[Applause]
hello everyone my name is Ming yang and
I'm a final year mechanical engineering
student who happens to be a huge music
enthusiast I can't see any of you so
forgive me for no I contact well today
I'm very excited to share with you
something I'm very passionate about
music well not just music but today I'm
gonna talk about memory by music a
change you can make well today under the
theme of change I want you to change
your perspective towards music and see
how in return music can change the way
you think
today let's not look at music as a form
of entertainment or a subject of study
instead let's look at music as a tool
nice so this tool I'm about to share
with you today is very accessible right
and you don't even have to learn music
to be able to use this tool alright and
in terms of this tool what you can do
with it is that you can use it to your
own advantage
in terms of memory now to do that you
might be asking what does music have to
do with memory now first let's establish
what are the elements that constitute
music right in most literature's you
will see that these are the elements
that define music alright but for our
purpose today we'll be talking about
rhythm and pitch and later on we'll be
talk about a little bit about harmony
and yeah so through examples you will
see how the media today has evolved into
an entity that taps the power of the
power of human psychology to get
messages across and through examples you
will also see how we can use music
to our own advantage in our daily lives
in the context of memory now without
further ado let's move on to rhythm and
pitch now here are the basic definitions
of the terms so rhythm tells you how
different sounds are spaced across time
whereas pitch tells you how you perceive
the height of the note all right now let
me demonstrate what I mean
so right here I have two clips that will
be played at the same exact speed or
tempo as you call it now the only
difference is the way the notes are
spaced so let's hear it
[Music]
so as we can see in the second clip the
notes are more tightly spaced than the
ones in the first clip so we can say
that the second clip has a faster rhythm
than the first
and what about pitch well you can see in
general for both Clips the notes are
getting higher and higher in pitch
towards the end and now he might be
sitting at your seats asking yourselves
what does this have to do with memory
well that's a story behind this so quite
a while ago I was working for an
engineering company as an industrial
trainee and along with other employees I
wasn't allowed access to mobile phones
right and as a millennial not having a
phone was a huge inconvenience for me
and I believe for you guys as well right
because I was so used to using you know
my mobile phone to record information
and when I don't have that it really
meant a lot of inconvenience to me so
one day when I was working something
went wrong in one of the assembly lines
and upon performing some investigations
we found out that a whole batch of
rubber gaskets were defective right so
part of my job was to record the part
number of the rubber gaskets for further
actions to be taken and then I realized
oh crap I did not have anything to
record the part number if so what would
you do in my shoes I mean were you in my
shoes what would you do well everyone
let's take five seconds and look at a
number I'm about to show you and
remember it for five seconds and see how
well you can remember okay
right
how many of you says is a please raise
your hands a anyone says it's eight Wow
be nice or don't see nobody that's
amazing D right so what did I do
well my musical sense kicked right in so
I thought to myself you know after
looking to the numbers I was thinking
why not add some spaces in between as
you can see a pattern emerges a rhythm
emerges and what's more interesting
about this rhythm is that it agrees with
what's happening in our numbers so for
example 2 to 8 short short long 7 7 8
short short long and so on and so forth
so you see by strategically assigning
rhythm to a piece of information like
that remembering this information
becomes much easier than just plenty
repeating it over and over and over
again in your heads now just for the fun
of it let's do one more right again
5 seconds to look at a number and I see
how well you do ready right
a-anyone a hmm what about B C all right
D that's interesting right we have all
and we have different responses for each
answer well the answer is this now
instead of using rhythm let's use pitch
now how do we do that well let's assign
a comfortably low pitch for the number 1
for example 1 right and the greater the
number the higher in pitch it gets so we
have 1 2 3 4 5 and so on it doesn't have
to be exact right so then you see that 0
at the back you know what let's ignore
it who needs it anyways so
what we can do now is we can do this
we've assigned the pitch and try to do
something further let's add some rhythm
like that and what does this sound like
[Music]
it is amusing yet amazing what we've
done is we've encoded this string of
information using musical rhythms and
pitch such that the newly-formed
information makes much more sense than
just the raw data itself right
so you can assign any reason any pitch
any favorite you like for this purpose
alright and it is particularly useful if
you can only vaguely remember your let's
say your phone number or card number so
for example if you can't remember which
numbers go into the blanks you know if
you can remember the team you can
definitely eliminate Otto Wow
that's nice
I need that slide yeah so if you can
remember the tune you can definitely
know which ones which are the wrong ones
and you eliminate them and you finally
arrive at the right numbers so for
example okay now let's move on to a
slightly trickier topic of harmony now
to make things simple to keep things
simple let's think of harmony as a
layered cake right la pista cake so to
form the most basic harmony what you
need is a bass note to lower layer the
bass and then a third and a fifth so you
have three notes stacked together right
so how many is essentially a combination
of sounds played simultaneously to give
meaning and direction in the music so
using the cake analogy you know there's
practically millions of varieties of
cakes in the whole world
and each of them has its own unique
flavor that decides how you feel when
you're eating them and after eating them
right make sense now over day we have
the most basic harmony we can go further
by adding more layers
you can even change the flavors so for
