New music is good for the brain

Last month, I wrote a piece on why time appears to speed up as you get older. This piece.  I wrote it, at least partly, in response to the comments I see all too frequently on social media where people say things like, “How can that have been as long ago as (for example) last year?” I quoted Steve Taylor Ph.D who said, among other things, this: “This is mainly because, as children, we have so many new experiences, and so process a massive amount of perceptual information. Children also have an unfiltered and intense perception of the world, which makes their surroundings appear more vivid. However, as we get older, we have progressively fewer new experiences. Equally importantly, our perception of the world becomes more automatic. We grow progressively desensitized to our surroundings. As a result, we absorb less information gradually, which means that time passes more quickly. Time is less stretched with information.” For me, it’s the most important blog I’ve ever written. It’s potentially life-changing.

One reason I write so much, quite apart from the fact that I love to write, is because it stretches what’s left of my brain. Even now, I find myself using words I have never used before and everyday there is the challenge of trying to write something new, something original. And there’s also music.

It turns out that listening to new music is good for you. I read that new music, which is basically music you haven’t heard before, “challenges your brain, builds new neural pathways, and stops your mind from getting stuck in old habits. While familiar songs offer comfort, exploring unfamiliar sounds acts as a mental workout.” Now that quote has been nicked by me from Google AI (see: I use AI, too, when it suits) but it marries with this article by Dr Victoria Williamson on the Music Psychology website.

According to the article, studies suggest we form our musical preferences between the ages of 17 and 23. Dr Williamson says this:

“Listening to new music is a challenge. It is like driving in a new area without a map – our attention is all over the place, faced with unfamiliar input, and we struggle to appreciate our surroundings when faced with the challenge of constantly unfolding novelty. It can be overwhelming to our brain since it cannot rely on memory, a familiar map, to the same extent as with our favourite songs and playlists. But it is a perfect challenge for the frontal areas of the brain, which are activated when we are exposed to complex new patterns in our environment and try to understand them.”

And this:

“Listening to new music as we age provides the brain with a cognitive challenge that activates multiple, simultaneous neural systems. The benefits of music listening will never compare to the enhancements we get from actively performing music, but nevertheless, new music listening activates areas of the brain from root to tip, from the early auditory processing centres through to the outer reaches of our cortex.”

I can absolutely see how doing exactly the same thing all the time, going to exactly the same places all the time; essentially living life on repeat is not going to stimulate my brain as much as doing different things and going to different places, but then again the familiar offers comfort and safety in an often ugly and aggressive world. From my point of view, there has to be an element of compromise. I still want to listen to The Beatles but I also want to listen to the new albums I have recently bought by Overmono, Sheerwater and James Ellis Ford. My favourite album remains Aja by Steely Dan, released in 1977, when I was between the ages of 17 to 23 and forming my musical preferences.

Above all, my ADHD brain needs all the help it can get, given my lifelong inability to retain a single thought for any significant length of time and I genuinely feel the benefits of stepping outside of my comfort zone. But I know this is me and it is not you, dear reader.