How many songs do you know?

  • Thread starter Ivan Seeking
  • Start date
In summary: It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg question, but I think that's why it works better for some things and not others.It is odd, but it works. I also used to memorize stuff with the most convoluted stories. It seems it would just be easier to remember a word and a definition, but no, that didn't work for me, I would go through this whole story to memorize it.Which is odd when you think about it. Why does the added complexity make it easier to remember? I guess the idea is that the melody is easier to learn, and then the words are learned through the process of association with the music?Look at
  • #36
fi,
Thanks, those are interesting examples. The way I mean noise is a little different; I mean it to be understood in the context of a communicaiton system. A simple model starts with a sender who has a message to send (e.g., a person wants to tell you something).

[sender's message]

[encoding]

[transmitted signal]

[channel] ← (noise)

[received signal]

[decoding]

[receiver's message]

Noise is everything in the channel (e.g., other signals, friction) that can make the transmitted signal differ from the received signal. So what counts as noise depends on what is being counted as the message (and as the channel, when there are options).

turbo-1,
Yeah, languages use relative changes in pitch for lots of things, so competent speakers are able to recognize and produce them (subconsciously, at least). I don't know how fine we're talking though. And I'm not really trying to guess at how our brains store songs. I was just trying to think of a faster, easier way to recall the songs that I have stored. :smile:
 
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  • #37
Thousands, surely? Most songs from the past 20 years which have had a good deal of radio play I'd probably be able to sing most of the words to. And loads that haven't. I think if they get stuck in your head for a bit, they're there forever.

I found myself singing "there's a worm at the bottom of the garden" a few years back, and my mum was confused as to how I knew it, - she hadn't sung it to me since I was 2.
 
  • #38
I lied. I can't play Hot Cross Buns :(
 
  • #39
I don't know how many songs I could just sit down and write down the lyrics for, but I do know that this is one:

If you're agile and haven't got the rheumatism
Not too fragile and nimble on your toes
Do the polka and wake up your metabolism
Do the Polka, and here's the way it goes

One two and off we go
To and fro, not too slow
Turn your partner round and all about
Round and round we go
All over town we go
Once you're in the dance you can't drop out.

Frills a flouncing and every little bustle bouncing
Folks with straight hair will come out with it curled
In the fastest polka, fastest polka
Fastest polka in the World!


This is a song I sang my sophmore year in high school for a musical production of A Christmas Carol (I played Mr Fezziwig. )

This was 32 years ago!
 
  • #40
Ivan Seeking said:
Every now and then it strikes me that we all seem to remember dozens if not hundreds of songs, or more; an amazing number of them really. So, how many songs do you think that you know by heart?
As a musician, I recall 100's probably 1000's (melodies, harmonies, rhythms) by heart. (lyrics are different story).. Now here is a kicker, when you think of those songs, how many of them, do you recall in the same key you learned or originally heard them?
 
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  • #41
Evo said:
I remember singing the "inchworm" song to my kids.

Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
You and your arithmetic
You'll probably go far

Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
Seems to me you'd stop and see
How beautiful they are

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

I liked this song too.. Seems we sang this as a round. :smile:
 
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  • #42
Moonbear said:
Not many. But, there was a song that came on... radio stations yesterday that was an old country song that I hadn't heard since I was a kid, and I remembered every word.
I'll byte .. what song did you hear?
 
  • #43
Everyday in math, my friend starts singing a song whenever he hears a word that reminds him of a certain song...

I think I know more than 3000.

Now, how many songs can you recognize? That would probably be in the 12k range?
 
  • #44
Gokul43201 said:
I heard in the news, a couple of days ago, about a school (in New York or New Jersey, I think) that took poorly performing students from nearby inner-city schools and produced amazing results out of them. The big difference in their teaching technique was that it involved memorization through singing - from multiplication tables to the periodic table...they had songs for everything.
They must have learned this song then: The Elements by the legendary Tom Lehrer.

Another unforgettable song is about Thermodynamics: http://www.uky.edu/~holler/CHE107/media/first_second_law.mp3 by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann
 
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