Can we learn through music?
Think of that song you can remember all the lyrics/words to that was popular a decade ago. If the song was played right now, you could sing along without missing a note. The reason certain lyrics stay with us has been something of a mystery. But a study at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, suggests lyrics are processed separately from music once in the brain. In addition, lyrics can come effortlessly to mind because they are part motor memory. A common reaction to music, lyrical or not, is to learn to sing along, even if we only do this out loud in the privacy of the shower. As a perpetual student and educator, I find that learning through music increases retention exponentially. One of the projects that has been implemented by TIITIL (The International Institute of Therapeutic Intervention and Learning), along with musical writers and composers, and medical and allied health educators, is to produce songs that can be used to teach. These songs will follow a more popular up-to-date format and not simplistic nursery rhyme tunes.

The first is here;

“The Bones of the Hand”

The lyrics are:

Verse:
The human hand consists of 27 bones:
If you stay on beat, and keep up, you can sing along
There are eight carpal bones of the wrist we know
Let’s start with the 4 in the proximal row
Scaphoid, lunate, triquetral and pisiform
Which articulates with bones in the forearm
Trapezium, trapezoid, capitate and hamate
Are in the distal row which all articulates
With the bases of the five metacarpal bones
Moving distally let’s, let’s keep it going
There’s Proximal, middle, then distal phalanges
These are the bones that makes up the hand see
Injuries or harm can result in disability
Impairing function and how life lived used to be

CHORUS:
Scaphoid, lunate, triquetral pisiform
Trapezium, trapezoid, capitate and hamate
Metacarpal, proximal Phalanges, middles Phalanges,
Distal Phalanges
These are the bones of the hands

(repeat from Verse 1)