This is an English translation of an article published in Nikkan San on March 7, 2021, as a part of my column, “The Way of the Pianist.”
It was March 4th last year that California Governor Newsome announced his State of Emergency Declaration due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I imagine each and every one of my readers to have gone through many changes and challenges in our very unusual year. So much has happened since then.
And on March 11th, we mark the 10th anniversary of the earthquake/tsunami and nuclear meltdown in the Tohoku region of Japan in 2011. There will be many ceremonies of commemoration, not only in Japan, but also globally among the Japanese communities abroad. I imagine that you all remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard the news. It was one of those days.
As many of you already know, I wrote my doctoral thesis on the genesis of memorization as a piano performance practice. As a part of my research, I studied about memories and mnemonics. There were so many fascinating discoveries I made. Let me introduce one here today.
In the Middle Ages, when few people were literate, they still needed to record events, such as marriage and negotiations between powerful families, etc. According to neurobiologist Dr. James L. McGrough, they would take a child of about seven years of age to such events. They would have these children observe the event, and then throw the child into a river. This becomes a trauma, cementing the memory of events leading up to the trauma.
We have two different kinds of memories: semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory is something you memorize by repetition. Walking, talking, spelling words, the way to your favorite grocery stores… The other memory is episodic memory. This is of a novel event that you remember like a story. That’s why you remember where you were and what you were doing when the planes hit the World Trade Center on 9.11. That’s why you remember your wedding. The example above is that of episodic memory.
So, will this year of pandemic be stored in our semantic or episodic memory? The social distancing tends to make our days routines, but with a little creativity, you can always introduce novelty to our days. How about we commemorate the anniversary of the emergency declaration, as a way to pay tribute to our resourcefulness to have survived the year? As a way to pat ourselves on the back. A little memorable reward, maybe? And of course, let’s commemorate those who have perished in our fight against COVID-19, and the frontline workers.
