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Author: Ashley91489
Date: 2009-02-04 03:17
I'm not good at memorizing things. I can do it but it just takes me a while sometimes. I need to become more efficient at memorizing everything (specificly scale studies, 3rds, arpeggios, etc (Baermann style). Any tips of advice other than just repetition and breaking in down in smaller parts?
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Author: Sarah M
Date: 2009-02-04 13:54
I never learned my scales using a book, so actually it didn't require memorization. However, doing it this method allows you to actually listen to the intervals created between the notes and eventually you can tell if you've played a wrong note or not.
For example, a major scale will have two tones (whole steps) followed by a semitone (half step) followed by another three tones and then a semi tone. I suggest doing this really slowly though, and listen for the individual notes and memorizing the sound.
For majors in thirds, the same logic can be used as different intervals between the notes (ie. different kinds of thirds...major vs minor thirds) are created.
This method might be easier for me as I have over a decade of piano under my belt. I just thought I'd put it out there since you seemed like you needed a unique method.
Often memorization works best in a relaxed state as the brain can concentrate solely on the task at hand. Several teachers have actually suggested that writing out the music from memory is probably the best way to assure that you've secured the knowledge. This method also stimulates other senses of the body, and often the brain can remember things better if multiple senses are stimulated.
There are many books on memorization techniques as well. You might have to look into "piano" memorization, but ultimately it is the same principles.
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Author: am0032
Date: 2009-02-04 15:31
If you can play them with the music well, try recording yourself playing them maybe at a slower tempo. At that point, transcribe yourself so that you can play along with the recording. You don't need to write it out because it already has been. Good luck.
Adam
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2009-02-04 15:38
The best thing to do is to play it so often that you don't have to think while you play it. And just practice the scales like in the Klóse method and don't waste your time going all the way up to Bb''' or C''''. You usually don't play much higher than G'''.
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Author: William
Date: 2009-02-04 18:30
As you memorize each major scale, also learn it's relative minor as it uses the same key signiture. Also, learning the scales in the circle of fifths sequence helps keep things in order. The Klose book is organized in this fashion.
I like to warm up playing all the major scales starting on E3 for three octaves up and down, progressing upward by half step until C4 and from there for only two octaves until D#4 is completed. But again, the key is "organization" and this half-step sequence seems logical to me.
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Author: claaaaaarinet!!!!
Date: 2009-02-04 21:06
In addition to what people have already suggested, I find that setting incremental goals is very helpful. For example, two scales a week, or 8 measures a day, or whatever. When I memorized Nielsen Concerto last year, I set a goal of one page per week. This worked out to 10 weeks total and about 1-2 lines of music a day. When you break it down that way, a huge amount of music begins to look manageable. I knew the concerto pretty well before I started memorizing, and I also allowed two months after the initial ten weeks for solidification before the performance.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-02-04 21:40
This might seem kind of obvious, but when memorizing a piece of music I find it helps to be aware of the structure of the music. If something looks like a scale, remember what scale it is, C Major, B minor, etc. Same thing for arpeggios.
If a figure seems to be a modulated version of a previous passage (minor key version of the same figure, for example), you can simply remember how the second figure differs from the first--that's easier to do than remembering a second sequence of notes.
And, of course, if you are really good at recognizing intervals, that helps, too. The better you are at ear training/sight singing, the easier it is to memorize music, because then you can remember music based on how it sounds and not have to think about individual notes so much. Of course, you can still look for patterns of intervals in the sheet music, even if you aren't an expert in sight-singing.
Anyway, suffice it so say that it's easier to memorize music when you can think about it at a higher level of abstraction than just sequences of individual notes.
For memorizing scales, I think learning them in a sequence like the Klose pattern (as William suggested) is good because then you can think about each successive scale in terms of which sharps or flats you're adding to or subtracting from the previous scale. For instance, you can think of the Ab major scale (since it's the next in the cycle of fifths after Eb major) as having all the same notes as the Eb major scale but with a Db added (and starting on Ab instead of Eb, of course).
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-02-04 22:37
With apologies in advance for the length of this post:
There have been lots of good suggestions about memorizing, many related to performance-type pieces. The suggestions about memorizing scales and other interval studies have focused on thinking of the structure, organizing the material (as in the circle of fifths), etc., and they're all excellent ideas.
