Memorizing Beethoven

[bernadette60614]

My teacher, about whom I've spoken overly much, gave me a Wow to the first movement of the Beethoven piano sonata she assigned to me.  (With my wedding and the birth of our son, this ranks as one of the top 3 experiences of my life...since that Wow took many hours of practice to elicit.)

Now, she wants me to memorize this first movement so I can play it up to tempo.  Her advice is to memorize it in phrases, practicing each phrase 3x till perfect, then moving onto the next phrase.

Any other advice would be much appreciated.

(Now, I'm off to put that "Wow" on my Facebook page!)

[indianajo]

I don't make a process out of it. I just get bored and stop looking at the music.  Hearing the music and relating to it emotionally doesn't involve my eyes, anyway. I suggest staring out into space, not at your hands.   My advice is leave the music on the rack, but don't look at it, and play until you can't.  Then go over the part you forgot several times, slow enough to play it perfectly.  Then start back in the middle of what you do remember, going down to and through the newly memorized part.  This is like your teacher's suggestion, memorizing phrase by phrase, only I just assume I'm going to remember it, until I prove myself wrong.  If you are playing each note perfectly, you are 2/3 of the way to having it memorized IMHO.  People don't read all those notes that fast, anyway. 

[peter_gr]

Some time ago I decided to memorize music. I'm at level 2-3, or playing at that level. My short term memory is pretty well shot.

My recipe is as follows.

Divide the whole piece into 2 or 3 logical parts. Divide each of these into parts, keeping on subdividing, until the length of a part is possible to remember without looking at the music. If a part has 4 logical sub-parts, divide into 2 sets of 2.

Play the part continually until it is played satisfactorily. Then do the next part the same, and then the third if there are 3 subunits. Then go back to the first and repeat it, this time with fewer repetitions. Keep cycling through the whole thing until only one play is needed for each part, and the whole unit is done, and it is learned. Play the unit as a whole quite a few times to learn it as a unit. Then do the next unit. Upon returning to the first unit, it will be forgotten, but can be relearned more easily, cycling through the whole thing until memorized. (Also when initially learning, learn the last parts first).

It helps a great deal to think about the music, what is happening chord-wise, while repeating it. Also it is really useful to, while playing each bar, mentally recall the next bar so that the fingers are ready. Some pieces lend themselves to this more than others. Bachs prelude in C for example, as compared to Clementi op 36 no 1. I learned a much dumbed down version of moonlight sonata, and that was good for retrieving the next bar.

Its one thing to have all the bars in the fingers, another thing to recall these combinations at the appropriate time. This recall is a big problem. The information recall is triggered in the memory with the sound of the melody and notes.

Its hard work. But one gets the greatest satisfaction when the whole piece is integrated. It certainly sounds better then if played from the page.

[bronnestam]

https://worldofbeethoven.com/learning-the-sonatas/

Scroll down to the end of the article (plus comments) if you just want to read about memorizing; otherwise it is well worth reading from the beginning.

And yes, I can confirm that studying more than one sonata at the time is very helpful! Didn't believe it until I tried, but it really worked.