Nobody asked me, but … (#12)
Opening bars. Let’s start with that phrase, shall we? Not as it refers to unlocking the doors to local taverns, or to prying open the metallic walls of a prison, but rather to the musical meaning, as in the first several measures of a song. On the radio the other day, I heard a familiar combination of chords and bongo drum, and immediately recognized it as the opening bars of the Yardbirds’ classic, For Your Love. And it got me to thinking about how we are able to instantly recall from memory a song that we might not have heard for many years, and even sing along with it, based just on a few notes.
How is it possible that song lyrics, which might have been lying dormant in the far reaches of our brains for decades, can be recalled so easily, and often so accurately? There’s no Google search attached to our brains, is there? (Did some kind of overnight upgrade happen that we weren’t aware of?) Why do so many of us have trouble remembering names, dates, and other facts, but the initial guitar riffs from way-back-when provide instant recall of melodies, lyrics, band names, and perhaps even experiences and aromas! What makes music so magical in this way? Or is it just that we heard these songs SO MANY TIMES that our brains became permanently etched, not unlike our old monitors?
That in turn made me wonder exactly what quantity SO MANY TIMES really is. And could we perhaps use that to help us learn other things? I suppose repetition is the key to memorization, but if you knew that repeating something precisely 42 times would etch it into your permanent memory (as opposed to your cranial flash drive), isn’t that something we could make use of? You could start by reading this blog 42 times and see what happens. Or not.
Anyway, here are a few more “opening bars” that should be easily recognized. Enjoy
May 20th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Missed number 4, but then I was never into disco…