Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson and this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the practical ways music transforms everyday life – health, happiness and beyond. Have you ever heard a song from when you were young and it takes you right back there? Suddenly you’re at prom or with a certain group of friends in a car. Or maybe a song takes you right back to certain highs or lows. Or maybe both. That you are processing when you listen to that song on repeat at a certain age. Why is it that the music from our youth hits us so intensely and still has a hold on us decades later? Today, we’re diving into the science behind what researchers call the musical reminiscence bump. The idea that the songs we listened to during adolescence become uniquely tied to memory, identity, reward, and social connection. My guest today is Nicolas Kathios, a fifth year psychology PhD candidate and co-author of a recent paper exploring how and why the songs heard by the teenage brain carry an emotional charge and connection for life. Nick has a degree in psychology and music from Columbia University, and is currently a graduate student working in the MIND Lab under Doctor Psyche Loui, who has been a guest on this podcast. MIND Lab stands for Music, Imaging and Neural Dynamics. Welcome to Enhance Life with Music, Nick.
Nick Kathios: [00:01:33] Hi, Mindy. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited for today’s conversation.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:36] It’s great to have you here, Nick. I hadn’t heard that term musical reminiscence bump before reading your paper. For listeners who haven’t heard that term before, can you explain what it is?
Nick Kathios: [00:01:48] Yeah. Of course. So we threw the word musical in front of reminiscence bump in our paper specifically to sort of denote a music specific effect. But the reminiscence bump more broadly encompasses a phenomenon in episodic memory, wherein when you ask people to recall the most meaningful memories, or you just ask them to recall any memories from their lifespan, adults both older and younger tend to recall most memories from when they were between the ages of around 10 to 30. And this effect has been shown in response to a large swath of cues. So odor cues or just asking people to recall these memories. Another cuz just words themselves. And so this effect has been extended to music, wherein when you play people music from this sort of reminiscence bump time period around the time of again, 10 to 30 years old, adults tend to have the most emotional, strong emotional responses to this music. And the most music evoked autobiographical memories or memes in response to music from this time period. So we threw the word musical in front of the reminiscence bump effect, just to make it clear that we were talking about the findings specific to music. But the reminiscence bump, again, is a bit more broad in terms of episodic memory more broadly.
Mindy Peterson: [00:02:55] Sure. That’s really interesting, and I’ve compared music before to that olfactory sense where exactly like you smell grandma’s cookies or, you know, like you smell a perfume or a certain type of flower. Like my mom had lilies of the valley in our yard for quite a bit of time up until my baby sister was born. And she read that they can be poisonous to young children and she wrote them all out. But whenever I see them. So that’s maybe the visual reminiscence bump, but smell them or other smells. Yeah, it’s like it takes me right back there and music can have that same effect. So that’s interesting. Uh, so you mentioned the age range from 10 to 30. That’s pretty broad. Is there a certain age where this kind of peaks or is it kind of anything between 10 and 30 is fair game?
Nick Kathios: [00:03:43] Yeah. This bump, the sort of peak of this bump does tend to be different depending on what types of cues that you use. So for instance, the studies that I’ve used, the older cues tend to find a little bit of an earlier bump, whereas the cues that are the studies that use cues like words tend to show both sort of that broad 10 to 30, but also what we call a recency effect, wherein you sort of encounter concepts of words quite often. And so when someone asks you to recall, say, memories associated with, say, a baseball game, chances are you will likely recall a baseball game from this age range of 10 to 30. But also like the recent baseball game that you’ve been to. So sort of part of the paper that was quite exciting for me to write about was sort of arguing that what’s really nice about music, as opposed to these other sort of word cues or olfactory cues, is that when we use popular music, we can actually get a little bit more of a temporal, precise estimate of when people were actually associated with these cues. It’s nearly impossible for you to be exposed to a popular music cue before it was released, but we know that you were likely exposed to it when it was popularized. So what’s really nice about the music approach is that I think it’s quite a good way of examining sort of what’s going on in development that might be supporting this reminiscence bump effect that we have a little bit more of a precise idea of when people were exposed to these cues for the most part, and studies which use music tend to find a peak at around like 14 to 17 years of age, or when that song was released. And so to answer your question, it is a bit modality specific, but when we’re looking at music, it does seem to be quite in the adolescent age range of around 14 to 17.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:17] Okay. Interesting. Well, and I imagine at that point, that’s when you have more agency and control over what you’re listening to or is when you’re ten, you’re probably still listening to whatever your parents are listening to to some extent.
