Unlock your inner music-maker

Visiting in the middle of a mini-tour around the country watching my favourite band play live, I needed no convincing of 'The power of music'. But this exhibition was still a welcome opportunity to 'play it, mix it, feel it, dance to it, unlock your inner music-maker, explore the power of the soundtrack to your life'.

With an Advisory Panel including psychologist Professor Catherine Loveday and other psychologically-minded people such as Grace Meadows, you will find plenty of interest here. Themes such as the link between memory and music are to the fore, with cases containing technology from across the decades reminding us how music can instantly take us back to big moments in our lives (and that I'm still holding out for the MiniDisc revival).

There's emotion too, with a musical journey from Sam Mason designed to bring out different feelings. Others allude to how those emotions could lead to action: Tom Robinson's contribution says 'Music gives people the courage to change the world'. This reminded me of hearing Billy Bragg on Adam Buxton's podcast recently, saying that he had largely given up on the idea that music itself could change the world, but that it could at least provide people with the hope that it could be changed.

A few exhibits deal with music as an embodied, energised experience. This begins outside the entrance, with a jukebox asking 'What music would you play to give someone a boost?' [In a nod to Beatles fan Professor Loveday, I'll go with a version of 'I've just seen a face' by the Ukulele Beatles, which always went down well on car compilations for the kids when they were little.]

In terms of specific researchers and research, we hear from Alexandra Lamont on musical memory; Diana Omigie on how the brain processes music; Sinead Rocha on how babies drum in time to a beat; Lauren Stewart on why music makes us feel connected; Costas Karageorghis on how listening to music while you run can reduce feelings of fatigue and perceived exertion by up to 12 per cent; and Caspar Addyman on using his knowledge of what makes babies laugh to develop 'The Happy Song'. There's more, including classic research from Adrian North, and Charles Spence.

Lots of intriguing instruments are included: Sam Battle's 'fire organ', Graham Dunning and Sam Underwood's 'Mammoth Beat Organ', Imogen Heap's 'musical MiMu gloves', and accounts of an 'ice orchestra' and a 'robot carillon'. These parts of the exhibition had me pondering how music is so elemental, yet also constantly futuristic.

It was also great to see the Emax sampler owned by Jyoti Mishra, who used it to compose 'Your Woman', the first bedroom-produced song to top the UK charts. There was some resonance there for me, in that Mishra is a massive Sarah Records fan, a label who were nothing short of formative in my teenage years.

Perhaps I would have liked to have been able to get more hands on, or to hear rather than read, about some of the innovative projects mentioned: MediMusic algorithms which are creating 20-minute playlists of pain-relieving songs, trained on patterns of heart rate and stress hormones; the Music in Mind project reducing anxiety in people living with dementia in care homes; and 'dementia-friendly radio' via RadioMe.

Maybe those are for our pages in the future… as noted in a board proclaiming 'The finale', 'your relationship with music goes on… be inspired to keep exploring the power of music'.

Professor Catherine Loveday comments:

It was in those heady pre-Covid years, that I first heard from Dr Emily Scott-Dearing about her ideas for a new science exhibition on the power of music. Three and a half years, a pandemic and many Zoom conversations later, it is exciting and rewarding to see how those initial thoughts have been developed and crafted into something physical that people can walk around and interact with.

There are tough decisions to be made when condensing such a large body of research into a relatively small space. It is also quite an editorial challenge to create content that is as accessible to young children as it is interesting to a discerning adult. I will admit to some frustration at seeing the work of some of my favourite researchers distilled down to just two or three sentences, but when I saw the public interacting with the exhibits I had to acknowledge that this was exactly how it needed to be.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and would highly recommend it to anyone. Our advisory panel discussions were full of energy and creativity. We discussed content, tossed around names of potential contributors, explored colour palettes and designs, and debated the best way to give all visitors an opportunity to try composing. It was a great privilege and education to work with such an inspiring and knowledgeable group. As well as meeting some great people with a shared passion, I've felt a renewed inspiration to seek more answers to that fascinating question of why music means so much to us.