Mnemonics or The Soundtrack Of My Life

How do you study? What learning technique is the best to make you remember complicated facts, formulas, dates and vocabulary? And why do you know the lyrics to your favourite song by heart despite not having sat down specifically to learn them?

Everyone will have a slightly different way of learning things, mainly because there are three main types of learning of which one or two will be predominant in each of us:

• Visual (seeing, pictures)
• Auditive (hearing, sound, music)
• Haptic (moving, touching, doing)
  
  

A mixture of the three is usually the best, but if you know which types your predominant learning types are it makes life so much easier when you emphasise these two methods. I'm mainly an auditive type with a strong haptic note, so if you want to teach me something, talk me through it while making me do it. And then make me repeat it with only correcting me when I'm doing it wrong.

If I want to learn vocabulary, I say the words aloud while looking at the spelling to remember them easier, and if I have to learn lines for a play I record the whole play speaking in different (ideally ridiculous) voices, and listen to it over and over while reading the lines and later on speaking along.

Most memory artists use mnemonics to remember something, for example, if they have to remember a sequence of letters they will associate the letters with an object and then make a story of the whole thing, for example

GLIVUFVJYSI → Gold, Lizard, Inn, Vodka, Underage, Fox, Vodka, Jam, Yak, Stampede, Inn

The Golden Lizard went to an Inn and ordered a Vodka. An Underage Fox also ordered a Vodka, but got only Jam. Then, a Yak Stampede trashed the Inn.

That story is crazy enough to make you remember at least most of those letters, and with a bit of practice in coming up with this kind of thing, such tasks get easier with time.

Wikipedia has a great list of mnemonics  (German: Eselsbrücke, which translates as donkey bridge and is thus the much superior word – the German Wikipedia article is a lot of fun too! ) to indulge yourself in, some of them you probably know yourself and have used at school.

Side Story:

The word mnemonic stems from the name of the Greek Goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne. The reason I know that word at all is because I have my very own mnemonic for it, and it shames me not to say that my fascination for Greek mythology has nothing to do with that for once.

In the second to last Sailor Moon manga (Yes, manga. They actually were books before there was a TV series. And yes, I own the whole collection.) the remaining Sailors try to find Galaxia somewhere in the cosmos. Unlike in the TV series, here, they are met by Sailor Lethe (derived from Lethe, the Hades river of Forgetfulness) and Sailor Mnemosyne. Sailor Lethe makes Sailor Moon drink from the well she guards so she forgets everything about her quest, but Sailor Mnemosyne makes her drink from the well she guards so the quest can continue. Of course, both are annihilated by Galaxia straight away.

End of Side Story

The reason we often know lyrics or movie quotes by heart is because hearing – and especially hearing the same thing repeatedly – is a very subtle way to lock information into our memory while doing nothing active to remember.

I personally associate situations with music as I basically listen to something all the time, so often when I listen to a new CD it will later be associated with that time in my life, or with a book/series of books that I was reading at the time. Here's the soundtrack of my life:

Hanson – Middle of Nowhere: Making PlayDoh pizzas

This was one of my very first CDs, I must've been 10 or 11 around the time, and for the same birthday I got a PlayDoh Pizza moulding set. Therefore, Hanson = PlayDoh.

Jean Michel Jarre – Metamorphoses: Jedi-Padawan Series

I listened to this album while reading specifically one volume of the series, and especially one song stuck with one scene because it just fit perfectly. 

There is a scene where someone sabotaged an elevator full of children in the Jedi temple, and all the Jedi Masters combine their power of the Force to keep it in place until the children can be saved. When I begin reading the book exactly at the starting point of the CD, with my reading speed this scene will always coincide with the point of a change from suspense to harp music in the song Rendez-vous à Paris, which is just the perfect soundtrack for it.

Skunk Anansie – Hedonism: Rysndalen, Norway.

This is a song from the Top 97 sampler, and it burned into my head during the holiday in Norway when I was 10. Whenever I hear it, I can immediately see the single-track dirt road between snowy mountains before my inner eye, and I vividly re-experience the bliss of expectation to go bin-bag-sleighing at the end of that road.

The Dome 15 CD 2: Han Solo Trilogy

On that note, I really have to read those again.

Mel C – I turn to You (Maxi CD): Harry Potter books 1-4

I got all HP books for my 14^th birthday, along with this Maxi CD. Consequently, I was listening to it on loop while reading them all. Now, mental images of 4 long novels are crammed on a space of 3 songs in my brain.

