Memorization is sometimes seen as a daunting task, a job left to the end that is fraught with perils in performance, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If memorization of a piece of music seems intimidating, a fresh perspective of what memorization is, how it is accomplished, and how it benefits performance can help.
Every piece of music is like a new environment. When you travel to a new town you’ve never been to before, you may easily get lost; you’ll have to refer to a map or utilize your convenient GPS. Yet, as each day passes in the new place you are slowly becoming familiar with your surroundings, noticing certain landmarks or streets that help you get to your destinations. You may turn on that GPS for security for a while, but eventually you won’t need it. You might start to recognize a park or neighborhood that you walk or drive by. There’s a house with a dog that runs up to the fence each time you pass. The gas station on a particular corner is the cheapest! With time a place becomes familiar and comfortable…and yet there are probably still many new things to observe and learn about in your new town: new places to visit, new events to attend, or a tree that suddenly has stunning blooms in spring.
Learning a piece of music is a similar experience. It may feel like a foreign environment with tricky technical spots, like figuring out those darn traffic circles in a new city or navigating roads with infuriatingly absent street signs. There may be sections of the music that look similar but have slight differences, just like certain neighborhood streets with row houses that appear to match but aren’t actually the same. You can get lost and confused in a piece of music just as you can in a new town, but time spent living with it, learning its characteristics, and observing its twists and turns will help you feel more comfortable and all contribute to…confident memorization!
Why Memorize?
Yes, you can play a piece of music beautifully without memorization. But aside from just leaving your hands free to play your instrument and not deal with page turns, memorization of piece of music can also give you the freedom to focus on the emotional elements of a performance. You know every twist and turn, you’ve become familiar with the challenging technical parts, and you can now be in full control of shaping every musical phrase and taking the listener on a journey. A performance is like a tour of your town. You know every alley and back road, you know every secret mural and art installation, and you want to share all of these special features with your guests. A piece of music may tell a story or take listeners on an emotional journey. The process of memorization helps you learn how every note, chord, and musical phrase fits into the larger picture, and your understanding of the inner workings of the piece will help make it clearer for the audience.
What is Memorization?
Memorization is a combination of physical and mental awareness. As we practice we are teaching our bodies to move efficiently, and with freedom. You develop a tactile awareness of the piece, learning how far your fingers or hands need to move to from note to note, or how your bow arm needs to travel smoothly from one string to another. This physical memory of movement must work in conjunction with a conscious mental awareness of the music. Consciously observing how the music is put together, what the structure is, where the keys change, the distance of a particular interval, etc., all contributes to a deeper understanding of the music and is essential to developing security in memory. Physical and mental awareness must work together; one cannot rely on one type alone for a confident memorized performance.
How do I Memorize?
While memorization of a piece of music can seem like a separate task after learning the notes, the learning process for a piece is a part of memorization. As you are learning the notes, you are observing the contour of a melody line, or working on a particular leap or shift. While doing this you are generating a familiarity with the textures and contour of the landscape, all of which will help you when you focus on memory. However, also working through a structured memorization process is essential to solidifying the memory of a piece. There are strategies that can be used to memorize a piece of music, and to also give you the confidence handle memory slips in performance.
Memorize in small sections
Select a few measure or a phrase to focus on. Be aware of what key you are in and what the harmonies are, be sure of the fingering you want to use, observe the contour of the melody line and notice any particular leaps or directional changes that are notable. For string players, it is important to also memorize the bowing patterns as well. For pianists it is extremely helpful to memorize hands apart as well as together. Pianists can memorize the section hands separately, and then practice hands together. When playing hands together one can choose to focus on an individual hand and let the other one take care of itself, or focus on both at the same time, observing how they interact together. Being able to play the hands separately, memorized, will provide more security than only playing them together.
Following this process for small sections will help lead towards feeling more secure through larger chunks. After memorizing small parts, combine them into a larger section and test the memory.
Compare similar sections and practice them back to back
In most pieces there will be sections that return in either exactly the same way, or with slight differences and perhaps a key change. When you have similar, but slightly different sections, it’s important to compare them to be able to identify exactly how they are different, and why that may be. Is it because the key has changed? Is it because it’s leading to a different section and the transition is different? Does it have to do with the greater form of the piece, such as Sonata-Allegro form?
It is helpful to practice these back to back, being mindful as you play where the differences occur. Then put them in context, by playing the preceding material so that you remember which of the two sections follows. Mixing up similar sections can be a pitfall and send you in loops, but if you are aware of the “change in scenery”, have a solid understanding of the piece’s overall structure, and have a mindful presence of where you are when you are playing through the piece, you will be able to stay on track.
Set up guideposts
Going through a detailed memorization process sets you up for success, but performing always brings in new environmental factors that don’t exist when you are practicing on your own. Mistakes and slips can happen no matter how much we practiced, so we need to set up a safety net by knowing places in the music where we can recover.
