Look what I found in my brain...
27 Feb 2010 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatI've been listening to CoverVille podcasts all day; mostly it's been background music. But when I started listening to the Alice Cooper episode something weird happened.
I didn't think all that much of Alice Cooper when his band was active in the 70s and I was majorly obsessed with rock music. And I don't think I've heard most of these songs even once in the past 25-30 years. But as soon as I began playing them, they all came back into my consciousness in perfect condition, and I enjoyed all of them quite a lot more than I used to.
Music mostly gets stored in my memory in a sequential access manner, like a cassette tape. As soon as I heard each song, I recognized it, and when the cover version was different from the original, I remembered what the original sounded like. I would have expected my memories of music that old to be fuzzy and distorted like a cassette tape stuffed at the back of a closet for years. But the storage seems really detailed and accurate.
Music is a pretty reliable way for me to feel and express emotions and I guess that's part of the reason the storage is high quality, because people supposedly store memories better when there's strong emotion involved. But what's especially weird in this case is that I didn't consciously like most of these songs back then. I guess on some level I did like them or at least reacted to them emotionally.
What's it like for you when you re-encounter music from your past?
I didn't think all that much of Alice Cooper when his band was active in the 70s and I was majorly obsessed with rock music. And I don't think I've heard most of these songs even once in the past 25-30 years. But as soon as I began playing them, they all came back into my consciousness in perfect condition, and I enjoyed all of them quite a lot more than I used to.
Music mostly gets stored in my memory in a sequential access manner, like a cassette tape. As soon as I heard each song, I recognized it, and when the cover version was different from the original, I remembered what the original sounded like. I would have expected my memories of music that old to be fuzzy and distorted like a cassette tape stuffed at the back of a closet for years. But the storage seems really detailed and accurate.
Music is a pretty reliable way for me to feel and express emotions and I guess that's part of the reason the storage is high quality, because people supposedly store memories better when there's strong emotion involved. But what's especially weird in this case is that I didn't consciously like most of these songs back then. I guess on some level I did like them or at least reacted to them emotionally.
What's it like for you when you re-encounter music from your past?
no subject
Date: 28 Feb 2010 06:59 am (UTC)Fourteen or fifteen (yi!) years ago, there was the rock oldies station and the Oldie oldies station, and the latter played the instrumental and non-rock vocal tunes that I remembered from childhood. I hadn't heard "Canadian Sunset" except as the opening riff to "My Guy" in 40 years.
A few notes had slid off, but otherwise the songs were as I remembered.
More recently, I rediscovered "Just the Same Way," a tune I hadn't heard in ages. Tasty.
no subject
Date: 28 Feb 2010 07:04 am (UTC)