New Memory Event Idea For Memory Competitions: The Piano Event

XMT And Memo Games Competitions

Some of the events at these memory competitions are cards, numbers, words, names/faces, binary, and biographies just to name a few. The XMT (Extreme Memory Tournament) took a new twist on the standard memory competition format and made all the events 1 minute long. But the XMT still used the same memorization material (cards, numbers, etc...) with maybe the exception of images which could be considered like a  variation of abstract images.

The Memo Games created new events that were different from the normal memory events. Examples are: memo chess, memo password, and memo cube. With memo chess, you had to memorize the positions of the chess pieces on the board then place the pieces on the correct spot for recall. In memo cube, you had to memorize the layout of the rubix cube then recreate the cube exactly for recall. Memo password is memorizing a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. These events were fun to do and were a nice chance of pace from the usual events. 

The other events in the Memo Games were different in the memorization setup but sill composed of the same old memorization material with slight variations here and there.  But even with these new type of events, you could use your old systems to memorize the new material.  People didn’t have to come up with a completely new way to memorize the material and had an easy time adjusting to the events.

New Memory Event Idea

I wanted to come up with an event that was completely original and really test our memories. I have been messing around with this idea for months now, and I wanted to share it with you. My new memory event deals with memorizing the notes of pianos. Watch the video below to learn more about it!

I have some ideas on how to memorize the notes by using my number system. I would give each key a number then use my image for that number, but the problem is connecting the sounds of the notes with my images. I might here a sound and might think it is 75 but it is really 73 so this probably won't really work. I then thought of creating images for the actual note sounds. Maybe I hear the highest note and I use Mount Everest for my image. But I do have the same issue with my first idea of being able to differentiate between the notes. The notes can sound different depending on the other notes being played first..

Maybe I should only use some of the notes at first so I can get a better feel for the memorization. Less notes means less confusion! Next, I have to figure out how to set up the memorization and the recall. The memorization might be different if there are less notes compared to having the whole keyboard. I want it to be challenging but not impossible.

This memory event is different  because you are memorizing sounds that have a wide range and some sounds similar to each other. This would be similar to memorizing random colors because some colors could just be a shade off from one another. Maybe you get the first grey you see above then you get blue. After black, you get the next grey and since this grey came after a dark color, you might think it was the same as the first grey. But I think if only x amount of notes are used then it would make it easier to memorize the sounds since there would be less variation.

I have to do more testing and figure some things out, but I think this event would be a real challenge. If you have any ideas on this memory event idea let me know. If we could keep coming up with new memory events, memory competitions can have more diversity and excitement to them!