https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal

An extremely handy tool :: Incremental history searching

in terminal enter:

gedit  ~/.inputrc

    then copy paste and save 

"\e[A": history-search-backward
"\e[B": history-search-forward
"\e[C": forward-char
"\e[D": backward-char

All you need to do to find a previous command is to enter say the first 2 or 3 letters and upward arrow will take you there quickly say i want: 

for f in *.mid ; do timidity "$f"; done

all i need to do is enter

fo

    and hit upward arrow command will soon appear