Let me admit, then, the rather sordid fact that when I memorized the Klose scales and arpeggios as a young student, I did so not by using any of these sophisticated techniques, but as a reaction to simple fear - fear of my teacher's anger at my next lesson if I hadn't memorized the material I'd been assigned. As a 7th or 8th grader, I was old enough to understand interval structure, but it really didn't matter much to me. I had already had to memorize the major scales up to 4 flats and 4 sharps for seating auditions at school, which I did because I didn't want to play 3rd clarinet. I memorized the Klose scales because (a) they were similar to those 9 I'd already memorized and so the patterns were familiar and (b) I had external motivation to make me play them enough to develop the necessary muscle memory in my fingers.
One of the frustrations I've felt for many years as a teacher is that most of my own students, because they clearly don't fear angering me, often don't learn these scales. They can play them with the page in front of them - I on the other hand find that looking at the page when I play those scales drives me bonkers and my eyes drift away if I try - but they need the crutch of the badly printed endless string of notes in front of them to get through.
I think the main ingredient to memorizing these tools, which in themselves can seem so mind-numbing to practice, is to find a reason for doing it. If you don't have a teacher who intimidates you into it, you need to find some other motivation. Then all the organizational techniques you can bring to the process will work better because your concentration will be higher. In one popular teaching approach here in the U.S. it's called "Level of Concern" - you learn anything better if you have a reason.
Keep in mind always that interval studies are tools - they become part of a vocabulary you can use to gain fluency in more explicitly musical contexts. In fact, so long as you need to keep looking at the page, they are in my opinion more or less useless (apart from the opportunity to build your control - but that can be done with any material), like trying to speak a foreign language by reading from a chart of common phrases or looking in a bi-lingual dictionary for each word.
Karl
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2009-02-05 08:19
Find a piece in F# major! From personal experience, there's nothing quite like it for inspiring you to learn all your scales!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-02-05 14:15
>>(Bassie said) Find a piece in F# major! From personal experience, there's nothing quite like it for inspiring you to learn all your scales!
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Won't help for Klose - no F# Major there, just Gb. :-)
Karl
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2009-02-05 14:25
This is my own technique that I teach my students:
Obviously know the piece really well. Then play it while backing up the stand about 3 feet. Do that a couple times, then back up the stand another 3 feet. repeat: Each time back up the stand more and more until you are only seeing an outline of the piece and your brain is adding the rest.
It works really, really well and is quick too.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: NBeaty
Date: 2009-02-05 16:46
To me, memorizing music is something that happens after learning it to a level of performance readiness. If I can't play something from memory in the practice room, I'm not really ready to perform with confidence that I will not make a mistake (such as playing a wrong note or rhythm).
Learning scales, arpeggios, 3rds, and other technique by memory has lead to most of my improvement in technique.
It is similar to learning a new language. If to speak the new language, you have to think of what it is in English, then translate to the other language, it will be somewhat delayed and unfamiliar. Being able to play technique from memory (whether starting from reading off the page, or learning scales by knowledge of theory) it is the same idea.
Since becoming familiar with this way of learning, I can play most anything that I've learned (solos, excerpts, technique) in the last 5 years without music.
Anyone else thought of it this way?
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Author: marshall
Date: 2009-02-05 21:21
When I'm working on a new piece of music, I make sure to listen to it at least as much as I practise it. That way, you memorize it as a piece of music instead of a certain configurations of notes. Once you know and understand the music as a whole, it makes learning the notes a lot easier. I think this is because you go into learning a passage already knowing what it's supposed to sound like, and as a result you are only working on the muscle memory and not on the memorization of the music. Since you've listened to the piece so much, you already have the music memorized, and once the muscle memory falls into place and the notes are there too, you'll be able to play it from memory.
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Author: MichaelR
Date: 2009-02-06 15:35
I'd like to echo mrn's suggestion to work on studying the structure of what you are trying to memorize. A structured sequence is easier to memorize than a random one.
For one your issue with scales and thirds, once you know a major scale is (Sarah's description) "two tones (whole steps) followed by a semitone (half step) followed by another three tones and then a semi tone."
WWSWWWS
Once you have that you can pick any note and work your way through the scale rooted there.
Playing slowly (enforced if you're having to figure it out as you go) and listening to the intervals as you play along help with recognizing what "sounds right."
Recognition memory is easier than creation memory. But if you recognize that you're playing the scale, arpeggio, third correctly you can correct your mistakes and teach yourself.
--
Michael of Portland, OR
Be Appropriate and Follow Your Curiosity
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Author: allencole
Date: 2009-02-06 18:33
I think that studying structure is great for a repertoire piece, but it's really barking up the wrong tree in terms of basic skills such as scales, 3rds, arpeggios, etc.
