Memorizing Serialistic Compositions

[pokeythepenguin]

Does anyone here have a very good method for memorizing pieces by composers like Xenakis, Boulez, Stockhausen etc.?  It took me FOREVER to memorize a composition by one of them, and I plan on learning more in the genre so I want to know how to do that the quickest and most efficiently.

[Skeptopotamus]

this is not a bump.

[bernhard]

I believe that the big stumbling block in this kind of piece, is that they appear random at first, and memory works on the basis of meaningful associations. So the first and most important step is to somehow attach meaning (if necessary an artificial meaning) to the several passages of the piece.

How does one do that? We already do that. All the time. Just think how you memorise some meaningless piece of information (e.g. long strings of numbers), and use the same approach.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[aerlinndan]

I think bernhard is spot-on. (When don't I?) If you are not already familiar with how serial techniques work, and how to construct matrices and find the different manifestations of a row, you need to do that before you can even think about memorizing the piece.

There are composition and theory instructors in this country that can listen to a serial piece and on the first listen, tell you what the row is and tell you when the new manifestations of the row are coming and going. They can hum rows out of thin air. (If that seems easy, try doing it.) In other words, they are as familiar with the twelve-tone system of composition as most musicians are with the western Classical traditional harmonic system of analysis and composition. Dealing with twelve-tone music is an extremely intensive, mentally exhausting endeavor, but it can be done. While you don't need to be this versed in twelve-tone systems just to play a twelve-tone piece, it helps to try to analyze and understand the music so deeply that it becomes just as easy as a simple I-V-I minuet.

This is the true definition of mastery. This involves creating numerous associations in your mind that you may never have had to create before. It is difficult work but in the end I think it will pay off.

So analyze and get to know the row so well that you can literally sing it forwards, backwards, and upside down. Be able to play any transposition of it given the first note. Keep at it, and continue to attack it from as many different angles as you can, and you will master the piece.

Good luck!