Do you have Visual Memory?

[4greatkeyboards]

Artur Rubinstein did and described it in his autobiography (about 1000 pages in two volumes!) which I read.

So does modern pianist Valentina Lisitsa according to her.

For those who haven't heard of it: it is the ability to visually see the written sheet music while playing. Those who do it call it a trance-like state where the eyes are not fully open. Rubenstein said his visual memory required only about three readings of any score to develop.

I don't have this but wish for it and would like to develop it if any out there have suggestions.

Sometimes I get something like it. Yesterday, for instance, on my computer screen I punched up a piece ( I thought) and began reading / playing. But stalled after a few measures and was startled as the sheet music changed in front of my eyes to what I had had loaded before. The change I tried to punch up never happened. I mistyped. My screen did not change from the piece I had been playing. Yet I clearly saw the new music I expected to come up and began playing it.

Years ago while on a vacation I was studying the Rachmaninoff 3rd and playing 8 hours a day or so. One morning during that vacation, I woke up in bed with my eyes still closed and saw a hellacious collage of staves and notes. When I opened my eyes, if I held my gaze still I saw staves and notes all over the white walls, ceilings, and off-white carpet. None of it was playable. It was a score from hell (kind of like Rachmaninoff's). I saw clef signs, key signatures, barred notes with lots of accidentals on them. Whew! But it was of no use to me in playing.

From that time forward any time I was reading a lot I could see these visions on white surfaces. Note that it was not just visual persistence for I could see them first thing in the morning after sleeping.


Anyone have a similar story? Does this mean I may be able to get REAL visual memory if I work at it?

[lloyd_cdb]

I still have pieces I can close my eyes and see from things I learned 15 years ago. On the flip side,  the pieces I learned last year I can't even visualize the first bar. For me, I have physical memory; I see the page, play the notes, and remember the body motion without having to look at it again. So for pieces I've played recently, the physical memory tends to stay on top whereas pieces I've come back to multiple times I have a tendency to visually remember them now. It's definitely not in the way you are describing.

[4greatkeyboards]

OK, Thanks.

You are the first person I have ever corresponded with that has visual memory. May I ask how many hours of music it contains?


Thanks.