Columnist Helen McDermott says music can do amazing things to mind, body and soul

We’ve recently had to self-isolate in advance of a hospital visit so I decided to use the time bonus in tackling a few cupboards that we haven’t opened for years. From what I read and hear it seems to be the done thing these days.

It was a bit of a sad job in some ways. Making me feel a bit guilty here were some forgotten teddy bears shoved away at the back of one cupboard. Alongside them was a box of CDs with music that I liked at the time but now didn’t care for. But one disc that fell out of the box was a real treasure, some of the Christmas music of John Rutter. It hadn’t been put away because I no longer cared for it. Quite the contrary. The music is so beautiful that after the death of my mum I couldn’t bring myself to listen to it; the pain was too great.

That’s what music can do for you, make you cry as well as laugh. There are so many memories to be brought back by a simple piece of music.

I happen to be part of a group called Music Mirrors, set up and run by a most wonderful woman called Heather Edwards. Before Covid came along and trampled on the business of home visits Heather would spend a lot of her time going to people’s homes to play music and sing songs to those suffering with dementia.

I’ve joined her on some of these visits and seen for myself how music can affect people with dementia, effectively bringing them back to life. It really is like watching a miracle happen. I don’t know what it is that allows the brain begin to remember words and music from the long-distant past when all too often we find it difficult to recall what we were doing only last week. It is wonderful to watch somebody gradually wake up to sing along to long-forgotten words and tunes.

If you want to see for yourself how this can happen, how the brain can react to music, there’s a wonderfully moving video of the former prima ballerina Marta Cinta Gonzales, who lived in a care home in Valencia, Spain. She was a graceful and brilliant dancer who died last year.

Thankfully, some amazing footage of her was captured and put online where millions have seen her and marvelled. As she listens on headphones to the music of Swan Lake we see her frail body transported to the 1960s as she moves in her wheelchair to become once again a graceful swan.

There have been lots of studies as to why music and movement stimulate us more than any other senses. It’s been suggested that it goes back to the time when as babies we are born with a natural ability to move and make sounds we need to communicate with our parents.

I’ve mentioned before how I was hospitalised for much of my early childhood and my mum remembered how, even as a tiny baby, I would respond to the songs she would sing me. I can’t imagine a world without music, but there can be too much of a good thing. I’ve lost count of the pre-Covid days when I’ve been in a shop or restaurant and asked the staff how they can stand the excessively loud music. “We don’t hear it,” was often the reply, which makes you wonder why they have it on in the first place.

Soon it will be time to play the music of Christmas. I imagine that this year it could be an especially difficult occasion for many. I hope the carols bring them comfort; there are plenty to be heard. Who knows, maybe this will be the Christmas when I allow myself to hear that John Rutter CD once more.

Happy memories.