Music stroll down the memory lane
Music is a reflection of self. ―Eminem
👥 Serves: 1 person
🎚 Difficulty: Medium
⏳ Total time: 1.5 hours
🥣 Ingredients: An app to play music, earphones/headphones, pen and paper
💪 Nutritional values: Processing, Reflection, Creativity
Music stroll down the memory lane
📝 Description
Let music carry you as you reflect on your lifetime.
Music can elicit strong emotions, sensory memories, and even alter your physiological states. This activity offers a way to reflect on your lifetime using music as a carrier and container to trace back to where you come from, how you have evolved, and what has made you who you are today. It can be an interesting way to map out key moments in your life. It can also enable you to reflect on how you have changed over the course of your lifetime, what you are carrying with you, what you have left behind, and where you would like to go in your journey ahead.
The following activity has been designed by One Future Collective. To find out more about their work, please visit: https://www.onefuturecollective.org.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Compiling your playlist (15’)
Make a playlist of 10 songs that represent different phases of your lifetime. This could be from birth to the present day.
Step 2 – Listening to the playlist (30’)
Listen to the playlist in its entirety. Reflect on how each song feels and flows into the next one. Think about how similar or different that song sounds to its respective phase in your life.
Step 3 – Creating a story (30’)
If you were the main character of a story and this were your playlist, how would that story go? Write it down on paper, making it as fictional or as close to real life events as you’d like.
Step 4 – Reflecting (15’)
Reflect on the following questions:
- How did it feel to assign songs to different phases of your life?
- Did you prefer choosing songs based on their lyrics, melodies, or emotions they provoked in you?
- How did it feel to write the story?
- Which part of this activity brought joy to you? Did you experience discomfort during the process?
- How do you think you’ve changed over the years? How have you grown?
- Is there something you miss about your past?
- Which song would you like your future self to sound like?