Great Right-Brain Ways To Improve Your Memory

There are few things that stimulate the brain the way music does. If you want to keep your brain engaged throughout the aging process, listening to or playing music is a great tool. It provides a total brain workout. Source

If you're a right-brained (creative) elder, like me, you can avert the usual memory games by listening to and playing music. Here are a few fun right-brain musical alternatives:

Become Acquainted/Review Musical Instruments

First, become acqainted with the instruments of the orchestra in an initial or refresher video, such as the following:

• The Instruments of the Orchestra

• Instrument Families

• Musical Instruents, Part 1 orf 2

• Musical Instruments, Part 2 of 2 (Percussion)

Take Listening Tests

Then, take a listening test, such as the following:

• Instruments of the Orchestra - Listening Test

• Sound Quiz: Guess the Instruments!

• What's the instrument?

• Guess the Instrument, Musical Instrument Sound Quiz

Practice Right-Brained Memory with Children

Interested in practicing memory with children? If so, first learn the instrument groups:

• Noisy Orchestra - Usborne Books & More

• Orchestraanimals

• My first orchestra | Use the app in your music theory class or orchestra

• The Violin - A Little Book of the Orchestra, by Mary Auld and Elisa Paganelli

• The Flute - A Little Book of the Orchestra, by Mary Auld and Elisa Paganelli

• The Clarinet - A Little Book of the Orchestra, by Mary Auld and Elisa Paganelli

  Then play instrument guessing games:

• Guess the Instrument, 15 Musical Instruments Quiz, Music Trivia

• Introduction to Orchestra Instruments - CC Cycle 3 Week 19 Fine Arts Orchestra

• Four Corners Music Game: Instrument Identification Version | Classroom Brain Break

Practice Memory with Other Sounds

You can practice memory with animal sounds, too!

With children:

• Can You Guess The Animal Sound? Guess the animal sound game

• Guess the Animal Sound. Have Fun Learning Animals

• Guess Bay Animal Names, 30 Animals and their Babies,

With all ages:

• The Great Animal Orchestra

• Bird Song Hero: The Song-Learning Game for Everyone, Train your brain to recognize over 50 bird songs with the "Bird Song Hero" matching game, (also practice recognizing birds songs on nature walks through such apps at Merlin Sound ID)

Want to Go Deeper?

Ready to Build an Orchestra?

• Discover How to Build an Orchestra

• Learn how to make visual sounds and build visual music. Meet Mary Auld and Elisa Paganelli, the author and illustrator of "How to Build an Orchestra”

Bringing Musical Sound Games Home

Bring together all the musical instruments in your home or community. Listeners close their eyes. Leader plays a sound on one of the instruments and asks listeners to name the instrument.

If you want to go further, the leader can play a sound with fingers or a baton/chop stick/pencil on different surfaces in the environment and ask listeners to name the sound (i.e., water dripping, tapping on glass/metal/wood).

Better, still, try out a used or new instrument. I recently have been tinkering around with buffalo drums, easy to hold, can play a variety of beats with your hands, You can even play a buffalo drum for meditation

Can you beat these musical sound ways to practice memory? If so, let me know how.