The chart topping songs from the past couple months. Will these songs be a part of your reminiscence bump?
After writing my last few blog posts, I started to think about the impact of the music we prefer in our youth and young adulthood. One of the things I remember learning in college is that when you are going to a nursing home and working in memory care, use the music that would have been popular when these clients were teens to their late twenties. It made me wonder if we are attached to music from our adolescence and young adulthood. I know a lot of adults who still listen to the music from the 80’s because they say it was the best music to be made. I also know that musical memory is one of the last things to go, so we use that quite often in our practice. Those two ideas led me to my assumption: we are attached to and prefer music from our adolescence because it’s tied to our identity and memories. I decided to try and find some research literature on this idea.
My reasoning
It is during this time in our lives that we start to form our identities. I think of Junior high, High school, and early adulthood as the time that we figure out who we are, what our values are, our likes and dislikes, our beliefs, how we see the world and others, and our role in relationships and the workforce. So it makes sense that the music that we listen to at that time would be tied to that identity of ourselves that we build. Identity is also influenced by the people we are around, such as our friends and family, as well as our environment.
My other reason for why we may be attached to and prefer music from that time is because of memories. There are so many milestones we go through during that time in our lives, which means there are so many memories of big events and music then tied to those events. A song that played during your first kiss, graduation, or your wedding.
Research on music preferences
I read a research article by Bonneville-Roussy, Rentfrow, Xu, & Potter (2013) that collected data on musical engagement and preferences. For the purpose of this blog, I am going to focus on the preferences data.
Method
In the study 254,825 participants between the ages of 12 and 65 filled out an online questionnaire. Each age had at least 164 participants. Music preferences were assessed by using a test called the STOMP-R or Short Test of Music Preferences. Participants used a 7-point Likert scale to express how much they liked each genre. Another test used was the ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) was used to assess the Big Five domains of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Music genres were assessed and categorized by MUSIC, the groupings being mellow, unpretentious, sophisticated, intense, and contemporary.
Results
The scores of how much they liked the music genres were then compared to their ages and their results in the Big Five personality domains. Preferences for music categorized as mellow, unpretentious, and sophisticated increased as age increased, while preference for music categorized as intense and contemporary decreased as age increased. There was also a relation between the five domains and the scores. Participants who showed higher levels of openness rated mellow, sophisticated, and intense music genres higher. Those with higher levels of agreeableness rated unpretentious music genres higher. High extraversion led to higher ratings of unpretentious and contemporary music. Lastly, higher conscientiousness led to higher ratings of unpretentious music genres but lower ratings of intense music genres.
What does this mean
The results indicate that our music preferences seem to correlate with our personality, an integral part of our identity. It is also worth noting that categories like mellow and contemporary are most popular during young adulthood, a time of forming close relationships, and unpretentious and sophisticated music is most popular in adulthood when family and career are the focus. This means that our preferences may also be in relation to our stage in life. Our big five domains grow and change as we grow and change. Neuroticism is higher during adolescence, and agreeableness and conscientiousness are low but they don’t necessarily stay that way.
So why do we use music from their youth and young adulthood with memory care patients? The answer is a phenomenon called the reminiscence bump.
Research on music and the reminiscence bump
The reminiscence bump is the “disproportionate recall of memories from between the ages of 10 to 30 years in comparison with other lifetime periods”. We know that music is tied to memory and that music memory is one of the last forms of memory to go. The article by Jakubowski, Eerola, Tillmann, Perrin, & Heine (2020) studied reminiscence bumps in music-related memories.
Methods
There were 470 participants between the ages of 18 to 82. These participants were shown the titles and artists of 111 popular songs that spanned from 1950 to 2015. Popular songs were decided by picking songs that topped the charts during these years. Participants then rated how familiar they were with the song, how much they liked it, and the “degree to which they had autobiographical memories associated with each song”.
Results
The respondents were split into four groups based on their age, with a similar number of participants in each group. All four of the groups showed a reminiscence bump for songs that appeared in the charts when the participants were between the ages of 5 and 14. For 42 to 55-year-olds, that age extended to 19. For participants 56 and up the age extended to 24. When looking at the data, the highest point of the reminiscence bump was between 15 to 19 for the two older groups and 10 to 14 for the younger two groups. The songs rated highest in familiarity were from when the participants were 10 to 19. While most respondents showed higher scores of liking the music from their reminiscence bump, the youngest group showed higher ratings for music of their parents’ reminiscence bump.
