Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0412: How to learn short scripts for auditions

Episode Date: October 6, 2015

Brent is an actor and has to memorize short scripts for auditions in tight timeframes. Should he create mnemonic images for every word, or what is the best approach? What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 412. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Brent submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Brent says, I do work as an actor and often have to do my best at memorizing lines for auditions in a short period of time. Off book is always better. So, Brent, there are other episodes on how to memorize scripts, particularly episode 11, and generally what I recommend is not memorizing word for word, or at least not creating a separate image for every word,

because that becomes more tedious, and it's hard to go through a palace one word at a time quickly enough to deliver it at a natural pace. At the same time, what you're doing is a bit different, I would say, from what people normally do when they're memorizing scripts, and they're just wanting to deliver a long speech, or to remember basically a whole scene of a film that they're shooting or whatever it is. What you're doing is you're being judged on specific lines. And since these are so short and so compact and there's so much value in every single word, these are auditions, I would recommend memorizing word for word, even though you're not going to create images for each word. So you're going to create a memory palace and you're going to do images. It sounds from your question as if you know what I mean by that, so you know the technique.

But it's also important to realize that there are certain things in most fields, this one included, that are very easy to do, that make an enormous difference, but that hardly any people are proactive enough to do. And for you, the one thing that I would recommend is recording yourself saying the script, the few lines that you're going to record, and listening to that recording. Now, that sounds like I'm reflecting rote learning, but that's not really what it is. And people who have listened to a lot of Master of Memory know where I'm going with this. You are memorizing things the way that people have always memorized them by listening and by speaking, at first listening and repeating, and afterwards listening and reciting along. And what it does is it builds the muscle memory. It builds the, you know, the

fact that you're doing it is smoothing out your delivery and making it easier for you to deliver, even though you're also using mnemonics to accelerate the memorization process. So the palace of prompts will help you a lot being proactive enough to create a memory palace that allows you to remember what each line is so you can remember that line when you get to it. But as far as the smoothness of saying that line and remembering every single word, that's going to come through being proactive and sitting down at some point, taking the time to record the lines exactly the way that you want to deliver them in your auditions. And this will only take a few minutes. It may take a few takes to make sure that you're saying them correctly, but it'll make an enormous difference for your confidence and for

your ability to do it properly when the time comes. I hope you find that useful, Brent. And for everyone listening, what do you want to learn or memorize? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question and I'll talk to you again soon.