Brad Lea explores why song lyrics stick in your head better than book text, even though both contain about 330 words. Melody and tonality dramatically improve retention: people remember roughly 19% after two days, 9% after a week, and less than 3% after a month.
About 330 words.
About 330 words.
About 19%.
About 9%.
Less than 3%.
What's your favorite song? Could be anything.
I mean, the one that I know the words to is seven years old.
So the average song has about 330 words in it. So what's your favorite book?
Atlas Shrugged.
Okay, Atlas Shrugged. What page of that book can you recite word for word?
None.
Why, though? Because the average page has about 330 words. The average song has about 330 words. So why can you recite the song word for word but you can't recite one page of the book that says a thousand times the words? There's no tonality or melody. The music, the melody and the tonality cause your brain to retain it way higher. Within reading a book, I think within two days you're going to retain about 19% of that. Within a week, about 9%. Within a year, within about a month, less than 3%. So you never master anything from a book.
