Music and Memory: why music is so transformative for so many of us

Lets start at the very beginning...It's a very good place to start - Josh Berrett

Over the many years I have helped people learn how to listen to music with a greater appreciation for the craft and genius that create what they are hearing, I have focused on the key role four overlapping kinds of memory play in exciting our deepest emotions. This is one reason certain pieces remain meaningful for us throughout our lives.

The first kind of memory is what I call PERSONAL MEMORY

“That’s my kind of music.” They’re singing my song.” Is there any form of human expression more personal than music? How rarely do we hear someone say: “That’s my kind of poem,” or novel, play, painting, or movie? Musical memories define so much of who we are and the many transitions we pass through on life’s journey -- high school graduation, our first love, courtship, coping with a crisis, the first Broadway show or concert we attended — connecting us with others.

Think about the loss of a loved one or some musical icon: how we immerse ourselves in the music associated with that person, perhaps in an effort to bring them back to life. The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a powerful example of our human wish to defeat death. When the great musician Orpheus’s beloved Eurydice is fatally bitten by a snake, a bereft Orpheus descends to the underworld, where he softens the hearts of Pluto and his wife Proserpina by playing his lyre as he begs them to restore her to life. Theit hearts are so touched by his music that they allow him to lead Eurydice back to the land of the living, provided he does not look at her. He loses her forever when he cannot resist casting a furtive glance back to be sure that she is indeed behind him. It’s not surprising that the earliest operas, from around the beginning of the 1600’s, draw so frequently upon this very personal, painful theme.

Closer to our own time, think of such songs as “Memories of You,” “My Way,” “Memory Lane,” “Laura,” “Unforgettable,” “Memory” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, or Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” with its haunting lyrics: “Stardust strain, beautiful refrain, I hear you ringing in my ears.”

Think too of the many popular operas, musicals, and movies that depend on themes or motifs to identify -- and then recall -- a character, thing, or situation for us. What about John Williams’ signature music for Darth Vader and Princess Leia in the Star War films. Or Aida’s theme in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida, Richard Wagner’s Valhalla leitmotif in Ring of the Nibelung, Bernard Herrmann’s many soundtracks for Hitchcock movies, James Horner’s “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic.

All of these examples are meant to help you identify your own favorite personal pieces of “memory music” and the emotional connections to the past they evoke. What music comes to your mind? For me it’s music I heard as a child, classical recordings my father brought into our house. For Lynne, it’s popular songs from the 30’s that her family sang in the car on their numerous travels. What about you? Please share some of your own “memory music” in the Comments.

In my next post I’ll describe the second kind of memory. As Yehudi Menuhin put it in The Music of Man: “We heard long before we could see.” I call this FETAL MEMORY.

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Copyright 2025 by Joshua Berrett for Ageless Mind Project. All Rights Reserved.

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