Memorization

[David L]

Memorizing melodies is WAY easier than memorizing multi-part music like piano. There are fairly easy piano pieces that I have played for 40 years and still use the sheet music. On the other hand, the Three Preludes by George Gershwin are so ridiculously difficult that I had them memorized long before I could actually play them through.

The hardest music to memorize are long pieces that do "not quite the same thing" over and over.

[Kevin Stueve]

I've been trying to memorize Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring for a year and David L. you just nailed why it is tough to memorize. Virtually the same over and over.

[StuartE]

if you are struggling to memorize it helps to learn the song out of order. In other words memorize the last phrase. Then learn the phrase that precedes the last phrase ...

This method is recommended by many experts. The advantage is that you are always starting on a new phrase to learn then returning to phrase(s) who have already learned.

[catmandu2]

I've been trying to memorize Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring for a year and David L. you just nailed why it is tough to memorize. Virtually the same over and over.

That one's fairly anomalous in the canon. There are others - the short dances, more 'song'-oriented pieces.. The larger works however - the lute and cello suites, for example - have little repetition throughout, unless one thinks of themes and motifs as repeating, though they're always varied. Those were challenging to memorize.

[Kevin Stueve]

That one's fairly anomalous in the canon. There are others - the short dances, more 'song'-oriented pieces.. The larger works - the lute and cello suites, for example, have no repetition throughout - unless one thinks of themes and motifs as repeating, though they're always varied. Those were challenging to memorize, but we did.

Yea had prelude to cello suite 1 memorized about as fast as I could master the fingerings on my mandolin.

[catmandu2]

Writing on another thread, it occurred to me that *my way* of learning music is very emotional - thus likely to be imprinted, retained, etc. When I get into something new, I'm consumed by it - sensory and cognitive stimuli - it becomes an obsession, much like a new lover. A new piece is something I'm immersed in, it takes me over - until I'm satisfied with my work on it - after which it then becomes rehearsed, more so. I really fall in love - with the new piece, the sound, instrument, tactile stimuli, assuaging curiosity, learning, the new chemistry, so much. It's an intense, irrational passion.

[Ivan Kelsall]

IMHO - It really depends on how long you've been playing & how many tunes/songs you've learned. I've learned every song/tune by ear & i could remember all of them - as long as i was playing them. After coming to mandolin,i've not played banjo very much. Right now,i can remember banjo tunes,but not the name. Others,i can remember the name but not the tune !!. To keep memorised tunes/songs ticking over,you need to play them. I currently have a list of 76 'practice tunes/songs that i 'pick along to, & i can remember every one of them. I'd bet that if i left them alone for a few weeks,i'd have to start over on more than a few of them,
Ivan

[mandocrucian]

Did anyone intentionally "memorize" any of these tunes? :

The Flintstones, Leave It To Beaver, Hawaii Five-O, Mission Impossible, Hogan's Heroes, Gilligan's Island, "Gloom Despair, Agony On Me", "Hound Dog", "Yellow Submarine", "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", "Folsom Prison Blues, "Tiger By The Tail", the theme from "Masterpiece Theater", "Proud Mary", "Popeye The Sailor Man", etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.? (or any of hundreds of radio hits and TV/movie soundtrack themes)

If/when you program your fingers/hands to follow your sonic ear, you can start to play along with the radio station and the record collection in your head. But if not.....does just picking up the instrument eat up so much mental processing RAM that the "radio" shuts down?

Think about it.

[Mark Wilson]

But if not.....does just picking up the instrument eat up so much mental processing RAM that the "radio" shuts down? Think about it.

[T.D.Nydn]

I find it best to get the tune solid in your head,find a good recording and play the death out of it untill it's an ear worm,you can go over it in your sleep,,sometimes you have to learn also from sheet music,such as a Calace piece,,so you take it slow and in methodical sections,,it also might depend on what type of person you are,if you can't remember your own phone no.,it might take you longer,, (I've been working on the Jetsons theme on and off for quite some time)..

