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In the latest quarterly recital I performed a piece that was assigned to me by my teacher as a memorization exercise. I've been having difficulties, and she wanted to demonstrate to me that I could memorize effectively, and also learn something about how I memorized, and gain some confidence. Casinitaly suggested I start a thread about it for those that don't listen to all the pieces in the recital.

The piece that my teacher assigned is "Great Smoky Mountain" by David Carr Glover. This piece is well suited for this exercise because it consists of things that are easy to memorize. It is only about a level 2. It is much easier than what I usually play. It does not have a lot of subtle details. It's available from Sheet Music Plus

The idea is to memorize the piece without ever playing it from the music.
- it's OK to listen to it - my teacher played the opening for me, but I didn't listen to the rest until I played it.
- study the score. Find something that will help you memorize the opening. Some people can visualize the score - I can't. I memorized the chord and it's position on the keyboard. Memorize without playing it.
- close the music and play what you have memorized.
- open the music and memorize some more, close the music, play it, repeat until done.

She suggested that I have a "script" that I could recite as I played without the music. "C major root chord, C arpeggio down, G first inversion, 4 chords up" for example. I found that I could not speak the script and play at the same time - some people can. But I could "think" the script as I played.

It worked for me. In a week I could play it from memory.

So, to summarize:

-Never play it from the music.
-Memorize a section, using whatever works for you, without playing it.
-Close the music and play it.
-repeat until done.

It was a lot of fun to do. Try it - hope this helps someone.

Sam

Congrats Sam! Sounds like you have a good teacher.

You can ,  just never have used. You can trust me - I have known for almost 70 years,that I can not remember visually the musical text. It turned out to be complete nonsense, because you always know the way home. You just have to actively write notes in your mind: and you certainly can do it. In addition, it is necessary to recreate the sound of of notes, the feeling in the fingertips and relation to the keys. Immediately does not work, but devote the time that was going for play on keyboard to mental exercises . Patience - and will start to come out ; I'll bet!

When the chords get complicated, I doubt that I could even think that fast. Even thinking "E flat minor seven flat five slash G flat" could take longer than a quarter note. And that just gets you the changes. How do you memorize the melody line?

I can think/remember much much faster than I can read.
So I'm in the other camp of players, who need to rely more on the actual score, as my memory isn't always 100% reliable. But memory is fast!

I was just reading a book about some technique advice by Gieseking and Leimer, who said use memory for practicing short sections. It makes it so much more efficient. They describe it as a skill you need to slowly build up. I like the way they broke down a couple of Bach pieces to show how they can be easily memorised. It was very close to how my brain remembers music.

You don't remember complicated chord name/structures, you remember what you need to play, hand position, but with an overall picture of progression and topography.

"E flat minor seven flat five slash G flat" gets remembered as G-squished, or often not even a name, just rememebred as a feeling/place. By repeating it correctly many times, the fingers naturally fall into the right position.

I'm not sure the memorization process talked about here works for music that would be above the elementary level. I do know that every time you practice and play a wrong note or notes, it's recorded in your brain, so it's best to play it correctly every time to make sure you have it right. I remember being told that to unlearn mistakes is worse than learning it correctly in the first place.

Also learned that a whole lot of music study should be done away from the piano by analysis. This doesn't have to be analysis in the form of music theory (you don't have to know the chord or inversion or if there are passing tones or whatever). You study the "architecture" of the music. Years ago when I taught piano, I had my students think of the score as a map and the keyboard of the piano is the road to be travelled. I had them study the "map" as well as practice while reading it. But, studying it beforehand does make reading the music while learning it a lot easier. Also used highlighter pens in different colors to mark areas that are a sudden change from what has been happening. Hope this makes sense. After being away from the piano for many years, I'm using what I taught and it does help.

Oh, chunking is a term I was trying to remember. It is a way of learning things and that corresponds to how the brain works. We can't do anything the brain won't allow or can't process adequately.

