I was thinking about writing this down, and then violist Will Taylor of the wonderful Austin group Strings Attached posted a request on his wall asking for memorization techniques.
Grammy-winning guitarist David Russell has often said, "I never play a piece in concert that I first can't play all the way through in my head."
This is technique of memorization that I have gleaned from many sources over the years, and use with all my students. It is a very fast way to memorize, but it takes a little self- discipline.
1. Play the piece, (or section of a piece) on the guitar while reading the score.
2. Visualize it (play the music mentally) while reading the score (without touching the guitar)
3. Visualize it without the score while looking at the fingerboard of the guitar. Imagine where your fingers go on the guitar in order to play it.
4. Visualize it without the score, and without looking at the guitar. That is, create the guitar in your mind, and where your fingers go on that imaginary guitar in order to play the piece.
5. Test it. That is, play it on the guitar from memory, without looking at the score.
If you do this, you will probably find that you played it from memory perfectly on the first attempt. I use this technique with all of my guitar students, and it consistently works well for beginners and advanced players.
It is difficult to do this in the beginning, so you will probably have to start with a very small fragment. But, it gets easier. I sometimes demonstrate this technique to students by memorizing a piece in their lesson just by visualizing it quickly and then playing it from memory without error on the first attempt. Those who are unwilling or unable to maintain a focused, sustained concentration will find this agonizingly difficult.
Most people memorize by repetition, that is, they do step 1, and then skip to step 5. That is a very inefficient way to memorize. It takes too long, and is too error prone. Memorization by repetition is for those who have time to waste- and that's no one I know!
Good luck and have fun!
Tony Morris
Classical Guitar Alive
www.classicalguitaralive.org
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Jeff Carter: This is somewhat similar to the visualization technique that Shearer taught. In a nutshell, take a short section or phrase, no more than 2-3 measures at a time. The following is done *without* the guitar in hand, isolating each voice in the phrase, and each step done several times to commit to memory:
ReplyDelete1. 'Ta' the rhythm.
2. Solfege the phrase.
3. speak the left hand fingering.
4. speak the RH fingering.
Once these steps are complete, pick up the guitar and play without looking at the music.
The process does seem more difficult, but you are essentially moving all of the memorization work to the beginning, and in the end it is actually more efficient and more thorough than the old practice of memorization through repetition. If you look at guys like Barrueco, who can play for instance, the right hand part of a piece by itself, you can see how thorough this method of visualization is.
Yesterday at 6:23pm · Report
Tony Morris @Jeff: Shearer's and Christopher Berg's approaches to visualization are my two biggest influences, to be sure. Berg's more than Shearer's since he was my teacher, and since Berg had the benefit of practical application of Shearer's methods as a performer.
Any visualization is an extraordinarily powerful memory tool. Since visualization is a purely cognitive function- no muscle memory is involved in it whatsoever. I always tell my students that muscle memory is a fake friend- it deserts you in times of trouble.
I also sometimes use solfege, and singing fingerings and even sometimes string numbers, especially with my beginning students- less so with more advanced students.... See More
Yesterday at 7:21pm · Report
Kevin Gallagher my advice is - study the piece as music and not as fingering, then the fingering is easier to remember - because it has a purpose.
best to you Tony
Kevin
28 minutes ago · Report
Christopher Berg Tony,
Thanks for posting this! I would add that an analysis of the music (at whatever level the student can handle) is helpful.
Another important facet to all this: it becomes easy (and quick!) to relearn a piece that one has learned through visualization, even if it's a piece one hasn't played in years.