Nick Kathios: [00:05:29] Yes, that’s a great point. In fact, there has been a little bit of work on what’s called cascading reminiscence bumps in music, where usually the way in which experimenters approximate developmental exposure is using song specific age, which is an how individuals operationalize or measure age of exposure, which is essentially the year of release of the song minus the participant’s birth date. So a song specific age of 15 would be a song that was released when I was 15. And studies have shown that when you look at generational reminiscence bumps. So if I was exposed to, say, music that was released during my mother or dad’s reminiscence bump time period, I would also show a bump for that time period in the sense that those that was music that I was likely exposed to in my childhood home. So.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:16] Oh, interesting.
Nick Kathios: [00:06:18] There is almost like a negative age related bump effect, wherein people show bumps for music release from about 20 to 25 years before they were born as well.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:26] So tell us, why does music from our youth stay so vivid and meaningful throughout our lives? What’s happening in that adolescent brain, neurologically, emotionally, that makes music so powerful during those years?
Nick Kathios: [00:06:40] Yeah. So there’s been a lot of debate over what is supporting these effects. And we can sort of bend these arguments or accounts for the reminiscence bump effect into accounts that emphasize the nature of experiences during that time window, and then the nature of development during that time window. So starting with the former. So the nature of the experiences. These accounts suggest that adolescence is a time during which we experience a lot of novel events that we are likely to repeat in the future. So, for instance, um, driving a car, you are likely looking forward to that. And when you first drive a car, not only is it really exciting and important to you because it’s the first time you’re doing it, but it’s also likely something you’re going to sample across the lifespan. When you’re thinking about every other time you drive a sort of reference point. So the reason why these memories might be tightly coupled is because we are constantly referring back to them as reference points for the rest of our lives. Yeah. Another sort of related account is the Cultural Life Script account, which suggests that when we’re enculturated in a certain environment, we tend to expect certain cultural experiences, like, say, going to prom. So not only are we experiencing those events in a way in which they were quite highly anticipated, but it also sort of enables us to connect with others and within our culture and say, you know, like, these are shared experiences that we often connect and think about together.
Mindy Peterson: [00:07:57] So our culture is viewing that as a significant milestone. And so that causes it to maybe imprint even more on the participant.
Nick Kathios: [00:08:05] Exactly. Both when they experience it and as they continue to sort of recall that memory, connecting with others who have that sort of shared experience.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:12] Sure.
Nick Kathios: [00:08:13] And then for the accounts that emphasize the nature of development, those sort of two accounts are one, this idea that adolescence is a time where you’re sort of moving away from your caregiver and you’re moving away from your home, and you’re developing your sense of self and how you relate to others. And so that’s called the identity formation account, because these experiences are quite integral to how you view yourself as a person. So for that reason, again, you’re sort of resampling those experiences as you continue throughout the lifespan because they’re so integral in how you view yourself. And then the sort of last account I’ll talk about today is the Cognitive Abilities account, which suggests that there’s something about adolescent development or the broad development of between the ages of 10 to 30 that has a Uh, modulatory or increased effect on memory encoding during that time period. So it’s something specific about the neurobiological or psychological processes going on during that time period that somehow imprints these memories to be pretty hard, hardly encoded.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:07] So that, is that a chemical factor, like what’s happening neurologically with with hormones and things like that? Or is it more cultural and society and what we’re experiencing externally?
Nick Kathios: [00:09:20] Yeah. So yeah, I would say.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:23] Yes and both and.
Nick Kathios: [00:09:25] Yeah, exactly. So it is important to note that these accounts are definitely not mutually exclusive, and they likely all contribute to this robust effect we see across adulthood. Yeah. Sort of purpose of the paper was to suggest that adolescence is a time during which there is vast development of the brain, unsurprisingly, and some of these key developments involve areas of the brain that are quite responsible for social processing. So how we think about others, how we relate ourselves to others as well as development in areas that support the reactivity and. Experience of rewarding experiences. So for this, we’re thinking about. Maybe. What you think of the dopaminergic system. So historically in adolescent. Cognitive neuroscience. The development of the system has been tied to increased neural reactivity, to rewarding experiences which individuals have thought might explain why adolescents might be so sensation seeking or wait. Risky options more, more likely to take risks themselves.
