Nostalgia

Psychology

Music functions in various ways in a nostalgic context through these two lenses. Many cases of nostalgia also function as the exhibition of the power of emotion in music. In personal nostalgia, simply hearing a song from one's past, whether popular during the person's past or one that can be associated with a specific moment or event, can trigger a longing for the past in the same way that a scent can trigger a similar memory. In the case of secondary nostalgia, music that is from a past that one has not personally experienced, such as a brass band playing a folk song, can trigger a feeling in the listener of a long to return to a simpler time or place in order to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

It is not simply the sound of a piece of music that renders nostalgia, but also its structure allows for this association. The very nature of music evokes strong emotions while emotions enhance memory processes. One proponent of this idea that the feeling that the music evokes is not inherent in the music, but rather in the memories or events that the music reminds one of, is John Booth Davies in his “they're playing our tune” theory. Similarly, Patrik N. Juslin and Daniel Västfjäll's theory of the underlying mechanisms in music that produce appropriate emotional responses supports this idea. Musical scores that evoke nostalgia tend to gravitate toward an earlier moment in the music [Page 817]through a series of passages that move away from the home key and ultimately return to it, representing an attempt to return home and return to origins that characterize the nostalgic experience. This places the nostalgic experience hand-in-hand with the utopian experience because one tends to think of the past as a perfect time and place.

...