Music supports memory and cognition

Grace Notes Community Singers rehearsal tomorrow!

Join us for weekly live sessions like this one👇 by subscribing to our paid membership. We cant wait to see you there!

A gift for you

Join the Guiros Amigos found sound band here ☝️ as a gift for subscribing to my Substack.

Take a look at the video. What kinds of instruments do you see? There are some traditional ones like my ukulele, a drum, and a couple of maracas, and then there are some household items that people have made into instruments. What are some “musical instruments” you can find in your purse or home?

Remember read-along books with accompanying cassette tape (📼 - that’ll age ya’) that used to chime when it was time to turn the page? At Grace Notes, wherever you see a 🎵, you will find a musical example that you can follow today to bring joy and hope to your caregiving adventure. Here’s a practice:

🎵 Take a minute to find some innovative instruments around your home. Try a spiral notebook and a chopstick for an instant scraper. After you find them, play Rockin’ Robin along with our band! Don’t worry - nobody will hear you.

“It just brightens up your day - it really does - music. . . . You could see he just loved music and he knew a lot of words and it was wonderful just to see him be able to sing all those songs.”

Cindy, caregiver to late husband, Bud

Grace Notes Community Singer Bud learns to match pitch on Zoom with a more experienced singer.

“But I’m not musical.”

It is a common experience for me as a music therapist to hear someone say, “I don’t know that song,” only to have the person sing all of the words from memory. I get the craziest looks from singers when I suggest they put the lyric books down so they can sing out! But often, the words come back easily.

If you want to geek out on the brain science, check out this review of music-based interventions and their effect on cognition. If you’re looking for Fun, Fun, Fun, maybe just skip it. 😉

Put simply, music is a whole-brain activity, simultaneously involving numerous brain structures, including the limbic system, or emotional brain. Because we often associate music with emotion, music memories are more easily accessible even into the dementia process. We learn emotional responses to music much more deeply than we learn facts like, "Who served as United States President in 1960?” (Answer: it was the Eisenhower administration.)

I have been a board-certified music therapist (MT-BC) for over 25 years and have applied a lot of research in my work. You can trust me not to make grand promises and generalizations, and to understand the science behind my assertions. You can find out more about my unique qualifications in last month’s post Just Keep Singing and future posts.

My name is Amy Standridge. I am a Board-Certified Music Therapist, Certified Humor Professional, Keynote Speaker, and found-sound band director. I believe that caregivers and their loved ones living with dementia deserve to experience joyful moments together through meaningful music experiences. My mission is to empower families living with dementia to rediscover joy and hope through uplifting music experiences. This is why I created Grace Notes Community Singers.