Mindy Peterson: [00:10:27] And that reward system, that’s dopamine, right? Like we’re talking about a I don’t know if neurotransmitter is the correct terminology, if it’s actually considered a hormone or not, but dopamine is what I think of when I hear reward system.
Nick Kathios: [00:10:39] Yes. That has been the most well studied neurotransmitter implicated in reward processing. And it does seem to be quite important when it comes to rewarding experiences like music. When we eat our favorite food. But I will say that there is likely more than just contributing to this sort of emergent effect or emergent experience of reward. But the history of studying these processes has definitely been tied to these dopaminergic processes. And these are the very structures that seem to be undergoing a lot of functional reorganization during adolescence.
Mindy Peterson: [00:11:08] When you’re talking about this age range and especially the peak, it reminded me when my oldest child went into middle school, which at the time in our school district, that was seventh and eighth grade. So what are you like 12 to 14, 13 to 15, sort of in that age range, maybe 12 to 15 is what most kids are during those years. So I remember before they started, before the school year began, the principal had a meeting for parents of incoming seventh graders. And this probably imprinted more on my brain because it was my first child asked me about one of my second child entered and I don’t remember much, but I remember when our oldest went in and the principal said to all of us, parents, he said, the two years that your child spends in this school, they’re going to experience the most developmental changes of their entire life except for the first two years of life. And that just really like, hit me between the eyes and I thought, oh my goodness, I’m sure he’s right. But that’s really fascinating. And a lot of what you’re saying kind of feeds into that. Is there anything else that you want to say about what’s happening during the adolescent brain, like chemically hormonally during those years that contributes to this musical reminiscence bump?
Nick Kathios: [00:12:28] Yeah, I think what you’re getting at as well is not only in adolescence, these are sort of vast development of the brain, but it’s also quite characterized by a huge changes in one’s social environment. As I was saying, these individuals are sort of transitioning out of being around their caregiver, being at home and sort of developing their sense of self. And there’s these vast changes that are going on environmentally that likely have sort of feedforward feedback relationship with ongoing brain development as well. So I think what your children’s principal said in that regard is totally true, especially in how the brain development is interacting with our social environment. Um, and I think what is really interesting about the sort of musical reminiscence bump in relationship to all these things is that we have sort of this separate literature that suggests that not only is music being treated in the brain like the sort of primary rewards, relying on these sort of dopaminergic processes, but music is also an inherently social stimulus. And it also taps into this set of brain regions that seem to observe the sort of social processing and thinking about others that is also quite going through a decent amount of structural changes in adolescents as well. Sort of tuning how individuals think about others. So what’s really interesting about using music to study this reminiscence bump effect is that we can almost evaluate these social processes in tandem with these more reward related processes that seem to be really important during this time period.
Mindy Peterson: [00:13:58] When you mentioned that these different elements are not mutually exclusive, I’m just thinking too about the the agency piece and how during this time, that is when we we come to have more agency over our decisions, our choices, whether it’s friendships, whether it’s where we go because we get a driver’s license and we have this new freedom, or whether it’s what music we listen to, all of those things probably feed into that imprinting mechanism on us. For me, I really loved having this newfound control, like, wow, I actually have some control over some decisions that I get to make, you know? So I found it very exciting. A lot of kids probably find it anxiety provoking. Like I know some kids who don’t want to get their driver’s license because the thought of driving it just causes so much anxiety with them. So whether they do it or not, it’s still either that excitement or that dread or anxiety. There’s so many of those emotions going on as we come to have more control and agency in our lives during that time. So that feeds into like the identity, it feeds into the dopamine, it feeds into like that whole imprinting, whether it’s traumatic or a first experience or a high or what it is, whatever it is. But then also what’s happening with our social life and choosing our friends, rather than just hanging around the friends and families that our parents are friends with. It’s kind of like this perfect cocktail that causes things to really stick with us.
