Ageing brings a number of physical and cognitive changes, even in those with no specific pathologies. Older people often worry about forgetting where their keys are, or the title of a movie they’ve recently seen.
But researchers in Canada claim these memory lapses are less likely to occur when it comes to music. The scientists have discovered that older people are just as likely as younger folks to remember melodies they have heard in the past.
The scientists demonstrated this after conducting an experiment at a Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra concert, and another in the laboratory. Around 100 volunteers, aged between 20 and 80, were asked to listen to three different musical extracts.
These were Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and two pieces of music specially conceived for the needs of this study. One was tonal – a musical composition based on a specific key – while the other was atonal, and therefore more surprising to listen to.
During the experiment, participants were asked to press a button as soon as they heard a musical theme that sounded familiar to them.
It turns out that older people were just as able as younger participants to identify the different musical themes. They found it easier to recognise the rhythmic motif of Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” than that of either the tonal or atonal music, as did their younger counterparts.
“Overall, we find no main effect of age when tasked with recognising a theme in a piece of music, or any significant interaction of age with familiarity, setting or musical training,” the researchers wrote.
The findings suggest that musical memories are long-lasting in the brain. They appear to be more resistant to cerebral ageing, which could explain why people with Alzheimer’s disease have no trouble remembering songs they learnt when they were young.
As such, it could be wise to build up your musical memory throughout your life, by listening to music or playing an instrument.
And there’s no age limit: it has been shown that people who start practising music as adults benefit cognitively, just like those who learnt to play an instrument when they were younger.