Defining Shape in Sheet Music

[lostinidlewonder]

I thought I would share just a basic tool that I use often to memorize passages. In the image posted I've highlighted the shape of the RH middle voice. Dots that are lower represent white notes and higher dots the black. I like to draw the group of notes out and connect the dots and see a shape that they create. It helps me to visualize what my fingers should feel like. This can be applied to anything in music when we want to visualize a group of notes at a time. For me in this piece Scriabin Etude Op 42 no 5, the Rh was giving me the most challenge for memory, so I highlighted their pattern out to increase the rate in which I could master them. I find always considering groups at a time is important, we often can get caught up thinking of individual notes out of context of the group the belong to. C sharp minor (F#C#G#D#)is in the key signature of this piece.
When you look at the shape your hand should be able to feel it as a whole, even though the order of the notes written on the score plays through the shape in intervals. You can feel playing lines of the shape, and it is helpful to give it context to the entire shape while you do so at the keyboard.

The visual shape basically has to be forgotten, you only use it to remember your position then you have to forget about it once you have acquired the muscular memory. Sometimes it is also a good reference for note accuracy when practicing through it at a slow tempo.

You could be a lot more precise with the spacing of the shape but I only need a rough shape for myself.

To acquire the shape I tend to play a group of notes as chord clusters, this gives me the overall shape that we have to play on. The exact order in which you go through it of course depends on the piece, but the overall shape can guide the position of the hand and the actual notes that have to be played.

[lostinidlewonder]

Has this gone over everyone heads?

[a-sharp]

LOL... My pedagogy teacher calls this "blocking" ... and I've started using this with my students. It's very helpful.

I read what you wrote - and then I scrolled down and saw this hugely advanced piece. But - I get your point. I even try to get my adult students to do it.

I've done it - but never had a verbal association with it.

I think that.. is it Chang's (?) how to practice - online book - calls this something - it's like - the ultimate fast speed - then, all you have to do is slow it down. Kind of an interesting concept.

With my intermediate student, I've tried to get her to set notes in "sets" ... like "clumps" of notes... for the same reason. I think it gets into your hands quicker that way....

so - no - it's not gone over everyone heads ... this is actually the 1st time I saw this post....

[hyrst]

This is one the foundational approaches to my teaching at all levels - but I tell my students to make patterns, I hadn't thought about it in such a sophisticated sense.  It is quite apparent in the early grades how this makes pieces so much easier.  The same principal works in the harder ones - except so many more places where these patterns have to be made and linked.

This method and sound are the ways I rely on memorising, too.  It does make it much quicker.  Sadly, I still seem to be painfully slow at getting things to stay in my head - I know I should know it, but it just doesn't stick.  I think I'm starting to get old!    LOL!

[a-sharp]

I know the feeling, *H*!