How's your musical memory bank?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Mine's crap. I seldom remember the name of a song or the band that did it unless I've heard it a brazillion times.

[FBM]

There's some weird, obscure shit stuck in mine.

[hadespussercats]

It varies. I know a shitload of lyrics. But not so many titles or artists.

[Sean Hayden]

Mine is bad enough to be embarrassing.

[Rum]

Mine is good. I used to be able to sing all the words from all the songs on Sgt Pepper - and in the right order. Probably still could at a push.

[klr]

Erratic. Anything from once-heard-never-forgotten to completely forgetting something. Although in the case of the latter, once I hear a song I've long since forgotten, I the remember having heard it before.

.... of course, if I really, totally forgot about a song, then I'd think I'd never heard it before.

[Sean Hayden]

Maybe while you're hearing it your mind writes to the wrong place and then upon correcting itself you tap into the incorrectly written bits from elsewhere only to realize you have in fact heard this before, blissfully unaware that before means right now. or something

[Trinity]

Mine's pretty good, although it depends on how long I've had a musical drought for. Once I re-oil the sound department in my brain, it all starts working well again

[Tero]

I remember everything. I remember the recorder part from the soundtrack of a Lapland documentary I watched in 1971. It had reindeer.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I remember everything. I remember the recorder part from the soundtrack of a Lapland documentary I watched in 1971. It had reindeer.

It must be pretty difficult to convey reindeer on a recorder. Kudos.

[Jason]

I can 'replay' symphonies in my head. Beethoven's 6th is an easy one.

[orpheus]

I can 'replay' symphonies in my head. Beethoven's 6th is an easy one.

Yes, I can do this too. I'm sure for me a lot of it is a matter of training and experience.

Edited to add: especially with music I know very well, I often prefer listening to the music in my head than to a recording. In my head I can experiment with adjusting balances, tempi, dynamics, etc. It's not a matter of creating an "ideal" performance; I don't think such a thing exists. But often what I come up with is far more fulfilling than listening to a recording.

[SteveB]

I've only gotten into music in the last few years. Before I liked it, but didn't go out of my way to listen to it. Anyway, now I can remember a lot of band names and songs.

[SteveB]

Sometimes I create "de novo" tunes and lyrics in my head, but I don't know how to mark them down. I can't even play a triangle.

[Bella Fortuna]

There's lots I know/remember/can identify, if it's something I like.