It's Music, Teacha!

What is it about music? It goes so directly to my emotions and memories, physically. It moves me and makes me move. And this seems to be universal. Everyone I know can identify some songs or music that are meaningful, that evoke moments or sensations. Some songs are triggers for me and can immediately make me melancholy, thrilled, wistful, randy, or whatever my association is. I’m like a dog hearing a bell and salivating because I associate it with being fed.

Thinking about something like this makes you realize how close we are to other animals. The difference is just that we have the ability to reflect on our reactions, although I guess we don’t know that other animals don’t also have that ability. Who can say what goes on in the mind of a dog or bear or elephant or ferret? 

My younger daughter has always been able to sing. When she was a toddler, before she could talk, she could sing along with songs she’d heard at home or at pre-school, even though she didn’t pronounce the words accurately and she had no idea what they meant. One of my saddest memories of her is sitting with our family in the food court of a mall while the song “Standing Still”, by Jewel, was playing, and hearing her sweet little voice singing along with it. Even though it made me unbelievably sad, it’s one of my most precious memories of her as a child. Just beautiful. 

She still sings, and now she can also talk. We know that music is an effective way to teach children and, in my daughter’s case, it worked pretty well. She learned songs and, eventually, the words transferred to allow her to communicate with people. But, it all started with that musical beginning; I think it was an emotional connection. Did she need to feel the emotional piece first, before she could understand or see the reason for speech? No idea, and I’m getting a little carried away here, starting to sound like one of those mystical, “I might not be religious, but I’m spiritual” people. I’m neither, but I know that there is a direct line between music and emotions and it’s great and powerful and terrifying. Educators should use it more and music should definitely be part of everyone’s schooling. Teachers have been told for years that their students will need to feel an emotional connection to them and to the content in order to learn deeply, so why not use music to help with that? When I was a teacher, I used music, albeit not as much as I could have, to teach culture and to help my students reflect and make connections. I was surprised, more than once, but the reactions they had, which were sometimes intense, sometimes disdainful, and always interesting.

Here are some songs that always get a strong reaction from me and what I associate them with:

• “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”  - The Four Tops (love, but the really intense first-time-falling-in-love kind that is also really scary)
• “April Fools” - Rufus Wainwright (happiness that comes with setting out on a vacation or road trip)
• “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” - The Temptations (fear)
• “Unsatisfied” - The Replacements (this one used to make me feel like the future was wide open and I had unlimited potential)
• “Freeze The Saints” - Stephen Malkmus (wistfulness)
• “You’re My Favorite Waste Of Time” - Marshall Crenshaw (bliss and love)
• "Summer Breeze" - Seals & Crofts (confusion and trepidation)
• “Brown Haired Daughter” - The Old 97s (sex, sorry if that creeps you out)
• “Every Line Of A Long Moment” - Roddy Woomble (I don’t know what this evokes in me. It’s sort of a painful kind of happiness? A slightly violent transcendence?)
• “This Will Be Our Year” - The Zombies (thrilled, like when someone whispers something really sweet in your ear and you get chills down your spine)