Geoffrey Thomas

Why memorize?

One answer is professional; other pianists play by memory. If you play with the music you are left to the mercy of a page-turner, which can be risky and distracting. I have only had one page turner in my life with whom I was satisfied: she turned at just the right moment, she was on top of things, but not ostentatiously, she knew where to stand, she was thinking of helping me, not of judging my performance. The list is long, the demands are high, and so far a good page turned to be a once in a life time experience. That lovely phrase ‘learning by heart’ also suggests why memorization is important: something becomes your own, becomes a part of you. The process of memorization makes you look at a piece much more closely; it compels you to examine every aspect. Playing by memory puts you in a different place mentally.

What are the problems?

You can get nervous and forget where you are. Everybody who plays by memory struggles with this and can vividly recall crashing publicly. Forgetting in a concerto is particularly problematic because you can’t jump forwards or backwards to a place you know. Problems can also arise through no real fault of your own, as when colleagues make mistakes. If you become nervous or fearful then it may be very difficult to pay attention. One way of getting out of a jam is to stop paying attention, rush a bit and hope that your fingers find the way. This kind of automatic playing is exactly what you want to avoid, however.

Methods of Memorization

There are three fundamental types of memorization: aural, motoric and visual. Visual is the most reliable but you want to cultivate all three.

If you simply play the piece until you don’t have to look at the music any more you are relying on visual memory is notoriously unreliable when the pressure is on as it relies on motor memory.

Memorize as you learn the piece. Sight read the piece to get a general sense and then begin to memorize four measures or so at a time. Put the music to my right side on a table or a music stand. This, however, is not a magic cure all, You can get the piece going pretty well without having it really firmly in you.

We still haven’t addressed the issue of how you actually memorize, however.

Let’s compare reading and memorizing words to reading and memorizing notes. One important difference is that we take in much larger chunks when we read text. If you read two sentences and then close the book you will probably be able to give a reasonable version of what you just read. Your accuracy will depend on the length and complexity of the thoughts, among other things. You may leave out words, transpose word order and the like but you will probably be able to give the sense accurately. This is much harder in music, although for professionals it shouldn’t be that much more difficult. Unfortunately, it normally is. Research show that we can remember seven bits of random information - hence the logic of telephone numbers. What we need to do is to make the musical information as non-random as possible. One way to do that is to identify musical figures by name, to give them the coherence that groups of letters formed into words have. These musical words then need to have the same kind of syntactical logic that groups of words, properly formed, possess. Any process which gives meaning will help comprehension and hence memorization.

The reason to memorize from the start is so that you really learn the piece. The last thing you want to be is a talented parrot.

Kinds of memorization:

• Motor
• Visual
• Aural
• Harmonic structure
• Figures
• Individual parts
• Story/vignette/affect
• Structure
• Analytical
• Holistic

Ideally you would like to have all these in the field of consciousness but this raises the central question of the range of consciousness and awareness. Typically we have one element in the forefront and all kinds of other thoughts, emotions and points of awareness competing for attention like children fighting with one another for parental affection.

After listening to Furtwängler conducting my playing immediately becomes better. This is very much a holistic transference. Perhaps the intuition has been touched or inspired. This also indicates that we can operate on a level which far transcends analyzed fragments.