This week we went to New Zealand music icon Tim Finn's first concert of his New Zealand and Australian tour. At seventy years old, Tim Finn remains an energetic performer. The singer in the middle is his daughter Ellie, aged twenty. For the last decade Tim Finn has been working in musical theatre but, after a live performance last year, he said, “Playing all the parts that belong on the recordings, the right sounds, the right grooves... it made me want to do it again. I crafted a chronological setlist and chose songs that I can still fully inhabit, songs I never tire of singing. Now I want to take that show through Australia and NZ, going into old venues that are filled with ghosts of shows gone by.”

What struck me at the show, as always at big music events, is the powerful feeling generated by a huge room of people all swaying and singing to a mutually-known song. Everyone is happy and everyone is in sync. Earlier in the day I was similarly struck when visiting Mum at the Diana Isaac Retirement Village and walked past a group of fifty people listening to a pianist's rendition of 'Teddy Bears' Picnic'. People were smiling, tapping their hands and feet to the beat and nodding their heads.

The age group at Tim Finn was a little disturbing - not too many people under forty. Understandable, of course - it's people in their forties to seventies who will have listened to Split Enz (1972-1984) or Crowded House (1985-1996) at that point in their youth when music sticks permanently to your skull (the so-called 'reminiscence bump', when you are experiencing many things for the first time). For me, 'I See Red' is an iconic song of University parties during my first degree. However, there are so many Tim Finn songs that are memorable – Tim's entirely memorable set started with 'My Mistake' and ended with 'Staring at the Embers'.

Music links us with our memories. What I find odd, however, is how that past evoked by music largely feels positive.   Like many people, the years of my first University degree were an emotional rollercoaster rather than a total joyride, however listening to music from that time always feels good. Interestingly, I found this article which suggests that music is less likely to evoke memories than other cues but music is very likely to evoke positive memories, whether the music itself sounds positive or negative.

Beyond linking us individually with our memories, music has power to uplift and unite people listening to it or participating in it.  How music does this isn't entirely clear - part of it could be because we coordinate our movements to the same rhythm. Anthropologists and sociologists have speculated that rituals involving synchronous activity may produce positive emotions that weaken the psychological boundaries between the self and the group. As a result, groups listening to music together may collaborate more effectively.

The benefits of music remind me of my earlier blog where I suggested the government should increase the funding it gives to creative arts vs science – creative arts gets about 10% of the amount given to science and technology.  When Universities cut courses to save money, as many are doing at present, it's common that arts and humanities are cut the hardest (despite science, engineering or medical courses being far more expensive to run). The more I think about this topic, the more I reckon we overestimate the role of science and technology and underestimate the importance of arts to a well-functioning society.