Music, the Voice of Memory: An Exploratory Approach
Abstract
The word “memory” comes from “mind” and suggests that what is directly experienced remains in our awareness. Even though no longer physically present, experiences may be called to mind or remembered. The word “voice” or “vocal” comes from “vox” or “vocare,” meaning to call, with its cognates “evoke,” to call forth, and “recall,” to call back. The notion of memory, therefore, may be linked to the voice both calling back and, in a sense, calling forward various experiences of one’s life. To remember is to call back a voice from one’s past, to hear it again in its same form or to give it new voice. Through music, perhaps especially vocal music, we are drawn to return or called back to a place, a time, a person, and with the thoughts, feelings, and associations of that experience that remain with us still. This paper is an attempt to explore the connection of vocal music with memory. Essential elements of this exploration include: the roots or etymologies of words connected with memory and voice; the various dimensions and meanings of memory at the level of thought, feeling, presence, and identity; the inseparably relational dimension of memory; and its flowing not only from the past into the present but also reaching into the future; and the connection of all of these with vocal music. Music may be a link to our human quest to find and express our authentic voice, within a greater relational, communal, and social context.Downloads
Published
2013-10-29
Issue
Section
Articles