each configuration there is this unique
character that's associated to it
and even for the same configuration you
and I you and I we have very different
feelings towards it so using the cake
analogy these are my favorite cakes from
the secret recipe the one on the right
it feels like it feels thin if your area
feels comforting and in one it makes me
want to go ah you know and the one on
the left it is thick it is moist it is
rich it is it is associating so to speak
it doesn't make me go ah it may speak oh
right and the same thing happens with
harmony so so when sometimes play away
someone plays something like this you
may say it sounds sad but to me it will
sound hopeful it sounded beautiful right
so to summarize each harmony is unique
and you decide how harmony feels like
and sounds like to you
right now moving on using these points
let me show you an example that is very
relatable to Malaysians here
can anybody still remember the famous
Pizza Hut Special Delivery commercial
how many of you remember that many right
so can you tell me the phone number to
the delivery service anyone yes great
that's the cool one so well back then
when Pizza Hut launched its delivery
service they created a jingle that has
been stuck in many of our heads for many
many many years and yes how it sounds
like
388 designed to slide
it's a hot special dinner Wow
the memories right now the question is
what makes it so thin am I correct
memorable what is it effective so three
things are going on here rhythm pitch
and harmony now for the rhythm as you
can see rhythm is assigned based on the
English pronunciation of the first six
digits so 1/3 188 and what about the
last four digits well since there are
only two distinct numbers 2 & 5 we can
just assign one note for each of these
numbers so two five two five two five
right and what about for the case of
harmony now let's take a look again
as you can see the same phone number is
repeated multiple times using different
harmonies as shown by the different
colors on screen but this means that the
same phone number is repeated multiple
times using different emotional
connotations right and this is what miss
is so effective it is just like
listening to the same story repeatedly
multiple multiple times only it is in a
different language every time is
repeated it is difficult to get any of
the details wrong now the use of music
to not only encode information but also
to form a three-way connection between
memory emotion and music has seen an
increased prevalence in recent years so
for example when you hear this
spider-man and if you think if you
listen to this LG now for the next one I
would like you to continue to complete
the jingle ready 1 2 3 I'm right so
that's the point so music has changed
the landscape of the corporate sector
and apart from making you know huge
impacts in the entertainment business
and this has changed the way messages
are relayed to the public and it is true
masterfully crafted music that ideas are
engraved into the consumers minds
effectively and this change here is
bringing very promising results increase
profits and increase brand awareness
these are all the results of you know
ingenious use of music in advertising
now how do we use this in our daily
lives right so imagine this is the first
time you are hearing these names for
example between a foot in the phone call
between you and your boss so maybe hello
min-jung so you'll be leading a team of
four people Jenny
Alexander Gary and Paul for project a
briefed them about the project by this
afternoon now since you're new to this
company and you don't know any of these
people you think well maybe I'll send
them an email and then you remember oh
crap I forgot to record their names so
what should you have done right so you
know you should have added an extra work
there and then you should have made a
song
J Alexander Gary and Paul tangy
Alexander Gary and Cole Jenny
Alexander Gary and Paul Jenny and
exhibit get wow that's a very ridiculous
example well what am I trying to sell
them
what I'm trying to say is music can
become a tool for us that can be
exploited with whatever ways we can do
and you don't even have to learn music
specifically to be able to do that
so in fact music exists everywhere in
many different forms you know the way
you talk the way you run the way you
walk they are all physical
manifestations of pitch and all rhythm
all right and we have we humans have the
ability to you know seek patterns in
many different things in this world and
it is this ability that is so powerful
that it can be used to learn and retain
new information and since music is just
filled with patterns why not we use our
ability to our own advantage and use
music to aid in our memory you see
there's literally thousands and millions
of possibilities music can be exploited
in this aspect this thing about it today
we just covered pitch harmony and rhythm
what about instrumentation what about
texture what about tempo what about the
different elements in music these are
also known as psychological effects on
Earth's well that's for another time for
another session now the question is does
it really work well consider not only
the future possibilities but the already
existing applications you know movie
soundtracks commercial jingles and
advertisements why do they work well
studies have shown that we use the same
parts of the brain that's responsible
for memory and emotions to process music
and according to the neuropsychologist
dr. Lou
Yankee music is encoded in our brain by
the perceptual memory system which
organizes audio in auditory information
into rhythms and melodies so in short
our brains organizes memories using
pitch and memories well today I'll share
with you a tool that is as powerful as
it can get and it doesn't care whether
or not you're good at music or not and
if you're open-minded enough to accept
this new idea and change your existing
ways then this change is definitely
worth making even if you're skeptical
about its particulate e for a second
it's alright because it's not about
finding the best method it's about the
awareness towards other methods that
exist that can achieve the same goal
after all it's our decision whether or
not a change is needed right now the
question is again
is it really worth to change to quote
the famous mr. Henry for if you always
do what you've always done you always
get what you've always gone with here I
end my presentation I thank you all for
being such an attentive audience I hope
we had more time and thanks for coming
to my TEDx talk
[Applause]