Melody and long term memory

Music plays a big part in how our brains create and retrieve long term memories - and it’s all thanks to melody!

Melody is the tune in music. It moves, it goes places, it tells a story. Our limbic system LOVES any sensory input that tells a story, and so it becomes active when we hear melody, make/sing/create melodies or even when we think in melody.

The limbic system is the part of our brain involved with emotions, feelings, drives, urges, threat responses, passions AND long term memory.

I like to think of melody, emotion and long term memory as sisters, because they rarely exist one without the others, and they all ‘live’ in the limbic system. Melody triggers memory and emotion, emotion activates memory and melody, and memory is retrieved by emotional and Melodic input. They are kind of inseparable!

So, to optimise our capacity for learning (or to form long term memories), having an emotional reaction to the content we’re learning, or learning it to a melody, makes it most likely to stick.

If melody is involved in anything we are trying to remember or learn, it is far more likely to be remembered or learnt than it would be if melody wasn’t involved.

This is why we remember TV jingles from our childhood, even though they aren’t memory worthy. It’s why we remember song lyrics from songs we don’t like, and it’s why when we hear a tune we recognise, the words will come immediately back to us.

Let’s face it, there is no way in the world all the 3 year old would remember 26 random pieces of information in the correct order if it wasn’t for The Alphabet Song (I don’t even remember my husband’s mobile number).

The name given to any music that is created specifically to teach us something is called ‘musical mnemonic’. Musical mnemonics include the alphabet song, the periodic table song, times table songs, etc. You can find heaps of them that already exist online, and you can make up your own - the more simple the melody, the more effective in memory making.

All throughout human history, knowledge has been handed down through generations using singing and story telling. When we tell stories, our voice increases in prosody, which means it gains more intonation, and can be experienced by the brain as melody.

Therefore, storytelling - when you use an expressive voice - is also interpreted by the brain musically.

This makes singing and storytelling the ultimate way to teach. As well as being traditional, it is superior from a learning perspective to our current ways of educating, AND it helps retrieve the memory - not just create it and store it.

Melody makes everything about long term memory better, easier and more achievable!