A woman who had not said her daughter's name in a year sang the whole second verse. Nobody in that room was ready for it, including me.
I am not going to explain the neuroscience to you, because I am a songwriter and not a doctor. What I can tell you is what I have seen in living rooms and in memory care units around Orlando. The songs somebody learned between fifteen and twenty five are stored somewhere the disease has not reached yet.
So we do not play what is on the radio. We ask the family for the wedding song, the church song, the one their mother sang in the kitchen. Then I learn it properly and I play it slowly, in the key that suits a voice that has not sung in a while.
What you get is not a cure. It is fifteen minutes where the person you remember is in the room with you. Families tell me that afterwards the rest of the day goes easier too. I cannot prove that part. I just keep hearing it.
This is why my care company and my music are not two businesses. They are one idea with two doors.
