Musical Memories

Thank God for the confines of a car! Although when I’m stopped at a red light, I wonder if the people in cars next to me overhear some of the corky music I listen to. I know nowadays people listen to CDs, music burned from iTunes, Satellite radio, and all that personalized stuff, but most times I still prefer to flip through the radio stations. I like to catch the local buzz, or stay hip to current music, or find some random blue grass station, like the one I found last week on FM 105.5. (The clarity of the station is inconsistent, but it’s pretty good listening when it comes in.)

What I really like about flipping through the radio stations is coming across a song that takes me back to a memory, instantaneously. I love these spontaneous moments. For instance, last week Randy Travis’s song, “Forever and Ever, Amen” came over the radio, and I was immediately taken back to a memory of my maternal grandfather.
 
I never knew the reason, but when I was younger (9, 10, or 11) my mom never had a car. So, her father would come to pick us up around 4 a.m., take her to work in Philly, drive me back to his house, and I would walk to school around 7:30ish. But, that’s not the memory.

The memory is that he had Randy Travis’s cassette tape in the player and that’s what we listened to every morning. The songs back then seemed shorter, so we usually heard the tape in its entirety - from our house, to mom’s work, and then to my grandparent’s house. “Forever and Ever, Amen” was his favorite song on the track. In those early morning hours, he loved to turn it up and sing it out loud. In moments when I hear this song, I can smell my grandpop’s Mountain Air scented shaving cream. I can remember resting my head on the soft texture of his burgundy backseat, watching flashes of green, yellow, and red light up the inside of the car as we passed many intersections. I remember that when the sun began to rise and the stoplights no longer lit up the inside of the car, it meant we were close to my grandpop's house.

I have a song linked to a memory of almost everyone I know. “Forever and Ever, Amen” is my grandpop’s.

My BIS degree concentration that was approved last week is: “Applied Music Cognition: Creative Writing." The memory above pretty much sets the stage in understanding the details of the degree. Basically, I’m using theories from the field of Music Cognition (perception, cognition, and memory) and applying them to the practice of Creative Writing.