Most liked music decade
18-29- 1976-1985
30-41- 1981-1985
42-55- 1976-1985
55+- 1961-1965
What this means
We recall memories from our reminiscence bump better than memories from other points in our lives. This carries over to music too. The music we listen to during those ages is important in recalling memories of that time. Our preferences for music do not always match the popular music of that time.
Take away
I was correct about memory and identity being tied to music, but I was off about our preferences.
We don’t reach the age of thirty and just stop listening to new music. Like everything else in our lives, our preferences continue to grow and change. Just because you listened to scene music when you were a teen does not mean that is the music you listen to for the rest of your life, for better or worse. This isn’t to say that you won’t still enjoy it, but that your brain is not locked into only liking music from when you were fourteen.
Something that surprised me
As for those adults that I know who are still obsessed with 80’s music from their teens, the study showed that people of all ages ranked music from the 70’s and 80’s higher in their liking.
GraceAnne
My sources
Bonneville-Roussy, A., Rentfrow, P. J., Xu, M. K., & Potter, J. (2013). Music through the ages: Trends in musical engagement and preferences from adolescence through middle adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(4), 703–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033770
Jakubowski, K., Eerola, T., Tillmann, B., Perrin, F., & Heine, L. (2020). A Cross-Sectional Study of Reminiscence Bumps for Music-Related Memories in Adulthood. Music & Science, 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204320965058 (Original work published 2020)
Some of the instruments I saw at the bluegrass festival. I decided to cover their faces since I didn’t ask permission to take a photo or post this photo.
Every week I have supervision with my supervisors to talk about my week in internship. Last week we were talking about lessons and adapted lessons and how our main goal and philosophy is to foster the love of music. I started to think about how that pertains to me as an individual and what that means in music therapy and as a facilitator. We think about it so much in the context of our clients but how do I foster the love of music for myself as I go through this internship. Burn out is real and very prevalent in fields like this where we work with people in health care. How do I stave off burn out and make sure that I continue to love music in and outside the context of work. These are some of the ways.
Making music with others
Bluegrass festival
About a month ago, I went to the bluegrass festival in New Salem, IL. I had been once before, but that was at least 6 years ago. When I had gone before, I had so much fun and got to see so many cool instruments and watch so many talented people come together and perform. I had been wanting to go back for a while, but didn’t really have the chance when I was away at school.
At the festival, people just bring their instruments and anyone can join. There are clusters of people throughout the site. Most groups of musicians there already know each other and play together outside of this event. I knew I wanted to write about this event so I wrote down every cool thing I saw and got to do. By the time I got there, many people had already left, but below are the instruments I saw. I had hoped to see a Hammered Dulcimer but I didn’t see one.
Banjo
Fiddle
Guitar
Harmonica
Mandolin
Stand Up Bass
Steel Guitar
Steel Slide Guitar
Spoons
Tennessee Music Box
As a musician it fills me with excitement to see and learn about instruments I have never seen before, like the Tennessee Music Box. Doing some research, it turned out to be a part of the Dulcimer family. It is a box with soundholes with a fretted neck on top of the box. The one I saw only had one string. From my google search they seem to be homemade. Seeing homemade instruments was also not uncommon at the event. I saw two homemade Stand Up Basses. One was hand carved and collapsible and the other was a large tree branch with a tuning peg drilled into it that sat on a metal basin with one tuned string.
I had wanted to bring my guitar and join in but I am not super well-versed on bluegrass music and didn’t think I was a good enough guitarist to do so. Most of the musicians out there just know the songs by memory or pick it up when whoever picks the song calls out the key. I ended up singing and harmonizing to the songs they were playing, whether I knew them or not. I have always been quick at picking songs up or at least predicting the melody.
One of the gentlemen there found out I am a music therapist and that I play the guitar so he offered to let me play his guitar. I had never played a steel guitar before so I jumped at the chance. I was just noodling around and testing to see how easy it would be to barre on the guitar when they noticed. They told me that none of them play barre chords and that it was laughable that I thought I wasn’t good enough to bring my guitar.
