I called my 90 something mother because it was the anniversary of her wedding, a date I liked ever since being a kid. My dad died 20 years ago and she talked about how it was yesterday and later we talked about memory loss and she said she uses a trick with remembering peoples’ names, she makes up a visual and auditory reminder. If she forgot my name was Bob she would help herself by remembering to see me bobbing in the water, that type of solution. I said isn’t it interesting that to combat memory loss we try to adding extra memories? She agreed but quickly steered things back to stories of what she made up. She doesn’t like me going off the deep end of the brain, but I do. I showed my class some blues played in two different keys simultaneously and asked if they could tell what I was doing. Are you trying to be atonal? Was about the best incorrect response. I explained to them I was playing in two keys simultaneously, Like C# and G. You realize then that the brain has to think about both distinct memories while at the same time executing the musicality of both. Isn’t that amazing? They yawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"