Nick Kathios: [00:15:32] Exactly. And what’s really interesting about sort of what’s going on in adolescent music usage is that these individuals are not only listening to music more often, but they’re listening to music more often in social settings. So it seems like there’s this sort of. Not only is there sort of a motivation for learning about yourself through music in a way that helps you connect with others. But there also might be the sort of meditative effect wherein listening to music with others that you wanted to do in the first place, to connect with them might actually boost the reward experienced while sharing music with each other. So there’s like a, a line of work that suggests that even telling people that they’re listening to music with others remotely boosts the subjective pleasure they experience while listening to music.
Mindy Peterson: [00:16:15] Um huh. Well, there is this other term that I heard related to this research and pro-social behavior. It’s positive risk taking where young people might be more willing to learn a musical instrument, join a band, or become a part of another new group. Can you just explain a little bit more what that positive risk taking looks like and how it relates to music and that reminiscence bump during this time period of our lives?
Nick Kathios: [00:16:43] Yeah. Of course. So that sort of take on or thinking about risk taking as being positive sort of stems from, like I was saying, this sort of history of looking at adolescent development from almost a deficit perspective, wherein historically they researchers have linked the development of the system of the brain to these negative risk taking experiences and saying like, oh, this is why maybe teenagers are more prone to take risks regarding texting and driving or drinking and driving and things like that. But that is sort of at odds with what we would expect to be preserved evolutionarily if this development of the system at this specific time window was, in fact, preserved. It has to have some sort of adaptive advantage. And so the interest in establishing what is adaptive about the system sort of burgeoned a ton. And part of that was this idea of like, perhaps risk taking isn’t always a bad thing. Perhaps it helps us make prosocial risk. Like maybe we’re being altruistic and perhaps we are falling on the sword for a friend in order to maintain or solidify a social bond. Perhaps we are taking a risk that might help enhance our sense of self, like learning how to play an instrument or joining a specific club.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:52] You mentioned some of the other reminiscence bump factors like smell or words. It seems to me like music is pretty unique and too, in that it taps into all of these brain factors that you’ve been talking about all at the same time, like words. I don’t feel like tap into that many or even smells. Do you have any thoughts or comments on that?
Nick Kathios: [00:18:15] Yeah, for sure. I think maybe I’m a bit biased because I study music, but I always like to enter these conversations thinking about how or what music might afford us. Unlike other QS itself. So I think one thing that music has, unlike other cues, like I said previously, which is really interesting, is the sort of temporal specificity, at least when we’re working with adults that only listen to the radio, which maybe we can talk about in a second about the advent of streaming. For the purposes of these processes. But I think what’s really interesting is we do have a bit more of a temporal specificity in regard to music release in studying these processes. For instance, you are likely exposed to specific words quite frequently and constantly throughout an entire your entire life. Similar to odors, there’s not really a temporally specific odor that perhaps you. From an experimental perspective, we can say, oh, it’s likely that you only smelled cookies when you were three years old. So with music, we do have that advantage. But I also think what’s really interesting about music, as opposed to maybe the other sort of non-aesthetic stimuli that have been used to engender this effect, is that we’re able to sort of evaluate other accounts that are sort of not able to be accessed by these other cues, or it might just be generally quite odd. So this idea that rewarding experiences might modulate our memory for related information would be hard to test for, say a word queue, because I can imagine it would be quite odd to ask someone to recall a memory about, say, lunch and then say, how much did you like hearing the word lunch? Or how much do you like lunch more broadly. Track. These more abstract or aesthetic related processes opens up an additional avenue to studying what gives rise to these effects. And I think that’s why with the musical reminiscence bump, it’s almost always reported that there’s this increase in autobiographical memory that’s associated with an increase in preference for music from this time period.
Mindy Peterson: [00:20:07] Well, you referenced, uh, how today’s teenagers may be impacted a little bit differently. How do you think today’s adolescents who are growing up with streaming and they have constant access to any songs at any time, how do you think that is going to affect their reminiscence bump later in life in terms of music? I mean, it’s so different than like when I was growing up, we were pretty dependent on physical albums in the form of vinyl cassettes, CDs. There were limited radio stations that you could listen to. Pandora didn’t exist at that point. Spotify didn’t exist at that point. So we were more limited. Like what? What cassettes do you have? These are the tapes I have. You know. And so how do you think today’s teens are going to have a different musical reminiscence bump later in life, given their constant access to all music at any time now?
