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Thanks for the Memories
Playing from memory has a tendency to
really impress people. I still laugh about the time many
years ago when I was playing a Mozart Sonata from memory
before a rehearsal and a fellow walked in, listened for
a few seconds and said, "wow! you must be making that
up! There's no way you could play all that from memory!"
Why thank you sir! Thank you for
assuming I could improvise so convincingly in the style
of Mozart. But seriously, why do people worship that
skill above so many others? And, more to the point, how
does one go about doing it?
I'm imagining there may be more than
one panicked conservatory student reading this article
and hoping there is some magic secret to a skill that
has eluded them for years. This is because it is
customary for solo pianists and some others (like solo
singers) to be required to memorize their music,
particularly in an academic setting. I had to give
several recitals to get my various degrees from music
school, and all but one (a chamber music recital) had to
be performed entirely from memory. Liszt frequently gets
the blame for this, or Clara Schumann--before the 19th
century it appears that nobody memorized anything when
they gave concerts. That is, unless, like Beethoven or
Mozart, they hadn't managed to completely write out the
piano part in time for the performance!
If it is May and the recital is upon
you in a few days I wish you good luck, rest, and inner
calm, because cramming and memorization don't mix well,
in my experience. It is best to start early-very early.
And to view it as a process, and an integral part of the
learning of the piece you are memorizing, rather than as
something you tack on at the end. There are, I think,
some "tricks" or "short-cuts" but these tend not to be
magic elixirs so much as extensions of time and effort,
and you find them as the result of knowing how your own
mind works, not by simply employing a formula you read
about on the internet. But let's start with the various
kinds of memory and see which you are best at:
Muscle memory--it
seems impossible that those strange, fleshy
protuberances that we have on the ends of our appendages
could all be equipped with their own mental functions.
Fingers don't have brains; that much can seem sorely
obvious when you are practicing and repeatedly running
into difficulty. But if you have practiced the same
passage enough times, the fingers seem to actually learn
their routes without our brains having to direct them. I
am typing this now at a fairly high rate of speed
because my fingers seem to know where all the letters
are quicker than I can actually think about them. In
fact, I might even fail a quiz where I had a blank
keyboard and had to write where all the letters even
were. But my fingers know. I once averted a disaster at
a piano competition in which my brain froze, wondering
"what comes next?!?" and my fingers went on without me
for a measure or two, causing me to relax and reboot my
brain. Nobody ever knew anything was wrong! I don't
think muscle memory alone is strong enough to get us
through a piece of music, but it is an important part of
it.
Sonic memory--most of
us have the ability to get songs stuck in our heads.
That generally happens because the piece is "catchy,"
which usually means it is not only interesting, but
repetitive. Are you able to get your piece stuck in
yours? Can you "listen" to it, beginning to end? If not,
why are some parts murky and others clear? (look, it
might be the composer's fault here, but in any case I
often find being able to hear the piece as I'm playing
it can be very effective. This might be more important
in my case because I can play music by ear as well, and
thus have forged a connection between being able to hear
something and to play it back. There have been some
cases where I was virtually recreating portions of
pieces from my inner ear because I couldn't "remember"
it, and thus was able to get back on track.)
Linguistic memory--theory
teachers like to stress the importance of knowing music
theory, and so far my approach hasn't mentioned it. I
think there is far more to memory, and frankly, more to
understanding music than is presented in most theory
classes. But I also think most students underestimate
its importance because they think it is just a bunch of
arcane details and haven't yet developed the ability to
see it in a larger context. If you understand the way
chord patterns work, or voice leading, you are able, for
most tonal compositions, to begin to get inside the
composition and even to guess where the composer is
going next. The next time you are learning a new piece,
try this: when you get to the end of a page, and the
composer seems to be in the middle of a musical thought,
rather than at the end, try predicting the first chord
on the next page. In most cases, you should be able to
either guess correctly, or at least come up with
something that makes sense. This is because either your
head or your ear understands where the musical idea
should go in that instance. For example, if I said, "I
went to the store to buy a" you would naturally supply a
noun to finish the sentence. It might not be the one I
was thinking of but it should still work. If I said, "I
went to the store to buy a stick of" you would almost
certainly get it right, although I suppose it wouldn't
always have to be a stick of gum. I suppose it could be
a stick of dynamite.* In any case, it wouldn't be a
stick of toothpaste, or a stick of motor oil, or a stick
of bananas.
