主播大秀

As part of 主播大秀 Music Day we are expanding the Music Memories tool, including content for ageing BAME communities living with dementia. We are also launching a Memory Radio service designed by, and for, people living with dementia.

In 2018 I wrote about the launch of 主播大秀 Music Memories - a free, globally available website to help people with dementia reconnect with their most powerful memories by finding music from their past, and creating a playlist of personally meaningful music.

Since the initial launch, the 主播大秀 has helped bring together more than 100 organisations with an interest in dementia and music, and as a result, during the week of 主播大秀 Music Day 2019 (26th September) more than 800 music and dementia events will be taking place around the UK.

On 主播大秀 Music Day 2019, we are launching an enhanced version of which now includes three new categories of music: In addition to the Popular, Classical and Theme Tunes categories, we have added UK Regional Music, which offers traditional songs from England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland; International Music which offers songs from the 20 countries with the largest ageing immigrant populations living in the UK; and Social Music, which includes nursery rhymes, football songs, pub songs, scout and brownie songs as well as music from the major religions.

People can submit their playlists to the 主播大秀 using our anonymous survey. This data will help researchers in music and dementia help others to make recommendations that will help others find their own personally memorable music.

The 主播大秀 Music Library team, along with colleagues from around the 主播大秀 managed to find hundreds of new tracks in each of the new categories. We hope that there is now some music that will mean something to everyone, regardless of where they are from.

As before, in order to make this service free and globally available, for copyright reasons we have only been able to include 30 seconds of each popular track or 60 seconds for classical music. Once an initial playlist has been created on 主播大秀 Music Memories, we would encourage people to use other music services or stores to get hold of the full-length tracks.

We have also launched Memory Radio - three longer-form music and archive-based programmes made specifically for people with dementia, and designed in consultation with people with dementia and professional carers.

There is one Memory Radio show for each of the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. Each show starts at the beginning of the decade, offering a mixture of music, news archive and popular radio programmes from that year, and then moves forward through the decade.

The programmes might sound a little different to a ‘normal’ radio programme: the pace is deliberately slow and has a consistent level of energy; there are long pauses between each section; and we try to avoid speech over a music track to optimise the clarity of the spoken word. There are small, simple quizzes included in the programmes, and each programme is accompanied by a downloadable which is designed to be used by carers in a family or care home environment to stimulate conversation and reminiscence.

Memory Radio is available on the , on 主播大秀 Sounds and on Alexa voice assistants.

Background
If you didn’t read the original blog post from 2018, I’ll describe again some of the thinking and theory behind music and dementia.

Music and Memory

shows that music can help people with dementia to feel and live better, and we wanted to build on the success of the award-winning , using content from the 主播大秀’s archives to help improve the lives of people with dementia.

The thinking behind 主播大秀 Music Memories is quite simple, and is based on the principle of the ’ - people tend to recall more from their adolescence and early adulthood - and the phenomenon that structures of the brain that process music can remain intact when other cognitive functions deteriorate.

Musical Reminiscence

Reminiscence work - the recalling and sharing of life events - is increasingly being used to help people with dementia have meaningful conversations with family and carers, and increase their wellbeing and quality of life. Such conversations can be beneficial for both the person with dementia and the families and carers around them.

主播大秀 Music Memories helps people with dementia to find personally meaningful music - perhaps the tracks they listened to as a teenager or in early adulthood - and create a ‘playlist’ of their favourites, to be used as a starting point for reminiscence. We hope that 主播大秀 Music Memories will also be used in a family setting, perhaps with a grandparent and grandchild taking it in turns to find their own personally memorable music, and talking about the tracks and the memories that accompany them.

What happens next?

We are planning some research in to how Music Memories and Memory Radio are used by people with dementia, their families and carers, and will use any insights to improve and add to the service in 2020.

主播大秀 Music Day

主播大秀 Music Day is the annual celebration of the power of music to change lives with events and broadcasts across the week of 26 September. The theme this year is music and wellbeing. As part of this, music legend Nile Rodgers is the Ambassador for an unprecedented collaboration that brings together 85 organisations including Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer Scotland, Age UK, Playlist for Life and the NHS, to help bring music to everyone with dementia in the UK by 2020. The initiative has inspired over 800 events across the UK, from pop-up nightclubs and raves at care homes to intergenerational singing sessions, all celebrating the power of music to change lives.

Across the week of 主播大秀 Music Day, over 2,000 events in total will take place celebrating music and wellbeing, including pop up performances, interviews, musical takeovers and short films by artists including Craig David, Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi, Liam Gallagher, Anne-Marie, Guy Garvey, Professor Green, Ray BLK, Keane, Naughty Boy, Nina Nesbitt and more.