You hear it, and you're instantly transported to another time, a past place or a space of sentimentality. Sometimes, it only takes a few wistful bars. Other times, it’s the chorus that takes you back. The nostalgic power of music is something that can be hard to encapsulate. I can forget the shopping list that I just wrote or why I walked into a room, but I hear the introductory riff to a song from 1984, and I feel something..., belting out each line of lyric even if I don’t love the song. And for the songs I do love, and I am truly taken away by the music. Why is musical memory so powerful?
Having recently interviewed Debbie Donsky for her Personal Playlist Podcast,hearing The Good Old Days episode of on the Hidden Brain caused her think of me, and so she shared it. Plus, she's a really thoughtful person. Every song in the introductory mashup takes me somewhere. Clay Routledge, a psychology professor at North Dakota State University, was being interviewed about his book and the series of experiments he ran in the United Sates, United Kingdom, and elsewhere, to understand nostalgia and explore what triggers nostalgic feelings. He said, "...you have these snapshots of your life that capture these very rich and complex memories, stories about yourself…” There were a lot of things that I learned listening to this podcast.
Nostalgia has an interesting origin and meaning. In the post related to this podcast episode, the producers wrote that, “ The scientist who coined the term "nostalgia" in 1688 thought of this emotion as a neurological illness caused by demons. Other scientists latched onto this conception of nostalgia as a disease. It took marketers, centuries later, to realize that nostalgia has benefits.” So, what are the benefits and how do they relate to music? According to Erica Hepper, Ph.D., a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey in England quoted in this article from The Huffington Post, “Nostalgia is the warm, fuzzy emotion that we feel when we think about fond memories from our past. It often feels bittersweet — mostly happy and comforting, but with a tinge of sadness that whatever we’re remembering is lost in some way.” Nostalgia is a powerful marking of the past that can evoke deep emotion in the present.
There is a lot of research out there that explains what is happening inside of us when we are triggered by a musical memory. In Neural Nostalgia, author Mark Joseph Stern wrote that psychologists and neuroscientists have confirmed that nostalgic songs hold, "...disproportionate power over our emotions." Researchers have discovered that when you, "Listen to a song that triggers personal memories, [and] your prefrontal cortex, which maintains information relevant to your personal life and relationships, will spring into action." Further, "brain imaging studies show that our favourite songs activate the brain's pleasure circuit, releases dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and other neurochemicals that make us feel good." Music sparks everything from emotion, to the brain's neurotransmitters, to the chemicals that make us joyful.
This image is borrowed from Neural Nostalgia, Slate.com, Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty
The nostalgic song is one third of the Personal Playlist Podcast on VoicEd Radio. In addition to a song from their past, each guest selects and shares a song that reflects their identity and one that lights them up. We spend the half hour show discussing the why behind their song choices, and I learn so much about each guest. It is clear through these conversations that nostalgia can be informative in terms of personal histories, but it has also been deeply meaningful. Some interviewees have even been emotional, sharing why these songs connect them to people in their families, especially when those family members have passed on. It is profound to hear how people can stay with you through musical memory. Those are some of the benefits- keeping people close to your heart, taking you back to a time when you were discovering the world, or to a place when music or the person who shared the song with you really made a difference in your life, even saved you. The nostalgic song that the educators share on the show is a window into the person’s story and can help you get to know that person in ways no laundry list of questions could ever discover. The benefits for the guests include the ownership of the personal narrative they choose to tell and the feelings this song choice evokes for them. There are benefits for listeners, too, which include me.
So far, there isn’t a song that doesn’t get me thinking. Each nostalgic song of every guest I have had thus far has created vivid visuals about their lives or taken me there with them. The nostalgic song choices have built bridges that leave me even more curious about the guest, leading to intimate conversations because these song choices come with lovely stories. I find each one deeply engaging because people are so amazing. I leave the recording feeling deeply connected to the whole person.
This podcast came from a BOB project that I created for my Grade 7’s, then titled the Personal Soundtrack (PS2). I didn't know it would work with adults, but it really turns out to lead to the same place it did in my classroom. It arms the listener with opportunities for personalization and develops relationships built on real life scenarios, amplified by the choice and voice of the presenter. It is an authentic and powerful way to get to know people. Now that I am doing the P3 with educators, I have come to refer to it as the perfect metaphor of all of my BOB projects. I have now completed 15 podcasts and related blog posts, and I have thoroughly enjoyed each one. When I first proposed The Personal Playlist Podcast to Stephen Hurley at the beginning of the summer, I had no idea that it would resonate with so many people. What would your nostalgic song choice be?
When I hear feedback from listeners, I understand that the P3 is a shared experience that goes beyond the guest and host. People have reached out to me to respond to the interviewee, to ask to be a guest, to express the emotional reactions to what they heard, and so much more. I never anticipated this, but I am so grateful for it. When people share their stories, they are often sharing our stories, too. We can relate situationally or because we shared the same musical interests or decades of development. These conversations are catalysts for individualized nostalgia of which only the listener may be aware. These podcasts can help other people see and celebrate the guest, and they can be powerful mirrors to the self that begin a personal critical inquiry. The universality of music is a powerful tool in any field, but especially education. Bring the personal playlist experience to your classroom and see your learners light up as they develop communication and critical thinking skills, unpacking their projects and sharing themselves with the class community. This creates nostalgia for a class project that has a special power of its own.
