Music and memory: why an old song does so much

Play a song somebody loved at twenty and something happens that does not happen with a song they heard last week. It arrives with the time attached: where they were, who they were with, what they were hoping for. The tune is only the doorway.

That is really why music earns its place in a session. In three or four minutes it is doing the work of several different activities at the same time. There is something to hear. There is a memory coming back. There is feeling attached to it. Feet and hands start moving almost without asking. And then there is someone beside you who remembers the same song.

Very few activities manage all of that together, and none of them feel as little like an exercise class.

Ask a room to do ten minutes of exercise and you will see what you expect. Put on a song they grew up with and the same room is clapping, swaying and tapping before anybody has been asked to. The movement arrives as a by-product of enjoyment, which is the most reliable way to get it.

The memory is worth as much as the music, and it needs a question to come out. What does this song remind you of? How old were you when you used to hear it? What was life like then?

Then let two people share what came up. That turns a song into a conversation, and a conversation into company, which is very often the thing that was actually missing.

This is an activity for enjoyment and wellbeing. It is not a treatment for dementia, depression or any medical condition, and it is not offered as one.