by Tansel Ali
You can play individual notes and chords on a guitar, though here we’ll focus on individual notes so you become familiar with the instrument. An easy way to play notes, even if you don’t know them, is to use guitar tablature. Tablature shows you where to place your fingers on the guitar to play.
Here is part of the classical song Für Elise by Ludwig van Beethoven:
The letters represent the notes and string types. The first string starts from the bottom E, then second string is A, then D, G, B, and the sixth string, E. You don’t need to memorise these—you just need to know that the first string is the thickest string, and the thinnest string is the sixth string.
This means that Für Elise starts with placing your finger on and playing the twelfth fret on the sixth string, then the eleventh fret on the sixth string, and back to the twelfth fret. A 0 on a line means playing an open string. Have a go at playing the rest of Für Elise. Once you have mastered the guitar tablature, you can memorise the tablature by using the Major or Dominic systems.
Let’s look at ways to use the number systems to memorise guitar scales, chord progressions and aspects of music theory.
The start of Für Elise can be memorised using the Major system:
12-11-12-11-12-7-10-8-5
Tin-Toad-Tin-Toad-Tin-Key-Toes-Woof-Lie
5 = l, 7 = k, 8 = f, 10 = ts, 11 = td, 12 = tn
Picture giving a tin can of food to a toad. He doesn’t like it and throws the tin back. You walk up to the toad and ask why it didn’t like the tin? He tells you that he needs a key to open it. You wiggle your toes and magically the can opens. Much to both your surprise, there is a loud woof sound coming from inside. You both lie on the floor in shock.
This memory technique also works very well to remember guitar scales as below:
If we create words in groups of three digits using the Major system we get the following:
357(milk), 357(milk), 457(relic), 568(leech-off), 578(liquefy)
3 = m, 4 = r, 5 = l, 6 = ch, 7 = k and q, 8 = f
Picture Dora the Explorer drinking her milk. She loves it so much she’s going for a second helping of milk. As she reaches for the fridge to grab one out, she takes out an old relic instead. From inside the relic out jumps a huge leech that latches on to Dora. She tells the leech off for scaring her and liquefies it with help from her trusty monkey Boots.
The keyboard
Piano lessons have been a part of many people’s lives for generations. Today the piano is still one of the most popular instruments to play. According to a 2010 LA Times article, six-year-olds who received keyboard instruction had more brain growth and finer motor skills than their peers. The piece also stated that ‘learning to make music changes the brain and boosts broad academic performance’. So to sharpen the mind and improve memory, get in amongst music and play it rather than just listen to it.
For those of you otherwise unfamiliar with the keyboard, let’s play the song ‘You Are My Sunshine’ by Charles Mitchell and Jimmy Davis (Paul Rice).
1. First you need to memorise the notes for the song.
The notes are:
C (this one’s middle c)
F
G
A
B-flat
C (high c)
D
A simple way of remembering these notes is to group and make words from them from the song below.
I’ve bunched the letters into groups of three notes, except when it made sense to use four letters to form ‘GAFF’ and complete the phrase for the song. Of course you can create your own grouping and ordering as long as you can make words out of the letters.
1. CFG cafe good
2. AAA AAA batteries
3. GAFF making a gaffe (mistake)
4. FGA fog around
5. BDD bad day
6. CBA Commonwealth Bank (Australia)
7. FGA fog around
8. BDD bad day
9. CBA Commonwealth Bank (Australia)
10. FFG fire and fog
11. ABG Abigail
12. GAF gave
1. To memorise we will need to make a story with the words above in a sequence:
It’s a beautiful day and the sun is shining. Your local cafe is good but you find AAA batteries inside your cup. Oops, it looks like someone made a gaffe and you’ve already swallowed them! You try and find the waiter but there is too much fog around. Suddenly it’s turning into a bad day and you race into the nearest Commonwealth Bank, but it turns out there is fog around inside there as well. This bad day looks to continue at the Commonwealth Bank because now there is fire and fog inside! You stagger outside coughing and a gorgeous lady named Abigail approaches. She also happens to be the waiter from the cafe and tells you whoever gave you the coffee will be sacked.
2. The next step is to play the notes memorised in step 1 on the piano below. The letters on the keys indicate the notes for the song.
Having memorised the notes allows you to focus on building muscle memory for your fingers so that they start to learn where the notes on the piano are as you play the song.
• Work on memorising notes for songs and then build your muscle memory by applying what you’ve remembered to play the song.
• Use your finger or, even better, a plectrum to play random notes on the guitar. It doesn’t have to make beautiful music, it’s just to get your fingers used to the fretboard.
• Websites such as YouTube, Virtual Piano and GuitarMasterclass offer some great videos on playing piano and guitar that are worth checking out.
• Get some guitar tablature. You can find plenty online as well as in guitar magazines.
• If you want to, try memorising the tablature for a song to increase your memory power and exercise your mind.
CHAPTER 11
KNOWING MORE ABOUT…EVERYTHING
‘Without knowledge action is useless, and knowledge without action is futile.‘—Abu Bakr Siddiq (ra)
Today we are bombarded by information, meaning we have more to read, more to analyse, more to think about and more to discuss. To stop us feeling overwhelmed by this aspect of modern living we need to organise our information better so we can access it faster and more precisely. With traditional methods of rote learning, acquiring knowledge takes time. In using a systemised approach we can reduce that time and increase our retention of facts and data.
Questions to ask include:
• What knowledge are we trying to acquire?
• How many pieces of information are we trying to remember?
• Which technique is the best for the job?
How to memorise countries and their capital cities
The quickest and most effective way to do this is to use a straight linking and association method.
Country Capital Association
Morocco Rabat You eat a lovely rabbit stew in Morocco.
Gabon Libreville There is a city that’s a library where you are told to shut your gab and keep quiet.
Comoros Moroni You comb a rose and it transforms into a maroon colour.
Latvia Riga You work out your lat muscles rigorously in Latvia.
Ecuador Quito You will never quit until you reach the equator.
Dominica Roseau Dominic O’Brien smells a rose in Australia.
Oman Muscat Kevin Muscat says ‘Oh man!’ after losing a game to Sydney.
Switzerland Bern Roger Federer burns up the tennis court.
Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Koalas come from Malaysia.
Vietnam Hanoi You are annoyed when your bike gets stolen in Vietnam.
Some countries are easy to remember while others are more difficult because of the abstract wording of country or city. Use SMASHIN SCOPE to help make memorable stories. I may dec
ide, for example, it’s stronger for recall if I memorise Libreville, Gabon, by imagining my friend Gabriel standing on a library shelf.
How to learn quiz questions and answers
To remember quiz questions and their answers:
• break up key words into images
• link each image
• review the associative story
Example:
Q. What term describes an adult male swan?
A. Cob.
The words to associate and connect are: male swan and cob.
The male swan always eats corn on the cob.
Let’s try another.
Q. What is the largest bone in the human body?
A. Femur.
The words to associate and connect are: largest bone, human body, femur.
Picture holding a bone as large as a human. It’s so large and heavy that you lose control and drop it on a female.
Try memorising the following quiz questions and answers:
1. In computing what is RAM short for?
2. Which organ secretes insulin?
3. Who was the first actor to refuse an Oscar?
4. What is the famous business list that Fortune produces each year called?
5. In which year did Adolf Hitler become chancellor of Germany?
6. Who composed Peer Gynt?
7. Who was the youngest ever American president?
8. How many episodes of Fawlty Towers were made?
9. What name is given to the hybrid fruit of tangerines and grapefruits?
10. What do the dots on a pair of dice total?
11. How high is a basketball hoop?
12. In photography what does SLR mean?
13. What is the motto of the SAS?
14. Which two countries signed up to the common market in 1973 alongside the UK?
15. How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison?
16. Which star is the nearest to Earth?
17. What is the nearest galaxy to the solar system?
18. Which nerve forms the link between the eye and the brain?
19. How many species of reptiles live in Antarctica?
20. In which year was the first FA Cup final held at Wembley?
21. What is agoraphobia the fear of?
22. How many kilograms make up a metric tonne?
23. On what date is American Independence day?
24. Who said, ‘I think, therefore I am’?
25. In which country was cricketer Ted Dexter born?
26. What was the name of the policeman in Enid Blyton’s Noddy books?
27. The clavicle is more commonly known as which bone?
28. What is the collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses?
29. Facing the bow of a boat, which side is port?
30. Who painted The Starry Night?
* * *
Answers: 1. Random Access Memory; 2. pancreas; 3. George C. Scott; 4. Fortune 500; 5. 1933; 6. Edvard Grieg; 7. Theodore Roosevelt, aged forty-two; 8. twelve; 9. tangelo; 10. forty-two; 11. ten feet (3.048 m); 12. Single Lens Reflex; 13. Who Dares Wins; 14. Ireland and Denmark; 15. Twenty-seven; 16. the Sun; 17. Andromeda; 18. optic nerve; 19. none; 20. 1923; 21. open spaces; 22. one thousand; 23. 4 July; 24. René Descartes; 25. Italy; 26. P. C. Plod; 27. collarbone; 28. a crash; 29. left; 30. Vincent van Gogh.
