Playing from memory – summary

by Edyta Lajdorfin Articleson Posted on

Playing from memory – summary

Let us summarise the main propositions:

  • Memorisation should commence parallel to learning about a music piece.

  • Such an attitude enforces a thorough analytical assimilation and “hearing” of all the texture elements.

  • Auditory imagining should precede hand work.

  • The above-described methods of checking successful memorisation provide a chance to determine the correctness of correlation of auditory and motor imagining.

In the course of work on a music piece one finally reaches a stage at which one needs to “forget about memory”. A piece that was selected out of preference, to which all the mental powers were committed – the mind, the will, and the emotions – becomes a part of our mental life, a part of ourselves. At the moment when we are to perform it on the stage and show it to others, disclosing all its values, our consciousness should only feel the joy of experiencing the beauty of music.

Do you have any questions about playing from memory? Please contact Edyta Lajdorf that runs piano lessons London.

Summary:

  • A fundamental factor in learning about and memorizing music is making the student aware that memorisation must occur in an active fashion. Noting can replace that active engagement.

  • There is no way that learning can be successful without engaging concentration.

  • Memorisation must become a habit – then it will become an easy, efficient, natural, pleasurable and reliable process.

  • Repetition of musical content should involve not its mere rereading, but retrieval of the first impression from memory and deepening it.

  • Becoming aware of various performance details of a new piece (fingering, phrasing, etc.) consolidates memorized material, facilitates its assimilation.

  • Enrichment of imagination through non-musical associations facilitates music memorisation.

  • One needs to aim at memorizing a certain whole from the start.

  • For a musician that wants to be successful in memorizing music, each music association and each performance-related activity must be consciously done.

  • Progress in music learning involves the use of previously acquired skills and knowledge.

  • Each new element of skills or knowledge must be reinforced.

  • The process of learning must be individualised. Undertaking tasks suited in every respect to each pupil’s skills and guaranteeing progress in relation to skills already acquired in a given regard is of great importance to achieving educational progress.

Bibliography:

  1. D’Abreu, Playing the Piano with Confidence (London 1964)

  2. Chaffin, Practising Perfection. Memory and Piano Performance (Mahwah 2002)

  3. Garczynski, Jak zapamietac (Warsaw 1976)

  4. Gordon, Mastering the art of performance (Oxford 2006)

  5. Kierska, Nauczanie gry na fortepianie – powołanie, umiejętność, wiedza (Wrocław 2011)

  6. Kubień-Uszokowa, Kilka refleksji na temat pamięci u pianistów (Gdańsk 1976)

  7. Preuschoff-Kazmierczakowa, Fortepian dla najmłodszych (Poznan 1994)

  8. Wierzylowski, Zarys psychologii muzyki (Warsaw 1968)

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