This is an interesting little blog post about mental health, music and memory. Chloe Meineck is working with dementia sufferers in Falmouth in an intriguing way; she has developed a ‘Music Memory Box’ where objects in the box trigger musical memories for the owner.

In this blog post Chloe explains a little more about how she has begun to introduce music through her workshop and how music is linked to memory, even in those suffering from dementia.

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that enhanced brain activity can be seen when we listen to music we feel a strong emotional connection to. What did surprise us however, was how much more brain activity we have when we listen to a song that we feel specific emotional attachment to, rather than one that simply provokes a general sense of happiness, for instance.

We listen to a lot of music here at Open Ear, and we’re wondering; how much of this music is memory building? What songs will we still be stimulated by long into the future? What songs will always make us dance?