Students' acronyms for lines/spaces?

[alraydo]

Just curious --

Do any of you have your students invent their own acronyms for the lines and spaces, or do you use the tried and true "Every Good Boy Does Fine" etc.?

Also -- what are the best/funniest/dumbest ones your students have come up with?

Here are a couple I've heard:

   Treble lines
      Elephants Got Big Dirty Feet
      Even George Bush Does Fart      (an adult student)

   Bass spaces
      A Coal Eyed Girl
      Act Cool Each Grade

   Bass lines
      Great Big Dog Faced Away
      George Bush Does Fart Alot!       (the same adult student -- and surprisingly,
                                                   she doesn't get herself confused!)

[squinchy]

I learned music reading from a stuffed duck on my music teacher (at school)'s wall.

Its name was EGBDF. She pronounced it E-guh-boo-duff.

Not really an acronym, but it worked for me. There was also a paper plate with a face drawn on it for the spaces.

Others:

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.

[clariniano]

All these are my phrases unless otherwise noted:

Here's one to remember the order of the modes:

I Did Pray Last Monday At Lunch

(Ionian-Dorian-Phyrgian-Lydian-Mixolydian-Aeolian-Locrian)

For the order of sharps:

Fred's Cat Gets Dirty After Every Bath

Frank's Car Gets Dingy At Every Bar

Flats:

BEA, Dead Geese Can't Fly (my students love this one)
Be Ever Alert During Guitar Class, Friend (from one of my theory books)

I had a couple of good ones for remembering the order of minor keys for flats and sharps, but I can't quite recall them...if I find them, I'll post them here.

Meri

[Siberian Husky]

 For the order of sharps:

Filibuster Correspondance Generated Deoxyribonucleic Acid Epistemologically Bastardisations

[possom46]

EGBDF

Every Girls Bra Doesn't Fit 

[quantum]

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

All Cows Eat Grass
Alley Cats Eat Garbage

Green Bugs Don't Fly Away

[Doodle]

Empty Garbage Before Dad Flips
Even George Bush Dances Funky
Every Girl Burps Deadly Fire

Etc.

I like for students to write their own, I think they remember them better.

[llamaman]

For lines and spaces, I have Every Good Boy Does Fine, and for spaces, FACE (Treble Clef)

For order of sharps: Father Charles Goes Down And Empties Bottle.

For order of flats: Bottle's Empty, And Down Goes Charles' Father.

[jazz_man]

For the lines of the bass clef,  I've heard "Good Bears Don't Fool Around."

For order of sharps,  I have a slight variation, "Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle",

then that way, you can use it exactly backwards for flats: "Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father."

[pianonut]

well - this isn't the lines/ spaces ...but for the order of the flats:

bald eagles are darn good cat finders

for sharps:

fat cats grow during  an evening bbq

[shoshin]

i found using acronyms extremely detrimental to learning how to read and play music.  It's just not fast enough and you end up thinking about the acronym instead of just learning the lines / spaces individually by site.

[charleyg]

Here's another sentence for the modes:

I Don't Particularly Like My Aunt's Lasagna

Ionian
Dorian
Phrygian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Aolian
Locrian.

[mrchops10]

i found using acronyms extremely detrimental to learning how to read and play music.  It's just not fast enough and you end up thinking about the acronym instead of just learning the lines / spaces individually by site.

Agreed. Why not just teach them where do (C) is, and have them count from there to each note?

And for remembering modes, this one's particularly good for jazz players:

I Don't Play Like Miles And Louis

[luvslive]

i think as long as a student doesn't become hooked to using these, they can just be good fun.  i do so much 3rds drills with students and other alphabet games that i don't use these too much, but on occasion.  for spaces i say FACE, that makes for fast note naming.  one acronym i made up for the bass clef is Girls Buy Deodorant For Armpits.  That one makes kids  
A game i've seen played that i thought was very helpful used the song "BINGO" (there was a farmer who had a dog and bingo was its name-o)..but instead of saying B-I-N-G-O they would say E-G-B-D-F and walk up the lines on a floor staff.  As the game continues it becomes g-b-d-f, then b-d-f just like in the BINGO.  suppose it could work just as well on the bass staff.
floor staffs are fun for games like simon says "stand on a line", stand on the middle" etc.

[Bob]

I've had students come up with new ones, very excited and energetic about it.  Then they forget their saying a week later.   Oops!  So I stick with the traditional ones.

Sometimes the girls refuse to acknowledge the boy in Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.  "Why can't it be every good girl?  Or every good person?  Well!, I'm going to say ____  anyway!" (girl, person, deserves nothing! are some possibilities)  

If they use the traditional ones I think they have more of a connection later on when they hear the same phrase from another source, that "Ah ha!" moment.  I just haven't seen their own saying working out for my students.  I did find a website somewhere of hundreds of Every Good boy type saying.  It's out there somewhere or maybe there's a link on here somewhere.

[canucks13]

I Dont Paint Like MichelAngeLo

ionian
dorian
phrygian
lydian
mixolydian
aeolian
locrian

i guess if you wanted to stretch it a little bit it could be

I Dont Practice/Play Like MichelAngeLi

[Dazzer]

just for the record, its not acronyms.

