Estimated reading time 4 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Do you need to memorize your music? Do you want help understanding the different ways to effectively memorize pieces? Not everyone thinks the same way, so the trick is to learn the best way for you to memorize your music. Keep reading to learn how to best memorize your music.
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How to Best Memorize Your Music: Are There Different Ways to Get the Piece into My Brain?
- When you’re ready to start memorizing a piece of music, it’s important to understand that different musicians will memorize music in different ways.
- In the book Piano Mastery, Harriette Brower interviewed dozens of concert pianists, and one of the questions she frequently asked was how the pianist memorized music.
The responses were often similar, and Ignaz Friedman’s answer captures the essence of what many piano masters said.
There are four sources of memory: the eye, to see the notes on the page or keys – that would be visual memory; the ear, to hear the tones – auricular memory; and lastly, though we might say first, the mind to think these tones and keys – mental memory. (Brower 172)
This jibes well with multisensory teaching theory, because the memories listed are all linked to different senses.
- The first and second types of memory listed are visual and aural.
- The third type of memory Friedman classes as mental.
- Some of the pianists interviewed in Piano Mastery said that this type of memory involves knowing the chord progression, while others expressed it as analyzing the piece to understand the deeper musical structure.
How to Best Memorize Your Music: How Do I Choose the Best Method for Me?
While musicians will often use more than one type of memory, some musicians will depend on one type more than another.
For example, Myra Hess talks about what works best for her.
As is well known, there are three kinds of memory training: that of the eye, the ear and the fingers. Although I use all three, I depend, I think, more on the first than on either of the others, I can really see the printed page before me, mentally, and can actually read it as I play, just as though it were on the music-desk before my eyes. (Brower 180)
Hess had a definite preference for one type of memory over the others.
- She describes something that sounds like photographic memory, but for sheet music instead of text.
- Also, she mentions her fingers, so this would be kinesthetic memory, which can be added to the sense related list created above by Friedman.
Edwin Hughes makes a distinction between visually remembering the score versus visually remembering the instrument.
With some pianists, visual memory of the printed page plays the principal role in memorizing; with others visual memory of the notes on the keyboard; with still others ear-memory, or memory of the harmonic progression. I believe in making the pupil familiar with all of these different ways, so that he may find out which one is most helpful to him. (Brower 52)
Notice that remembering harmonic progressions here is listed under aural instead of mental memory.
- This implies that a harmonic progression’s sound will help you memorize your music.
- For me, I find that my visual memory for the instrument combined with the remembered sound of the music and the kinesthetic feel for how my fingers move works best for me.
- I rarely visualize the score, though I often keep the structure of the music in mind.
How to Best Memorize Your Music: How Often Should I Practice a Piece of Music?
How do you maintain your memorized repertoire?
- After you’ve memorized a piece of music, you need to practice the piece once a day for a week, once a week for a month, and once a month for a year.
- Then, you need to do periodic practice to maintain the piece in your memory.
Resources to help make your practice time more effective.
Final Thoughts
It’s not surprising that musicians have different ways to memorize music.
Ellen Winner discusses how gifted children have a superior ability to recall information, but not in all areas of learning.
What these findings show is that the types of gifted children differ in working memory… Thus, contrary to what many assume, there is no general enhancement of memory in the gifted.
Rather, enhanced memory is a function of a match between the kind of information to be recalled and the kind of talent possessed… High ability in one area does not mean high ability in another. (Gifted Children 52-53)
Even if a person isn’t gifted, it’s still probable that the person’s relative cognitive strengths would be reflected in the way he or she memorizes music. Therefore, you need to explore the different ways to memorize and find out what works best for you.
Have fun playing!
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