[billkilpatrick]

Did anyone intentionally "memorize" any of these tunes? :

The Flintstones, Leave It To Beaver, Hawaii Five-O, Mission Impossible, Hogan's Heroes, Gilligan's Island, "Gloom Despair, Agony On Me", "Hound Dog", "Yellow Submarine", "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", "Folsom Prison Blues, "Tiger By The Tail", the theme from "Masterpiece Theater", "Proud Mary", "Popeye The Sailor Man", etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.? (or any of hundreds of radio hits and TV/movie soundtrack themes)

If/when you program your fingers/hands to follow your sonic ear, you can start to play along with the radio station and the record collection in your head. But if not.....does just picking up the instrument eat up so much mental processing RAM that the "radio" shuts down?

Think about it.

I read that a producer for the film "The Adams Family" took a small electronic keyboard out onto the street in front of his office in Hollywood and played "da-da-da-dum" to everyone passing by. When practically everyone who heard it clicked their fingers in response ("click-click") he knew he had a winner. There are some ear-worms that slip right in there and never leave.

A friend of my fathers used to drive back and forth to California on a fairly regular basis. He said he'd usually start humming a tune in New York and still be humming it ad nauseam when he got to the coast. One time he chose a tune specifically for the trip, one that wouldn't drive him nuts, and forgot it immediately when someone passed him on the street whistling "Lady of Spain."

To learn a song, I think I use a different part of the brain than everyone else because I can practice it over and over and over and over and over again till my fingers ache and still not remember it the next day. It's not just because I'm old, either - I always had trouble.

[catmandu2]

...I can practice it over and over and over and over and over again till my fingers ache and still not remember it the next day...

I have trouble with memorization sometimes too - typically when I'm playing in an ensemble with music I'm not as emotionally invested in. The more you're connecting emotionally with what you're doing, you're using more area of the brain - plasticity - so your tune is wired/mapped via more pathways, potentiating greater access of recall.

[MontanaMatt]

My musical foundation started as a child learning classical violin, with note reading fluency required. I now prefer to read notes while I learn a new tune, my minds eye then see the sheet music as I play in the future. I can't read a lick of tab, and have made an effort to not try, as numbers firmly mean finger not fret in my lexicon.
I've always wanted a translation device for mandola and mandocello, so I can keep reading treble clef while playing the cousins.
Any app programmers out there?

[ralph johansson]

As I've said any times before (in many contexts): the key to memorization is understanding. In music, understanding the song, what it expresses, and how, chord structure, development of motifs, or contrasting of motifs, developments that conform to the harmonic structure or oppose it, etc. etc. etc.

E.g., one of the very first standards I transcribed from record, decades ago, was My Funny Valentine, with an A1 A2 B A3+tag structure, building on the contrast between minor (the three A parts) and major (B and tag); the fact that the second A part echoes the first, a third higher, over the same chords and descending bass line; the melody reaching a climax on a high note in the A3 part, with the tag as an afterthought, the main minor motif now repeated in the relative major. Understanding the role of all these elements made memorization of this farily complex and subtle standard easy. Of course, in many cases I' ve had to refer to a score for lack of an aural source, and the thing then is to not read linearly, one note after the other, but scan the score, looking for structural elements - how does the melody relate to the harmony, where (if ever) does it leave the given key, or return. A very sophisticated standard is All the Things, which visits five different keys before settling on the main key (in most printed versions Ab major), bars 9-16 echoing bars 1-8, one fourth lower, second half of the bridge echoing the first half (a minor third lower) etc. etc. etc.

As for fiddle tunes, these usually alternate scales with arpeggios, sometimes in very straightforward manner (Rickett's Hornpipe) or very subtly (e.g., Brilliancy, which I deciphered with some effort 50 years ago). Knowing this facilitates both transcription and memorization, thinking more in "Gestalten" (to use a term from psychology) than individual notes.

[Beanzy]

I've always wanted a translation device for mandola and mandocello, so I can keep reading treble clef while playing the cousins.
Any app programmers out there?

If you buy a digital copy you could add a sharp and read it as if it were treble for the Mandoloncello. (I think that should be a 13th off)
But you'll need 'cello fingering/ shifts to be comfortable.

Anyway back to memorization......

[David L]

If you buy a digital copy you could add a sharp and read it as if it were treble for the Mandoloncello. (I think that should be a 13th off)
But you'll need 'cello fingering/ shifts to be comfortable.

That technique does NOT work. You are thinking or reading bass clef parts (with an added sharp) on bari sax. That works, but only because bari saxes are Eb instruments.