Its called Mnemonics.

[cora]

Elvis's Guitar Broke Down Friday. Every Girl Bakes Delicious Fudge.

All cows eat grass. (Bass spaces) Girls Bake Delicious Fudge Always Christmas Excluded.

[rachellel]

My teacher didn't use any of this, She just said, memorize these notes on the lines and spaces in the treble and base for next week. I was young and had trouble understanding, it isn't the best approach for a young one. But I learnt them.

The George Bush one is funny.

[gorbee natcase]

It looks like a zebra crossing to me

[g_s_223]

.

[cfortunato]

I have never understood why there WERE mnemonics for the staff.  It's the alphabet.  Why is a mnemonic required to remember it?

When I was in elementary school we were taught Every Good Boy Deserves Fun and FACE.  And nobody ever mentioned that it was the alphabet.  The first time I put the spaces and lines together, and realized that it was just A-B-C-D-E-F-G, I was totally flabbergasted, and could not figure out why they thought I needed a trick to remember it.  I still can't figure it out.

I really like the modal one, though.  Never saw that before.

[leahcim]

When I was in elementary school we were taught Every Good Boy Deserves Fun and FACE.  And nobody ever mentioned that it was the alphabet.  The first time I put the spaces and lines together, and realized that it was just A-B-C-D-E-F-G, I was totally flabbergasted

Well no, when you put them together you get E F G A B C D E F.
Which isn't the alphabet.

Plus the thing you're remembering is where those letters are on the stave.

Your goal is probably to know every note by itself so you see  C and it's C, it's not "err, F.. A...C" [although I read notes relative to others more than individually]

But if you're going to "count" to see what a note is, you need some place to start from that you know and it makes more sense to count the lines or the spaces rather than every one. In maths most of us learn to count in more than ones and twos, even though when you put them together you just get 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

Besides, why did they make you remember the alphabet? I can see many ways of grouping / ordering the letters of the alphabet that would serve some purpose [splitting consonants and vowels, the order on a keyboard and whatever else] but the alphabet itself seems arbitrary and as equally pointless to develop rhymes and songs to remember it in a specific order in much the same way that you're suggesting the notes on the stave are pointless learning because they are this "the alphabet"

Perhaps that's the point, once you've remembered something entirely pointless well enough, you no longer need the rhymes etc. You reach the point where you ignore the pointlessness of it and see it as a significant ordering.

[johnk]

Re lines and spaces:

Treble = FACE and E, gibidy, F (faster than 'word' mnemonics).

Bass: the alphabet ABCDEFG fits neatly within the stave! Since i teach the keyboard in terms of the symmetrical units ABCDEFG, rather than from C to C, the bass is very easy to learn because the positions in the stave are the same as the positions of the keys in the alphabet; A is at the the bottom, G at the top, and D in the centre.

Re the order of # and b's:

Look at the keyboard pattern. The black keys are in groups of three and two; Sharpen UPWARDS and flatten DOWNWARDS. Always take from the bigger group (3) first; thus 3 #s would be 2 from the 'big' group and 1 from the 'small' group going upwards, ie F#,G# from the 3 blacks and C# from the 2 blacks.  4 b's would be two from each group, flattening downwards; thus Bb, Ab, and Eb, Db.

My philosophy is that pattern recognition is better than mindless verbal mnemonics.

See my alternative music notation 'Express Stave' at www.mnma.org (link at bottom of home page). I have learnt all 15 Bach two part inventions from this notation in the last few months, after 45 years of familiarity with Traditional Notation (treble, bass and alto clefs).

[keyofc]

John,
what do you mean?  what is gibidy?
I'm interested in what you're trying to say by presenting the staff, but I dont' get it.

[cfortunato]

John,
what do you mean?  what is gibidy?
I'm interested in what you're trying to say by presenting the staff, but I dont' get it.

"Gibidy" is pronouncing "GBD."  Just say "E gibidy F" instead of an acronym.

[johnk]

Well, Cfortunato just beat me to it!

Yes, "Gibidy' is GBD! Look, in todays language, everything is acronyms (meaning words are shortened to letters) if you see what I mean (IYSWIM). IOW, why make up silly sentences when we are used to just using acronyms? TV, DVD, USA, OK?

So for treble clef, spaces = FACE, and lines = EGBDF (pronounced E-gibidy-F)

With the Bass, as I have explained, there is no need for any mnemonics (memory aids) because the bass stave simply encloses the musical alphabet ABCDEFG.

BTW, we dont need a mnemonic to remember the alphabet, do we?

Maybe this would be a fun thing to do!

All bald comedians deliver extremely funny gags. How i just kept laughing!

JohnK

[cfortunato]

[[BTW, we dont need a mnemonic to remember the alphabet, do we?

Maybe this would be a fun thing to do!]]]

There used to be an old Sesame Street song called (pronunciation)"Ab-kuh-def-gee-jikilim-nop-kruh-stoov-wix-is."  Spelled "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz."

[keyofc]

 
I see! thanks