Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Okay, really, how bad is using "finger memory"

Hello,
Well, this is a topic that has been bugging me for some time. Keep in mind that my goal is to get into a school such as MSM or Mannes.

First, memorizing a piece for me is effortless. Generally after playing something once it is in my permanent memory. I can still play every single piece that I have ever learned, all the Suzuki books that I was taught with 10 years ago, everything right up to Rhapsody in Blue which I recently performed. Currently I have the first few pages of the Brahms Paganini variations and a nocturne of Chopin memorized after working on them for 3 days. Mind you, I didn't say I could perorm them flawlesley (Chopin, I can do well, Paganini is ehh), but I said I know the notes, rythms, and dynamics perfectly.

First, I thought this was normal for a while and that it was what everyone does. But from reading I kind of get a sense of two thigns:

1. This is sort of rare
2. My memorization is MUCH different from other people. I read of people analyzing scores, copying them over, repeating passages 15 times just to get the notes...However, people that do that can also tell you what the third note in the 15th measure of the 3rd movement is, I cannot.

This leads me to several interesting observations and questions; namely, does it matter how you memorize (to a conservatory) if you can play a piece flawlessley and accuratly through finger memory (what I THINK is the method I employ). When I play a complicated passage, I just focus on the main melody, and my fingers seem to fill it out accordingly with the other notes; I do not think about it in the least.

Is this a bad thing? Will it impact my auditions for a major music school? Are there any benefits for me to totally revamp my learning style?

Thanks,

-Confused...

Relying on muscle memory means that you're not listening to the sound you are making. I believe that a pianist's ultimate goal is to not be aware of their technique and instead focus on sound and tone production. It's good that you can memorize quickly, but remember that memory is only one part of the equation.

It sounds like something you needn't worry about unless you are prone to memory lapses. I think memory comes down to three areas, physical, aural and visual. It is safest to have all 3 at your disposal. However you do it the main thing is that it works for you. If it aint broke, don't fix it.

Your message has a bunch of typographical errors. Are you using finger memory, and have you learned the spelling wrong? If that is the case, it could well be possible that you are not learning scores as well as you think you are. You may well have a great gift, but you need to temper your gifts with discipline. If you can do that, you will be better for it.

That's basically my view.

I used to rely on totally muscle memory - until it led to an embarrassing mistake in a recital, and I couldn't find my way back at all and had to start the next piece.

3 years on, I now rely on knowing the music - the prime aid in my memorisation is my knowledge of the instrument, and I know now what a note on score sounds like out of the piano - and for me, the biggest aid I have in memorisation is simply knowing the piece well, and this is where studying the score comes in handy. I've now learnt (the hard way) that muscle memory is better used to remember where the notes are on the keyboard then 'where your fingers need to go' in relationship to the piece you're playing.

And another thing I've picked up (from here really) is that playing scales a lot is the BEST way of familiarising yourself.

How bad?
Very bad. Why? Because your fingers are about as reliable as our social security benefits 40 years from now!

It is like playing with a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. You never know when it's gonna happen until...poof!...you're toast.

Reading this thread makes me feel as bad as Finger memory. :p

I can relate to the poof!

I've only been playing for about a year, but I have a couple pieces that I've played daily for about 6 months.

I've kind of let them get completely out of my head and into my fingers. That is, I play them with almost no thought at all.

This is OK as long as there are no flubs, but if I miss a couple notes and disconnect, it is almost impossible to keep it going or get restarted.

i agree, finger memory could lead to getting lost in the middle without even knowing how to get back on track, which has happened to me all the time. now, i try not to just rely on that, but memorize by sections (where there's always a starting point to get back to), by sequences, groups of notes and even hand locations with some passages (jumps especially). although such memorizing process is slower, it provides me much securer memory than before.

Computerpro3,

If I were you I would not rely on muscle memory .....but I'm not you!

For me, as well as for a number of other posters here, muscle memory is a useful part of memorization. But it's very dangerous to rely on it to the exclusion of other study techniques.

On the other hand, your memory skills may be of a different order from ours. If you have a true idetic memory for music, i.e. if your fingers truly remember everything that easily, then you may very well be able to rely on finger memory without the same fear of total collapse that drives the rest of us to study our music more closely. BDB's post is a serious question. Are you absolutely sure that your finger memory is accurate?

By the way, do you have perfect pitch and are you playing as much by ear as by music. This is also information to be added to the stew.

Muscle memory is not something you can rely on. You need to get the music to soak into your head so you can play it inside and out. By learning the music inside and out, you will be able to recover from a memory lapse.

Muscle-memory is nothing more than the fingers remembering what happened in a sequence. The problem with this is that you'll end up messing up somewhere. This is usually something really stupid, by the way, like the wrong fingering, or a wrong note. The next thing you know, the whole piece will unravel like a big ball of string.

