Reelin' in the years

...and staying forever young

I set off on an adventure, but I didn’t end up where I planned to go. It’s not unusual for someone who is directionally challenged, like me, to take a wrong turn (more about that here), but in this case, I wasn’t trying to get to a physical location. Thinking it would be good fun to make a list of favorite artists and bands across various genres, I was headed toward a late-Boomer musical round-up.

I had the tutelage of a lifetime to underpin my journey (there’s an intentional pun there for fans who see it). I grew up in a musical family. Not Bach dynasty or Jackson family caliber, but classical training and exemplary talent on both sides. Notably, my father’s only sibling, Margaret, was a piano prodigy who left their tiny town in rural North Carolina (average population: 168) to attend the Eastman School of Music and, ultimately, had what it took to hold her own alongside someone like Marian McPartland.

My godparents in the back. My siblings and I flanking my mom. 1967.

None of my people reached celebrity status, but they sure understood music. They knew who blew the Star-Spangled Banner, who did it right, who probably wasn’t worth the listen, and who was legendary. I consider myself fortunate to have been introduced, during my childhood, to everything from opera to show tunes, classical to jazz, country to soul, pop to rock, and beyond. With parents born in the 20s, and an oldest sibling who hit his teenage stride in the 60s, I grew up in a kind of musical profusion. Fun fact: The Who played that same sibling’s high school prom, back when we all lived in Kansas.

I listened to music at home, at church, in theaters, at concerts. I listened to recordings on the radio, on vinyl, on 8-tracks and cassettes in stereo. I sang with the choir and with carefully curated albums: Carly Simon, Carole King, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Jim Croce. I also took in whatever came wafting through the house, whether it was mom knocking out a rousing rendition of Chopin’s Polonaise 40, 1 on the piano, or my brothers cranking up The Beatles and Chicago.

I found reason to appreciate all of it. I still do. In some instances, the connection is profound enough to elicit tears. Case in point, there were unexpected waterworks as I searched for just the right version of the Polonaise linked above.

I owe my family a debt of gratitude. In the absence of their influence, I might have ended up stuck on the likes of David Cassidy and Donny Osmond. My attempt to pare down my musical upbringing to just a few favorites was pointless. I couldn’t take anything off the list.

Photo from Abe Books

Smart folks who study such things would not be surprised by my tuneful attachments. Music has a way of forging lasting relationships, making use of myriad physical and emotional paths to do so.  For starters, it lights up our noggins, kicking off activity in the auditory, premotor, parietal, and prefrontal cortexes. It also stimulates the flow of hormones and other neurochemicals that induce pleasure, not unlike cocaine - or so they say. And, we associate it with memorable social experiences, which further seals the deal.

All the mechanisms above provide justification for why the music of our youth is often what we remember and relate to most of all. As we push past the boundaries of our childhoods into the bold, new territories of pubescence, music adds another indelible mark to occurrences that are already set apart by novelty, angst, and exhilaration. Scientists refer to this as the reminiscence bump.

In Neural Nostalgia, a 2014 article published in Slate Magazine, writer Mark Joseph Stern writes, “According to the reminiscence bump theory, we all have a culturally conditioned ‘life script’ that serves, in our memory, as the narrative of our lives. When we look back on our pasts, the memories that dominate this narrative have two things in common: They’re happy, and they cluster around our teens and early 20s.” Thus, the music of our youth becomes part of our identity, the soundtracks for who we become.

This also explains why some of us (:looks around innocently:) are tempted to drop into air-guitar-assisted renditions of Born to Run every time the song gets piped into the middle of one of our grocery shopping experiences.

The songs we listened to when we were 14 are always going to be some of our most meaningful, but if you’ll truck along with me for another little side trip (raise your hand if you’re suddenly humming this) – I think you’ll like the sound of this final number.

A little over a month ago, scientists from the University of Geneva released the results of a study that explored how listening to or practicing music as we get older can increase gray matter and reduce working memory loss.

The researchers followed 132 retirees, ages 62-78, who were otherwise healthy and, to control for the possibility of existing neural pathways, had less than six months of formal musical training across their lifetimes. They were divided into two groups, one that received piano instruction, and another that received music awareness training.

For twelve months, the participants took a weekly, hour-long class and were asked to do a half-hour of homework, five days per week. At the six-month mark, both groups showed evidence of increased gray matter, brain plasticity, and cognitive function, with a slightly improved outcome for the piano playing group.

So, not only is music formative during our teendom, it also helps keep us younger longer. Holy cow!

All those years ago, when I was busy forging the future of my musical tastes, I also played the piano (not very well) and had a short-lived foray into learning guitar. I no longer own any sort of keyboard, but the guitar has been languishing in various closets ever since. Maybe it’s time I pick it up again to see how far I get with When I’m Sixty-Four.

~Elizabeth

Note: Shhh! I’ve got a secret. Though I drew attention to one pun, there are at least four others tucked among the words of this essay. Feel free to let me know how many you spot in the comments!

Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash