I am a strong believer in the advantages of using memory aids to promote an easier learning experience. In this post, I will be looking at the benefits and considerations of using mnemonics in studying music.
1. What Are Mnemonics?
Mnemonics are memory aids or ways of assisting the brain to memorise things more easily. There are many examples of the use of such memory aids in everyday life. At school, children are often taught to remember the colours of the rainbow through the fictitious name ‘Roy G. Biv’, each letter representing a colour of the rainbow in the correct sequence; i.e.; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.
A mnemonic does not have to be an acronym; it could be a rhyme or phrase, such as ‘Richard Of York Got Bottled In Vinegar’, which is another way of remembering the colours of the rainbow. People often remember which months only have thirty days in them by using ‘Thirty days has September, April June and November’. You will never forget that Helsinki is the capital of Finland, if you think of a fish with a huge Fin going through Hell because it is Sinking ever deeper into the sea.
2. Examples of Mnemonics in Music
One of the most popular memory aids in music is the one for remembering which notes sit in the gaps between the five lines of the musical stave in the treble clef, which is ‘FACE’, as per the illustration shown below.
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| FACE Mnemonics |
Just imagine your own face lighting up when you can play your favourite song really well. This also works for the bass clef if we move ‘FACE’ down by one gap, and add ‘GB’, as in ‘FACE GB’, as in the second illustration. Picture yourself facing Great Britain as you play the piano on television!
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| FACEGB Mnemonics |
A lot of my students are happy to just work out the notes on the lines using the alphabet, without any further memory aids. For example, the line immediately above the note of F will be a G, as per the alphabet. However, the saying ‘Every Good Boy Deserves Football’ is one possible mnemonic to remember the lines on the stave for the treble clef, or, for the bass clef, ‘Good Boys Deserve Football Always’.
You can remember the names of the white notes on the piano or keyboard by how they sit relative to the black notes. The black notes are in groups of two and three, all the way up the keyboard. The white note in between the two black notes is always a D, so you could think of D as being ‘in D middle’ of the two black notes. F is always ‘beFore’ the three black notes, and B is always ‘aBove’ the three black notes. You can then work out the rest of the white notes from the alphabet.
In order to remember the notes corresponding to the strings on the guitar, from the thick string at the physical top of the guitar down to the thinnest string, I came up with ‘Eat All Day Get Big Easily’, or, for the bass guitar, ‘Eating All Day’s Great’.
3. Creating Your Own Mnemonics
The main reason for this particular blog post is not just to share with you some helpful memory aids for learning music. The primary purpose of it is to show you how useful mnemonics can be and to encourage you to come up with your own ideas.
The most successful memory aids are those that can be easily remembered, both in terms of the mnemonic itself and in terms of what it relates to, or what it is trying to achieve. Strong mental imagery is the key to such success. Choose mnemonics that are relevant to your own life and experiences. For example, when it comes to memorising the lines on the treble clef stave, ‘Every Good Boy Deserved Football’ is most ideal if you are a boy who likes football, or if your son is into football.
If not, but you go to work each morning on the bus, you might prefer to use ‘Every Green Bus Drives Fast’. If that’s you, you could remember the saying by picturing yourself practicing on a small keyboard while sitting on a fast-moving bus. In summary, be creative and come up with memory aids that you can easily remember, because they are relevant to you personally and produce a strong picture in your mind.
