How Quizlet Taught Me to Memorize Music
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Memorizing information can often be a tedious and annoying task. For me, the epitome of this was trying to memorize translations for my freshman year Spanish course. When I tell you that I was awful at Spanish, I am not exaggerating. However, thanks to every college kid's saving grace Quizlet, I was able to quickly turn around my poor performance.
When you are learning terms on Quizlet, they have a really interesting process. Let’s say you have twenty terms to learn. They will break up these terms into smaller rounds of four or five, otherwise known as chunking. You guess these four or five terms in a randomized order, then Quizlet takes you to the next round, which is a new set of terms.
So, why was Quizlet so effective?
After using this system for multiple sessions, I felt super confident, and could often score pretty well on tests and quizzes. I remember reflecting on this, asking why this randomization process worked so well. This was so much more effective in comparison to how I studied and practiced in high school and my first couple of years in college. I would find one term or chunk of music and reread it/practice it over and over and then move to the next term or chunk of music.
My eureka moment came after reading Practising the Piano by English Pianist Graham Fitch. In this book, I found two terms for these different kinds of practice: Blocked and Interleaved. Blocked practice is practicing a single term/chunk multiple times in a row then moving onto the next term, and so on. Interleaving practice would follow what Quizlet is doing, randomizing the order.
Short-Term Memory vs. Long-Term Memory
So what exactly is going on here? In its simplest terms, it deals with short-term vs. long-term memory. Short-term memory is information that can be stored for 20 to 30 seconds on average. It is also limited in storage and old information will be kicked out by fresher information. However, there are methods to transform short-term memory into long-term memory, which is a much more reliable storage system.
Long-term memory has an almost endless capacity and is very durable, meaning that old information won’t be replaced, because you are trying to learn new things! In other words, turning important information, like a memorized piece of music or terms on a Spanish test, into long-term memory, means better performance and retention!
Quick-Start Guide
If this sounds good to you, then I highly suggest you start implementing interleaving into your practice routines! Here is a quick-start guide for you to try.
Find a chunk of music in a piece you want to learn
I would start with 4-8 bars, but you could go really as large or small as you need.
Next label these smaller chunks with letters A, B, C, and D in order
You could also overlap these smaller chunks and have more or less than four chunks!
Now practice the following orders with a break between each one (this is only a small example, you could do any random order as long as you can track what you are doing)
Forwards: ABCD
Backwards: DCBA
Evens, then odds: ACBD
Odds, then Evens: BDCA
Now move onto the next chunk and repeat!
Below are some examples of how you could mark up your score for this technique. Some examples are smaller and some are larger.
Piece: The Chase by Robert Clayson for Solo Marimba
Piece: To Thee We Sing by Chris Amick
The Power of Retrieval
Congrats, you did it! You just successfully interleaved. But why exactly is this method more effective than blocked practice? The reason is the number of times you have to retrieve the information, otherwise known as retrieval practice. This method states that the more difficult the retrieval, the better it is for long-term memory. In the case of blocked practice, the most difficult retrieval is the very first repetition, but it becomes gradually easier throughout the rest of the round. However, in interleaving practice, the retrieval process is much more difficult. This is because you are interrupting the retrieval process, by switching to a new term or chunk every repetition.
By consistently increasing the difficulty of every repetition through randomization you are multiplying the chance this information becomes long-term memory, thus increasing your performance and retention.
Try It Out!
If this has piqued your interest I highly recommend you start incorporating interleaving into your practice. Trust me, you will be surprised by the results!
If you are looking for more ways to supercharge your practice session check out my post with the five tips I used to increase my effectiveness and retention.
