When I was four years old, my mom enrolled me in Suzuki Violin lessons. The Suzuki method is a philosophy of learning to play an instrument where children learn to play by ear before learning to read music (Suzuki Association of the Americas, 2021). What that meant for me was that for the first five years of violin lessons, I memorized the songs I learned to play and never used sheet music.
Since I wasn’t taught to read music, I learned to call each note on the violin by the finger used to play it, instead of its note name. To help me memorize how to play the songs I was learning, my teacher encouraged me to sing the string of finger numbers of the song I was memorizing to the tune of that song. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was the first song I learned to play. I remember singing, “A A E E 1 1 E, 3 3 2 2 1 1 A” (the string of finger numbers for the first line in Twinkle) to the tune of Twinkle all the time. At the time I didn’t realize it, but I was using elaborative rehearsal to memorize my songs. Elaborative rehearsal is “Rehearsal that involves thinking about the meaning of an item to be remembered or making connections between that item and prior knowledge” (Goldstein, 2015, p. 408). When I was memorizing how to play Twinkle, I was connecting the string of finger numbers I was trying to memorize with the tune of the song when I would sing them out loud. I was processing this string at a deeper level by associating each finger number with a note in a song I was familiar with. This form of elaborative rehearsal allowed me to successfully memorize the song.
I excelled at memorizing songs in this manner. However, when I got older my teacher started previewing new songs with me. She’d write out only the string of finger numbers for the new song (without telling me the tune of the song), and give it to me before I would learn this song. She’d ask me to memorize this string of numbers, thinking that in a couple weeks when it was time to learn the new song, it would be easier because I would already have the string of finger numbers memorized.
Unfortunately, I struggled immensely to memorize these strings of finger numbers. Unlike before, when the string of finger numbers was associated with the tune of the song I was learning, I didn’t know the tune of the song for this new string of numbers. I had no way of connecting this string of numbers to anything meaningful. Since my teacher didn’t tell me the tune of the song, I used maintenance rehearsal to memorize it. Maintenance rehearsal is “Rehearsal that involves repetition without any consideration of meaning or making connections to other information” (Goldstein, 2015, p. 413). As mentioned in the textbook, maintenance rehearsal results in poorer memory since it is associated with a shallow level of processing (Goldstein, 2015, p. 180). Thus, it makes sense that I struggled to memorize these strings of numbers as they had no connection to anything meaningful for me. Unlike when I would memorize the string of numbers by connecting it to the tune of a song, I couldn’t do that with these strings and had to memorize them without connecting them to anything meaningful. This resulted in a shallower level of processing for the string of numbers, and consequently explains why I struggled to memorize it.
In conclusion, this example explains why using elaborative rehearsal instead of maintenance rehearsal results in better memory. Next time you have to memorize something, connect it with something meaningful. This will allow you to process the information at a deeper level, and remember it better.
Goldstein, E.B. (2015). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience, 4th Edition. Cengage Learning.
Suzuki Association of the Americas. (2021). About the Suzuki method. Suzuki Association of the Americas. Retrieved October 16, 2021, from https://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki-method/.
As someone who can read music, I believe the finger placement and song technique was a creative way to encode information. It makes sense that you had trouble remembering the finger numbers for a song without a tune because using the tune of a song along with finger placement on the violin helped you encode information in your brain. Encoding is the process by which we move information from short-term to long-term memory, where it stays ready for retrieval. Using elaborative vs. maintenance rehearsal was a more effective way to encode the desired information (Goldstein, 2015). With only one piece of the previous elaborative rehearsal technique, how you learned how to play the violin changed from a meaningful process to a sterile, less effective way to learn and remember.
The way you used tune and finger placement to encode information also served you well as a retrieval cue, which is a stimulus that brings information from long-term memory to working memory where it can be used (Goldstein, 2015). In this case, you used the tune of the song to remember the finger placements. The finger placements were automatic when the tune played, not only because you encoded them using elaborative rehearsal but because the song was a stimulus for memory. Timo Mantyla studied the impact of retrieval cues and found that self-generated cues are more effective than otherwise (Goldstein, 2015). The retrieval cue you used to remember how to play a song on the violin was self-created and personal, two strong indications for better memory.
Goldstein, E.B. (2015). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience, 4th Edition. Cengage Learning.