Literary Review: Part 1

During my initial research, terms or phrases that were of interest to me went down on post-it notes. Most of them were related to musical cognition, psychology, or education and dealt with topics that revolved memory and physiology.

My unwavering interest in the effects of music on memory first came from watching a documentary called “Alive Inside”. Seeing how much power listening to a song from one’s own past was beautiful. Seniors with Alzheimer’s were able to temporarily gain their memories, physical coordination, and quality of life just from the first few measures of an old favorite. That documentary stuck with me, and it’s been something that I always wished to explore further in my work (many of my classmates can also attest to the fact that I never stopped talking about this for the past few years).

I have also been an advocate for music education and the unfortunate fact that it is not very encouraged within schools. Growing up, I always had the belief that teaching music is one of the best things for every individual because of the skills one can learn such as memory retention and critical thinking.

While these two are the main ideas I am considering, the effect of music on mental health and one’s perception of the world around them, along with their own body and mind is something I plan to dig in deeper on. Just from my own experiences, and from some of the reading I’ve done, our own musical preferences can have a profound effect on how we feel or how we can react to the environment around us.

Within the next week, I hope to have a better idea of the general direction I want to move in, but who knows? I might end up finding a whole other way music can affect someone that I never thought of.