Tool #11: Use a Melody

Have you ever noticed that song lyrics are easier to remember than the lines of a poem? Music is memorable. That's why the melody for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star was used to help children memorize the alphabet.

Also, you might remember from your childhood some cartoons using catchy music specifically created for educational purposes. Like this Planet Song, designed for little kids to learn about the planets.  

Although you are definitely not a kid anymore, you still can use that strategy to keep on learning and memorizing! 

Similar to what happened with Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, this is a short piece from Animaniacs in which they use Jarabe tapatío -the national dance of Mexico, often referred to as the Mexican hat dance- as a way to memorize all countries in the world. (If you like it and want to learn them all after this song, please keep in mind the cartoon is from some years ago and some of the countries do not longer exist. Also, it includes territories and nations that are not considered states by the UN) 

Combining any information you need to memorize with a pre-existing song can be a challenging task. How do you pick the perfect song for that amount of information? Well, remember that the other option is creating your own melodies for that. Do you need an example? Take a look then on this clip from Hannah Montana, where she makes different songs to memorize the bones of the body. 

You can do the same thing. Take a familiar tune and change the lyrics into material that you need to know for your upcoming test. If that's too complicated, it's your time to become a composer. Just try not to hum too loudly during the test, please!!

BONUS TRACK: we were unable to decide whether to include the World Countries Song or this other one to memorize the periodic table using the popular Can Can, by French composer Jacques Offenbach. That's why we add it here, in case you want to use it some time.