When memorizing basic tools, you need to be doing it as a physical skill, not a mental one.
Here are a couple of things that I think will help in the area of basics:
1 - Practice repeatedly and slowly while looking at the notes. Write in sharps, flats, technique, etc. if you need it.
In other words you will best memorize basics by playing them over and over correctly. Mistakes contaminate your collection of correct physical memories, so don't exceed your speed limit before you're ready.
Another great thing to do with scales is to build them up note by note. Ex. 1-2-1, 1-2-3-2-1, 1-2-3-4-3-2-1, etc. It's a great memorization aid, error detector, etc.
2 - If you want a mental workout, try writing out your own scales, 3rds, arpeggios, etc. either from the formulas you want to use, or transposing them from another key. Then you'll have something to physically practice that you're already mentally intimate with.
My students write out their major scales, thirds and I-IV-V arpeggios--transposing by scale element from an original given them in C. Works wonders for those who do it, but it's still a lot of WORK. Scales-in-3rds are particularly nasty and confusing for those who don't treat them with enough respect.
3 - I do like for students who create arpeggios from a formula, but I don't want them to flounder around with a bunch of trial-and-error that's going to pollute their memorization. So, how to have your cake and eat it too?
The answer is that they don't play any notes until they tell me which ones they're going to use. This gives them a chance to do the mental math, but makes sure that they only physically practice something that they are already mentally sure about.
4 - A goal to make you do all this. For sax guys, all you have to do is say 'jazz solo' and they're with you. With clarinet players it's an opportunity to deal with some wacky mentality that I am dedicated to correcting. I use scales and arpeggios as an aid to playing by ear. This makes the student truly depend on them. It also helps develop their ears in an instrument-related way, while paving the way to using that ear as a memorization aid for 'real' music.
5 - Don't try to do everything at once. I always start with major scales and arpeggios. If the kids don't learn these, there's no point going to minor. If they do learn them, it'll make minor come quicker.
*** end of basic points. The rest of this is how I implement #4 ***
More on playing by ear.
I teach students to play by ear ASAP, and this is a tremendous aid in memorizing scales and arpeggios. The First Noel is a song that allows the student to simply meander the scale with only one jump and very few repeated notes. Joy to the World is similar, although I find that newer students sometimes have trouble with all the repeated pitches. If the kid knows the scale, all I have to do is tell him which scale element the song starts on. They then go up and down to adjacent scale elements until the adjacent one fails to work. Then they have to try progressively more distant scale notes until they discover what note they have to jump to. Very simple if presented logically.
First Noel is a great song for the upper part of your major scale, although it covers the whole thing. Ode to Joy is a great one for working around the 3rd and 5th, and My Country 'Tis of Thee works great around the bottom of the scale. Ode & My Country also work in C for kids who haven't gone above throat A yet. I use these with all students and refer to them as the scale scrubbers. It makes them depend on their scales and makes pitch mistakes more glaring because they are familiar songs.
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a great song for nailing down arpeggios in both root and first inversion. It's also a great exercise for mixing scales and arpeggios as your aural yardstick. To help even more, Kenny G. plays it in concert F (and then Ab) on his first Christmas album. All this is doable by first and second year beginners.
Remember that bugle calls are based on a second-inversion arpeggio. Lots of potential there also.
Play the scale. Try the song. Fingers confused? Try the scale again. Each helps the other.
For more advanced players, "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" is a fantastic major scale workout which in some keys will prep you for when pinkies can't alternate.
Other valuable lessons from this. Most songs end on 1, and most start on 1, 3 or 5. This provides an opportunity for players to give themselves rudimentary ear training. Sing a song to its end and then start the next verse. See how the first note of the verse compares to the ending note (almost always 1 or 'do') that you just sang. Try holding the note you ended the song on, and sing a scale up (or maybe down) until you hear the starting note for the next verse.
So you can memorize and clean up your basic skills while training your ear and learning to reverse-engineer written music itself. Probably more than the original poster needs, but imagine what you can do with a kid who becomes skilled at this before high school.
Like Karl, I can't seem to induce fear either. And clarinets in my area aren't very competitive. Curiosity (where it still exists) is the last weapon in the arsenal.