[Beanzy]

Nope, adding a sharp and using the octave treble; we use it for our mandolin orchestra parts. But I use the Bass clef, they both match & the mandolin only folks don't complain when they sit in.
I should add that's assuming you have a cello part to start with.

[bigskygirl]

Does the memorization of tunes get easier as one's technical skills improve?

I think it depends...if one is simply memorizing something and not gaining an understanding of the underlying information then no it does not get easier, most likely it will be promptly forgotten or need reference material (tab or notation) to help with recall and in the long run may feel overwhelming because "I can't remember all these tunes!"

In school we all cram for an exam spending a lot of effort to memorize whatever was being tested...and then forget all or most of it when the test was over. Some people "just want to learn the tune" and are not interested in or even afraid of the understanding part, the people I know like that are literally paralyzed without reference material in front of them.

When I started playing the mandolin I recognized that each tune was building on the previous one, providing me a knowledge base I can draw on in the future, maybe another way to look at it was I was gaining experience. At the time memorization was involved as I had never played music like this before, over time I learned the relationships and structure (disclosure: I'm a theory geek) in the tunes and how the music worked and came to understand how things work.

Now, I'm able to learn tunes very quickly, mostly by ear and if it's a tune I haven't played for awhile if I hear it in the jam circle by the time it gets to me I can manage a decent break. I think it's because I now "know" how things are working. I have worked on probably 150 tunes in all so far and I draw on the base I have built up...it's in D, it's a fiddle tune, there's a minor in the second part...and so on.

I know people that work on one tune until they memorize it exactly as written - and are pretty frustrated. I generally have 5-10 tunes in various stages of prep, some I'm learning, some I'm perfecting, others I'm reviewing, some trying to speed up, some developing another break, and so on.

Engineers are pretty black and white so moving into the gray area may be difficult. Music is very dynamic - don't limit yourself to the "right" way just go with the flow and have fun, good luck.

Check out this chart, I run into the last item quite often at jams...

http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/...understanding/

[HonketyHank]

I think I can see at least one of my problems with memorizing tunes: I am memorizing notes. While the following is not literally true, it is not far off: I am right now playing a C# by hitting the second string with my left middle finger down at the 4th fret and the next note is an F# so I must fret the first string at the 2nd fret with my pointer finger without lifting my middle finger off the C# because I am coming back to it next.

Probably best to be just humming the tune and letting that 'dum - dee - dum' flow.

I think I may be doing something to help learn how to do that. Over in the Newbies Social Group, Mark Gunter has organized a study group of us Newbies that addresses the basics of improvisation and the structure of tunes. I have high hopes that this will help me become more of a musician and less of a technician.

A good technician plays all the right notes in the right places.
A good musician plays music.

I have never considered myself to be a musician, but I would like to work in that direction.

[John Kelly]

One other point that I have thought about a lot recently. I have been playing, (starting on guitar) since I was in mid-teens and am now in early seventies, and have always played a mixture of material learned both by ear and from reading the dots and I rely on both when learning any new tune. I never play from written music when performing in public or in the sesions I attend, though I often look at the music if someone else asks me to let them hear what a particular tune might sound like.
Recently I have been going to a Scottish traditional fiddle workshop where the tune is taught completely by ear. The tutor plays a phrase then the class repeats it, and this is done over and again till class is happy to move to next chunk; as the lesson progresses, so does the tune till we are playing all of it. However, regularly by the time I have driven home, humming the tune as I drive, I find the tune becomes forgotten! Talking to some of the other players/students I know that others experience this as well; I get a hold of the dots - the tutor always supplies them to us if we want them - and I am instantly happy and can play again, and I do not even need to read the whole score to get the tune going.
I have thought about this phenomenon a lot and now I think I have the answer: those tunes I have trouble learning are all tunes I do not want to play in the first place, and the ones I can learn easily are all tunes I have liked on first hearing them and have wanted to add to my repertoire. The same with songs and their words. I regularly contribute to the SAW group here on the Cafe and quite often the tunes I record will not be anywhere near being committed to memory when I record them (this week's "Bonny At Morn" is an example of this - I downloaded the music yesterday, had a few plays from the notation Martin Jonas had appended, then recorded a version this morning using the melody and first harmony parts and adding chords based on the chords given in the notation). I will learn this tune from memory as it is one I WANT TO LEARN! So for me, a mix of ear, notation, and above all a desire to learn the particular tune.

