Song and Memory

Earlier this afternoon, one of our Song Leaders for the LifeSong Chorus (a memory care chorus for people with early/younger onset Alzheimer’s and their caregivers) showed me this video:

The clip was posted on youtube  about 4 years ago by a Spanish organization called Musica Para Despertar (Music for Awakening Association). Using music as a therapeutic tool and as support for the well-being of people with Alzheimer’s, their work demonstrates the power of music and memory. I’ve watched it over and over, and it touches me every time.

Last year, with the support of the NextFifty Initiative, the Center for Musical Arts launched the LifeSong Chorus. Inspired by an organization in Minneapolis (givingvoicechorus.org), we modeled our group on theirs. Every Tuesday, LifeSong meets and sings together for an hour. They have song books with lyrics at the ready, as they prepare to participate in spring concerts. They are so earnest, so full of joy, singing Edelweiss. Maybe they’re remembering, maybe they’re just singing because it feels good. Something is happening up there that sends waves of feeling through the air to me. I am so moved that I walk out into the lobby and take a few deep breaths, grab a kleenex.

You can’t tell by looking which one of them has dementia and which are the care partners. Some of them are wives or husbands. And one of them is a young woman, a granddaughter. Her arm is intertwined with her grandmother’s and both of them are smiling as they sing, “Blossoms of snow may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever. . .” There is love flying around in those notes and words. How does that even work? How does music weave this kind of magic? Most of these people are old, they are facing an uncertain future where they are losing their orientations to the world, their memories of others, their abilities to do regular daily life things. But in these few moments, all of that falls away and their voices blend and raise the vibe all through the building, connecting everyone in this feeling vortex. This is the thing that music does. So what that they have this affliction; they sing. So what that some of their voices quaver, so what that maybe all the words aren’t there. The music tugs us together and our hearts, whether singing or listening, are entrained. Even though I’m hanging out in the back of the hall, I’m part of the vortex. I’m awed by the energy.

We humans are learning more about the biological basis for musical memory; new research comes out all the time. For some reason that is yet to be understood, the region of the brain containing musical memory is generally the last area to be affected by the disease. Musical memory can contain many things, like how to play an instrument, read music, sing the words to many songs. Remember specific times, places, feelings, just as the music of Swan Lake roused the memory of the ballerina in the video, and her body began to dance. Many years ago, I witnessed this firsthand on one visit to my grandmother, Mary LaBar, who was living in a memory care facility. We were hanging out in the community room and a woman was wheeled in, completely slumped over in her wheelchair. The aide parked her at the piano, and something in her slowly lit up. She unfurled, like a slow blooming flower, and placed her hands on the keys. She played a Chopin Prelude, then another and another. Bach Inventions, a Mozart Sonata. Watching her play, you would have no idea she was in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. When she was finished, she curled back up again and was wheeled away. I tried talking to one of the care workers, who was blasé about it. “It’s just what she does. Some of them sing. Some of them brighten up when you play certain music. She plays the piano.” She said this as if it were no big deal at all.

We humans seem to finally be getting it, that music is so important for these individuals. Music is a link to their aliveness, and I think it’s our responsibility to make music available at all stages of human life, so that we can help them to remember. So that we will always remember.

Recommended watching: Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory (a 2014 documentary created by the Alive Inside organization; https://aliveinside.org/posts/108208/watch-the-movie)

For more information or to support the LifeSong Chorus, contact me: kathyk@comuisc.org