Allen Cole
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Author: Pappy
Date: 2009-02-07 01:36
DavidBlumberg Said:
"This is my own technique that I teach my students:
Obviously know the piece really well. Then play it while backing up the stand about 3 feet. Do that a couple times, then back up the stand another 3 feet. repeat: Each time back up the stand more and more until you are only seeing an outline of the piece and your brain is adding the rest.
It works really, really well and is quick too."
This sounds like it would work really well.
Something that's been mentioned a number of ways above but: I often practice using what Eddie Daniels refers to as "slow fingers". It's slower than just playing the passage slowly. It's playing each and every note, initially as almost a long tone regardless of the actual rhythm. This is a great help in getting tough licks clean and not practicing mistakes. But it also, for me, helps the "finger memory". The other part of the slow fingers method that is interesting is that you could also start out at say 80% of the marked tempo and then decrease the speed each time you repeat it until you are playing it very slow and very much out of rhythm (with longer tones). Then don't play it up to tempo again until the next time you practice.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-02-07 15:18
>>3 - I do like for students who create arpeggios from a formula, but I don't want them to flounder around with a bunch of trial-and-error that's going to pollute their memorization. So, how to have your cake and eat it too?
The answer is that they don't play any notes until they tell me which ones they're going to use. This gives them a chance to do the mental math, but makes sure that they only physically practice something that they are already mentally sure about.>>
In terms of mechanics (as opposed to motivation) it should go, I think without saying, that to memorize scales you should first memorize the key signatures. Then, as in Allen's description of arpeggio practice, play each scale as slowly as necessary to think of each note before you play it. A scale, apart from being a series of whole steps and half steps (which have no real physical analog on the clarinet as they have on a keyboard or a string instrument's fingerboard), is also an alphabetic series using the first 7 letters of the alphabet. Regardless of what note you start on, one (and only one) of each letter must occur in sequence. So, knowing the key signature, the beginning of the alphabet, and all of the individual fingerings involved, it's a simple exercise to think the letter, apply whatever in the key signature affects it, and play the resulting note. It takes a lot of self-discipline not to speed up beyond the needed thought process, which leads to practicing mistakes, but once you've practiced the sequence this way, you will be able gradually to increase tempo. Do this one scale at a time. Minor scales can be associated either with their relative majors (then making changes for different minor forms) or parallel majors (substituting flatted third and, depending on the form, 6 and 7). This can all be done without looking at a single printed note. Once the scales are learned, memorizing the actual contexts presented in Klose or other routines is a relatively simple exercise, since for most it's a question of learning a pattern using the notes of each scale.
Karl
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Author: allencole
Date: 2009-02-07 22:01
Karl, I won't tout this as 'method' of memorization for key signatures, but it does help to create a necessity from their point of view.
It is sad (but shouldn't be surprising) that most young players don't actually associate their key signature with a scale or vice-versa. Because of this, they can be severely distracted by that key signature (and the need to recognize the affected notes) when reading music. Most are distracted to the point where rhythm just flies out the window. Add to this the fact that they're trying to think of every note they see by name.
I combat this by asking them if they are annoyed by all the attention they have to pay to the key signature throughout the song. The answer is almost universally 'yes'. I then ask them if their playing gets impeded by their failure to recognize an individual note--just like forgetting the names of distant relatives in line at a wedding. Again, the answer is almost always yes. This opens the door for me to introduce the scale as the solution to both problems, and the key signature as the element that easily identifies which scale to use.
I'll spare you further detail on my presentation, but it provides an 'a-ha' moment and a reason for reorientation when I need it to jump-start the student. The payoff includes:
1 - A practical reason to learn key signatures as well as scales
2 - A satisfactory understanding about why key signatures look like they do, and why we only have the 15 that we're used to.
3 - More faith in just following notes up and down on a staff ("It's just a graph" is the mantra) unless there are jumps or accidentals
4 - A reorientation of the students' reading approach where counting takes priority over button-pushing
But to do this, I have to get the scales into them without some of the mental process that you advocate. However, much of this can still be covered later with basic theory study applied to the horn. The Master Theory Workbook (Kjos) does a good job of this for me.
I also like the idea of initially visiting minor scales via the relative minor relationship. I like to present the natural minor scale as an easter egg that's been hidden in the major scale. Dangling the "Pink Panther" theme in front of them often helps lure them into minor key issues and gives me a good forum to demonstrate them.
Like you, I'm still a little taken aback at the need to coax and lure the kids into some of these things that you and I simply accepted, but on the other hand, it adds a challenge to teaching that helps keep the spark alive.
Allen Cole
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