Juli – Es ist Juli: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Same story, got them for the same birthday (or was it Christmas?) and thus they are irrevocably linked with each other for me. While listening to Mel C now makes me think of awesome wizard life, I always associate Juli with darkness and threats.

Gracia – Intoxicated: Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children 

This one is curious because I have listened to the CD while reading the whole series, but it especially stuck for the third book, The Mammoth Hunters. This is because the song One Man to the Left describes vividly the inner conflict of the heroine who has to choose between two men who she both loves: 

One man to the left

One man to the right

I'm stuck in the middle

And I can't get away

Anastacia – Anastacia: Detective Conan/Case Closed

This one is now a real catch-22 for me. To date, there are nearly 90 Conan mangas (and yes again, I own them all), and having a single album for all of those gets my memory crammed. Therefore, I stopped listening to music while reading Conan in order to not get things mixed up as it happened with Harry Potter.

James Blunt – Back to Bedlam: Edward Rutherford's London

I bought that book to prepare myself for the London Study Trip in 12^th grade with my A-Level English course, so now I associate James Blunt with lots of London history in mental images as well as actual memories of the city.

The Aberlour's - Waiting for Noah: Katia Fox's Das kupferne Zeichen, Der Silberne Falke, Der Goldene Thron / The Copper Sign, The Silver Falcon, The Golden Throne

I specifically chose this one to listen to while reading those stories, first of all because the medieval music just fits perfectly with the medieval story, and I wanted a book to associate with my favourite album.

Kurt Nilsen - I: Playing Carcassonne

My family always listened to this album when setting up a game of Carcassonne, and these two are now so irrevocably linked that I can't listen to any other music while playing that game because it just feels wrong. It's either Kurt Nilsen or nothing.

Nickelback – All the right Reasons: Driving

Arguably the best Nickelback album to date (Yes, I like them. In fact, they're my favourite mainstream band. Get over it.) and perfect for driving (fast), because it's got lots of energy. Also good for driving when angry, which is what I did a lot at the time.

Fall Out Boy – Infinity on High: Driving to friend to watch Doctor Who in spring 2010.

This was just the album that was in the disk drive at the time, so I listened to it on my way to my friend's house. She got BBC One on her TV, so I actually could watch the new episodes live for once instead of having to wait until the following morning when it would appear on Youtube for a few hours.

Side Note: As you can see, by this point I intentionally make use of my auditive memory to consciously create a soundtrack for my life.

Peatbog Faeries – Faerie Stories: First half of my MA year

I always listened to this album when walking to uni or to rehearsals and back home. Thus, I associate this music with absolute happiness about having found the place where I belong, having friends and doing something I really enjoy – along with heaps of snow and ice cold weather.

Disturbed: Christmas 2010

During my Christmas holiday at home my mum introduced me to their music and I downloaded a selection of songs that I liked, so their sound is now linked to that time in my mind.

Gwen Stefani – Love Angel Music Baby: Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels

This isn't precisely a book series, but then again it is because all his books feature the same protagonists. Since they always end up in ridiculous schemes of stopping people or events that will destroy the world, specifically the song Danger Zone fits brilliantly:

We are in a mess, a danger zone

What will happen next? We never know!

Andy McKee – Art of Motion: Writing a story

Around the same time I was reading Questionable Content I also figured I could spend my time writing some prose. Because words and lyrics tend to distract me from other words, I needed something without lyrics, and this one was my newest album of acoustic guitar music.

Elena Riu – R&B Collection: Writing my MA thesis

For the reason named above, I needed music without words. This, curiously, is not so much music to be listened to but to be played – I have the piano sheet notes of this R&B collection, and the music corresponding to it was enclosed in the book. By now, I associate this music with the happiest time of my life, so if I feel down, this is what I need to listen to.

Walter Moers' Zamonia novels: Nothing

I found it important to include that, because here I did the reverse thing. Moers is my favourite author by far and I worship everything he has written (okay, except maybe most of Der Schrecksenmeister/ The Alchemaster's Apprentice). For some reason, I never wanted to associate the universe that he invented with any music, I'm actually not quite sure why. Maybe because it's too vast and I don't want to cram too many mental images on the same few songs, or maybe because no music can be as perfect as his stories.

Either way, what I do associate with his novels is Dirk Bach's voice, since he read all the audio books and I listen to those regularly.

Do you have a similar soundtrack for certain situations or phases in your life? What learning type do you think you are and do you have any special learning techniques because of that? Tell me about it in the comments!