By committing the other aspects of the music to memory, through analysis, writing, and away from the piano reading, your mind is absorbing the music. In this process, your fingers are following along with what they are being told instead of the fingers telling your brain what to do next.

Not to scare you, but the latter process takes a lot longer initially than the muscle memory because there is more to it. Once you do it enough times though, you'll become faster at it.

John

Very interesting reading.

Playing with muscle memory must be supervised by your "hearing" the music inside you and rembembering sequenses analytically and or visually, depending on your mentality.

The muscle memory will hardly carry you through a long piece, but merely help you to execute certain figures, especially in a fast tempo.

The process of learning a complete recital has been subject to at least one dissertation, but I am not familiar with the results and conclusions, so the opinions above are based on my own experience only.

Interesting that pianists are supposed to perform without scores when they are playing solo.

But when accompaning a singer the use the score, and frequently the singer also have a sheet of paper in his hands.

Solo violinists play by heart, also together with an orchestra.

How about organists?

How have these habits developed?

And considering the above, the skill of playing perfect at first sight - also much discussed in this forum - is not frequently needed, and hence it seems to be of less importance.

finger memory alone is indeed bad. even a slight detraction from the motion path your fingers are familiar with could spell disaster.

I've found that muscle memory is easily undermined by anxiety. But intellectual memory -- having the ability to recall all the notes in my head -- is much more reliable.

But heck, whatever works for you. We're all different. I can memorize pretty well, but I'd rather be an excellent sight-reader.

To answer some questions:

1. Yes, I do have perfect pitch
2. I play much better by ear; to the point that I played the first 2ish pages of Rhapsody in Blue note for note accurate except for 3 chord inversions before I ever saw the sheet music. Of course I listened to it tons of times though.

Now I agree with some of what was being said, but I take issue with some other comments. Perhaps I have not accuratly described how I play; I think finger memory is an unnacurate term, but I cannot really describe how I do it...

Basically I sing along in my head as I play, I don't see the music in my head or think okay, lets play a, g, d, f# etc. I just hear the music and play. As for not being able to listen while you play, I disagree wholeheartedly. When I play Chopin, I can most certainly hear legato, rubato, dynamics. They come at natural spots, you can feel where they are supposed to go. So then you play them.

What the heck is the proper term for that?

And as for my memory being accurate; extremley, I am learning correctly, and I'm not self taught. My teacher graduated with the highest honors from Kiev State University in Russia and has degrees in both performance and pedagology.

Perhaps there is a better term for how I play than "finger memory"?


I do think that it would be interesting to try another learning style on, say, a Chopin Nocturne, something where you really have to focus on detail and dynamics, but the problem is, how do I NOT learn this way? How do I stop myself from memorizing this way? My teacher forbid me from listening to any recordings of the rachmaninoff I'm working on right now as well as the chopin; she says that should help...

ACtually I just dont particularly care about how accuratly I type at 6:30 AM when Im typing a post in 5min before I run out the door to school...

But youre point about tempering my gift (or hinderance ) with discipline is well taken.

Well it sounds like you have a real gift for music. If I were you, I'd listen to my teacher, but otherwise just take my talent where it wants to go...

My memory is better than average but not remarkably so. I think I use a mixture of three types, aural, analytical and haptic, but certainly not visual. That is to say I do not see scores in my mind as some people do. The analytical one is very useful because, unlike the other two, it is not serial but spatial and used properly enables stopping and starting anywhere. It also lets me make up something similar if I have a complete lapse. As I spend most of my time improvising my memory is probably grossly under-exercised.

I used to memorize with muscle memory to a great extent. It seemed great at the time, but the truth was it was because my reading stunk! It hindered me for many years in getting better. For me, it was a crutch. Now I consciously work in all areas, physical/music, visual (score vision), aural and what I like to think of as the geography (knowing what difficult sections look like on the keyboard). I don't even try to memorize a piece until the reading of it comes very easily. I feel much more secure now when playing a difficult piece. Muscle memory alone will always fail you sooner or later and then you are screwed if it's all you have. That's my story anyway.

I suspected that, initially you said "Generally after playing something once it is in my permanent memory", and I started thinking that it wasn't muscular memory but aural memory. Then you confimed that in one of your recent messages.
You are definetely gifted and you don't need to change anything in your learning style. It is something that everybody would like to have and it comes directly from your perfect pitch. I'm not saying that we all need perfect pitch in order to memorize perfectly a page of music but if you have it this is one of the benefits.
Rely on it, but just don't stop there; knowing the score and music theory is such a help that you'll find even additional benefits.