Music as Memory: Toward a Theory of Meta-Structure

Music and memory are intrinsically intertwined, yet the nature of their relationship remains poorly understood. This article explores how auditory memory shapes the perception and experience of music, and how music may, in turn, influence memory more broadly. We propose a theoretical framework developed around four conceptual axes: music is virtual, music is future, music is embodied, and music is sensory. These dimensions are explored in terms of the acoustic, perceptual, and cognitive features of music, which require a particular kind of temporally extended perceptual and cognitive processing. We argue that music, as a complex and multifaceted experience, engages the activation and interaction of multiple brain functions as well as bodily arousal and motor activity, interconnecting them with the auditory system. From this distributed and embodied engagement emerges an interacting system, forming a functional meta-structure that extends beyond auditory processing. We suggest that this meta-structure may act as a “memory amplifier”: its temporal, embodied, sensory, and imagery characteristics may provide an alternative means of cognitive processing through music, granting access to multiple brain areas and functions even in circumstances where other cognitive faculties fail. We further propose that the repeated reactivation of this meta-structure may actively contribute to the consolidation and preservation of memory. The meta-structure might therefore constitute a strong case for the evolutionary value of music as a universal human capacity. In essence, music perception and cognition represent a form of memory: an ottofixation— a term coined to capture this capacity of musical experience to function as both a vehicle and an architecture for memory.