Music and memories – why is the link so strong?

Many of us have songs we associate with specific moments, people and places. Your child may be beginning to create these connections as well, and they may soon have a collection of songs that they relate to parts of their lives. 

We often find comfort in music, and it's great for bringing people together 

Your child might already associate music with care routines, social events and perhaps being cheered up when things are a bit tricky to manage.^[1]  

Maybe there's a song you sing at mealtimes, or a favourite toy has a melody that your child enjoys humming along too. These songs connect them with others and create an unconscious bond. 

Nothing, even though it may have driven you to despair at the time, brought the power of music back to us more than during the pandemic, when we turned to social media for those classic songs, clapped for NHS staff, and sang songs to accompany washing our hands. 

But why do certain songs remind your child of other people and times? 

We have two different types of memories: implicit and explicit. 

Your child’s implicit memory was formed in areas of the brain that were developed in the first few months of their life.^[2] Implicit memories are created automatically when they process information^[3] in their unconscious mind;^[4] they can be emotional and are always reactive. 

Their explicit memory started forming in their first year of life.^[3] Your child uses their explicit memory when they recall something specifically.^[4] They will consciously attempt to recall information that’s been stored in their explicit memory and may even come up with questions to help them remember. 

Your child will make use of their implicit memory when remembering music  

When your child hears music with another person or they sing a song with others, they won’t consciously think, “I’m going to associate that song to this moment and this person.” But the memory is implicitly stored, and then when they see the person or people, a memory may come whizzing back about the song they danced to or sang. 

Music draws out different emotions   

Music can be a powerful way of connecting with others, because it generates so many different emotions. It brings happy memories of times spent together and it’s fun to remember and share those happy times on future occasions; and when music is associated with other people, it becomes more meaningful. 

It could be an important part of your child's life for many years to come, and numerous studies suggest that music can be remembered for the rest of our lives – especially when we link it with people, places, and events.^[4,5,6] 

Share some of your musical memories and encourage your child to listen to a variety of musical genres to help them discover their passions and create ever-lasting memories.   

References: 

[1] Adachi, M., Trehub, S.E. (2012) Musical Lives of Infants, in The Oxford Handbook of Music Education. Oxford University Press. 

[2] Vöhringer, I. A., Kolling, T., Graf, F., Poloczek, S., Faßbender, I., Freitag, C., Lamm, B., et al. (2018). The development of implicit memory from infancy to childhood: On average performance levels and interindividual differences. Child Development, 89 (2), 370–382. 

[3] Rovee-Collier, C. (1997). Dissociations in infant memory: Rethinking the development of implicit and explicit memory. Psychological Review, 104(3), 467–498. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.104.3.467 

[4] Heshmat, S. (2021) Why Does Music Evoke Memories? Psychology Today. 

[5] Jakubowski, K., & Ghosh, A. (2021). Music-evoked autobiographical memories in everyday life. Psychology of Music, 49(3), 649–666.  

[6] Music and the Brain. (2023) Harvard Education.