How to improve the train of thought?

[faa2010]

Sometimes you learn a piece, you learn it by heart and you have the ability to play it.

But a moment comes when you don't know why you don't remember some passage specially if you have played it before, either in other practices or you repeated it because it is part of the piece to repeat certain passages.

The issue is that the train of thought has been detracted or lost. Maybe because you got distracted or because another thing came to your mind and detracted you from the piece.

What do you do when this happens?, how to improve the train of thought?

[dcstudio]

analyze your pieces--harmonically --know the chord progression...  themes... modulations...etc, this gives you a context to remember things by.  The part of your brain that thinks in words wants to know what's going on when you are playing---if you are learning all your pieces by rote muscle memory then there's not much for the "word" thinking part of your brain to go on--so it crashes--and you forget whole sections of your piece.

[twelfthroot2]

Create a memory web instead of a memory chain.  Muscle memory is very linear.  One movement/note is linked to the next movement/key, but not to anything after that (A linked to B, B linked to C, but A not linked to C directly).  If this link is broken then you'll be in trouble.  Learning harmonic progressions etc. help build the web (A linked to B, A linked to C, B linked to C).  If one thing in this case is forgotten (e.g. A linked to B), then there is something else to back it up (A linked to C).

Tony

[dcstudio]

Create a memory web instead of a memory chain. 
Tony

YES!       I usually make an analogy involving Random Access Memory vs. sequential access memory.

my teacher told us to be like a record player where you could drop the needle anywhere and just go---but that one doesn't really work anymore.