Piano Video Lesson: Advanced Memorization Techniques

Welcome to virtualsheetmusic.com. I'm Robert Estrin with a technique video, Advanced Memorization Techniques. I have a video on the basic, how to memorize music, which I learned from my father. I got to have the benefit of learning how to memorize at my very first piano lesson as a very young child. So memorization never seemed difficult. You should watch that video. It describes a very simple process of taking one hand at a time at a very small phrase, mastering all elements of the music. Then, putting the hands together, each little phrase, getting that memorized, and connecting each phrase and working through an entire piece that way.

It is a phenomenal system that really works, not just for me and not just for my father, but for thousands of students. My father, my sister, and myself, and students of all of us, have gone on to teaching careers and taught it to countless thousands of people. I can tell you that even people with average or even below average intelligence can memorize music with this system, because it enables you to digest little chunks. It's a beautiful thing. You learn a phrase, you get it memorized, you learn the next phrase, memorize that, put the two phrases together, and work through a whole piece.

Well, sometimes a piece is just so complicated. For example, this [gravitating to] the D-sharp minor, I'm going to play a little bit of the beginning of it so you can see what I'm talking about. All right. So you get a feel for this beautiful, lush, romantic music. But there's so much complication with the music. There are a couple of issues that make it really difficult to memorize. So how can you memorize a piece like this. Sometimes a Bach Fugue can give you similar problems. Particularly, when you have music where there's a middle voice that's divided between the hands that keeps going back and forth, practicing hands separately is very difficult.

One of the most difficult parts of learning a piece of music is putting the sections together. Putting the hands together is one very difficult part, and putting the sections together is another very difficult part. So with a piece of music that is so complex that each hand is not well-defined by itself, but the music actually goes, there are inner lines that are divided between the hands, it's extraordinarily difficult. Sometimes there are techniques you can use. For example, play just that middle voice. Even if it's divided among the hands, play that middle voice to see what that's like.

A very fundamental technique, however, for getting those phrases connected is sometimes you just have to plow through a piece, even though you can't successfully connect the phrases all strung together. So for example, if you were to take the first phrase of this... Let's say you memorize that much. But then, the next phrase, you memorize that, but you can't put it together. Now, sometimes that happens. Yet, if you waited for yourself to be able to get those two phrases put together smoothly, it could take you so long that your practice session, you end up working up so little music.

So here's the secret. Sometimes it's necessary when memorizing to memorize a phrase, get it solidly memorized, memorize the next phrase, get it solidly memorized, try your best to connect those two phrases, get it at least once or twice smoothly. Even if it's not something repeatable and fluid, go on to the next section. That's right. Even though you haven't successfully put the two phrases together really with reassurance and solidity, you go on to each phrases, and then if necessary, the next day when you practice, you try connecting every two phrases. That's right.

Maybe you still can't connect all the phrases. But you'll have the first and second phrase, where you can play those together. You have the second and third phrase, where you can play those together, the third and fourth phrase. So you'd think at a certain point, "Yeah, the four-measure phrases are going to pop and it starts to come together." So that's the secret of advanced memorization techniques, is sometimes try as you might, you are not going to be able to get the music absolutely perfected and refined to the extent you might want. But you still have to push forward, knowing full well you're going to revisit in future practice getting larger sections put together.

All right. Very good. Thanks so much for joining me. Robert Estrin here, virtualsheetmusic.com.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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