Hi, I was wondering about this today and thought I’d ask. Has anyone tried using music as a memory palace? I don’t mean making a song to remember, instead taking a piece of music, say, a Bach Brahms classical piece with no lyrics.
It’s not how I usually memories information, but I’m experimenting a bit to find more effective ways for me. I’m blind so visualising a memory palace with all its loci is beyond me. I often however use the rhythm of words to memorise key information, and I wondered if adding a musical layer might reinforce and aid in that.
In a way. Used Solresol, with Sound of Music imagery. Never used pure sound, but it can probably be done. Be sure to write a book about it if you figure it out.
I’m curious about this and will try to experiment with it.
When we play a piece by heart on an instrument, we already have the “auditory memory” and a “motoric-spacial memory” that could be used, plus the feeling that the melody makes you feel.
For example, a chord or melodic phrase will give a specific “feeling” (an auditory inner voice singing the melody, the impulse of moving your hands to a particular position, the position of notes in the instrument, the dynamics—staccato/legato, pedals, pressure of fingers, performing intent).
Splitting those moments (bar or melodic phrase) into “loci”, and attaching meaning to them might work well.
That’s why I would use one of the least used memory structures: song lyrics.
Songs are much easier to memorize than routes / palaces, they comply with having a pre-established order and we usually have dozens and dozens of them already known.
You simply have to associate each word with what you want to memorize. It is also very simple to put together a “dictionary” of pictures / substitute words that always represent the same articles, prepositions, etc.
In honesty, this I have tried and failed miserably at. Since my strokes I don’t have the ability to remember lyrics alongside other information, it’s just too distracting. I struggle enough learning the lyrics themselves, as I can’t just read along with the music. Good suggestion though! Just not one for me I’m afraid
So, I wanted to update. I was trying this the last few nights to Vivaldi’s Concerto in G minor for 2 cellos. It’s one I’m familiar with already, so I thought it would be like using a familiar place for a memory palace. I tried picking out the key recognisable moments in it, rather than bar to bar. I think it might work. I’m going to start adding information after maybe one more night of familiarising.
Would you mind explaining further if you have a moment? I’m not great at visualising places but I think I have some awareness of space, like when I’m doing a route with my long cane
Melodies are the real memory block of a song. Often we only remember the melody or part of the melody of a song, while forgetting the rest of the song and forgetting how the parts connect. Whatever you do musically, it must retain melody as the foundation of memory.
Lyrics can be added to melody for optimal retention of verbal information. The emotional dimension of the melody, and the texture of the voice, and the pace, should connect with the meaning of the verbal information.
A song weaves together different melodies in a pleasing way. You can weave together different “mnemonic melodies” together. This is how mnemonic information can be chained, with melodies leading into different melodies.
Memory palaces have central rooms of foyers with different doors. The musical version of this is one foyer melody, each individual note of which points to the beginning of a new melody. If the melody has seven notes and the fifth note is D minor, then the WORD on D-Minor begins a new melody beginning with that word and D-Minor. Now you have an organized melody palace. You could, if you want, use “instrument” as another variable or “octave” of “voice type” as variables. You imagine hearing a violin rather than a saxophone and this encodes something of memorable import.
You can remember your “song cycles” by associating the foyer song with an object. Every time you touch a bottle cap, you recite the bottle cap melody. Every time you smell lavender, you recite the lavender melody. Or every time you feel the velcro texture. Now you have objects which encode melodies which encode melodies which encode verbal information. This can now be quite organized. To retain information about soda, you remember distinct bottle caps you have felt or smelled, this cues to a top-level melody foyer, each note of which cues to sub melodies, which may also cue to lower melodies, with the lowest melody-chain beginning a story — the story can repeat from beginning to end within a melody chain like a traditional Irish sing.
You can associate persons with songs. Then you can imagine having conversations with different people as memory aids. For instance, whenever I hear Napoleon, my mind instantly goes to “Boney was a warrior”. https://youtu.be/qrjl2h4Zo5U
Being blind, you can still take advantage of spatial awareness. Imagine you are in a cube with four walls around you (such is the nature of cubes). On the different walls are objects, and the objects encode melodies & stories.
If you are using recording devices, you can add additional voices together, with each “part” singing different verbal information which harmonizes.
Monks would use hand gestures to keep track of a scale. Ancient shepherds used sophisticated hand gesturing to count sheep. Similar gestures can be used to store melody chains, I imagine.
Thank you for taking the time to write this reply, you’ve been really helpful and it’s given me a lot to think about. I’m going to read over again later and try some of your ideas
I just mean that whatever one senses space with – and if we break it down it’s at least partially a feeling – you can probably use it to store memories as in a memory palace.
I know echolocation is an inaccurate science, but maybe we use it as much as any to create our sense of space. I can see, and I still use it to tell where things are in the dark sometimes. My point is that since this sense at least exists, it should exist in the inner world too. That’s where you build your memory palace.
If you think of a place a foot away from your face, it should feel different from a place two feet away from your face – or behind your head. This way you can, at least hypothetically, create a whole web of information.
I’ve taken suggestions from different people in this thread, and I’ve found a way that is working for me. I have an index card sized lukasa, and I hold it while I follow the next steps. I stand where I know I have space and follow the lukasa with my fingers while taking steps in a square shape at significant moments in a Bach cello suite.
Years ago when I was sighted, writing on an index card and reading it while I walked back and forth helped me remember verbatim what I’d written.
Technically I could do this without the music, but it’s adding another layer to the memory. I liked the idea cabinmoose had with foyer music leading on to different “rooms” and I’m practicing that by touching different groups of beads and objects on my lukasa at those points. I think I’ll be able to do it with just the piece of music after a while of practicing with the lukasa. I’m practicing for forty five minutes each day at the moment so I keep developing but don’t muddy it by losing focus.