Here is something about mapping music:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Z...beethoven%20op%2014%20no%202&f=false

Hi Sam, this is interesting! I wonder if it would work for shorter sections of more complicated works? Im trying to learn Beethoven's Sonata 2/1 the first movement and think I may have to memorize some sections to be able to play it smoothly. Like all the different Alberti bass sections. Did you memorize this whole piece when you learned it? I have not memorized any of it yet and would like to be able to play it well with the score but it seems to really get to know the notes sometimes I need to memorize.

Thanks for starting this thread Sam!
And for providing the links to the music you learned with this technique.

I am keen to give it a try.

I use a photocopy and highlight pens when sortng out very complicated scores.
I also try writing out shorter ones to see if I can remember them.

Your technique may be a great addition to my process!

Sam, thanks for starting this thread! The process you describe is so interesting!

I looked at the link you posted, and listened to your recital submission, and it seems like there are no spots where the LH and RH are playing at the same time. Is that right or did I miss something?

Has your teacher talked about how this process would apply to music that's more involved and has both hands going at once? Have you tried it with any other pieces? Do you think there's an application that could speed up the process of learning brand new music for pieces closer to your current playing level?

Also, can you talk a little more about the idea behind naming each note or having a script. What I thinking is this: When learning or working on a new piece, I don't very often label or name a note as I'm playing it. If there are block chords, I might label/name the bottom note if it's a LH chord or the top note if it's a RH chord (does anyone else do it that way? It's like pinky orientation more so than a musical orientation. Anyway...) I also often have a sort of instantaneous visualization of the hand shape or fingering I'm going to use and I think I'm noticing the intervals because of course my fingers get where they need to do. But again, I'm not consciously labeling notes. The only time I do make it a point to label something is if I maybe am playing the same spot wrong repeatedly, or there's an accidental or some other potential trouble spot. Oh, and I guess I do a little more conscious labeling of bass notes in the LH, esp if a change in the bass leads to a new section in the music or some other element that becomes a sign post for me in terms of where to go next.

But otherwise, I don't think "E," but I might be very likely to think "play with finger number 3."

So is the idea that there's an advantage for memorization in labeling? Well, and actually as I'm writing this, it occurs to me that if you're memorizing with only the score and not through playing, you'd have to do more labeling or else there's nothing to anchor the notes in your brain. Is that it, did I just answer my own question?

This is very interesting thread. I started learning the piano two and a half years ago at forty five. No musical experience of any kind prior to that. I practice three hours a day. I make sure to separate the time between practice sessions.

I tried memorizing songs when I first started. But it was way to stressful. I just could not do it. Then I reflected back on my artificial intelligence classes I had in college while getting my BS in Computer Science. We would discuss how the human brain is amazing at storing and recognizing patterns. It is not built for number crunching.

After reflecting on that I stopped trying to memorize songs. I knew that the moment I passed some threshold of "songs learned" my neurons would "get it". They will be able to make the connection to what music is. Forcing myself was not the way to go.

I was right. A month and a half ago I completely unintentionally memorized my first song. I have been studding for the last six months Alfred's Adult Piano Book 3. When it happened I was learning Rock-a-my-soul. Then the next song just stuck, prelude in Eb Major, then the prior song I had been refining Toreador Song From "Carmen". I am now memorizing and learning one song a week. No effort at all. It just happens.

It is all about how your neurons change their connections based on patterns. There is never a need to "rush it". It will just happen. No two people are the same. It took time but I just do it now. At times I even look down as I play and wonder "how am I doing this". I can even think about other other things while I am playing. I just needed to pass some threshold of musical patterns.

I like to think of it as your brain has a card catalog built into it. Your neurons have to develop a way to organize this unique information in order to be able to recall it properly. Not everything can be stored the same. A smell is not stored the same as how to throw a bowling ball. Music has to be store still differently. Your brain has to develop a way to organize the information in order to recall it properly over time. The more songs we play the better the brain is able to organize the information in order to recall it.

The mind is such an amazing thing.

ShiroKuro - there are places where the hands play together, but for the most part they are just chords.

I am not an expert in memorizing - I am the one who needs the exercise, after all. But I can share what little I know about it anyway...

As far as having a script, I am not naming every note. Just the things that I have difficulty remembering. If I can't remember the d minor chord, then it helps to say "d minor" just before I need to put my hands there. It doesn't have to be a chord, it could be "start on the C".

