mnemonic - "assisting or intended to assist memory."

For example -
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (treble clef lines)
FACE - (treble clef spaces)
Great Big Ducks Fly Away (bass clef lines)
All Cows Eat Grass (bass clef spaces)

My new favorite is
Fat Cats Go Down Alleys Eating Bugs (order of sharps in key signature)

There must be others. ??

Dale

The only other one that I know is Every Good Boy Does Fine or Deserves Favor.

BTW, these mnemonics, while ok for when we learned to play a recorder in 7th grade music class, are not a good idea for learning to play the piano. The conversion from staff line to mnemonic and then from mnemonic to note adds an extra step in the process and slows down sight reading tremendously.

boy I wouldnt want to try saying that five times fast, in front of my grandma. Right up there with saying "One smart fellow, he felt smart"

I agree that these mnemonics are garbage. Not only do they add the extra step, but who wants that annoying little phrase forever linked to their reading of notes.

When I was little, I taught myself to read music, so I never really went thru any method for it. Then in school when these mnemonics were presented, I found them distateful even at that early age.

I've heard the argument against mnemonics, but I disagree that they significantly impact learning to read music. In fact, in my opinion, any impact is immaterial. In the beginning, the only real reference points are the location of the circle part of the treble clef (G) and the two dots in the bass clef (F). If, when learning to read music, you need to use these reference points to figure out a note, that's using an extra step, too. Or just trying to remember note names assigned to various lines and spaces can be cumbersome. If you use an easily-remembered phrase, that's just another way to do it. The mnemonic phrases are quickly discarded, and notes are recognized purely by sight. I took guitar lessons last year and learned the strings by a mnemonic--Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie (E A D G B E). It really did not take long to no longer rely on the mnemonic. People learn differently, and if someone wants to use a mnemonic, I really don't believe it will have a long-term impact on learning to read and play music. While I don't think it's mandatory to use mnemonics, I also don't think they should be ruled out for everyone.

"Lets keep poor Charlie's overalls from getting soiled".

Living (things), Kindom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

courtesy my high school biology teacher :-)

I have 'Every good boy deserves fudge always'
for the bass clef lines.

There one about charles' father or something too? In a war or something? For order of Bb's and #'s?

See how well they work?

LOL, yes absolutely they work. But I cant agree that they are "easily discarded". I need the mnemonic everytime to remember the classification tree I listed. Since I didnt learn to read music with one, I cant say from personal experience how well its discarded, but just from my exposure to it after the fact, it gets stuck in my head like the hook of an annoying song.

During the brief period I taught piano, I would see my students counting up the clef "every good boy does fine" and it would nauseate me. I would much rather they learn intervalically like I did. But I do have many oppositions to how many methods approach piano pedagogy, and teaching is also something I dont care to involve myself in, so I'll self-disqualify on this issue.

Siddharta: "During the brief period I taught piano, I would see my students counting up the clef "every good boy does fine" and it would nauseate me."

I'd have to agree that you probably want to avoid any learning aid that makes you want to vomit.