Ease of memorisation in different styles

[eddie92099]

I was wondering which styles people found the easiest and the most difficult to memorise  - and in particular which pieces they have struggled with the memorisation of and which required no effort whatsoever.

One piece which took me a while to memorise was the second movement of Prokofiev's seventh sonata, whereas an example of a piece that comes much more easily is Liszt's La Campanella,

Your thoughts?
Ed

[Hmoll]

The second movement of Prok.  7 has two strikes against it in terms of difficulty to memorize: 1) it's a 20th century work where, although it is diatonic, the tonalities are not always intuitive, 2) It's a slow movement, and slow movements are - for me at least - harder to memorize.

I find it harder to memorize a lot of 20th century music - with the exception of Ravel, Debussy.
Classical music is easy for me to memorize because of the formal design of most pieces, but slow movements are harder. Romantic era music is not much of a problem for me, with the exception of Brahms because of the thick texture of a lot of his stuff.

Bach is difficult to memorize for me.

I haven't decided whether slow movements are more difficult to memorize because they don't imbed into my tactile memory as quickly, or because they are usually technically easier to play, so you often don't have the repetitious practice that you would with the outer movement. If the latter is the case, then slow movements aren't really more difficult to memorize.

[eddie92099]

I completely agree   (for once!),
Ed

[ahmedito]

I find memorizing anything from scarlatti to beethoven extremely easy to memorize, and that includes Bach, But I find memorizing Chopin and other XIX century masters almost impossible to do.

I memorize bach and beethoven in a couple of days, but It takes me months to memorize Chopin...

[eddie92099]

That's odd, I've never had trouble memorising Chopin. Which piece in particular gave you trouble?
Ed

[dinosaurtales]

Memorizing Bach for me is on a measure-by-measure basis.

Beethoven, Liszt, piece of cake.  The chord progressions and voicing is easy to *predict*

the JB Cramer sonata I memorized had 2 movements that were just bears to memorize, mostly becuase they were slow, and had non-intuitive chord progressions.  The two other movements were simple because I could pick out *patterns* (no matter how silly - you'd laugh if I told you what some of my clues were) that guide me through the thing.

The Field sonata was dirt simple, too.

I expect the Prokofiev to be nasty to memorize when I get to it.

[Hmoll]

I find memorizing anything from scarlatti to beethoven extremely easy to memorize, and that includes Bach, But I find memorizing Chopin and other XIX century masters almost impossible to do.

I memorize bach and beethoven in a couple of days, but It takes me months to memorize Chopin...

Most people have more trouble with Bach, and less with Chopin. To echo Ed, which pieces specifically are you talking about?

[bachopoven]

I find Chopin, Beethoven or Mozart easier to memorize than Bach. Bach composed many pieces in not-exactly-atonal fashion.

Romantic syles in my exprience are easier to memorize since they are mostly atonal - the melody is the leading element of the music.

That makes it easy to separate left from right hand and achive technique that way from perspective of ease of learning as well.

[eddie92099]

I don't think you mean atonal...
Ed

[bachopoven]

I don't think you mean atonal...
Ed

Tonal, atonal, one of the two. I think.

[randilea]

I have the easiest time with 20th cent. pieces.  For some reason the wackier it is the easier it is for my brain to soak it up.  I like the dissonance!

Bach is a little like reviewing a theory assignment- by-the-book.

Schuman got me bent out of shape a few times and I found myself having to do mental aerobics to get through passages.  

Beethoven I find myself making things up on occasion.  I'm bad about revising, a teacher has to be on their toes with me or I'll slide by with a similarly harmonized rendition of the original piece.  

[eddie92099]

Tonal, atonal, one of the two. I think.

They are absolute opposites so please specify!
Ed

[ahmedito]

I had an extremely dificult time memorizing the fantasie-polonaise. The nocturne in G major (The one in thirds) and some preludes. I also had a hell of a hard time memorizing prokovief....

Bach comes very easily to me. I memorize 4 part fugues in a couple of days.... I think that's because you really dont have much of a choice as much as fingering goes, so my hands soak it up really fast... and by doingsome voicing work, my brain learns it pretty quickly too.

[steverulz55]

bach - they just keep going on and on and hardly pause - it's also the easiest to lose memory if you are performing...one single slip and you probably have to restart from beginning as i have experieced  

[whistle86]

i find J.S. Bach's pieces easiest somehow. contemporary music is hard for me to memorize like.. Bela Bartok.

-giselle