Music Video Lesson: How to Keep Pieces in Your Memory

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

Memorizing piano music's strategies and techniques for long -term retention is the subject for today. That's a mouthful. And it's also really important. Have you ever had a situation where there's a piece you learn and you've got it on a high level and then you're learning a new piece and you go, oh, I want to play my old piece and you start to play and you go, oh, you don't remember it. And you go, oh my gosh, all that work you put in. And you figure, now what do you do? And that's a whole subject for another video, how to rekindle a piece of music that has gone stale on you. And I can give you a couple of tips. Go back to the score, play it slowly, and that might help you to start to rekindle the music.

But today we're talking about how to keep pieces in shape. Now of course, it's a subject of how many pieces can you keep in shape, which once again is another subject. There's only so many pieces you can keep in shape. And if it takes too much time, you don't have time to learn new music. So you have to prioritize which pieces you're going to keep in shape. But how you keep them in shape is the subject for today's video.

Most obvious thing of all is to simply play them on a regular basis. If you've learned a piece and gotten in a high level and you've started some new music and then you just don't play the pieces you learned before, they're going to allude you after a while. So play them on a regular basis. If they're short pieces, play them every day. You know, a lot of people do all kinds of exercises just to keep their fingers in shape. Why not use the pieces you've learned as good physical exercise for your hands? And you get the benefit of keeping them in your memory.

Is that enough? No, sadly it's not. You know, if you ever played the game telephone as a kid, where you whisper a message to somebody next to you, they whisper it to the person next to them, it goes on and on and on and on and by the end of the class you got, of course, a whole different message. Well, you know what? The same thing can happen with your piece. If every time you play it, it's slightly different and you don't even realize it, you can end up with a whole new piece. So you have to refer back to the score. And the best way to do that, I talk about this so much because it's a fundamental of piano practice, is to get out the score and take your foot off the pedal and play slowly. Metronome work can be, you know, also valuable in this, but at least slow practice delineating everything in a very deliberate manner so that, let's say, you know, it could be anything. Let's take the third movement of the K545 C major Mozart Sonata.

So, if you were to practice that, slowly exaggerating the staccatos from the wrist and the fingers, raise the fingers so that the fingers that are up are up and the fingers that are down are down. So you're not just using motor memory, but you're deliberately playing each finger in a relaxed manner, by the way. It doesn't have to be tension to raise fingers, just like the stretching of an athlete. If you stretch to warm up before exercising or dancing, this is not in any way something that adds tension. Quite the contrary! It's a relaxing, relaxation technique if you do it correctly.

So you could take a metronome. I guess I'll use the metronome here. Let's see what we have. I really shouldn't have to score out, but I'm going to do it for memory just so I don't have to take time right now. All right? So, playing that way very deliberately and slowly, absorbing the score exactly where every slur and staccato are, and solidifying the fingers and the sound and the visual element, fantastic way to solidify your review pieces.

What else can you do besides, you know, just playing them or playing them slowly with a metronome and no pedal? You could also just think through your scores. You know, you ever have like a time when you're waiting online somewhere or even when you're taking a shower, you can kind of play the music in your head. Keep the sound of it, even just the sound of the melody, keep it in your head so that you don't forget the sound. Ultimately, the sound is the most important part of your music.

Listening to recordings. There's a great way to kind of keep it familiar to you and while expanding interpretive possibilities for yourself, adding to the palette of possibilities for yourself.

So, take all of these. Keep your music fresh by living it on a regular basis, by playing it, practicing it, and listening to it and thinking it through. And you'll be rewarded by having music you can play. What is it all about? If you don't have music, you can sit down and play anyway. So, that's another thing that can help you to strategies of techniques for long -term attention of your music. If you do this enough and take music that you have dropped and relearn them again and again, and then you really will have pieces in your permanent memory.

Hope this is helpful for you. Again, if you like the videos, thumbs up and ring the bell is great. And if you want to hear about more videos, subscribe. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining me. Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos .com, your online piano resource.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/how-to-keep-pieces-in-your-memory/

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