I am quite a busy bee at the moment but I hate to leave the blog unattended for you, dear reader. As a compromise I have reprinted here a shortened version of a blog I wrote for Ohlogy about the power of musical memory. The original can be found here. ——————————————————————————————————— A while ago I had a nice email from a media student who was working on her final dissertation project. She was interested in the nature of musical memory and wanted to chat to me for her planned broadcast. It was a very interesting hour. Her first question went straight to the heart of the matter. Is musical memory…

When you are in a bar or restaurant or gym and you hear a familiar musical sound, how long is it before you can ‘name to the tune’? A new study suggests that we are remarkably quick at identifying at least the genre of the music we hear. Apparently it might take as little 125 milliseconds! The speed and accuracy with which we can recognise music speaks to the depth and rapid processing capabilities of musical memory. The authors of the new paper make a very good point to illustrate the speed at which we use our musical memory in everyday life. Imagine you are flicking through radio stations trying…