Nick Kathios: [00:21:00] Right. I think the biggest concern is regarding the experimental study of the reminiscence bump moving forward. Because of that assumption that was previously made using song specific age that people are typically exposed to music when it was released, when it was popularized. Obviously, that’s a huge assumption given how music is consumed. And again, that has been really helpful. And I think that assumption is valid to be made with individuals who largely grew up with radios, cassettes and physical music consumption. So I think when today’s teenagers are adults and we’re still interested in the reminiscence bump effect, it likely would not be a valid approach to use a song specific age in the same way, because people have access to music from across a wide swath of time periods and things like TikTok have music from different time periods. Be really popular for teenagers and kids at different from different time periods. Yeah. That being said, because I believe the reminiscence bump is rooted in developmental processes, whether it’s with the experiences that are happening during these developmental windows or the actual development going on in the developmental window, that would suggest that individuals will still be showcasing a reminiscence bump effect. But because of streaming, finding that effect or showing that effect exists will have to use different methods like asking people what music they like during this time period, as opposed to manipulating it using this song specific age measure.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:24] Okay, I’m guessing I don’t know your age, but I’m guessing you are within that 10 to 30 age range, or if not very close to it. So as someone who’s very close to this young adult stage or in it, did researching this topic affect how you listen to music right now? I’m just kind of curious, you know, what effect it had on you being in that in that age range, for sure.
Nick Kathios: [00:22:49] It definitely makes me think a little bit more about why I’m listening to what I’m listening to, and also why I kind of enjoy listening to my Spotify rap from previous years. Um, it’s always interesting to me to say like, oh, you know, there’s these results that suggest that we really love music from our 14 years of age. Let me literally look to see what I listened to at this age range. But I will say what was most surprising to me, and sort of the motivation for me for looking at these processes, was actually observing how older adults interact with music from this time range, as opposed to my experience with that music in this time period. Um, I think I might have even taken it for granted being in the time period and sort of, um, I was on a study a couple of years ago, which involved playing adults between the ages of 60 to 85, music from across their early lifespan. And I was consistently taken aback by how strongly these individuals reacted to music from their childhood and adolescence. That was so shocking to me. Like I didn’t have that perspective and the amount of participants that would have just visibly strong emotional responses to music from this time period made me sort of clue in to what might be going on and made me really.
Mindy Peterson: [00:24:00] I think that had some impact on your career path and your area of research. Is that right?
Nick Kathios: [00:24:07] 1,000%. Um, I originally entered the field very interested in the relationship between music and memory, and also how music might be a really important tool against neurodegeneration. And when I first had this firsthand experience with these individuals who were having such strong reactions to music from their early, early childhood and adolescence, I became really interested in this reminiscence bump effect. And what I found is that there are some studies that suggest that this reminiscence bump effect is actually preserved with individuals that have Alzheimer’s. And so I had thought that perhaps maybe studying the developmental origins of this effect might actually give insight as to why they’re so preserved across age, across neurogeneration. And so while my focus right now is developmental, it is sort of forward looking into thinking about how music helps us across the lifespan and even into aging.
Mindy Peterson: [00:24:59] Sure. That would be so fascinating to, to understand how what this research suggests about the role music can play in later life, especially with people who are experiencing dementia, or even just for emotional well-being. It seems like there’s a lot to unpack and a lot to offer in terms of this research impact on on that topic. One question, though, that I’m curious if you could just explain in the couple of minutes that we have left here. Um, actually two questions. One, what do you think parents and educators and clinicians might misunderstand about teenagers relationship with music during this time? And then the other question is, what do you hope listeners will take away about why music from their youth is so important and why it still matters.
Speaker 3: [00:25:49] Of course.
