Month: January 2005

I remember when I was young teaching myself how to play piano, I would start practicing with my left hand for hours and then my right and then tried to play both hands at the same time. The moment I got it, the feeling was as though I was up in heaven. I would just keep playing the same piece again and again for hours. Still remember my mother doing housework or cooking while I played my piano. That was high, very high.

I remember when I was recruited into the Hong Kong Youth Orchestra playing clarinet. My friend and I were the only ones from the same school and playing the second clarinet (the first was for the best and there were two girls playing the third). Most of the time, both of us were at a lost and one thing good (or no good) about clarinet is that it is not as loud as instruments such as trumpet. Mistakes are not so obvious. I still remember we were playing the Wedding Song and with bars and bars of repetition, we were so utterly lost. But once in a blue moon, we would be able to play some musical pieces along with the orchestra. I remember the excitement, the high.

Today, as I was practicing my set of eight songs that I memorised yesterday, some part of the songs were effortless. I was actually enjoying playing it. Looking out of the window when I was practicing my music, trains passed by, children playing in the playground, swimmers enjoying themselves in the pool, people walking into the condo, people walking out of the condo, the greenery and the beautiful reservoir. I was in such a high. Only God knows.

Attended one internal training by one of my subordinates on the topic of Training (honestly I forgot the exact title). The content was so intense that I can hardly remember all the good stuffs she has presented. What I do remember though is how people memorise stuffs. Now, try not to quote me exactly because after all, she has got a degree on this whatever you call and I don’t. In any case, the training does help me in memorising my songs.

Note: Photo taken at home, Singapore on Dec 8, 2004.

According to her, whatever we have encountered stores in our short term memory. Bear in mine that short term memory has a small capacity (how small I don’t know). That is probably why we don’t remember every single thing that comes across our mind everyday.

The information that is stored in our short term memory can be processed and registered in our long term memory. She mentioned that however, if the context does exist in your long time memory, this process is a whole lot easier.

I guess to put it to my own experience, if I am to read the script of my presentation enough times – that is to say keeping it into my short term memory long enough – chances are the script will be registered into my long term memory if I am persistence enough. Imagine, if the topic of my presentation is on technology or risk management, I can probably do it quite fast. But definitely not on the topic of, say, change management (tried that before). That is what I meant by context in our long term memory.

Throughout the presentation, there was one diagram that I remember most vividly of – when we train someone, we have to assess the intrinsic (the intrinsic complexity of the topic that cannot be simplified) and extraneous (the complexity can be reduced by various ways like remember a phone number by segments) nature of the training topic. Summing up this intrinsic and extraneous values and compares it against the mental resource allows us to see if we train our audience the right way.

Basically, if

(Intrinsic + Extraneous) > Mental Resource

… most likely the audience won’t be able to absorb what you are trying to train. As the intrinsic value cannot be changed because it is the intrinsic complexity of the topic, we shall aim at reducing the extraneous value by various techniques.

Now, how does that relate to my today’s life?

I woke up this morning and said to myself that I have got to memorise my 8 new songs. I have been practicing for days (14 sessions to be exact because I record every session) and my friend TK has already proposed a milestone for me to perform in public by March. I have got to take this to the next level.

I have to confess that I seldom bother to memorise songs. I write songs a lot faster than I memorise songs so why bother? I always feel that memorising songs slows down the entire songwriting process. On the other hands, in order to copy write my songs, I do need to have some form of public performance or broadcast. So I bite the bullet and determine to do the impossible – memorising my songs.

Surprising, I did it at ease. Just a couple of hours in the afternoon, I have memorised all the chords and lyrics of my 8 new songs. I practiced again in the evening and it seems to me that I still remember most parts of the songs.

Amazing!

The 14 sessions must have gone into my long term memory somehow. Don’t forget it’s not just the 14 sessions. I have listened to the recording of each 14 sessions more than once. What amazed me the most was that remembering the lyrics was a bliss. I have got to admit that applying the techniques of reducing the extraneous nature of the songs must have helped.

Wow … I am a happy man!