Memorization (when you hate it)

twocats Off topic but I look at PT on my phone so the "All Discussions" tab is the easiest way to view new posts, and I see all threads regardless of how they're tagged. I think computer users tend to only look at the subforums of interest, so they only see the posts tagged there.

A little bit more off-topic chatter--I read PT on my laptop and always hit the "All Discussions" tab. That is much, much easier than going through each sub-forum. Sometimes it's obvious which sub-forum a discussion is in, but for the most part, I have no idea where most discussions are located.

Stub So what kind of memory does that fall under? Muscle (finger) memory? Aural? Visual?

For me aural and visual. And from there I can use muscle memory. When it's a piece I play often it's more visual, when I didn't play it in a while it's more aural.

pianoloverus

Because I learn pieces in sections, and when practicing I don't play them in the correct order I memorize on which note each section and each phrase starts automatically.

twocats
You're right that generalization is not good.
Of course there are different factors that makes a piece easy or hard. Remembering the notes is 1 thing but the actual playing we need to understand the hand mechanics such as which fingers are weak/strong, which ones are shorter/longer, hands relaxation especially playing fast pieces. Otherwise some pieces are not very playable.

I've never got into pieces at the ABRSM-10 level. There are 2 popular student pieces including Bach "Prelude in C" from WTC Book 1 & Satie "Gymnopedie 1". After a Google search found both rated between level 5 & 6. Both are challenging in their own way. The Prelude with just repeated chord arpeggios is much more manageable. Once you get the basic idea of holding the 2 bass notes and playng 6 notes on top, the rest is just repetition. Gymnopedie requires big jumps that are similar. After learning to do 1 jump with the help of the sustain pedal to fill in the gap, the other jumps are similar. Don't usually find remembering the notes a big issue.

A few years ago I watched a man play Nocturne Op 9 No 2 on a public piano. He played quite well with the sheet despite some hesitations that were not very noticeable. A piece like this is rated around level 8. How easy would it be to memorize something like this? And there are much longer pieces lasting for 10 minutes or more like a movement out of a Rachmaninov concerto that an average student wouldn't be playing.

A while ago I learned the first movement of Bach Italian Concerto in F just under 4 minutes. Went to a gathering and played it from memory. Good enough to delight some people in the room. 2 years ago I searched online for a piano arrangement of the "Sinfonia" from Bach Christmas Oratorio #2 but nothing satisfactory came up. The original is an ensemble piece with 8 parts played with flutes, strings & oboes. Ended up with my own arrangement and learned to play from memory for 6 minutes in an Andante tempo. A piece that was not originally written for piano and included in an ABRSM /RCM repertoire book doesn't have a rating.

I've been thinking about the video by the pianist that's featured near the start of this thread - what it has, doesn't have, and implied things.

• He does RH, then LH, in small chunks and explains why. The music strikes me of having melody (with other voices) in the RH, accompaniment in the LH. Some music doesn't go that way. I see it for this kind.

• He seems to "own" theory - i.e. he knows it's in F major, names and recognizes chords. (can't do what he does if you don't have this; but maybe your own associations). He recognizes / hears main patterns like melody and uses that.

• Where he plays a small passage with the page open, then covered - then the "forget" by diddling other notes randomly, and back, this makes sense.

• At one point he identifies a chord in the RH, says if you include the LH you get a different chord but ignore that; I'm iffy. Supposing your chord (key of F major) is C7b9 - the RH by itself is EGBbDb so Edim7. Is it easier to remember Edim7=>F, or C7b9=>F (the V7 I pattern). But I've done that myself, when the RH chords formed their own pattern if I ignored the real chord(s).

• One thing I see missing is looking at the whole piece before starting this. Music has a broad form. Like sonata allegro with theme 1, theme 2, dominant key, back to tonic - Development fiddling with themes - Recap. You have sequences that do the same thing, each time a few notes lower. For memorizing, this is your broad map, like a road trip with broad destinations outlined. Maybe he does this, but it's not mentioned in the video. Or he does a mental perusal which is left out.

• Time, stages. Our memory works well when we mindfully go at something; let go; come back to it; let go; come back to it. Some of this would be Mollyish.

• One element that we might overlook, is the fact that by looking at small chunks, actively listening, looking for, and feeling patterns in the music, verbalizing them - he is being mindful of what he is doing. If you're a good sight reader, then it's all too easy to let the notes on the page flow into your fingers in a continuum. Did you know you were playing a C7 chord going to F with the 3rd dancing around and resolving to the Tonic note - and relate that to sound, touch, and piano keys?

There are other good suggestions here, esp. the pulling in of other aspects of playing; physical, audial, etc. This thread has been a good reminder of things that I've meant to work on. It's a fantastic thread.

(Edit: Hey cool - this site turns dashes into sophisticated looking bullet points. )

twocats posted: Trying to memorize the first notes of each section away from the piano isn't working. I think creating the chunks and analyzing the structure of the piece is okay to do away from the piano, but I need to actually play the sections to memorize them!

keystring replied: I kept thinking about this after reading it yesterday. First thought was "Why would one?"

Because a big part of memorization for virtually everyone is muscle memory. Additional methods are usually recommended because muscle memory by itself often is not enough.
Even incredibly advanced and incredibly talented pianists usually have difficulty memorizing a score away from the piano. There is a Youtube video where Frederick Chiu Is teaching some young conservatory graduates some of which already had big pretty careers and has them attempt to memorize two pages of a Scarlatti Sonata away from the piano. Although these students were far better than most conservatory graduates, they all were unsuccessful.