Written for family members, caregivers, health care workers, and activity professionals, Music, Memory, and Meaning is the answer for those looking to understand and effectively use the power of music with aging older adults. A practical guide to using music to create connections, this book provides strategies, techniques, ideas, and resources for getting the most out of a shared listening experience. Containing over 100 engaged listening discussions and 15 research-based and professionally reviewed playlists, this book guides readers, even those with no musical experience, towards successfully using music to connect with aging loved ones living with cognitive decline or dementia. Readily adaptable, Music, Memory, and Meaning can be used with older adults in all levels of care and is appropriate for use both in individual and group settings.

Divided into two parts, this book shows how human memory influences the organization of music. The first part presents ideas about memory and perception from cognitive psychology and the second part of the book shows how these concepts are exemplified in music.

Film has shaped modern society in part by changing its cultures of memory. Film, Music, Memory reveals that this change has rested in no small measure on the mnemonic powers of music. As films were consumed by growing American and European audiences, their soundtracks became an integral part of individual and collective memory. Berthold Hoeckner analyzes three critical processes through which music influenced this new culture of memory: storage, retrieval, and affect. Films store memory through an archive of cinematic scores. In turn, a few bars from a soundtrack instantly recall the image that accompanied them, and along with it, the affective experience of the movie. Hoeckner examines films that reflect directly on memory, whether by featuring an amnesic character, a traumatic event, or a surge of nostalgia. As the history of cinema unfolded, movies even began to recall their own history through quotations, remakes, and stories about how cinema contributed to the soundtrack of people’s lives. Ultimately, Film, Music, Memory demonstrates that music has transformed not only what we remember about the cinematic experience, but also how we relate to memory itself.

investigates musically motivated autobiographical memories as they relate to the lifetime soundtrack to provide understanding of their occurrence, nuance, emotionality, and function for individuals. Drawing on in-depth discussions, each chapter reflects on a common theme or aspect of musically motivated memory.

This book explores how photography and recorded music act as vehicles or catalysts in processes of remembering, and how they are regarded, treated, valued and drawn upon as resources connecting past and present in everyday life. It does so via two key concepts: vernacular memory and the mnemonic imagination.

What goes on in human beings when they make or listen to music? What is it about music, what gives it such peculiar power over us, power delectable and beneficent for the most part, but also capable of uncontrollable and sometimes destructive force? Music has no concepts, it lacks images; it has no power of representation, it has no relation to the world. And yet it is evident in all of us–we tap our feet, we keep time, hum, sing, conduct music, mirror the melodic contours and feelings of what we hear in our movements and expressions. In this book, Oliver Sacks explores the power music wields over us–a power that sometimes we control and at other times don’t. He explores, in his inimitable fashion, how it can provide access to otherwise unreachable emotional states, how it can revivify neurological avenues that have been frozen, evoke memories of earlier, lost events or states or bring those with neurological disorders back to a time when the world was much richer. This is a book that explores, like no other, the myriad dimensions of our experience of and with music.

Dementia is the most significant health issue facing our aging population. With no cure to date, there is an urgent need for the development of interventions that can alleviate symptoms of dementia and ensure optimal well-being for people with dementia and their caregivers. There is accumulating evidence that music is a highly effective, non-pharmacological treatment for various symptoms of dementia at all stages of disease progression. In its various forms, music (as a medium for formal therapy or an informal activity) engages widespread brain regions, and in doing so, can promote numerous benefits, including triggering memories, enhancing relationships, affirming a sense of self, facilitating communication, reducing agitation, and alleviating depression and anxiety. This book outlines the current research and understanding of the use of music for people with dementia, from internationally renowned experts in music therapy, music psychology, and clinical neuropsychology.