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Date: | Fri, 27 Aug 1999 10:21:17 +1200 |
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Jane Erb asked about tips for memorizing on the piano:
>[My friend] claims that he can play a piece hundreds of times with the
>music but is unable to play it if the music is taken away.
That may be the problem - by playing the piece again and again on the
piano, the fingers or the ears can end up knowing the piece better than
you do, so to speak - you end up relying on a tactile or auditory imprint
which becomes very vulnerable under different surroundings or a different
instrument - or even just under the stress of not having the music as a
backup. Your friend needs to try to memorize the music away from the
keyboard, by reading the score. In particular, I suggest memorizing the
outline of the principal themes first (so that you have secure 'building
blocks' with which to work) - and then examining how they are combined
and transformed, in what register and key they enter, etc. This is by
no means easy to do, but it means your friend will have a mental backup
if his fingers or ears give out. It can also lead to more general musical
confidence and understanding, because it makes you look for parallels and
differences, for patterns and sequences, for key structural and harmonic
points, etc.
Felix Delbruck
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