Music and Memory

Last weekend I got to participate in a very cool event.  I first heard about the event from a flier hung on the mirror of the women's restroom in the music building.  The little square flier proclaimed the name of the event to be the "Music and Memory Benefit Dinner."  The pictures of the jazz band silhouette caught my eye and the mention of free food and t-shirts (a good enough incentive for any college student).  Later that day, I heard about it from a friend of mine in band who strongly suggested I go.  Then after receiving an invite on Facebook from my friends, I was committed to going.  I was definitely looking forward to Sunday afternoon. 

I showed up early to the event with one of my friend.  We went in together finding we were the first ones to show up.  People were running around trying to get things set up when we arrived, but we got first pick at the t-shirt table and got to watch the jazz band set up.  Once more people came, we interrupted our conversation to go get a bowl of soup each of us digging in our wallets for money to put in the donations basket.  My favorite part of the event was getting to hear the jazz band.  Their music filled every inch of the building: jazzy piano, saxophones, trumpets, drums, and bass.  You could tell they were having fun, and their talent did not disappoint.  I was trying to hold back the stupid grin that always comes out when I'm presented with loud live music.  There was nowhere I would have rather been.

Later, a video showing the purpose of the event was played.  This was not the first time I had seen the video.  Earlier that week one of my professors had shown it in class, and I had shown it to my family the day before.  Each time it brought tears in my eyes to see the powerful impact music can have in a person's life.  In the video, a story was told about a man in a nursing home who was unresponsive when talked to, someone who had lost the memory of who he wass and who is family was.  The Music and Memory Organization buys ipods for people like this man to be filled with their favorite music from when they were growing up to before they began to loose their memories.  The video showed a nurse giving the man his headphones, and the difference it made for him was astounding.  The speaker in the video commented that before given the headphones, this man was barely alive.  When the music was on, however, the man's entire face lit up, and he began humming and moving along.  Even once the headphones were taken away, he was eager to talk about what he had been listening to, and to tell about what he had liked as a boy.  It was miraculous.

Music has always meant a lot to me ever since I was very little and listening to Disney princess songs.  No matter what kind of music, it lights me up the way it did the man in the video.  Maybe there aren't words to accurately express the impact music has on us.  Music is a language all its own, and to me their is something magical about it that just can't be explained.  Music is something to be experienced.  In the case, of this man, and others who have been helped by this organization, music brought back their sense of identity.  I feel honored to have been a part of supporting this spectacular cause.