We are all addicted to music. Find me one person who does not listen to music regularly and I'll find you a Scottish person who doesn't complain about the weather. It might be rap, pop, rock, house (what is that by the way?) or the backing music to a TV advert, but whatever it is we love it and can't get enough of it. It is little wonder, therefore, that music can play with our emotions and moods as much as it does. It's something that has been written about a lot, at least in the places that I look on the internet, but I've decided to blend the idea of emotive music with my (recently waning) interest in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I have mentioned this in the past - have you not been reading!?
NLP is a pretty broad topic but thankfully for you I'm only going to link one particular element to this post. That will be music to your ears I'm sure - in fact see below! In NLP there is a technique called 'anchoring' which involves associating a particular emotion with a 'trigger', usually on the body. For example, it is apparently (and I said apparently because I'm yet to manage this myself) possible to be able to 'set off' an emotion merely by putting pressure on a certain finger, or on an earlobe. It all sounds a bit new age but when you think about it we have triggers all over our bodies.
The best example I can think about for me would be my ankle. I damaged it pretty badly about 8 years ago and ever since then when I feel a twinge in it - which I did when I turned it last year - I was taken back to the very night that it happened in a games hall at my old high school when I was football training. I can remember vividly how I felt, what people said to me and even the weather. The slightest pain in that ankle takes me back almost a decade in my life.
What anchoring in NLP does is it turns this into a conscious act, where we choose to anchor certain emotions so that we can trigger them when we want. I've tried to no avail to achieve this but then I realised I was going about it all wrong. Instead of triggering an emotion by squeezing the third finger on my left hand or my left earlobe, I can do it with music. We all have a certain song or a certain set of notes that sends us back to a place that we associate with that music. Not only can we picture things in great detail, we get a surge of emotion of the time and place that we associate with the music.
Every time I listen to Mumford and Sons most recent album, I am taken back to Salzburg. That is because a couple of their songs were performed live by one of the students who was organising the summer school, and who also played in local bars at night. There were two nights where he played and on both nights 'I Will Wait' was sung with gusto and hit a chord with a number of the summer school attendees. Play that song to any of them and you'll get a reaction.
Other personal examples include the playlist that I listened to almost exclusively during the exam diet in May. Every time I listen to songs from that playlist now I'm taken back to how I felt during that time: how I felt when I was commuting into Edinburgh from home, how I felt as I climbed the stairs to the law library every day, how I felt as I tried to psyche myself up for the days my exams were on. Another one would be when I listen to Twin Atlantic. Their music takes me on an emotional roller-coaster.
So this all got me thinking. How can I mix my love of music and the power that it can have over people, with this technique from NLP that so intrigues me? Well I'm going to try and 'anchor' certain feelings and places with certain types of music and see what happens. I like the idea that I might be able to make up a playlist that has the genuine power to make me focused, happy, relaxed, inspired etc. Maybe doing it consciously will mean that it won't work because in Salzburg I didn't think that when Mumford were playing that I would associate their music with the time I spent with those people in that city - it just happened. It's worth a go I guess.
Anyway, this is another of those experiments that might never get off the ground but I listen to music so much these days that I might as well try and do something while I enjoy myself. It might be worth considering what music does for you and how you might harness the power of it and use it to your advantage. Come and join me in dipping your toes in NLP while you feed your addiction.
Thanks for reading.
Martin
