Piano Video Lesson: What Makes Pieces Hard to Memorize?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I'm Robert Estrin.

The question today is, what makes some pieces harder to memorize than others? There's a lot to this question. I'm going to dive right in for you. Well, you know, some composers are really hard to memorize compared to others. For example, Mozart may not be easy to play, but he tends to be easier to memorize than a composer like Bach. Now, why is this? Well, Mozart generally has melody and accompaniment. So, to memorize something like this, for example, is far easier than other pieces.

The left hand is just broken chords. So, it's pretty easy. You've got a melody that you can remember because it's something you can hum, very tuneful, and then you've got just broken chords in the left hand where something like Bach, where you have counterpoint, like in a Bach fugue, much more difficult with all those inner lines. It's not clear melody and accompaniment. It's melody and melody and melody.

So, you get the idea. Counterpoint could be hard to memorize for this reason. However, there's a reason why even this may not be the hardest thing to memorize. You know, because it all falls into the hands of a certain amount of tactile memory in counterpoint.

So, that's why it's so difficult to memorize.

Now, even though that has a lot of interweaving of parts, it all falls under the hands very nicely and your fingers have a memory all their own. It's sometimes referred to as muscle memory. Have you ever noticed yourself playing the piano and in the middle of it, you realize that you were spaced out, your mind was thinking about something else and your fingers were still going, you know, because just like I talked about, I made a video years ago about how scales are kind of like learning how to walk. At first, a toddler has to think of each step with great concentration, but you can walk and not even be thinking about it. Well, you can also play scales and not even think about it. The fingers just know where to go as long as you practice them.

So, it's the same thing here, but there are times when this does not hold true. When is this? When there are leaps in music. You can't rely upon the memory of the feeling of the fingers when you have to know where you're leaping. Are you going up from this octave? I remember when I first learned the Scriabin, A -tune, D -sharp minor, Opus 8, how difficult it was to memorize. I'm going to play the beginning part with no pedal so you understand and you can see what's going on with all the jumps that are going on and you have to be aware of what notes you're jumping to. Your fingers don't remember that, do they? Now, even if something isn't as complex as a Scriabin, A -tune, anytime you have to jump from one register of the piano to another, you have to be aware intellectually where you're going. You have to know exactly what note you're going to. You can't just rely upon the feeling of it because when you're going from one section of the keyboard to another, it's difficult, particularly if you have a piece that leaps from one place to another in one section and that same section leaps somewhere else later, like a Sonata, for example, where the exposition is different from the recapitulation because the keys are different and you might take a wrong turn if you don't have that intellect going first time it goes to C, second time it goes to G, and you just have to lock it in so when you get there you know where you are because you can't guess, you're not going to know where to jump. So those are the two things that make things more difficult to memorize than others. Something with a lot of counterpoint, as in Baroque music and fugues, more difficult than just melody and accompaniment like in Mozart or Haydn, or even in Chopin, depending upon the Chopin, sometimes his harmonic sophistication could be rather challenging as well. And the other thing that is very difficult to memorize, to remember, even if you haven't memorized it, is to keep track of where you're leaping, jumps, that things are not right under your hands. You've got to really be aware of it and have a good intellectual grasp of where you're going in your score. So check out your music and see what works for you. Leave the comments here at livingpianos .com and on YouTube. Thanks again all you subscribers. If you'll ring the bell, I really appreciate it. It helps the channel reach more people. The thumbs up and if you haven't subscribed, subscribe you'll know about all the future videos. We'll see you next time. I'm Robert Estrin. This is livingpianos .com, your online piano resource.

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