"Brain Study: Graphic Designer" by matemute ~ Creative Commons license
How do you memorize music? Do you incorporate more than one method?
Imagine the pathways in the brain.
Until recently, scientific brain mapping has involved tracking responses to stimuli as affected areas light up in brain scans. Now there is a new method researchers are just beginning to pursue. In it, specific pathways would be identified. You may be interested in reading this 12/28/10 New York Times article. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know how memory is stored?
Since there are a myriad of pathways in our brains, we can imagine dedicating some of them to different kinds of memory. I like to imagine a 4-lane highway, with each lane programmed in a different way. Or maybe 4 strands of licorice (red) stuck together. Use your own image!
You will want to program several pathways so you have backups when one or another type of memory fails in performance. That happens regularly. You can count on it.
Best time to memorize
Memory work should be undertaken at the beginning of a practice session, when we are most alert. Commiting new material to memory when we are most able to concentrate ensures the greatest success and eliminates a whole lot of frustration. (I can’t do this, I’m too tired. But I have to memorize it by next week! So you stick it out, become more and more fatigued, and get more and more frustrated. That’s not progress, it’s a waste of time.)
Switch starting points
The piano teacher I had in high school marked “memory posts” in my music. Although I hated it at the time, it works. Can you start at the development section? The coda? Top of page 3? You need to know very specifically where you are in the music.
In college, one of my teachers would make notations in my score as I was playing from memory. That meant that she would often turn the page late! So I had to learn to ignore that and have confidence that I knew where I was in the music.
You may want to call them “memory posts” or not, but having several points available and being able to start at any one of them is a great advantage when something interferes with your concentration.
Play starting points out of order
You should be able to start at any point, in any order. First ending? OK. Second ending, where only one note is different? First statement in a fugue, ending in a descending scale; second statement, continuing up the keyboard? Those passages end in different fingerings. No problem. Two endings in reverse order? Find a way to make it easy. (Make up silly words or something.) You will be happy that you went to all that trouble when the inevitable distractions happen during your performance.
Memorize music, not notes
Play expressively when you memorize, incorporating dynamics, changes in character, pedalling, etc. You will then have the music memorized, not just the notes, making the playing much more enjoyable. And you will have less work to do later.
Types of memory
Visual ~ the look of the music on the page, look of the pattern on the keyboard.
Aural ~ what the music sounds like ~ memorize each part, not only the general sound.
Muscle memory ~ the way it feels in your hands, and your choreographic movements (leaps, hand crossing, direction of the hands). This is more than just tactile memory. Muscle memory involves programming different positions into your hands, similar to moving through dance steps deliberately, exaggerating the movements. Can you feel your hands working?
More approaches
Say the fingering out loud
Learn big leaps by saying names of notes ~ example, Chopin left hand. I often say the bass notes apart from the following chords, memorizing the bass line by note names.
Sing each part.
Conduct each phrase, each section, each movement, then the entire piece.
Visualize the score and your movements on the keyboard away from piano.
Learn a section plus the next chord ~ this helps you feel secure, saving guesswork (and increased anxiety) between sections.
Can you hear the piece in your head just by looking at the score?
Can you hear the piece in your head away from the score, while you are doing something else?
Learn new sections first (when you’re most alert), then review previously memorized sections every day. If you’re like me, you won’t enjoy starting over! The material you are reviewing may not be perfect, but you will remember more and more from day to day.
Learn the music better than you have to.
Start memorizing early, NOT the day before your jury! If you put it off that long, you will not be a happy person.
How do you memorize music? Please share your tips, tricks, the advice you give your students, etc., in the comment section below!
Many thanks to my friend Jane for the great blog post idea! 
Read “Goal-oriented Practice” now in an E-book and in Print! You’ll see great reviews and wonderful readers’ comments when you click on the link.
Pianist and Vocal Coach
[...] Pathways to memorization « GretchensPianos First statement in a fugue, ending in a descending scale; second statement, continuing up the keyboard Those passages end in different fingerings. No problem. Two endings in reverse order? Find a way to make it easy. More approaches. Say the fingering out loud. Learn big leaps by saying names of notes ~ example, Chopin left hand I often say the bass notes apart from the following chords, memorizing the bass line by note names. Sing each part. [...]
Thanks for the pingback!
For Louise Behrend’s first rate Suzuki Violin teacher training, we were required to memorize four pages a week. I’d I. Listen to the tape many times.IIPlay it many times, using the “prisoner wall counting system.” (4 vertical lines with a diagonal through them for 5 repetitions) let me know what that’s called – lumberjack? As an undergrad I had to learn an Italian art song each week for a semester – and I don’t know Italian. Basically knowing it was expected, I just kept repeating until I got it.
Dear Mar,
I would love to know what this “4 vertical lines with a diagonal through them for 5 repetitions” is. Does this mean choosing 4 measures and repeating them as a loop 5 times? I use that technique with myself and my students–though not necessarily 4 measures, but whatever unit of music makes sense. I call these “practice loops.” I will use whatever portion or number of measures makes sense either melodically, or for fingering.
