Memorization

[Mark Gunter]

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.

+1
It's not easy to remember stuff you don't really care for; much easier to remember or learn or internalize stuff that floats your boat.

[David L]

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.

I guess I don't understand what you are saying. If you have a top space note in the bass clef (G), how do you read that in treble clef to get the same note, even transposing to mandolin fingerings?

[bobby bill]

I think I can see at least one of my problems with memorizing tunes: I am memorizing notes.

I think you may be on to something there. When I am memorizing a tune I usually think about scale step, which can be described with a number. So, if in D major, I don't think about where an f# is on the fret board, I think about where the third step of my D scale is. It is not that numbers are easier to remember than letters, it is that they give you context. To me, that makes a huge difference in remembering where I am and where I am going.

[Beanzy]

I guess I don't understand what you are saying. If you have a top space note in the bass clef (G), how do you read that in treble clef to get the same note, even transposing to mandolin fingerings?

You get a digital copy of it, (music xml is good for importing to Notion, Sibelius etc) transpose it by a 13th & stick it in octave treble showing an extra sharp. I don't actually like it, but it does work to let non bass clef readers get by when sitting in so they can pretend it's just a mandolin on steroids. It causes problems for example when the conductor tells people to go to the A in bar x & of course they can't find one. If you have any tenor banjo / guitar stuff those are often in the right layout for getting by without bass clef. But really bass clef is so easy to relate to the mandoloncello it's better to just spend a while getting used to it.

[JeffD]

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..., and above all a desire to learn the particular tune.

I experience it exactly this way. I think you are on to something. I don't know if liking the tune makes it easier to learn, or if I just like tunes that are easy to memorize, or most likely, whatever it is in the tune that I like also contributes to making it easy to learn.

I mean - I like tunes with an internal narrative logic, where there is a perceived inevitability to the tune. Where the B part feels like a natural consequence of the A part. I don't know if this property of some tunes both makes me like them better and also makes them easier for me to learn, or if I like them better because they are easier to learn or if they are easier to learn because I like them better. All I can verify is that these things seem to occur together all the time.

[SincereCorgi]

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.

I think this is an interesting point, because 'memorizing' can mean very different things depending on genre. For me, memorizing a jazz standard or a fiddle tune is like memorizing a general recipe and being able to embellish it as I like. Memorizing a Mozart piano sonata is a very different mental task. Memorizing five verses of a song with simple chords is still different.

One thing I've noticed is that professional older singers, in the twilight phase of their careers, will often resort to lyrics sheets, but never anything for melody or phrasing. It's hard work keeping things remembered.

[Drew Streip]

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.

Another thing I neglected to mention is approaching mandolin playing like studying for a test. It's been proven that you recall things better if you study before bedtime.

So I usually have good results if I work on a piece for 45-60 minutes, until something strange happens: I get the tune in my EARS, but my fingers are too fatigued to continue playing cleanly.

When I wake up the next day and play, not only is it still in my ear: My fingers are fresh and what felt impossible (or at least sloppy) now feels easier. Then the bar is raised for the next time. This is also good for building speed, in my experience.

[JonZ]

I too am getting up there in age, and I... eh....

What was the question again?

[HonketyHank]

I too am getting up there in age, and I... eh....

What was the question again?

And who the heck asked it?




Really -- thanks for some interesting insights, folks.

[JeffD]

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

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

Wow.

That is great.

I am not sure but I think that might be an advanced technique. In other words perhaps its best for a newbie to "get a bunch of tunes down", and start the mental process of generalizing from the specific, before "understanding" can kick in.

[JeffD]

I think I can see at least one of my problems with memorizing tunes: I am memorizing notes. .

I think this is a real important concept.

Try even another step: think of it as remembering tunes, as opposed to memorizing tunes. It might be "a distinction without a difference", but to an engineer like me memorizing means something you put direct focused effort into, while remembering something is a more relaxed process that kind of happens on its own.I agree that understanding makes memorization almost superfluous, but... I am not sure understanding a tune is the same as understanding the periodic table, or how to do integrals in calculus.

Tunes are much easier to remember than notes are to memorize. As Niles pointed out, we remember all kinds of little ditties from radio and tv and movies and all, without really trying to memorize them.

Instead of trying, stop trying. Just play the tune off the sheet, while singing along, over and over. When you get bored work on another tune. While singing along. And trust that it will happen.

[ralph johansson]

I think this is a real important concept.

Try even another step: think of it as remembering tunes, as opposed to memorizing tunes. It might be "a distinction without a difference", but to an engineer like me memorizing means something you put direct focused effort into, while remembering something is a more relaxed process that kind of happens on its own.I agree that understanding makes memorization almost superfluous, but... I am not sure understanding a tune is the same as understanding the periodic table, or how to do integrals in calculus.

I happen to be a mathematician - I taught university level math for 36 years. And I see a strong parallel here, how theoretical concepts organize and economize knowledge.

[sblock]

+1 Yes, yes, yes: remember, don't memorize. Put the melody in your head, not the individual notes. You don't need (or want) to learn a fiddle tune the same way you might learn a Mozart concerto.

[JeffD]

I happen to be a mathematician - I taught university level math for 36 years. And I see a strong parallel here, how theoretical concepts organize and economize knowledge.

I know for me it is gigantically difficult to work with a great big pile of facts. I need to find the system in the facts, the connections and generalizations and evolutions. Its much easier, then, to derive the specific fact I need from knowledge of the system. I am terrible at games like Trivial Pursuits or those video trivia games we play in bars, because I am not good at disconnected out of context pieces of knowledge.