I am using the technique to learn something a couple of magnitudes more difficult - the first Gershwin Prelude. The chords and rhythm are much more complicated, but in a sense it is still just a sequence of chords and hand positions that I need to remember. I finally managed to play through it today without looking at the music after a couple of months of piecing it together bit by bit. Of course, it's about 1/4 speed!

Sam

Sorry, Nahum, but what you say, while it surely represents your own experience, would not be possible for a great many. Dating from its first investigation by Francis Galton (1880), and more extensively by Betts (1908), Seashore (1919) and more recent researchers, it's been known that ability to visualize varies enormously across the population. While for some individuals, visual imagery is vivid to an almost lifelike intensity, there are many who report never having experienced any whatsoever. Moreover, it's known that maximum intensity of imagery is fixed for each individual (at any rate, on a voluntarily induced basis) and unamenable to training. As an investigator into mental imagery myself - and having spent decades in search of training-methods for increasing imagery vividness - I'm afraid I have to thoroughly concur with that finding.

However, even if one's level of imagery intensity is feint, its detail and clarity can be enhanced through intensive self-training, in the case of both visual and aural imagery. Training has to focus on enhancing individual images, but pursued over a long period, there seems to be a slight generalized enhancement effect. The distinction between the enhanceability of vividness and detail/clarity is due to their being mediated by different brain-mechanisms: vividness level is controlled by involuntary centres in the brainstem, while detail/clarity is dependent on long-term memory representations located in visual and auditory cerebral cortex that are amenable to learning and voluntarily accessible.

As for your remark describing use of aural and coupled aural-kinaesthetic imagery, I agree 100%. Fundamentally important!

Kind regards,

Richard

Hi Sam,

The tactics you've described make really valuable reading. Most correspond to ones (among others) observed by the music-psychologist Roger Chaffin in his study of the memorizing tactics used by a concert-pianist (Gabriela Imreh) over the course of several weeks' practising for a performance. His series of published papers may interest you - links to them available via Google, or better, via Google Scholar.

Kind regards,

Richard.

Chaffin has also published Gabriela's learning/memorizing process in his book Practicing Perfection as a final chapter. The earlier chapters are perspectives from concert pianists about practice and memorizing. This book is very pricey, but highly recommended.

Hi dogperson,

I'm only familiar with Chaffin's study from the various papers - many of which begin with the title "Practicing Perfection" - and not from his book. So I'm most grateful to you for your mention of its more broadly encompassing content. I'll just have to fork out the bucks, I guess!

Kind regards!

Nice timing on reviving this thread, because my new teacher threw me another curve ball today.

She wants me to start two new pieces.

- I cannot see the music for the entire piece, or play through it all.

- We played parts of one piece in my lesson, after drilling it on the fallboard (without playing it) - then she took away the music. I can't see it again until the next lesson.

- I drill it by chanting while playing - something to help me remember what to do, like up, down, a note name, a finger number. I don't know how well this will work, since I only have a vague memory of it now, and I have nothing to study to remind me.

- For the other piece I got a photocopy, with large portions blacked out. The parts I could see were measures or groups of measures that were the same or similar. I'm supposed to memorize those measures only, without playing the whole piece. I don't even have the whole piece, just one partial page. Once again chanting things to jog my memory.

I know I need help memorizing and she's trying to teach me some techniques that can help. It "feels" like a big step backwards, or that I can't be trusted with the music. It's also not fun and not very musical.

But I will give it my best shot and see what happens.

Sam

Contemporary observations of brain plasticity weren't known then.

Two things:
1. The intensity of internal image is not my goal. Enough that we can see in imagination the note C before and can, in accordance with this write it on paper. Vivid image on paper, instead of a vivid image in my head.

2.Don't expect that a mental image is created passively by itself; it is necessary to draw it actively again and again, for a long time . Take 4 bar of simple musical text, and to attack it mentally for 3-4 weeks, using all the daily free time for thinking. It's hard , it can be very hard ; but not impossible!

Wow Sam, it sounds like an interesting process. I hope you are getting to do something else that is fun. Meanwhile, be a good guinea pig and let us know how it goes. Has your teacher used these techniques successfully with other students?