Music and Memory

 Music has a powerful connection with memory. Across the globe and the millenia, people have used music to help them remember things--the states of the US, say, or the letters of the alphabet, or the names of the continents.

But music can also trigger memories. You've all had that experience--you're going through your day, minding your own business, when suddenly out of nowhere you hear some music, and that particular music instantly transports you to sometime in your past. Maybe it's your favorite Christmas carol, or a lullaby your grandmother sang to you, or that song that you listened to over and over and over and over and over and over in middle school (you know the one I'm talking about :-). 

For this blog, you're going to write about your own experiences with the link between music and memory. You need at least three musical examples and at least 500 words. Within those parameters, you can take this anywhere you like. Tell us about a music that helped you remember something, or a music that evokes a memory for you. The music can be from your childhood, or last week, or any time in between. The memory can be specific or general. You must post the music, though--we need to be able to hear it. 

Here's my own "Music and Memory" entry:

As you might expect, my memory is riddled with all kinds of music that connects me to particular events and people and places and times. And I've used music to help me remember all kinds of things--I can still sing the Preamble to the Constitution (thank you, School House Rock!), and I can, indeed, tell you all of the continents. But as I started to think about this topic, I was more drawn to music that triggers specific personal memories for me. Here are a few of them.

1. I grew up in West Texas in the 1970s. Well, I was born in Fort Worth, then we moved to Colorado Springs (my parents were in the Air Force), and then by the time I was three we ended up in my West Texas town of San Angelo. We lived in an apartment complex on Knickerbocker Street for about a year, and then my parents actually bought a house. It was a huge move for them--especially my mother. She was constantly worried about the expense, but she also loved having a big proper kitchen. She spent a lot of time in that kitchen, and so did I. And I have a really vivid memory from when I was around six years old: my mom is happy and in the kitchen and dancing around with me. She had 70s white girl hair--long, straight (like, she used to iron it---really), blond hair. And she was singing along with Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World." It was so happy! Although I do remember being a bit confused, because I was old enough to also know the Christmas carol "Joy to the World," and I wasn't sure how you could have two such different songs with the same name. Still, it's a joyful, happy memory--I can practically feel my mom smiling and dancing around every time I hear this song.

2. Now, SC All-Region Band tryouts are this weekend, which means I've been working with my high school oboe students finalizing their preparations all week, and so I've got All-Region/District/State on my mind. And I remembered one of our All-State Orchestra pieces from my senior year--Maurice Ravel's Bolero. It's entirely possible you've heard it before:

The piece is made up of really only two tunes that keep getting passed off from instrument to instrument to group to group, while the snare keeps the time, getting louder and louder, until the very end, when it falls off a cliff. Anyway, we played it at All-State, and I loved it--I'd just never done a piece like that before. And then, a couple of weeks later, we all received our cassette tapes of the concert in the mail! I listened to it quite a bit, but especially when it came time to prepare for final exams that semester. I'm not sure what came over me, but I set up all my studying at a table in the living room and just played my cassette of Bolero over and over and over and over while I studied. It must have driven my family bananas. I've played the piece several times since then, but my brain is always back in my living room, studying for finals.

Finally, a really sweet memory. When my daughter was born, I set up my schedule for the rest of the semester where I'd teach one lesson in the morning, leaving the baby at home with Chris (aka Dr. Mr. Vaneman), and then I'd rush back home to take the baby while he went up for a day at Converse (I was on a modified maternity leave for awhile). Anyway, one day I returned home from my morning lesson to see Chris dancing around the living room with the baby to this song:

It's from a collection of songs written by the great folk music artist Woody Guthrie--well, a collection of lyrics written by him, but he died before he wrote down the tunes. So a couple of contemporary musicians, Bill Bragg and Wilco, wrote a bunch of music for the lyrics and recorded them. This particular song was lyrics Woody Guthrie wrote as a silly song for his kids. I'd completely forgotten about this memory of Chris dancing around the living room with baby Tally until last November, when I grabbed a handful of CDs I hadn't listened to in awhile to keep me company driving back and forth to Hendersonville Symphony rehearsals, and this was one of the CDs I grabbed. The car stereo got to "Hoodoo Voodoo" and all of a sudden I remembered that morning, and how unbearably cute it was. I wish I had a video I could share with you of Dr Mr dancing around the room with Baby Tally, but you'll just have to take my word for it--my heart just melted. 

Oh, and Woody Guthrie? He's the guy that wrote "This Land is Your Land."