Its like, when you drop a pencil it falls. When you drop a rock it falls. When you drop a stick it falls. If I understand "falling" I don't need to memorize, one at time, what happens to every single particular object when it is dropped.

[HonketyHank]

I just now stumbled onto a very similar discussion thread over at thesession.org (here is the link). Some interesting opinions and ideas expressed over there as well as here.

[Mark Wilson]

I get that the more you know about the fundamentals of music, it should be easier to learn tunes

However, having a somewhat keen understanding of the English language (imo) hasn't seemed to help my recall of lyrics any better than my ability to recall fiddle tunes.

I still have to repeat the words until I have them down and make sure I don't repeat mistakes. And no matter how well I knew them once - I still might fumble thru them a bit if it's been a while

[bobby bill]

However, having a somewhat keen understanding of the English language (imo) hasn't seemed to help my recall of lyrics any better than my ability to recall fiddle tunes.

Try memorizing something in Russian (or any language with an unfamiliar alphabet), and you may realize that your knowledge of English helps more than you think. Being able to recognize letters, the sound they make, their context, and the words they form, is not unlike recognizing notes, the sound they make, their context within a key, and the chords they form. When you can see the big picture (like a sentence that makes sense) it is a lot easier to remember than an abstract series of things.

[Relio]

Purchase volume 2 and 3 of the flatpicking series: https://www.flatpick.com/category_s/1844.htm

Granted it is geared towards guitars, but you can take the same approach to learning fiddle tunes to mandolin. I wasted almost 5 years of practice learning fiddle tunes from tabs. I'd recommend learning tunes by ear, breaking them down to their core notes, then use your knowledge of scales and techniques (slides, triplets, etc). to improvise on the melody. Good luck. The learning process is an interesting journey.

[Mark Wilson]

Try memorizing something in Russian (or any language with an unfamiliar alphabet), and you may realize that your knowledge of English helps more than you think. Being able to recognize letters, the sound they make, their context, and the words they form, is not unlike recognizing notes, the sound they make, their context within a key, and the chords they form. When you can see the big picture (like a sentence that makes sense) it is a lot easier to remember than an abstract series of things.

I get that. My thought was that memorizing lyrics and fiddle tunes feels exactly the same for me with my novice understanding in music vs expert understanding in English. Having way more understanding in one doesn't increase my ability to recall lyrics better than the notes of a tune. Or so it seems

[billkilpatrick]

I heard Grisham play "My Last Days on Earth" for the first time and got it, where as Monroe's seemed impenetrable to me. Hearing another version of the tune might help.

[billkilpatrick]

I heard Grisham play "My Last Days on Earth" for the first time and got it, where as Monroe's seemed impenetrable to me. Hearing another version of the tune might help.

Make that David Grisman ... Dyslexia rules! (Sorry.)

[Jim Garber]

Hah! I thought the famous novelist was one of us.

[Randi Gormley]

To go back to a thought from the original question, I'd say that improving technical skill will make memorization easier since you move from -- as the OP says -- notes to music. While you're still learning the fretboard, still building callouses, still trying to get up to speed or play with others, learning the ins and outs of a specific genre, your mind is busy trying to integrate all that on a subconscious level. Once all that becomes automatic, you'll free up more of your attention for the music itself. At least, that's what seemed to work for me. In my case, I was at a certain level for years, and then began to remember bits and pieces of tunes whether I was looking at the music or not. Those bits and pieces (or phrases) eventually turned into A or B parts and then there was a cascade effect. Once I understood the genre, I heard the patterns that had escaped me.

[HonketyHank]

As I filter all the above I give myself the following prescription:
1. Work on remembering the tune while simultaneously teaching my fingers to make the notes that go with what I am trying to remember.
2. Continue with scales and scale-related exercises to learn relationships and technique.
3. Continue learning new tunes (and also how to play them). See #1 above.
4. Be patient, it doesn't happen overnight, but it should get better and better as long as steps 1 - 3 are being practiced.

I'm 70. I am aware that I may never be a 'musician'. But I am going to work in that direction and being retired, I have time to work on it. Maybe I'll get to 'decent technician and a not bad musician' stage. That would make me happy.

[Tom Wright]

Good ideas from our posters here.

Let me point out that there is a large range of capacity in this regard, and some of us find it easy while others do not. In my case, I remember notes long before I can play them well, or even before I try to play them. This actually gets me into trouble, trying to play stuff I'm still clunky doing, or not even close to pulling off.

I feel I have a particular talent for hearing and remembering the notes of all the players on a recording. In my junior-high-school rock group I was always teaching the band parts to the bass player, the rhythm guitar, and even the drums, as well as vocal harmonies. I can remember lots of stuff I can't play, or can't do all at once. And this is learning from a record, not from the printed page.

When practicing a classical piece, at first from the page, I eventually don't need to look, and I do in fact see an image of the page, although the actual notes are remembered as pitches, not images. The image helps as a road map, though. In fact, when our orchestra switched from the Beethoven parts we had been using for about a hundred years to new urtext, the page layout was different and actually disorienting to me. (We joke that "urtext", or original text, means the original mistakes are reproduced.)

All good playing depends on hearing notes, especially the ones being played by others in the group. Everything that is excellent about a performance is related to the interaction between players, who are listening to what the others are doing. This of course requires enough technique to be free to pay attention.

It will always be hard for some people to remember all the notes, and it should not be felt a handicap to play from music. Some conductors always use the score, (e.g. Georg Solti), some never (Claudio Abbado). Even experienced concert performers can get lost (Isaac Stern). My duo partner needed lyrics to sing songs, having trouble remembering them. In his case, I think he just needed to actually practice memory. I can't simply remember words--I have to practice them like notes. Then I remember them. Others remember words after one hearing.