Memory and desire

I've been trying to think how I remember all the pointless, facts, rhymes, poetry and quotation that my brain is full of. Much of it is quite short and just seeped into my brain through repeated reading. Some of it I know I memorised on purpose – large chunks of Shakespeare, for example, so that I could quote from it in exams. This second category I'm more likely to have difficulty remembering now. The rhymes (A Russian stood on Nevski bridge, chewing his beard for lack of food. It’s tough, this stuff, he said, to eat, but a darn sight better than  Shredded Wheat) I've known all my life and when I stopped reading the books they were in I used to recite them – I will still recite them from time to time. So simple repetition over time worked there, although the remembering was accidental: it was never particularly my intention to learn these things.  

The Shakespeare I read with the intention of memorising, and would have read it over and over, testing myself by trying to write it out, but this was done in short bursts before exams, and, not being much used since, has fallen away. I suppose this isn't surprising: we all know that we have short-term and long-term memory, and intensive exam cramming clearly goes in the short-term memory box. Things like the periodic table, never used since school days, vanished, but the Shakespeare occasionally seems apposite, and I will dredge it up, so it has clearly moved into long term memory. I chucked chemistry at A level, but spent three  more years on literature, so I spent more time reading Shakespeare than the periodic table.

With the King, I'm using the dots to play over and over – which is akin to the purposeful memorising of exam cramming. I am listening to the CD often, but I can’t listen to the one track over and over, and I don’t want to hear the CD every  single day, much as I like it. I am hoping this is more akin to reading those rhymes from time to time. The process of memorising might take longer, but when it finally sinks in it will be to long-term memory.

What I don’t know is whether stuff moves from short-term to long-term – so whether learning both ways reinforces memory – or whether actually if something is going in to long-term memory all efforts to stick it in to short-term are redundant. Does the short-term memory augment long-term, or block it, or do they not interact at all?

Either way, I am starting to remember the King. I've had the first stage, when I think I have heard the tune as I slept, but couldn't recall it in the day. I've been trying to hum it on purpose this week, but can only recall the opening and closing bars. This morning, walking from the car park to my desk, I realised that I was humming the whole thing. As soon as I stopped to listen to myself humming the tune got all shy and vanished. But clearly it is in some compartment of my memory, and now I just need to be patient and wait for it to move to the section of memory that is linked to my fingers so that I can play it.

Tune is Teribus, again. Dotless, complete with fluffs while I struggle to remember where the tune goes next. Shutting my eyes helps me avoid some distractions. Others (connector tube popping out, drones sounding irritating, although the fan says they are fine, tense shoulder) not so easily avoided.

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