To mark these, I might circle the part to be practiced as a loop, or bracket it if the passage is longer. Is this what your teacher used the diagonal line for?
By the way, I am a Suzuki piano teacher–not violin, of course, but since you mention Suzuki, my interest is piqued. I’m looking forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Suzanne
Hi Suzanne,
Thanks for your comments! I’ve emailed Mark, in case he isn’t subscribed to comment updates.
Happy New Year!
Gretchen
Hi Mark!
Thanks for your comments!
I use vertical lines for counting complicated rhythms sometimes, but I’m not familiar with the memorization technique you described. Little stars at the end of each memorized passages work, too.
You just reminded me of my first Italian art song. Deciphering strange syllables printed between the notes was quite an experience!
Gretchen
When I played the flute I could memorize music purely by a mixture of muscle memory and linear progression, and everything that I played by memory was a kind of a reproduction of my practicing. When I became an adult, and started playing the violin, I understood very clearly that muscle memory involved more than finger positions. It involved whole groups of muscles, many which take scores of years to develop, so I consciously didn’t learn music by muscle memory because I wanted to develop my physical strength and balance first. Now I “know” how to play the violin (and a bunch of related stringed instruments), but when I am asked to play something by memory, I revert instantly to playing by ear. I can’t even remember what key a piece is in unless it is a fact that I know. The Bach D-minor Partita, for example, is in D minor. That’s as far as it goes. Now every musical experience is a new one. I never play the same passage the same way. I think that the only people who can have this experience playing memorized music are people with a natural gift for visual memory and for pitch memory.
Though I have tried to develop both my visual memory for music and my pitch memory for decades and decades, I still have very little in the way of visual memory, and pitch memory. Everything I do with music (aside from technical and physical awareness) involves instinct, and though there is memory involved in instinct, it is not something I can call upon at will, but it is something that comes into play when I need it–in ways that are far from the normal ways that people who can memorize call upon the music they know by memory.
I think that in place of “memory banks” I have windows open to new experience. I can practice the same pieces over and over and over again (with the music), and I often hear things that I have never heard before or noticed before (or perhaps I just can’t remember). It leaves scads of room for learning more music, and it allows me to write music that is completely original (most of the time). It allows me to improvise and find sounds that work together for their own sake, not because they are reproductions of a piece that someone else wrote or recorded (rules do come in handy–but I need to write them down). Having a mind like a sieve can make every new combination of notes an adventure in color.
Everyone else in my family has a remarkable memory–my family or origin and my husband and kids, but they are constantly surprised by how much I know (and remember). Knowing is different from memorizing, and those of us who simply can’t memorize have to call upon other ways of knowing.
I have no advice for people like me besides to accept the benefits of our lot in musical life. I play with a pianist who has exactly the same kind of memory that I have, which is something that really bonds us together musically. Today, for example, we were working on a piece that had something in it that reminded both of us of a moment in a Beethoven Piano Sonata. We were able to, with the aid of the music, identify the measure (and it was just one measure) in about a minute. Yes. We had been thinking of the same exact measure.
Hi Elaine!
Thanks so much for your comments! Isn’t it fascinating that people learn in so many different ways?
Before I knew about feeling chord shapes and using the same fingering consistently, every memorized performance was a scary experience. In my junior high and high school recitals, playing one piece in my teacher’s studio, I would just wing it.
I’m happy to hear that you’ve figured out what works for you, and that you’re comfortable with it.
Take care,
Gretchen
Hi, Elaine and Suzanne – I’m rushing off 2A reh, so I’ll respond specifically later. The prisoner method is to count the # of times I have played a piece. Suzuki advises making a “loop tape” of a piece to play @ home. OLIVER – “Consider the piece – part of the furniture.” I’ve dealt w/ADD and dyslexia, but I’d always have my hs chorus music memorized and my 3 pages weekly of Suzuki Bk 1-4 when I was in Louise Behrend’s VIOLIN ONE class @ The School for Strings. (Sheila Keats taught piano – both now EMERITA)
Mark, thanks for replying. Your Oliver joke was funny, and I’ll use it on my students: I too teach the Suzuki method (Suzuki Piano Basics, the European style), so I try to get the student families to play the CDs 24/7 as much as possible. Thanks for that funny way to explain it.
So, the “prisoner method” is to (for example) play measures 8 through 12, ten times through with no mistakes…something like that?
You mentioned having dyslexia and ADD. I believe that for every weakness we have, we have a balancing strength to help us compensate. It sounds like you used your aural memory to very good advantage! Good job on memorizing!
Suzanne
[...] Pathways to memorization (gretchenspianos.wordpress.com) [...]
HA HA HA!
I had to laugh at “What they didn’t teach in law school.” Music school was the same way.
Norman Luboff hired me on the basis of my Gershwin, none of which I had played in school.
Thanks so much for the pingback!
Gretchen