I'm kind of glad the memory palace didn't work out for you either! And that even by the Renaissance, Europeans were stopping it.
Singing is always the best. On my dumbest/sickest/most stressful days, I sometimes have to sing the ABC song.
But I can hear a song I haven't heard in decades that I nevertheless can hear now and still remember most of the words. At least the chorus. Heck, I can even remember the alto part for all of the first half of Handel's "Messiah" (and of course the Hallelujah Chorus) and I only listen that once a year.
I just don't love it. I think because my goal is more cumulative than short-term goal-oriented, is seems like it won't necessary serve a purpose. I'm just better off reading widely, which I'm already doing, recognizing that, eventually, I'll just acquire a bigger lexicon. I think the real important key is the tie to rhetoric and the rhetorical arts playing a role -- then it seems to make so much more sense, IMHO. I haven't tried setting anything to song yet myself, though I do like silly mnemonic devices for remembering certain words or phrases. To this day, I remember the imperative form of the Old English verb "to take" (niman, impv. nim) from the dumb phrase, "Nim, nim, nim, take it in." LOL! Much more inclined to keep that up rather than the palaces. I'm going to wrap that series up this month, but it looks like a qualified, "Don't recommend" from yours truly.
I'm kind of glad the memory palace didn't work out for you either! And that even by the Renaissance, Europeans were stopping it.
Singing is always the best. On my dumbest/sickest/most stressful days, I sometimes have to sing the ABC song.
But I can hear a song I haven't heard in decades that I nevertheless can hear now and still remember most of the words. At least the chorus. Heck, I can even remember the alto part for all of the first half of Handel's "Messiah" (and of course the Hallelujah Chorus) and I only listen that once a year.
I just don't love it. I think because my goal is more cumulative than short-term goal-oriented, is seems like it won't necessary serve a purpose. I'm just better off reading widely, which I'm already doing, recognizing that, eventually, I'll just acquire a bigger lexicon. I think the real important key is the tie to rhetoric and the rhetorical arts playing a role -- then it seems to make so much more sense, IMHO. I haven't tried setting anything to song yet myself, though I do like silly mnemonic devices for remembering certain words or phrases. To this day, I remember the imperative form of the Old English verb "to take" (niman, impv. nim) from the dumb phrase, "Nim, nim, nim, take it in." LOL! Much more inclined to keep that up rather than the palaces. I'm going to wrap that series up this month, but it looks like a qualified, "Don't recommend" from yours truly.
I can see it for public speaking, but since you're not going to go around declaiming to people in Latin or OE, it really doesn't apply to you.