Some tips on Memorizing, Please and Thank you...

[stephanie-piano]

Yes my memorizing stinks... NEED HELP!

[molto-marcato]

Hmmm, i could suggest take one of the easier pieces, lets say Mozart Sonata facile. It has lots of scale like elements, lots of repetitions and a more or less simple structure. Try to work on smaller sections first. Don't know how badly your memorization skill stinks  so even consider to work on a few measures at first.
Maybe do some work just with score, too.

In contrast i found that for me working with pieces that are fairly difficult to me like Moszkowski Etudes de Virtuosite or Chopin Balldes/Etudes greatly improved my memorization skill. Because there are so many notes and fast/complex elements i couldn't play the piece having to stick to the score constantly. And i worked hours on just one section perfecting the technique or the specific difficulty so to say. Once i got it; you know there's a point when it makes "click" and you suddenly understand how this section has to be played, memorization was a piece of cake.

Don't give up. Memorization skill can be trained. Just practice.

Hope this helps.

[stephanie-piano]

Thanx......

[quantum]

One of the most important aspects of memorization is pattern recognition.

Record this phrase on a tape recorder and play it back as you sleep. 


Find patterns in music.  Think of your theory, how does what you are playing relate to scales, chords, arpeggios, keys, time signatures, types of rhythm, hand positions, finger movements, etc. 

Why think of:
C# D# E F# G# A B# C

When you can think:
that's a C# harmonic minor scale


Think of harmony, harmonic progressions and such. 

Eg: Take the first phrase of Fur Elise.  How many different chords are there amongst all the notes? 

Only two, A minor and it's dominant 7th E major.  Why try to remember the sequence of all those individual notes divided between the hands when you can use the two alternating chords to guide and focus your memorization.


Don't just play your pieces from one note to the next.  Learn to analyze your pieces, on both the large and small scale.  From sectional structures like sonata form, to phrasal structures such as melodic contour and line.  Analyzing helps you develop your skills in pattern recognition. 


Have solid fingering, and stick to it!   Good fingering is extremely important, and when chosen well can help aid memorization.  When you have a recurring note pattern, try to use the same fingering pattern as much as possible. 

Here is an exercise:
Take a piano piece that is very easy for you and much under your present sill level, nothing with fancy technical stuff.  Let's say Bach Minuet in G.  Get the score, play it through until you are comfortable with it.  Now transpose it into all 12 major keys at the keyboard.  You are not allowed to write down your transpositions, only play from the original score.  Try to use the same fingering through out, even if it seems twisty and weird - this will help you establish finger patterns. 

Bonus - take the G major Minuet and transpose it into all 12 minor keys.  Only work from original score, no writing stuff down.  More bonus - transpose the Minuet into the 7 church modes for each of the 12 pitch classes. 

[b0mbtrack]

just do a search for memorizing you will get all the info you need, it helped me out a lot.

[timbo178]

Something else you can try is to play through your piece with just one finger, for instance your index finger on your right and left hands. It forces your brain to remember which note comes next so that you're not relying solely on muscle memory.

[elisianna]

I used to memorize as I played through a piece.  I thought everybody did this.

When I went and played something a lot more difficult (I'd been playing Beethoven - Sonata op. 49, Debussy - Album Leaf.  Then I played Rachmaninov's Melodie Op. 2)  My teacher wanted me to memorize it and I went a week trying to, not really knowing how.

When I went to my lesson and complained he showed me a good way of memorizing.  But he also said that different things work for different people.  It works for me, maybe it'll work for you =) (This probably works better if you already know the whole piece with the music.)

You take a section, make sure you can play it. Take a quick look at the music, and then look down and your hands and play the whole part. (probably only around 2 measures.) without looking.  Play it over and over and over.

 This worked brilliantly for me!

[ekirth]

I used to memorize as I played through a piece.  I thought everybody did this.

I still do this for the majority of my pieces, actually--by the time memorization is necessary, I'll have played the piece and known it well enough that it's already pretty much in my head. If I have trouble with a specific spot, I'll go over it enough that it starts to stick.

Something that my second piano teacher used was to divide the piece into two or three line sections (or whatever best fit the phrasing) and label them A, B, C...etc. Memorization was done in sections, and if you could play the sections in reverse order, i.e. D, C, B, A (not the stuff in the sections, of course!  ), then you've memorized it pretty well.

[infectedmushroom]

I'm quite good at memorizing pieces... Though, I'm bad at sightreading.


Anyway, the way I memorize is quite simple. I only use the score to know what comes next. I play bar by bar and everytime I played one, I try not to look at the score, but look at my hands. See what your hands are doing. Play every new section very slowly and watch carefully what your hands are doing and what kinda sound they "produce".

I never associate things with scales, or other kinda patterns... I tried to do that, but it made things worse for me.

[annoying_airhead]

Hehehe... how 'bout trying to memorize the few bars the examiner has dumped in front of you?

{He/she dumps, you have approx. 2 min. before you have to play what you've memorized - for my last exam, I managed to get 2 notes right; the first, and the last =}

[ichiru]

I play bar by bar and everytime I played one, I try not to look at the score, but look at my hands. See what your hands are doing. Play every new section very slowly and watch carefully what your hands are doing and what kinda sound they "produce".

My way of memorizing is also like this. But sometimes it gives me problem when I need to hear the voice because most of the time I focus too much on the movement of the fingers and not hearing the voice I produce...

Well, just recently, I studied Moszkowsky etude no. 11 and succeed memorizing it in around a week. I just practiced each 2 bars, after that I combine them into 4 bars and then 1 pages, etc. Most of the time, I try to remember the pattern of the notes and try to find its correlation with other bars. But I think what makes me able to memorize it completely is that because I play it so often with metronome starting from a really slow tempo till I get the flow, adding up 2 notches, playing it again, and so on and so on until I reach the right tempo...

So I guess... it's because I play it too often...

[jozart]

Hi Stephanie-piano,
One way to check memory is to work from the end forward. Start with the last 2 or 3 bars (check the music if you have to) play again starting 2 or 3 bars before that (check score if necessary). Continue until you have done the whole piece. Follow this process until you never need to check the music again. This will establish trigger points for your memory and give you great confidence. If you ever get distracted when performing, you can pick it up at a place very close to where you lost it. Another exercise is to play the piece very slowly from memory so you override motor memory and have to think about where you are and where you are going.
jozart