The Powerful Persistence of Music

Maybe for you, like me, music is the catalyst for a whole raft of memories:

• My inner freedom-fighter rising up to the sound of the “Les Miserables” touring company's entreaty, “Do You Hear the People Sing?”;

• My heart filling up to my throat when my husband harmonized with his brothers on “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” at my in-laws' basement parties;

• My whole body vibrating to the drums of Springsteen's “Candy's Room,” at Michigan State University's Munn Ice Arena.

These songs are encoded in my brain as exquisite memories because I was there when they created what I can only describe as an exalted moment. And I was with other people who were just as charged by the experience as I was. Live music can do that to you.

Music creates memories that can transport us immediately back to the time and place we first heard them. That's because music activates many parts of the brain, and they all kick into gear when we hear that music again.

My current trajectory to that experience passes through Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colo., every year around this time. If you know the place, there's no conveying the impact of sitting amid cavernous ancient rocks that cause the music to resonate as if the earth demanded it.

But the 10,000 people who are with you are indispensable to the experience. That's because the music resounds in them, too. (Full disclosure: I'll be at Red Rocks for Lord Huron, and expect to be a part of the engulfing wave triggered by members of The World Enders: Lord Huron Fan Club.)

Hearing a band live stimulates your brain's hippocampus and amygdala, but also its motor system, says Andrew E. Budson, M.D.,a professor of neurology at Boston University.

And we're not just talking about singing, swaying, and dancing together. Even heart rates can get synchronized. There is a lot of “contagiousness” in peoples' responses at live music events, researchers say.

Live concerts create community – and memories – in ways few experiences do.

And every once in a while, you've got to make sure you're alive – past, present, and beyond. Hopefully you can carry those joyful moments and memories with you into your unknown future. You never know when you might need them.

So catch some live music – rock, classical, jazz, blues, country, whatever touches your soul and reaches those lockbox regions of the brain.

You don't want to miss the epiphany.

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