Everyone is familiar with the alphabet song, with breaks for breaths and scaling up and down of the tone as you go. It kinda goes like this:
“(scaling up) abcdefg (breathe… scaling down) hijklmnop (breathe… scaling up) qrs (scaling down) tuv (scaling up) wx (scaling down) y and z; (breathe) now I know my ABCs, next time won’t you sing with me.”
But… can you do it backwards? A long time ago, I learned to recite the alphabet backwards. The technique is a little different. There’s no tune and the breaks are different, but once you’ve learned it it never goes away.
Recite the letters below. No tune, keep it monotone. Ok… take a deep breathe and try it… out loud. No cheating. I’ve grouped the letters 3+3+7+7+3+3. The spaces in the string of letters indicate a slight pause, for rhythm.
zyx wvu tsrqpon mlkjihg fed cba
Try it a few times… and then try it without reading it off the screen. Drop back and tell me your wild and crazy stories of how you impressed all your friends with your new found talent.
