How Does Music Bind Us? **Date Change**

I was always a very shy child, and more than a little socially awkward with my weird questions, and pretty questionable dress sense (according to the ra-ra skirt, bubble shoe wearing fasionistas at my school). Then, one night, at the Blue Light Disco I was finally allowed to go to, a song came on. Alice Cooper's 'Poison' filled the hall. In that moment, I felt trance like, and whilst the adults looked shocked, the kids screamed and began dancing with complete abandon. Suddenly, I went from outsider to peer, and as I got pulled into the makeshift mosh pit, I head banged my little heart out, hair flying everywhere as I let go of every frustration, every fear in that moment. Just for that song, we joined together as one. The song was terrible. The moment was not.

Things returned to normal at school on Monday, (though there were some random comments about my hair).

I've felt it since, that deep connection to others through music. Softly singing 'You are My Sunshine' to another in a quiet dark moment. Singing 'No Scrubs' at the top of my voice with my daughter in the car laughing with the window down....

Janni shared some quotes with me from her friend, neuroscientist Professor Alan Harvey's book 'Music, Evolution and the Harmony of Souls'. One of them is this:

"When two or more people play what one person could play, they are deliberately sharing a social experience where “individuality is community “. .... the capacity of music to bind us together may be its most important evolutionary rationale."

Have you felt it? What was your experience?What is it about music that brings us together?

Lets discuss :)