Music and Memory - Series 1

Part 1 - Boney M and Memories 

Whenever my dad used to get angry, me and my brother used to sing the first few lines of the song 'Daddy Cool' by Boney M. This band is entangled with my childhood memories just like the Swedish band Abba. Recently the song Rasputin by this band got revived in the collective memory of Kerala because of two medicos from Thrissur Medical College who danced to the tunes of the song. The dancers were targeted by some right-wing groups because they belonged to two different faiths. I feel that there is an amount of resistance in the songs of Boney M. Most of their songs are political. Songs like Belfast, El Lute, No Woman No Cry, Ma Baker and even Rasputin are replete with words of protests and revolution. Wikipedia tells us that Boney M. was a Euro-Caribbean vocal group created by German record producer Frank Farian, who served as the group's primary songwriter. 

Part 2 - Memory and Music 

When we examine memory and music multiple areas need to be discussed. One is Cognitive Science, which studied how the human brain consumes music and stores it in the brain. The way music is remembered or recollected based on external stimuli comes under the ambit of cognitive science. The second area of connection is culture and anthropology. The third area is how technology enables the production and creation of musical archives. Michael Pickering and Emily Keightley from Loughborough University, UK points out the fact that ‘phonographic remembrance has received little research attention. They have pointed out the lack of research activities in both photography and phonographs even though both can be considered ‘more than facilitators of memory’. At the cognitive level, music connects with emotions and enhances the mood of the listener which may also lead to an embodied experience like a dance. Anthropologists will treat music as a marker of identity (a recent example is the Enjoy Enjami song) Music recording will cover areas like genres of music, performances and the acts of recording a musical piece. The video posted above was shot in Rajasthan during our ten-day Rajasthan trip in 2016. We found this local artist at the historic location known as Jaswant Thada in Jodhpur. The building is a cenotaph made by Maharaja Sardar Singh of Jodhpur in 1899 in memory of his father Jaswant Singh II. Jaswant Thada serves as the cremation ground for the Rajput family of Marwar. The tunes played by the local artist adds to the ambience of the cenotaph and gives the visitors an experience of some authentic Rajasthani music. 

The three areas where music and memory interacts can be applied to this musical act. 

1. The phenomenological experience of listening to the music of Rajasthan have stayed with us forever. These folk musicians were omnipresent in almost all the castles, Havelis and forts that we have visited in Rajasthan. Our experience of sightseeing was enhanced by these desert tunes. After all these years the external stimuli of Rajasthani music acts as a trigger to remember and recollect our journey.
2. The cultural ethos of a state is reflected in the dress worn by these local artists. With their bright turbans and traditional dress, they represent the anthropological element in the act of remembrance and recollection. 
3. The live performance was captured using an iPhone and it was posted on my Instagram account on July 27th 2016. Technology enables the process of creating archives. This is another research area that will be part of the wide area of digital memory. 

Part 3 - ABBA and Memories 

Since it is difficult to discuss all my favourite artists and tracks in one go, I will start with the group ABBA and then move on to the next artist. I dedicate this blog to my dad, who even today listen to songs and has more than five different devices to play music. My fascination with ABBA started when I was young. My Dad had this HMV LP player and a decent collection of LPs. Most of the LPs were English albums and, we had more than one LP of ABBA. If I remember correctly, we had 4 or 5 LPs with some heavenly songs. Later in life when I started earning a livelihood by teaching English, I used to tell the ‘eager and not so eager faces’ in front of me that Abba is an inspiration to everyone who wants to learn English. The group’s name is an acronym of the first letters of their first names. The artists in ABBA were born in Sweden but, they learned English and started dominating the European charts in the 1980s. Some of the songs that are etched in my memory are — (to name a few) Money Money, Waterloo, Fernando, When I Kissed the Teacher, Dancing Queen, Tiger, Move On, and Knowing Me, Knowing You. I am so happy that I am writing this short note on ABBA as the first group as part of my investigation into Memory and Music. The studies in music and memory are almost like the studies in Photography and Memory. Both photography and phonographs are ‘mnemonic devices or resources. The main aim of the research is to investigate the question - How does music facilitate the acts of recall and recollection? Music is considered a means to ‘regain the past’ or ‘relating the past to the present.