deefstes
Always useful to have a catchy mnemonic to help you remember a sequence. I'm curious to know which ones you use.
For the standard guitar tuning I've always used : Eddie Ate Dynamite, GoodBye Eddie.
But that's about the only good one I have. I know two more which is useful but stupid and I blame my grade 2 piano teacher for contaminating my mind with this crap. I would actually appreciate if someone could come up with something more catchy that can bump these from my memory ?
So the first one is for the notes of the lines on the staff of the treble clef: Elfie Gaan Bad Die Feetjies. I mean REALLY?!?! Is that the best the flippin music teacher could come up with?
Second one is for the progression of fifths: Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle
Both of these are useful but I feel like a total dork every time I recite them in my mind just because they're so stupid. So do you okes have better mnemonics? Any other mnemonics for different sequences?
Slightly off-topic but another mnemonic that has stuck in my head like poo to a wooly blanket (and equally tasteless), is for the sequence of colours that comprise the electronic colour code for the lines printed on resistor or capacitors (black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, grey, white). The mnemonic we used in varsity for that was: Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly. Sorry, I did say that it was tasteless. I'm sure there are better mnemonics for this sequence as well but somehow this one just stuck. :?
domhatch
all the normal ones - every good boy deserves fruit, FACE, etc. but most of my mnemonics are visual, oddly enough. the names of the notes of the open strings in standard tuning just kinda 'appear', but i think that's due to years of doing it the same way. i can do the same thing at the 5th, 7th, and (surprise surprise) 12th fret, but it's not really a secret how - at the 5th, you start at A, and cycle through A, D, G, C, E, and add an A on top (i.e. the open notes with another on top). same with the 7th, its all a pattern you figure out - i'm just a visual person.
the weird thing is this creates a huge stumbling block when moving to alternate tunings. i've only tried it once or twice, and i just get completely and utterly lost - coz my familiar and comfy patterns are nowhere to be found. i know it's just a case of practicing and getting familiar and comfy in a new space, but i have enough work to do just being average doing what i do.
on the piano, or a keyboard, or in my head, i pretty much need nothing. i can tell you what major key you're in, what it's relative minor is, just by looking at the signature (how many sharps/flats). this i think is because it was drummed into me before i touched a piano keyboard for the first time. helpful in some ways, useless in others.
i have a method of keeping track of things visually - mentally. i first read about it in the book 'hannibal'. the hannibal character creates this elaborate 'memory palace'. obviously, hannibal lecter, the character, is a hugely intelligent individual, so doesn't require the amount of effort a mere (and real-life) mortal like me does to populate and maintain a memory palace. the long and short of the technique - and i've seen it applied in real life (well on tv, so it must be true), by people who remember extraordinary amounts of information and can recall it seemingly at will (telephone books, prime numbers, etc) - is that you create a mental replica of an environment in which you feel completely at home, and with which you are very, very familiar. then, in order to remember things, you assign them to items in the environment, fixating on the item you want to remember, and the item with which you want to associate the memory, until the two become inextricably linked.
the idea is that you allow time for this mental environment to grow, and that you 'tend' to it on at least a daily basis. a sort of meditation. as you wonder through the house/palace/continent (depending on how much you need to remember), you make a point of stopping past each item and acknowledging its association. in this way, your storehouse of associations grows and becomes more solid. with time, concentration and immense dedication, you'll eventually start seeing benefits. because you're paying attention to actively remembering things, there is active stimulation of the hippocampus, and that can't hurt, at least.
you can also use this method with your actual house. try it. next time you have to go out shopping, make a list. repeat it to yourself on the way to the car, noting what you walk past as you mention each item on your list. do it once or twice, maybe a few times. when you get to the shops, put the list away, and try to remember what was on it, by remembering the trip to the car, and the items you mentioned as you went past each of the things in your house on your little walk.
it's a form of mnemonic.
and it's killer fun.
dh
