Muscle memory ??

[kghayesh]

I have some confusion. I know muscle memory is an important thing, but I don't know to what extent should it be used. Last year, when I was learning a Bach Fugue, I learnt it totally so that I can play it without thinking. I played it so so many times HS so that my fingers are programmed to the keys automatically without thinking.

I don't know whether this is a musical approach to learning music or not ?? I don't think Horowitz has the time to think the next note is a C or D when he is playing Rach 3 for instance. The fingers should know where they are going without thinking.

I am now learning Scriabin's D# minor Etude no.12 op.8. The LH of the opening section is just so similar with slight changes. It is so hard to memorize it and play it at speed HT. I don't know whether i should apply that muscle memory approach or not..

[rimv2]

I have some confusion. I know muscle memory is an important thing, but I don't know to what extent should it be used. Last year, when I was learning a Bach Fugue, I learnt it totally so that I can play it without thinking. I played it so so many times HS so that my fingers are programmed to the keys automatically without thinking.

I don't know whether this is a musical approach to learning music or not ?? I don't think Horowitz has the time to think the next note is a C or D when he is playing Rach 3 for instance. The fingers should know where they are going without thinking.

I am now learning Scriabin's D# minor Etude no.12 op.8. The LH of the opening section is just so similar with slight changes. It is so hard to memorize it and play it at speed HT. I don't know whether i should apply that muscle memory approach or not..

the similar figurations in this piece will make playing be finger memory a bit tricky (i know cuz I tried)

Instead try combining slow practice with aural memory

Go bar by and play each note in your mind before you play it

play note by note

then group by group

Youll make faster progress and less errors

[bernhard]

Muscle memory is essential. You cannot play without it.

However, although muscle memory is necessary, it is not sufficient. You must back it up with other kinds of memory.

Besides thinking is just too slow to deal with piano playing (as you have already - and correctly - surmised).

This does not mean that you should play like a zombi. Quite the opposite. It just means that the kind of mental activity required is not intellectual. Thinking - the activity of the intellect - is basically made up of myriad comparisons. All this comparing is what takes up so much processing time.

As a zen priest once told me, you must sharpen your mind and cut through all intellectual dichotomy.

Of course we are talking about playing.

If you are analysing a piece and palnning how you are going to learn/practise it, then you must use all of your intellectual prowess.

You can read about these issues in more detail here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3202.msg28196.html#msg28196
(Bad habits – the three centres are mentioned here – some martial arts analogies – Fanny Bloomfield list of good practising habits – Maurice Hinson list – The score as a map – models and modelling processes – Interpretation as the reverse of modelling – comparison with actors)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3396.msg30084.html#msg30084
(Laziness, the 3 centres and how to use visualisation to deal with it – consciousness and its location – applications to martial arts and piano playing – locating the consciousness at the movement centre).

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,1867.msg14268.html#msg14268
(Getting technique from pieces – several important tricks: hand memory, dropping notes, repeated note-groups)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3100.msg27113.html#msg27113
(thumb over – hand displacement – practising with awareness – awareness is not thinking – learning by imitation)

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7682.msg77042.html#msg77042
(hand independence: how to create a cue system and what is hand memory).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.