Memory

The perception of music depends on memory. Though music is perceived in the moment, it only makes sense when individual sonic events are compared with previous events held in memory. Memory, then, is key to music, joining events together into patterns and patterns into a seamless whole. Both working (short-term) and long-term memory are used to understand music. Working memory is used to process incoming information. It is limited to a few seconds in time and approximately four items of information. Discussion of memory, though, generally centers on long-term memory. This type of memory develops from processing, and leaves traces that may last minutes or years.

Like verbal information, music may be recognized or recalled. Recognition is the feeling of familiarity when encountering previously heard music. Most people can recognize a well-known song within a fraction of a second, or name the song in a few notes (the basis of the popular 1970s game show, Name That Tune), but it is [Page 688]possible to recognize a song without being able to recall its name or lyrics. The frustrating experience of remembering a song, but not being able to remember the title, can now be overcome with apps such as Shazam that can “listen” to music and provide a title. Recall is the reproduction of a memory, such as when singing in the shower, humming while driving, or imagining a tune. The brain processes are similar, regardless of whether the music is actually sung aloud or imagined. When a tune gets stuck, repeating over and over, the phenomenon is called an “earworm.” Recall is generally a more difficult memory task than recognition.

Memory for music is ordinary, in that nearly everyone has the ability to remember music, but there are also extraordinary feats of musical memory. For instance, some people have absolute (or perfect) pitch, the ability to remember pitches specifically by name (e.g., F-sharp) by comparing a heard pitch with the memory of a comparison pitch. While absolute pitch is rare, the ability to remember specific features of a piece of music (e.g., specific vocal inflections of a particular performer or the starting pitch of a well-known song) is not.