Hello there! Apologies in advance for the long post.
I’m new to memory techniques, but I’m already finding a lot of uses for them. I read Lynne Kelly’s “Memory Craft” and was inspired. My first (relatively successful) effort was to memorize Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” using a pen, I’m hooked!
I’m a musician, so my next challenge is to use memory techniques to develop the ability to recall things about solfège and music theory.
For context, I’m using “movable do” solfège, where do is always the tonic note regardless of the key, as opposed to “fixed do” where it is always C. This means that my solfège syllables more or less correspond to scale degrees (as well as intervals, which I will touch on shortly). I’m also using “do-based minor” meaning that do remains the tonic even in other modes such as natural minor, as opposed to “la-based minor” where the syllabel la represents the tonic in minor keys. I do this so I can better understand the way various modes are constructed (alterations to diatonic notes), as well as use solfège for non-church modes (e.g. harmonic minor, dorian b2, lydian augmented, etc.). I’m also using chromatic solfège, where there is a syllable for every scale degree and its alterations (diminished, minor, major, augmented), for example, do, di (raised 1st degree), ra (lowered second degree), etc.
The types of questions I want to be able to answer pertain not just to solfège but also note names, scales, arpeggios, and key signatures. Some examples:
- What is the solfège for the Phrygian mode? (do, ra, me, fa, sol, le, te)
- What syllable is a minor third above re? (fa)
- What note is fa in the key of D? (G)
- What note is a major seventh above C? (B)
- What is the key signature for A major? (3 sharps)
- What is the solfege for a major 7 chord built on do? (do, mi, so, ti)
- What notes are in a Bb half diminished in first inversion? (Bb, Db, Fb, Ab)
Now, my first instinct with all this is to just not worry about memorizing it and just let it all come to me over time. That would certainly be the easiest approach, but it would also take the longest and is not without its shortcomings. I’d have to look things up every time until I just memorized them. The benefit would be that the memories would be highly linked to musical contexts which may result in a richer, more robust memory overall. This is how I learn languages, I don’t bother using mnemonics to learn vocabulary.
The second approach I could take is just rote memorization. This is the least appealing as it sounds hideously boring and seems liable to result in more fragile memories.
I thought that for solfege to solfège conversions, something very useful would be a sort of P-A-O system. For instance: the syllable Fa could be remembered by Fa Mulan kung fu chopping a board as she does in the “be a man” song (at least in my memory). The character mulan would represent the starting syllable, the action (kung fu chopping) would represent an interval (from do to fa is a major fourth, so kung fu chopping represents a major fourth), and the board represents the ending syllable. So from Do to Fa is a major fourth, represented by the image of DOnkey kong, kung fu chopping a board.
The downside of this system is would be how to remember all of the intervals for all of the starting syllables, you’d need images for do → ra, do → re, do → me, etc. And this only covers ascending intervals. For descending intervals, the resulting syllable is different (a major fourth down from do is sol). The only solutions I could come up with would be to modify the image somehow (perhaps in descending intervals, the character is on fire, to represent hellfire, i.e. going down), or to have a separate action for each ascending and descending interval, in which case each character would need two actions, which seems confusing.
At first, I thought I could have a memory palace for each starting syllable, then a locus for each interval and the resulting syllable. However, this would result in quite a few syllables. The next idea I thought was one memory palace, with a locus for each interval, and then remembering each combination of starting syllable and ending syllable in a linked list. This actually seems quite natural because then I get the added benefit of using the linked list to remember the order of all of the syllables of a scales built on the same interval (i.e. a scale made entirely of major seconds, etc.) for free. However this linked list seems like it could become quite long, and difficult to traverse for just the information I need, I’d need to go through all of the “major second” combinations to find ti → di for instance.
To top it all off, all of the above applies equally for note names. I’d need separate structures to remember what note is a major sixth above Ab, and so forth. Not only that, but remember what solfège syllable that would be (i.e. what is the la of Ab).
The others seem relatively easy to remember with simple lists, a memory palace, or whatever:
- The solfège for a scale could be remembered as a linked list of characters representing syllables
- There aren’t that many key signatures, these can just be learned by rote
- The chords of a mode can be remembered if you just memorize the order of a set of syllables. For instance, in major: do, mi, sol, ti, re, fa, la. then to build the diatonic chord you just start on the correct syllable (e.g. what is a diatonic 7 chord built on re in major? re, fa, la, do)
These are just some disorganized thoughts I’ve had on this topic. If someone has handled this before, I’d love to hear your thoughts. In the end, I think I’ll still just go with the “absorbing it over time” approach, because it sounds the most rewarding (learn the solfege for lots of songs, and let your brain develop an intuition for it).
I hope to make more posts in the future as I experiment with other kinds of memory techniques and applications. Happy to be here 