Just one shot.
My father was banging his hands on the table. Someone answered with a fork or spoon. Soon, everyone found their rhythm and dinner turned into a family percussion circle.
Ask my sisters and I about those moments and we can each remember something a little different. He can remember how playful it was. Another person might remember it as part of a dinner with dad. I remember that anything is possible, that one little beat can suddenly turn into music.
We sat at the same table, but we didn’t necessarily hear the same thing. Perhaps this is part of the gift.
Father’s Day invites us to remember, but families rarely carry a fully agreed-upon version of the past. Even in the moments we share, we remove various details and emotions.
We always seemed to have music in our house: Beatles, Beach Boys, Broadway cast albums. On long drives, we would argue about who got which part Les Misérables. Kazoos appeared on birthdays, pension parties and other occasions probably don’t require kazoos.
Dad also taught us the jitterbug.
One of the sisters remembers standing on her feet as a child, then learning to let her take the lead as she twirls on the dance floor. He hummed as they moved and sometimes pressed the rhythm into her hand so she could feel the beat.
Another sister found a rhythm through athletics. There is a dance to discus throwing: winding, turning, gathering momentum, and then releasing. My dad was there for that beat too, cheering from the sidelines.
For me, music meant piano lessons, competitions, camps, and college auditions. Music meant Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony blasting out on the way to piano camp, Dad and I swapping German words for animal sounds.
Each girl had her own rhythm with him. What ties these experiences together is that our father met us where we were.
Why music brings back so many things
A memory not writing. Every time we remember something, we recreate it through our emotions, our subsequent experiences, and who we are now. This helps explain why siblings can share a story and take different parts of it.
Neither memory necessarily overrides the other. Together, these pieces can tell a more complete story.
Music is a particularly powerful cue for autobiographical memory. A familiar song can reactivate not only the event, but also the emotions, people, and environment associated with it.
We just can’t remember what was played. We remember who was there.
When people sing, dance, clap, or play music together, they coordinate themselves. attention and movement in time. This synchronization can support intimacy, but it does not require everyone to experience the same moment. We can go to the same beat without singing the same part.
The message under the music in our family was: I understand what’s important to you. I am here.
To this day, I’m not sure if my sisters like classical music or not. But they know it’s important to my father and me, so they show up. We know how lucky we are to have this kind of love.
As a family, we know how blessed we are to receive this news.
Father’s Day can be joyful, painful, complicated, or all three. Not everyone feels the presence of a father in this way, and many people get that love and guidance from someone else who steps into the role.
For us, love has often come through a steady rhythm of music, movement, and manifestation.
An ever-evolving soundtrack
My parents are also celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary this week. My father may have started many of the beats, but our family soundtrack grew in the life they created together.
Mom was often the quiet conductor, keeping the peace, bringing snacks, getting everyone where they needed to be, and making sure each child had room to develop a different rhythm.
She also taught her how to dance in the kitchen with wooden spoons as microphones, usually “Dancing Queen”. The relevant field has never been more important. It was dancing and laughing together.
“You Are My Sunshine” contains another layer of family history. My dad and I danced at my Bat Mitzvah and again at my wedding. Now I sing to my children as my mother and grandmother sang to me.
The tone remains. People around are always changing.
When we experience a song in an emotionally meaningful moment, the brain associates it with the people, place, and emotions that surround it. Music can then re-open this network almost before we consciously choose to remember it.
Memory is not frozen. Each return can add another layer. “You are my sunshine” is currently in the hands of my grandmother, mother, father, sisters and children. “Dancing Queen” still brings wooden spoons and a kitchen full of people, each of whom may remember the dance differently.
Once a song becomes part of our autobiographical memory, it can be difficult to hear it as just a song.
Today, one of the greatest gifts of my adult life is writing Resonant Minds: The Transformative Power of Music and contributing to this Psychology Today blog with my father. Our soundtrack now includes research interviews, edited drafts, disagreements, laughterand many opportunities for me to tell him he was wrong.
This Father’s Day, I find myself thinking less about one song and more about what lies beneath them all: a father ready to step into the world that matters to each of his daughters.
We still don’t hear everything the same way. Maybe we never should have.
My sisters and I took away different sounds, movements and memories. Together, they listen to tell a fuller story of a father, a mother who quietly navigates and holds these worlds together, and a family happy to stay connected through music.
Different rhythms.
General strike.
