does it work?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been forgetful. Day to day goings on I can manage, the short term is doing its job. But for long term, I really rely on the people I shared those experiences with to retell to me. I’m all ears for a story of our childhood, primary school days and Christmases gone by. My recollection of even recent years seems to be going that way too.
But sometimes, a certain song will play and I am transported back through time. Such full and vivid memories come flooding back. I remember exactly what I was doing, where I was, who I was with and my emotions in quite a visceral way. One of my strongest memories is often triggered by hearing The Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gang. It was a sunny weekend at home, my parents were busy doing odd jobs and I was to entertain myself. I took the CD player out into the back garden, as far as the cable could stretch leaving it sat on the back step. I inserted the Now That’s What I Call Music! 46 CD and skipped straight to track 9. On the square stone patio, I stood in my flowing character skirt and tap shoes (definitely not meant to be wearing those outside) and I danced and danced for what felt like hours.
I’ve always been interested in the strength of these memories, what is the unique power music holds? How exactly does it work?
The ability of music to create memories is the result of so many things going on in the brain whilst you're listening to the music. Music has rhythm, a beat, it gets under your skin and makes you want to move, tapping a toe or bopping your head. This rhythm is stored in muscle memory. Then you’ve got the lyrics, whether you know all of the words, or you’ve got your own version, it’s all stored in the word and language memory. On a deeper level, how the music is making you feel stores in the emotional memory linked to the nervous system. And memory continues to record in vision, touch and everything else that might be happening to you as a song plays.
Music is also something we like to relisten to, we play the same songs again and again which embeds the memory and allows these neurological pathways between
the memory stores to form strong links, all consolidating in sleep. So, when a specific song plays many years later, it’s a light that brightens this pathway, a chain reaction through the brain providing us with a complete feeling memory.
According to the research it appears we don’t really forget things either, all memories are stored. It’s just that if we don’t access them often it becomes harder and harder to do so. If we want to continue to create strong memories we’ve got to keep listening to new music, a new sound for the summer each year. And years from now, you can listen back to your own discography, remember and relive.
These thoughts and themes underpin my upcoming performance, The Best Of. An immersive audio performance for one person at a time, come and listen on the 29th of March!
Sat 29 Mar at 5pm
Tickets £5
