Music – along with smell – is one of the most powerful triggers of memories, having the power to transport listeners back to an exact time and place in an instant.
As part of the BBC Music Day 2018, the British broadcaster set up the Music Memories website “designed to use music to help people with dementia reconnect with their most powerful memories”. It is being run in collaboration with Playlist For Life, the music and dementia charity, and is supported by other charities including Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer Scotland, Dementia UK and Carers UK.
Playlists can be generated around three categories – classical music, popular music and theme tunes. For the popular music option, users begin by picking a decade and it produces a playlist of key tracks across a range of genres; for classical, they select a composer and it creates a playlist of their major works; and for theme tunes, there is a pre-selected range of shows from over the years, including children’s shows, comedies and classic dramas.
Due to licensing restrictions, the clips are all under 30 seconds in length but there is also a collaboration/sharing side to it all. “The use of music is increasingly being used in dementia care as it has been shown to reach parts of the damaged brain in ways other forms of communication cannot,” runs the press release around it. “Users can create their own playlist and are invited to share their top tunes to help others and to find the nation’s favourite musical memories.”
Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol is the ambassador for Music Memories and said, “[Music] is the most powerful international language. It can break you and mend you sometimes in the span of a single song. My dad has dementia and anything that throws a light on the disease and helps in any way to reconnect people with their lost memories is something I want to be involved in.”
While sandbox primarily focuses on the marketing of artists, tracks and albums, it’s important to regularly step back from an emphasis on chart positions, followers, engagement rates and viral hits to be reminded of the genuine power of music.