Nick Kathios: [00:25:49] Well, I think to answer your first question, both given the way in which music is consumed by teenagers and the history of how music consumption has continually become more and more privatized, so people are more and more likely to consume music in isolation than they are with other people. I think there can be perhaps this misconception that engaging with music in that isolated fashion, especially in your teenage years, might be viewed as antisocial or sort of not necessarily a worthwhile activity. But I think the research that we’ve done and the research that has been done would suggest that not only is this a really important way in which teenagers get to learn about themselves, individuals during this time period are really good at making accurate social inferences based solely on musical taste. And so this idea that individuals might be using music, listening at the time to scaffold their sense of self in this way seems to be quite pertinent. But also other research that we’ve done suggests that music is a sort of safe landscape during which teens can experience maybe more difficult emotions that might be required to be experienced in private. Um, it offers this emotional landscape to experience these emotions in a relatively constrained and safe area. And so I think to answer your question briefly, is this private consumption of music and isolated consumption of music by teenagers isn’t always antisocial. It is, in fact, probably a really great way in which these individuals are learning about themselves and as also a safe way to sort of experience these maybe more hard emotions to experience otherwise or outside of a different.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:22] Yeah, that’s really insightful, really interesting. And then any anything else on that question or the, the second one about what you want listeners to take away?
Nick Kathios: [00:27:32] Yeah. I think I’ll answer your second question by saying a really quick and easy way to get that, uh, rewarding boost. And also maybe a trip back to memory lane is to put on music from your reminiscence some time period, around 10 to 30, and this might be a good way in which listeners might reconcile the risk taking that they did in adolescence as having payoff for their life in a way in which music from this time period is boosting their affect way later in their life.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:02] Ooh, I like that. Very nice. Another thing too that I’m just thinking of too, is when we were talking about the social connection and how music can facilitate that. I’m thinking if you are getting together with parents or siblings, you could play music from that time period just to kind of enhance that sharing of memories and kind of cementing that bond of we’re family of origin. We all went through this time period together. We really know each other. We, we knew you when you were that age. I knew you when you were that age, you know. I think it could really facilitate that, especially if you’re visiting maybe an aging grandparent and you could play music from their youth, that could bring about some interesting sharing of memories and just getting to know them more and understanding more of their experiences while you still have them with you.
Nick Kathios: [00:28:56] 1,000%. I think that is a great takeaway. And I think what you’re saying about the grandparent and parent relationship is that that cascading reminiscence bump that I was talking about earlier. If you play music from your caregivers youth, then likely you have memories and strong affect associated with that as well. So that sort of facilitate that sort of sharing of memories and increased bonding between individuals. For sure.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:17] Perfect way to bring it back full circle. Love it. Well, thanks so much, Nick, for all this research, for sharing it with us and breaking it down for us today. As you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending, a coda by sharing a musical tool that you wish more people knew about. It could be a book or a blog, an app, anything that enables you to enhance your life with music. Do you have a tool that you can tell us about today?
Nick Kathios: [00:29:45] Yes, I would love to recommend Horn playing from the Inside Out by Eli Epstein. Um, this was actually.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:52] Is this a book?
Nick Kathios: [00:29:53] Yes, this is a book that was written by a prior private instructor that I had while I was growing up to bring things full circle once again. Um, while I was working under him, he actually had the opportunity to get an MRI, say French horn and have a bunch of world famous French horn players play this French horn in the MRI machine, which revealed that there was amazing consistency across these world renowned French horn players in their embouchure, both outside but as well as inside. Say, for instance, with tongue placement. So a really big part of that book is explaining how and why tongue placement, specifically when you’re tonguing while you’re playing a brass instrument, can actually really help you hit the right pitches. And that’s a huge issue in difficulty when it comes to French horn playing. So it drastically changed the way that I played my instrument, and it’s a nice sort of circle back to sort of what I’m doing now with neuroimaging and scanning and music. And I think it’s a sort of a great if you’re not, if you’re not just interested in brass instruments, but just getting to know what it is that sort of is producing these sounds on these instruments.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:53] Oh, that’s really fascinating. And I’m guessing that speech pathologists may have an interest in checking that out too, just to see if there’s any correlation between playing some of these instruments and what they’re trying to do with placement of tongue and things like that for speech pathology. Very interesting. Thank you.
Nick Kathios: [00:31:11] Of course. Yeah. What you said actually just reminded me of a huge takeaway was if you can whistle it, the tongue placement when you whistle is very similar to the tongue placement that you would use when you’re playing it on your brass instrument.
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:21] Interesting. And I’ll tell you a little secret. I have never been able to whistle. So it’s probably a good thing I’m a pianist and not a horn player.
Nick Kathios: [00:31:32] Sounds like that would be super helpful for you then.
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:34] Yes. Maybe I should get the book and see if it enables me to whistle!
Transcribed by Sonix.ai