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Re: Memorizing pieces

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2020-05-08 06:29

Slowoldman wrote:

> I suspect that there are different types of memory for music,
> for "book knowledge", color memory, etc.
>
> Playing something many times over gives me a certain degree of
> muscle memory, which is essential to master a piece (or as
> close as I'm going to come to that)

Yes - there are different kinds of memory. Funny thing is, I don't feel as if it's entirely "muscle memory" when I do practice music from memory - there's a lot of aural memory guiding my fingers and rhythm and sometimes visual memory also contributes. Phrases join to form periods, which combine to form further structures that have logic that pulls me along through a piece (until it doesn't, hence my need for the security of the printed part on my stand). Muscle memory, to me, is more operative in learning basic patterns - scales, arpeggios, chromatic fingerings, etc. that are constantly needed to execute anything, at least in traditional genres, and for learning the occasional short series of notes that aren't standard patterns, like a foreign word in a piece of writing or narration that you don't recognize from previous experience.

I think of muscle memory mostly as an analog to phonics and word recognition in spoken and written language. You can't do anything with any kind of meaningful structure if you can't recognize and produce (orally or sub-vocally) those basics. To me, memorizing more complex written or spoken thoughts, scientific concepts or musical structures involves much more that the muscle memory that gets us through the basics.

Karl

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Memorizing pieces new

ruben

2020-05-06 13:48