Actually, they don't really sell gum
by the stick. Never mind.
Getting inside the language of the
composer, and of that style and period of music in
general, may seem like the long way around, but it
really increases my comfort level when I know that,
should some specific detail escape me, I can at least
find a suitable synonym and go on. I once completely
lost my way playing Bach's Goldberg Variations in Studio
Class, and was able to finish the variation by making up
something using the chord pattern that Bach used. It
wasn't pretty but it kept me going. After, since it
wasn't an actual recital, I confessed that I was lost
and was just paraphrasing. My teacher was impressed.
I might also add that the details
themselves are more likely to get stuck in your head if
you have some earthly idea why they should be there. If
you have to memorize a speech in a foreign language that
you barely know at all, it will be much harder than one
in your native language, where the words and the ways
they are often put together are familiar to you, and you
can concentrate on the ideas you are trying to get
across rather than trying to remember if you have to say
the word "the" in a particular place. If it sounds
natural, of course! But in an unfamiliar language, do
any of the little transition words sound natural? All
you can do is try to remember them by what was on the
page with no help from your internal sense of grammar
and flow.
Structural memory--This
is a bit like linguistic memory, but refers not to
details but to the large scheme of things. If you want
to memorize, just as in practicing, you should try
breaking the piece up into tiny parts, such as measures,
repeating them many times, and seeing how well you can
remember each one before going on. But it also helps to
take a bird's eye view and understand the way the piece
proceeds from beginning to end. What form is it in? How
long is each section? What major idea comes next, so
that if I get completely lost in one section I can at
least bail and start at the beginning of the next?
Sometimes just listening to a recording of your piece
can help you here. See if you know which part is coming
next before it arrives. Be a conductor with an orchestra
and cue the imaginary players (melody lines, voices,
whatever) when it is their turn to begin. And interpret
the piece through your gestures. That might help you see
how you want to play the piece. It's not just about
getting the details right, it's about making music,
after all.
Emotional memory--yes,
but how does the piece make you feel?? There have been
studies that indicate what we already know: that strong
emotions, positive or negative, cause things to lodge in
the memory. If something didn't cause much of a
reaction, we may well forget it. Well, then, aren't
there parts of your piece that you really like? I'll bet
you know them best, and can remember them with the most
ease. Wouldn't it be great if every moment of the piece
were that way? Is there a way to emotionally connect
with every measure? Either with a narrative--it might
not be the climax, maybe it is just building suspense,
or introducing a character, or being mildly annoying, or
maybe the composer did something completely unexpected
and you want to be sure to make that plain to your
audience--or rather, fabulous, to your audience! Maybe
it's just the tang of a good staccato chord, the ripple
of a good scale, the way you are getting a super awesome
sound out of that high E--a passage that sounds like the
composer just put it there to get from one place to the
next is just asking for a memory slip, unless, you can
awaken to its possibilities and, as you practice it each
time, develop something that you desperately want to
communicate to people in that one unforgettable moment.
If it matters to you, you'll remember it! This,
in turn, begins to focus your mind on what you are
trying to say, rather than on a blinding host of details
you are hoping you don't forget, and causes you to be
much more calm, and, your playing or singing will be
that much more interesting! It requires the most
creativity to plant all of these interpretive Easter
eggs, and seems, counter-intuitively, like you are just
adding to the things you have to memorize. But that E
chord will stick with you better if you have a purpose
for playing it. And frankly, I'd rather hear that one
coming out of the piano.
---
*or butter. Duh! (welcome to my mind)
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