How to memorise quotes
Good quotes help us reflect on things and can pack a great deal of wisdom into a phrase or brief sentence. They are also one of the most popular forms of shared content on the Internet. As with quiz questions, memorising quotes uses association, but with the added difficulty of creating images for the person’s name.
The approach is to:
• break up key words into images
• link each image
• connect images to the person.
Example:
‘You have to dream before your dreams can come true.’ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Picture someone holding a gun next to your head telling you, ‘You have to dream’ or else. So you do that but before your dream can come true, you wake up. A man is standing next to you in A. P. J. singing Paula Abdul. You say: ‘Kill me now.’
Try memorising these quotes:
1. ‘Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.’ Saint Francis of Assisi
2. ‘The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched: they must be felt with the heart.’ Helen Keller
3. ‘It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.’ Confucius
4. ‘Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.’ Vince Lombardi
5. ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.’ Mahatma Gandhi
6. ‘I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.’ James Dean
7. ‘Quality is not an act, it is a habit.’ Aristotle
8. ‘To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.’ Lao Tzu
9. ‘Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.’ Desiderius Erasmus
10. ‘If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.’ Milton Berle
Scores and statistics
Sports fans love a good stat. When considering statistics identify what you want to remember—there are many things and combinations of things such as score, goal scorers, teams, date, time and venue.
Soccer
Sat 14.03.2015
Crystal Palace 3:1 Queens Park Rangers
Wilfried Zaha (CP) 21’
James McArthur (CP) 40’
Joel Ward (CP) 42’
Matt Phillips (QPR) 83’
From the above scores there are eleven different types of information to remember: day, date, month, year, team 1, team 2, team 1 score, team 2 score, goal scorer(s), goal scorer team, and goal in minute of match.
Images will need to be created for each:
Saturday (saturn)
14 (door)
03 (sumo)
2015 (nose, doll)
Crystal Palace (a large palace made of crystal)
Queens Park Rangers (the queen deploying park rangers)
3:1 (mat)
Wilfried Zaha (Prince William freed a zebra)
21 (net)
James McArthur (captain James cook having McDonald’s with your friend Arthur)
40 (rose)
Joel Ward (hole in the wall)
42 (Arnie)
Matt Phillips (welcome mat with built-in Phillips head screwdriver)
83 (foam)
Now for the fun in connecting the associative story:
The planet Saturn crashes down at your door. It falls on top of a sumo wrestler who ends up breaking his nose. As he turns around he is greeted by a lovely doll inside a large palace made of crystal. The Queen comes out of the palace with her park rangers on a long red mat. Leading the group is Prince William proudly riding his freed zebra. From his pocket he casts a net at Captain James Cook, who is eating Macca’s with his mate Arthur. Both are trapped. A rose starts to appear from a hole in the wall—it’s Arnie. He busts through the wall, jumps on the welcome mat, snatching up the Phillips head screwdriver, and rescues the two, landing safely on foam.
It may seem like a lot of work, but it only takes one story to be developed and visualised for all the details to be remembered and stored in our long-term memory. To make it easier, perhaps focus on memorising the teams, score and scorers.
See how you go creating stories for these statistics:
Sun 15.03.2015
Everton 3:0 Newcastle United
Manchester United 3:0 Tottenham
Chelsea 1:1 Southampton
Sat 14.03.2015
Burnley 1:0 Manchester City
Arsenal 3:0 We
st Ham
Leicester 0:0 Hull City
Sunderland 0:4 Aston Villa
West Brom 1:0 Stoke City
Australian Rules football
To memorise AFL scores you can include: team 1, team 2, team 1 score, team 2 score, round, venue.
The associative story would go something like this:
The tigers (Richmond) were eating blue m&m’s (carlton) when they realised it was beef (98), so they spat it out and started eating fish (86) instead. They dropped the rest of the uneaten fish in a cup of tea (round 1), and paraded it all around the McG.
If you’re extra keen you can add further statistics such as attendance, date, goal scorers, best on ground and so on.
Individual player statistics
Memorise the player’s name. Kicks, handballs, marks and tackles can be linked together using any number technique such as the Dominic system or Major system.
Using the Major system our story is:
Reece conca (picture him conquering Greece). As he conquers Greece he kicks a donut (12), then handballs a hockey (7) puck, eventually marking a hair (4) that came off a carlton supporter who had one tooth (1).
Use your memory skills to create stories for the following individual player statistics.
• Identify what information you want to remember.
• Break down the information into bits to be memorised and create the images for them.
• consider which technique works best for the task. Linking and association may work just as well as the Method of Loci.
• practise with large sets of data so you create elaborate stories and connections, and remember more.
