cactus orangeI found this in my inbox last Saturday and it really did my heart good.

You were right, memorization CAN happen in fifteen minutes.  I am so excited about being able to do the rhapsody that in celebration I worked on it for fifteen minutes and memorized 2 1/2 measures. Then came back later and didn’t remember it all the way but within three minutes it came back to me.

I was thinking about the whole idea of “not being able to memorize” and I thought, probably any pianist if you gave them an assignment to memorize just one measure (of an appropriate level) by the next lesson, would be able to do so. So if one is attainable, what would it take to learn 2, and so on.

I mean, just one measure, even back when I believed myself completely incapable of memorizing, if you had asked me to memorize one measure, I would have accepted the assignment without reservation or worries about being able to do it.

S.B

There are times when students simply must be able to memorize and perform music. The skill is expected at colleges, auditions, competitions, as well as many festivals and evaluations. So what happens when a college music student has faulty memorization skills or has memorized little or not at all? Most of them are terrified at the prospect.

This perfectly understandable. Most of these students learn their music by heart just as they learned songs and simple poems as a child. The trouble is that they are no longer children and the repertoire they are trying to learn and perform is very grown up. It requires study and a much more systematic approach to learn and understand. It requires that those students who like to wallow in the big picture, the forest, or whatever you want to call it, get out of their comfort zone.

Our EAC fall recital is the first Wednesday in November. This has come as a distinct shock to some new students (and even some ongoing ones). Some of them are used to practicing a piece from 6 months to a year before performing it. Suddenly, they have about 11 weeks (now 4 and counting). They absolutely don’t have the luxury to play the piece over and over until it’s “in there”. Learning by heart will simply not get the job done.

Hence the need for a more systematic approach. I have been helping students to take very small sections apart (sometimes just 2 measures) and reassemble them. This requires repetition which is creative. I advise them to begin looking down as soon as possible and notice what the piece looks like geographically. By the time they have finished finding out all what is important in the section it is memorized. They have really and truly learned it and memory is a part of that learning.

Of course, each section must be reviewed daily before it will really stick. The best 2 pieces of advice I ever got were 1) Learn the day’s new material before going back to review previously learned sections, and 2) Begin to stick 2 then 3 then 4 sections together as soon as I could. As you begin to stick sections together, you begin to notice how the phrases relate, where the high points are, and a million other details.

It’s like a musical jigsaw. Initially you have a bunch of seemingly random pieces which slowly become part of something greater. Sometimes I like to work on all the material that reoccurs throughout a piece so I understand how the composer has developed his themes. Sometimes I work from the both the beginning and end back toward the middle of a piece. Sometimes I start at the beginning and work straight through.

Ultimately, it doesn’t actually matter whether you perform the piece from memory. You have learned it and you know every nook and cranny. Rather than a gut feeling, you will have developed a personal view of that piece. And, in my book,that is the most important thing of all.

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