At this point the event was ending and everyone was putting away their instruments. I was still messing around and decided to play one of the songs in a book this gentleman owned. Next thing I knew everyone had taken their instruments out and started playing with me. It was amazing and not something that I’ll forget anytime soon. They even asked me if I wanted to join them when they meet once a month to jam out.
Enjoying music in different modalities
Dancing
A couple weeks back, the community theater my dad is involved in hosted a one night only dance class. I love dancing but I have never taken classes. It was for charity and my partner said he would go with me, so we did. The dance that night was East Coast Swing. Although I have never taken a dance class, I was taught East Coast Swing by my grandfather at a young age. It is something that is very special to me. All my life he has saved me dance and since he is no longer in the health to save me that dance, getting to do this made me feel connected to that part of myself. I also got to share the love of this dance that I have been doing since I was five or six with my partner. Plus there was a live big band there playing swing music. I love big bands and I love swing music so it just made the night even better.
My partner and I were not the greatest dancers but we definitely had the most fun. All feet survived the night without being stepped on too badly. We danced and laughed until my face turned red and I had to sit down. It was a nice reminder that music can be enjoyed outside making it and performing. Also only having a short time, challenged my need to be perfect at everything on the first try and to instead lean into the fun of it all.
Listening for fun
The Life Of A Showgirl
Recently Taylor Swift’s new album came out. I rarely listen to music outside of the context of work. I spend so much time listening to music that I need to learn or familiarize myself with that I don’t listen to much for my enjoyment. It has gotten to the point that listening to new albums can feel like a job. Although I don’t seem to be on the majority of this one, I loved the music. I started listening to it outside of my time in the car. I realize there are so many different albums from different artists that I never got around to listening to in its entirety. As I work to enjoy listening to music for just the sake of enjoyment, I hope to catch up on some.
Some things I want to get back to
Making music for myself
Since high school, I have had assignments where I had to write music, whether for music theory, a songwriting unit, or internship. While I have a love hate relationship with songwriting, somewhere along the way I stopped writing music for my enjoyment. That is not to say that I don’t enjoy writing songs for my clients, but it is no longer a leisure activity or a way to express myself. Sometimes it can feel like I have used up all my creative energy at work and by the time I have any downtime I just want to turn my brain off instead of doing anything creative.
My thoughts
The ways we enjoy music and beyond is how our clients enjoy music. I think it is important to experience music in different ways to better understand our clients and the role that music plays in their life.
Making sure I continue to love music will be an ongoing mission throughout my life as a professional and as a person. I don’t think I’ll ever not love music but I could see it becoming more of a job and less of something I enjoy. Our connection and love for music is part of what makes us good at our job and successful. I never want to lose that.
As a continuation from the last post I decided to take a closer look at my music tastes over the last ten years and create a timeline, or sorts, of the music that defined those times of my life. Not only is it a cool reminder of all the music I have ever enjoyed but allows me to share parts of who I am with you, the reader. Looking over my music tastes of the last ten years I learned that my taste in music did not change much and I still regularly listen to most of these artists and songs. I guess cheers for consistency and predictability.
High school
Musicals
Hamilton- Satisfied
Wicked- As Long As You’re Mine
Anastasia- In a crowd of thousands
Falsettos- I’m breaking down
I really got into Hamilton and Wicked my freshman year of High School. Everyone was listening to Hamilton and I but I wanted to be “cool” and not listen to it. I quickly gave in when I got tired of having no clue what anyone at school was talking about. I listened to the entire album, read all the lyrics, and then watched a bootleg that someone sent me when I was home sick one day. At the end of my junior year/ beginning of my senior year I got really into Anastasia and Falsettos. They are both still two of my favorites. I ended up seeing them both my senior year. I got front row tickets to see Falsettos in Chicago when they were touring as a graduation/birthday gift to myself.