First, you absolutely need to know the form of the piece. Is it in binary form; a sonata; a minuet; a rondo? Knowing this will help you recognize sections that contribute to the larger structure. You should practice being able to start at the beginning of these larger sections. Make observations that will help you know how to begin. What note(s) does it start on? What chord does it begin on? Is it similar but slightly different from another section? You should be able to start at any of these sections by memory.
Because these sections may be long it is important to set up additional safety guideposts along the way. Divide up the sections by groups of phrases that go together and practice starting at these additional guideposts. Go through the same observational process so you really know how to start at each of these points.
You can challenge your memory by picking different sections out of order to play, or practice the start of each section in the order that they actually occur in the piece. This way, if you do have a problem you will be confident of having a nearby starting point you can jump to.
Practice your memory away from the instrument
Mental practice is a valuable tool to use throughout all stages of learning, including the memorization process. You can incorporate it into your small section practice, as well as run-throughs of larger sections or the entire piece. Can you visualize and hear every note? Can you feel every movement that you need to make on your instrument? Are you using the fingerings you planned on? Are you using the bowings you practiced?
The advantage of mental practice is that you don’t need your instrument. You can do it while waiting in line, while you are out for a walk, or sitting in your backyard enjoying some fresh air. Mental practice can be challenging, but can be very revealing. As you are playing through a piece in your head you might get stuck somewhere and realize you don’t know what comes next. Was the next note a half step or a whole step away? What was the bowing in that spot? This is a good way of checking how well you know the piece. If you do get stuck it just tells you that you need to back and review that section again, making note of why you might have gotten confused at that point. What was it that you weren’t sure about?
Ultimately, if you can envision an entire performance of your piece in your mind, all your nitty-gritty, focused, and detailed observational practice has paid off.
Practice performing by memory
Congratulations! You’ve gone through all the hard work and are feeling good about your memory. Now you need to road test it! Live performance is a very different experience to the controlled environment of home practice. There may be noise from the audience, cell phones going off, outdoor weather to contend with, maybe a different instrument…and nerves. Going through the memorization process will set you up for success in performance, and establishing the guideposts should give you the confidence you need to recover from any slips. But practicing performing is necessary to get used to the situations you will encounter and how to handle them.
Ideally, you want to practice performing in front of another person or group of people. You will feel different playing in front of an audience than you do when you are playing by yourself. If you experience a memory slip there are different ways of handling it, and it will depend on the performance situation (solo, duo, ensemble). Playing by yourself, you can utilize your guideposts if needed. You can improvise your way out of the situation. Or if you realize you looped around to the wrong section, perhaps replaying the A section instead of the slightly different A1 section, then just keep going as if you were playing the A section the first time. Your audience will get some bonus material. Ultimately the goal is to keep the music going with as little interruption as possible despite a memory slip. After the practice performance you can assess what went wrong. Were you not really paying attention to where you were in the music and that caused you to inadvertently loop back? Did you suddenly realize there was a part you didn’t know as well as you thought you did and it caught you off guard? Every practice performance is a learning opportunity to help strengthen your memory even more.
If you aren’t able to practice performing in front of anyone, it is still very useful to do practice performances on your own. In this situation make it your goal to keep going and attempt to recover no matter what. You can look back at any slips after you finish.
Do spot checks
There is a saying that “practice makes perfect”. We can have high standards but practicing for perfection is an elusive goal. We should be practicing towards crafting a meaningful performance that connects with our audience and allows us to play with confidence and security. Even if you’ve done your due diligence and practiced with attention to detail at every step of the way, slips can happen. Once you feel confident about the memory it is good to do spot checks once in a while and return to some small section practice. Looking at the notes on the actual page can also refresh the memory if you haven’t opened the music book in a while. You may learn new things when reviewing the memory that you hadn’t noticed before.
Should I Memorize?
While memorizing a piece may not be required depending on your individual situation and expectations, going through the process will give you a deeper connection and understanding of the music. There is nothing wrong with performing from music. In the 1800’s Clara Schumann set the standard of performing piano recitals by memory, but in recent years some internationally renowned artists have chosen to perform with the music. There are even some music schools that no longer require memorized jury performances. You can accomplish a refined performance and still have the security of music in front of you. However, even if you choose to play with music, going through a structured memorization process can be a useful experience to really immerse yourself in every moment, and develop an even stronger connection to the music.
However you choose to perform, your experience of the piece will be unique. Just as everyone has different perspectives and experiences of a particular town, your understanding and interpretation of a piece of music will be different from someone else’s. Whether you decide to play from memory or with the music, the memorization process will allow you to immerse yourself more deeply into the notes on the page and craft something that will be a unique experience for the listener.
Settling In
Part of the joy of visiting a new place is finding out what it has to offer, perhaps returning multiple times and discovering something new with each visit. Spending time with a piece of music, observing how it works, and working towards a fluid performance can offer a similar experience. It’s a new landscape that you need to get to know and with each return visit, it becomes more a part of you. Memorization can help that piece feel like home.