[bigskygirl]

Actually I think you memorizing the notes is better than just using tab, but not at the expense of the melody. Having the tune as an ear worm is helpful, when I'm playing a fiddle tune I'm following along in my head what the melody is and then if I mess up or get lost I can just keep going.

I had a guitar teacher once that told me the notes are not in my fingers. If you know the note is C# then you can find it in other places as opposed to only knowing to put your finger on the 4th fret 2nd string.

[Mandobart]

...Engineers are pretty black and white so moving into the gray area may be difficult...

This is one of the often-made assertions that I take issue with. My career has been in engineering, specifically in power plants. I earned my BSME at age 29, after first spending over 8 years on nuclear subs in the USN. A pretty black and white, highly technical field. I've been in power production now for nearly 30 years. BUT I've been a musician since I was 10. I also draw, paint and sculpt. That part of me didn't stop when I got into a technical career. If you think that by knowing a career choice you know everything, or even very much, about a person it shows a certain shallowness, IMO. Another broad generalization that always surfaces in these discussions is how "classically trained musicians" can't improvise or play with feeling because they can only read off of sheet music. The best players and improvisers I know in BG, GJ and swing are classically trained. I play with mostly self-taught musicians, aside from a few with classical backgrounds like me, and most of the self-taught players can only play songs and licks they have first learned and memorized. But these are generalizations from my own experience - I know there are many exceptions all around. I would not say "self-taught musicians can't play a song they've never played before because they lack an understanding of theory" because I know there are some (probably many) that can.

Some say "there's two (or 3, or 10) kinds of people in this world." I say there are about 7 billion.

[jshane]

Did anyone intentionally "memorize" any of these tunes? :

The Flintstones, Leave It To Beaver, Hawaii Five-O, Mission Impossible, Hogan's Heroes, Gilligan's Island, "Gloom Despair, Agony On Me", "Hound Dog", "Yellow Submarine", "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", "Folsom Prison Blues, "Tiger By The Tail", the theme from "Masterpiece Theater", "Proud Mary", "Popeye The Sailor Man", etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.? (or any of hundreds of radio hits and TV/movie soundtrack themes)

If/when you program your fingers/hands to follow your sonic ear, you can start to play along with the radio station and the record collection in your head. But if not.....does just picking up the instrument eat up so much mental processing RAM that the "radio" shuts down?

Think about it.

This is really the answer, although I am astounded at how energetically most people resist it.

If you can play what you "hear in your head", then you can, by definition, play anything you have heard enough to be able to repeat the tones in your head. That means, for example, you don't have to memorize the mechanics of red-haired boy-- you just have to be able to hear it it your head (or whistle it, or sing it... i think people get to hung up on the verbiage of this... you don't have to be able to sing to do this).

So why not spend the time learning THIS rather than learning a song backwards, or whatever?

I freely admit that I am not there yet, but I am far enough along to be convinced that this is just as learnable as anything else, and far far more rewarding.

my 2 cents, probably worth considerably less.

[Kevin Stueve]

I have never understood why some people insist there is only one answer and one way. Does it make you feel better to denigrate those who do it differently. Is a refusal to read music really the mark of a real musician?

[fatt-dad]

There's memorizing the melody and there's memorizing the technical aspects of playing. For the former, you have to be able to sort of hear the sound in your head - know what it's supposed to sound like. I mean most of us have memorized Happy Birthday, for example. We may not know how to play it on a sousaphone, however. There are Celtic and baroque pieces that really stump me. It's hard to recall the exact musical expressions. There are also pieces of music I have completely committed to my mind, that are hard to approach on the mandolin. Where did I do that position shift? How did I work through that passage? Bach does that to me. I mean I'll completely memorize some passage, but forget the technical approach months later.

Reading music should inform your ear. Inform it to what you want to play. Playing should be like singing. The muscle steps in singing are too complex to state, but we do it. . . I liken playing any musical instrument to working the larynx. In time it becomes automatic. Anytime we read out loud it's because we want to, not because it's our only option.

Just my philosophy on the matter of memorizing.

f-d