Indie/folk
Birdy- Words as weapons
The Civil Wars- Dance me to the end of love
Hunger Games sound track- tomorrow will be kinder
O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack- Down To The River To Pray
Incidentally, I became aware of Birdy and The Civil Wars from movie soundtracks like the Hungers Games soundtrack, which they both appear on, and The Fault In Our Stars soundtrack. The Hunger Games soundtrack is one of my most favorite soundtracks followed by O Brother, Where Art Thou. I love folksy music. I love the focus on the lyrics and the emotions involved. Birdy’s music always calms me. The Civil Wars always makes my heart happy with the tight intertwined harmonies. The Hunger Games and O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtracks make me nostalgic. The song Tomorrow Will Be Kinder is one of my favorite songs. It comforts me and has gotten me through so many hard times.
Pop
Pentatonix- If I Ever Fall In Love
5sos- Broken Home
Panic! At The Disco – Death of A bachelor
Shawn Mendes- Don’t Be A Fool
Taylor Swift- Getaway Car
Pop music will never go out of style, at least not for me. Looking at this list there is a wide variety. In my freshman year of high school I was really into Pentatonix. That year, I got to see them at the State Fair. They were my first concert I went to. I knew every song off of their self named album and knew every harmony. Recently, I put my phone on shuffle and one of the songs came up. I was surprised that I still knew every word and note. Another band I was really into my freshman year was 5 Seconds of Summer. My friends really liked them so I sat down and listened to every song. It was also during high school that I established my love for Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift, and Panic! At the Disco.
College to now
Theater
Greatest Showman- Never Enough
Bonnie and Clyde- How ‘bout A Dance
Falsettos- You Gotta Die Sometime
Wicked (2024)- Dancing Through Life
My love of theater continued with me to college. My freshman year I did not have a car so my mom would have to drive me two hours to WIU anytime I went back to school or came home. It became a tradition that we would listen and sing-along to the Greatest Showman soundtrack. This tradition lasted until I got a car my junior year. I still love theater and was even in Cinderella at the Muni the summer of 2024.
Jazz
Ella Fitzgerald
Sarah Vaughan
Chet Baker
Frank Sinatra
Laufey
It is impossibly hard for me to pick my favorite songs, so instead I went with some of my favorite artists. Jazz has always been a part of my life. Every year my parents went to a jazz festival hosted by a distant family member. My great-grandpa was a jazz pianist who played with famous musicians like Louis Armstrong. I listened and danced to it with my grandparents. In junior high and high school I was in the jazz choir. Once I was in college I was the only freshman who made vocal jazz and when it was no longer offered I sang in the jazz combo program. I became really close friends with jazz studies majors and spent a lot of time listening to jazz music. I hope to, at some point, get back into singing jazz.
Pop
Harry Styles- Treat People With Kindness
Olivia Rodrigo- 1 step forward, 3 steps back
Sabrina Carpenter- Please, Please, Please
Chappel Roan- Pink pony club
The summer of 2022 my sister and I worked at a kids entertainment place and I was our main source of transportation, so I ended up listening to a lot of music. Harry Styles’ new album just came out so I spent a lot of time listening to his new and old albums. I was also still rocking out to Olivia Rodrigos’ album that came out the summer before. Two summers later I was living with my dad and driving to Springfield from Lincoln almost everyday. Again, I listened to a lot of music on the drive: mainly Chappel Roan and “Please, Please, Please” by Sabrina Carpenter. Pop music has always had a place in my life but when I think back to these summers and all the driving I did, these songs and artists come to mind.
Taylor Swift
-Paper Rings
-Epiphany
-All Too Well (10 min)
-Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
-Opalite
I couldn’t talk about pop music and not include Taylor Swift. My sister and I used to listen to her when we were young and I always knew her songs that were on the radio, but I really got into her music in the last ten years and even more so during the pandemic. Folklore came out covid and it was music I really turned to at that time. “Epiphany” really summed up how I felt at that time.
Soundtrack to an important relationship
Harry Styles- Late Night Talking
Lake Street Dive- Don’t You Know That I Know
MUNA- I Know A Place
Lizzy McAlpine- Apple pie
During covid I started dating someone, though we are no longer together they are still a special person in my life. It was my first real relationship and the first time I fell in love with someone. While we were dating we made a playlist together of songs that we loved or made us think of each other. When I think of that time, I think of these songs.
