How Does Music Shape Our Memories?

I didn’t freak out about turning 35. I know this blog’s absence for a week and my protestations seem to prove otherwise, but I promise. I was really okay about turning 35.

I don’t know why I’m using past tense because I am still okay with my age. But, that being said, I think the greatest part about my birthday was the day after, when I felt 15 again.

I know there’s already been a plethora of reviews of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service playing Madison Square Garden for two sold-out nights last week, and nearly every single one mentioned “millennial.” To be fair, both bands were playing from albums released twenty years so nostalgia was inevitable.

But it was more than memory. I swear, I was actually transported back to my friend Alison’s living room, sitting on a slightly uncomfortable wooden chair at her oversized computer desk while she played me the latest and greatest emo songs of 2003. There was a rapidly cooling pizza from Domino’s on the table, lid carelessly thrown back and forgotten, and the sunlight of late afternoon came in hot and strong through her sliding glass door that showed her backyard. I remember those sights, those smells, those feelings but I relived them when Death Cab for Cutie played “Transatlanticism” from start to finish.

Alison told me “We Looked Like Giants” would change my life, and she wasn’t kidding. Dancing in the aisle at Madison Square Garden, clutching a wildly overpriced White Claw, I felt 15 and invincible. I was filled with the hope of all the “firsts” of my life that were surely coming down the pike.

And I know I wasn’t alone.

This ability of music to conjure up vivid memories is a phenomenon well known to brain researchers. It can trigger intense recollections from years past — for many, more strongly than other senses such as taste and smell — and provoke strong emotions from those earlier experiences.

The Washington Post

There’s been loads and loads of research concerning music and its effect on the brain. The Washington Post looked at several small studies to better elucidate the effect music has on a particular part of the brain: memory. Memory starts with the hippocampus. The hippocampus connects all the different parts of a memory, like the sights and sounds and smells and emotions and thoughts. Those are all “represented by a pattern of neural activity in different parts of the cortex, the outer surface of the brain.” Once the connection is made, the memory can be consolidated and the hippocampus is no longer needed. That’s why Tony Bennet, even when he was suffering from Alzheimer’s, could still remember the music and lyrics to his classic songs. He heard them over and over and performed them again and again, so those memories were consolidated and stored. So even though Alzheimer’s attacks the hippocampus, the long-term memory is safe.

The scientists asked participants about each stimulus and to describe any “autobiographical” memories inspired by the exposure. “The music prompted much more detailed memories than the faces,” she says. “We found from this study that music tends to be associated with personal memories from life.”

The Washington Post

Research is more than supporting the use of music in cognitive therapy. Listening to music has many different positive affects on the brain. When Maddie was first hospitalized after her nonfatal drowning, they said we should play music for Maddie. My sisters and I all worked on a Spotify playlists for Maddie to listen to when she was relaxing or working hard at therapy.

I have experienced first hand the way music can bring back vivid memories, and that’s why it’s a useful tool in my writing. Writers write what they know, and I know my life has a soundtrack. Everyone (or nearly everyone) listens to music, so the universality in the act bridges the gap between me and a reader. If I reference a song and the reader knows it, it’s like sharing an inside joke.

If I want to evoke a particular mood in a scene, I’ll listen to music while I write that helps create that mood. The song will conjure up images, sounds, smells, tastes, and that will help me create strong sensual imagery that makes the reading experience more intense and thereby enjoyable for the reader.

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