6 Comments

I love this so much!! I play music in my house a LOT and sing and dance with my kids (though it’s a bit complicated with my daughter- she has Misophonia and also high functioning autism- theory of mind is so much harder for her, so this makes me interested to learn more!)

So, I have this friend group - we’ve been friends and known each other since 85-86 when we met at a teenage dance club! Many of us reconnected a couple of years ago when another friend moved back to the area to care for her dying parents. We have weekly meetups at a local brewery (some of us also go to a weekly vinyl night at the brewery) and we routinely meet up to go out to local music events and concerts. Music and dancing at the teenage club brought us together. All of this jives - it’s a group of some of the best people! Kind, compassionate, helpful… we all got each other’s backs. We also have made friends with the younger groups of kids and adults (obviously 21+) that come out to shows and the breweries. Music absolutely connects us.

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Mar 26Liked by Melinda Wenner Moyer

This feels intuitively very true- I'm glad some folks are researching it! I think that playing music with other people is one of the very best human experiences. My son is currently in a suzuki music program, which has a heavy emphasis on ensemble playing, even with the very youngest students. They learn to watch and listen to each other, read each others' cues, and practice both leading and following. So many good skills.

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Mar 26Liked by Melinda Wenner Moyer

I love this! I have such fond and deep memories of square dancing in gym class in elementary school in the 80’s. I enjoyed the group movement so much. We put on a show at the end of the year. This required a lot of group practice, coordination, and thinking about the other kids. Thanks for all of your research updates!

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Mar 26Liked by Melinda Wenner Moyer

My job had us make music together at an offsite - and people are still talking about it 6 months later! I think this means we should increase the dance parties at our house.

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