Singer-songwriter
Sleeping At Last- Two
Ben Platt- In Case You Don’t Live Forever
Noah Kahan- Call Your Mom
Lizzy McAlpine- Come Down Soon
I didn’t know exactly how to define these songs that I have loved so much. I have always loved acoustic songs that put the emphasis on the lyrics and the emotions. These are songs that have had that meaning. My sister loves the artist Sleeping At Last and when I finally got around to listening, his song “Two” stood out to me. It is about the second enneagram personality. It’s about someone who struggles with putting everyone else’s needs first. The second on the list is “In Case You Don’t Live Forever” by Ben Platt. He wrote it for a family member who helped him become who he is today. Everytime I hear this song I think of my grandpa. I listened to this song on repeat when my grandpa was in the ICU.
This last year I have been so busy that I feel that I never have a moment to just sit down and listen to music but when I have, these songs are ones that I listen to. I hope that maybe this list gives you some insight on who I am if you don’t already know me. Maybe you love these artists too for similar reasons. We are all amalgamations of the music we listen to and the art and media we consume.
Lullaby in Ragtime from the 1959 movie The Five Pennies that my grandparents sang to me as a child that holds a lot of meaning to me.
A big part of music therapy is the use of preferred music. As people, our taste in music has a tendency to change across our lives, so I thought as a way for you to get to know me better I would share a playlist, a timeline of sorts, of the music that I have listened to and loved throughout my life up to this point. As you will see my taste in music has been all over the place and I am now a conglomerate of all those genres and music phases I went through.
After making my list I realized that it was far too long to include in one blog post so this week will be part one.
EARLY CHILDHOOD
My earliest memories of music are nursery rhymes and lullabies. My mom used to sing the first two to me and my siblings, especially the second one when we would be driving at night and the mood would be out. The third song is one that is still very special to me. My grandparents would sing this song to my sister and I whenever we were staying over and it was bedtime. There are three parts to this song that all layer over each other. One day I’ll learn the final part.
Rock a bye baby
I see the moon
Lullaby in Ragtime
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
A lot of the music I consumed as a child was from whatever was on the radio. The radio station most played in the car was WIBI, a Christian radio station. All the singing that I did in front of people happened at church as part of the children’s choir and sometimes as solos. All three of these songs are ones that I either sang in a group or by myself.
I Can Only Imagine – MercyMe
Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) – Chris Tomlin
Praise You In This Storm – Casting Crowns
MIDDLE SCHOOL
Disney/Pop
Any music I listened to that wasn’t heard while in the car was from CD’s played on a Boombox. My first CD and prized possession was Hannah Montana. I eventually leveled up to a knock off MP3 player that was bright pink loaded up with random songs my dad pirated off the internet. I sang songs three and five in talent shows.
If We Were A Movie – Hannah Montana
Fly With Me – The Jonas Brothers
Do You Believe in Magic – Aly and AJ
E.T. – Katy Perry
Mean – Taylor Swift
Demi Lovato
This was still at the same time as the previous grouping, but Demi gets their own category because I listened to the Here We Go Album religiously on my MP3 player. I could probably still sing all the words to every song on that album.
Every Time You Lie
World of Chances
U Got Nothing On Me
JUNIOR HIGH
My “country” phase
I struggle to even call it country because I only listened to Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert. Mostly I was trying to relate to all the other kids at my school going through their country phase but I also wanted to branch out to music outside of Disney and what my dad downloaded for me.
Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood
Blown Away – Carrie Underwood
Mama’s Broken Heart – Miranda Lambert
Alt- pop
(At this point we’re getting to music I still listen to)
After my short lived country phase was my “emo” one. It continued on to high school and still has a big chunk of my heart. I didn’t listen to a lot of artists though. I didn’t venture very far past Fall Out Boy. It was also the music that my friends were listening to.
Fall Out Boy
Sugar, We’re Going Down Swinging
My Songs Know What You Did in The Dark
Alone Together
Takeaways
This is just 13 years of music tastes. It is important to realize how as an adolescent our tastes were always changing and growing as we changed, grew, and learned. It’s the same for adolescents now. Variety is always good when bringing music selections to sessions, especially in classrooms. This reminded me to be open and not so stuck in the music that I listen to now most days.
