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What do you think of the need to memorize music? Is it essential, or is playing it well while reading it good enough?
Personally, I think memorizing music shouldn’t be a goal in itself, though it would obviously make you better acquainted with the piece you are playing, there for free to interpret and play in a wider way.
Memorizing music should be the outcome of learning a piece of music and playing it many times over in order to perfect.
Many may argue with me on this point, claiming that memorizing is the surest way of knowing a piece as in order to memorise music, you need to use not only one or two of your senses, but three of them.
They would probably be right - but I still think its a matter of semantics - its better to learn a piece buy understanding it and contemplating it and absorbing it, and as a result memorizing it (which is an added bonus) than setting out to memorise but not really know the piece at all.
The author of Texas Tech Theory posted a very interesting post on memorizing music but his bottom line is pretty much like mine
I think that if you truly know a piece, you have it memorized, whether you set out to memorize it or not.
Photo credit creative commons license Kaitlin M
To me, memorizing music is automatic. Oddly, I have a better memory when it comes to playing a song than it does when trying to remember lists of details.
I was told long ago that I was a "spatial" thinker, where it was easier for me to thing and remember intangible things like geometry, music, relational concepts, etc. When I was in school, I used that to my advantage when I realized I had much better retention of data when I had certain kinds of music on when I was trying to memorize things.
For instance, if I want to remember all the details of a particular book, I would select a single CD (these days, a playlist of about a dozen songs) and listen to that CD continually while reading.
Weird, but it works for me.
Wow, that is really interesting. Somebody should study you ;-)
I also have more of a spacial memory - but it goes more to concept - if I understand the logic or pattern behind something - then I can memorize it better.
I must try that memorizing with music that you do. It could be a great method for Ad&d kids to learn.
LOL If they are going to study me, they’d better be in it for the long haul… ~I~ still haven’t figured myself out!
Seriously though, as far as the retention thing goes, I found that different kinds of music work better than others. Intricate, yet repetitive, music seems to "glue" auxiliary information into my head better than wider ranging music. Maybe it’s a form of self-hypnosis?
As far as the original thread regarding memorization of music, to me that is the core of music itself: somewhere a composer had something stuck in their mind… A melody, phrase, theme, mood. Memorizing music brings me me wholly into the experience as the composer created it. As a writer, to me a song is nothing more than a snapshot inside the mind of the person that created something. It is what they were thinking, what they felt. So I have a closer connection to it when it gets "stuck" in my mind as well.
its a bit like remembering a phone number - I only remember mine if I say it with a certain tempo… so I guess what you say about certain types of music for memorization is exactly right.