My room set up for lessons that I used to be terrified about teaching
Part of my homework as an intern at MTC is to write a daily journal about how the day went and my thoughts and reflections. Yesterday, I wrote about the fear of the unknown and struggling when something is new and you feel like you don’t know where to start or have no control. While writing that journal entry, I knew it was something that I wanted to expand upon. We all have to deal with new things or doing things that give us anxiety whether we are a music therapy intern or not.
As I move further into my internship, I’m having more added to what I am doing and I know that will continue. One of those things is leading. This week I led for the first time. Just one song here and there during different sessions that I had learned for my repertoire check last week. It was exciting and scary and somehow felt both big and small at the same time. On one hand it was big because it was my first time leading since finishing my course work a while ago as well as my first time doing any leading at MTC but on the other hand it felt small because it was just a song, something I have done for a long time. It’s always relative. When I felt like the song didn’t go well it became such a big thing in my head but when it went well a couple hours later it was just something small I had achieved. As humans I think we have the tendency to make our mistakes or losses so much bigger than our wins. While I am currently leading one song, in the near future I will be leading whole sessions and it will be on me to plan and facilitate them. Starting in October I will be taking over two different sessions: a contract at a school and our Listen and Learn class. This was the week I started to really plan out the Listen and Learn class and figure out the music. So currently I don’t feel too nervous about it but I have found myself freaking out about going and leading sessions at the school.
To be honest I have always struggled with anxiety and OCD and in turn may have become somewhat of a “control freak”. For me, feeling like I have control over some part of the situation helps alleviate my anxiety. In new situations I don’t always know everything, like where to even start on a plan for October. In this case I don’t know what music to prepare or how that changes amongst the ages of students so I start to feel anxious and out of control. So I decided to share my process with you in the hopes that if you ever feel anxious and out of control when something new pops up maybe you won’t feel alone or will have some place to start so that you can get through. When you break it down sometimes it doesn’t feel so big.
Why am I feeling anxious?
I can’t do anything unless I know why. In this case I am anxious because I don’t have much experience with schools and though I have three weeks until I would even lead I feel like I am jumping feet first. At the point of writing this I haven’t even observed yet so my brain can make the situation as big and scary as possible
What do I have control over?
In my case there is more that I can control than I thought. I can go to the music therapist that worked with them before and talk about what worries me. I can ask to meet and talk through ideas for sessions and learn about what music they like. I can listen to the radio to learn what songs are popular right now and make and listen to a playlist of music they have used in the past. I can control how I think about it and not allow myself to go into the worst case scenario. I can also change how I talk to myself. I have education and I wouldn’t be here if my supervisors didn’t think I could do it.
What is it that I am afraid of happening?
In this case, I realized that I was worried about crashing and burning when it comes time to lead. I know I will write a plan and facilitate it. I am worried that it won’t work and then I will have to use the plan that doesn’t work two more times. In figuring this out I can then focus on what would be the outcome if it didn’t work. I would just have to try something different the next time. As my mom always told me growing up: “The world won’t end. The sun will still rise in the morning and the Earth will keep on turning”. Even if it doesn’t go well. Making a mistake is not a personal failure or reflect on me and somehow make me unworthy of being a music therapist.
Making a gameplan
Next week I go to observe. I am sure that will clear up a lot of anxiety for me once I actually see the group and see what is done in the group. Until then I am going to work on listening to music outside of my Spotify playlist and listen to what is on the radio. I am also going to be patient with myself and allow myself to feel whatever it is I feel even if it is nervous.
Last thoughts
In Music Therapy we can’t control and micromanage how the session goes. That is just not how it works. We don’t know for sure how a client will respond and you have to be able to adapt as necessary. I know I can’t control every aspect of life and that my worry of doing badly comes from a place of wanting to be the best I can be for my clients. We all learn as we go and I am still learning to let go of some things. I know I will accomplish so much over the course of my internship and that starts with doing new and scary things. I have done scary things before like teaching lessons since I started at MTC and learned that I love doing it so much. No one likes doing things that scare them, but it is in these moments that we can learn the most. If we never leave our box of what makes us comfortable, how can we ever grow?
