Music Memorization: A Practiced Skill

Although musicians have been memorizing music for as long as music has been in existence, nineteenth century composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt, seen in the image to the right, was the first performer to present an entire recital by memory. It is now considered standard practice for a musician to memorize his or her music and perform it without the aid of music. No matter how talented a musician, memorizing music is a challenge. Many people have theories on what is best way to go about memorizing a song, and every theory varies slightly. For this reason, I decided to search the blogosphere this week and seek out what different people say on the matter of music memorization. Within Blogger, I found a post by Elaine Fine, composer, violist, violinist, CD review writer for the American Record Guide, and writer for the Instrumentalist. In her post, Musical Memory: true confessions, Ms. Fine speaks out about her own weaknesses when it comes to memorizing music. Therefore, I responded with my own personal weaknesses and some insights into why we each had these weaknesses. Along with that, I found another blog that caught my interest at musicteachershelper.com. The blog post, Memorizing vs. Learning was written by Ed Pearlman, fiddler and fiddle teacher. It talks about memorizing by way of ear training and the benefits of learning an instrument by ear rather than by reading music. I do not agree with his stance on this issue so I therefore decided to refute his argument. My comments can be found below or on the original blog posts themselves.


Music Memory: true confessions
My comment:
I have always found the concept of memorizing music to be an interesting one. As a classically trained pianist and vocalist, I have had to do my fair share of memorizing in my musical career. Similarly to you, I have always had problems memorizing the “hard parts” of Beethoven Sonatas. For example, I had almost the entire length of Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique memorized. However, the fast section of the first movement always caused me problems, and even though I rehearsed it countless times, it ended up being the section that I stumbled over when performing the memorized piece in my recital. In contrast, memorizing and performing my vocal pieces has never been a problem unless I entered into the performance with insufficient preparation. The reason for this, I believe, is because of my aural and visual memory.

When learning a vocal piece, my brain makes a strong connection between the notes and the words because the music and the text usually match in emotion and overall feeling. Whether it is the actual physical shape of the music or just the musicality of the piece, there is usually some correlation between the words and the music. This causes my brain to form a strong visual and aural relationship with what I am singing. On the contrary, when learning a lengthy sonata, the brain is processing so much that it is difficult for it to create a visual or aural connection to the notes in the tricky parts. I believe these connections are more difficult to form for the obvious reasons; the actual notes on the page look scrambled and the brain usually hears difficult sections as a whole rather than note by note. Therefore, when trying to perform a difficult section from memory, the brain has a hard time remembering the individual notes.

First page of Beethoven's Sonata Pathétique

Memorizing vs. Learning
My comment:
I find your distinction between memorizing a piece and actually learning a piece to be an interesting one. You say “musicians who rely on written music, and then memorize it, have taken only a first step toward learning it.” While this statement is obviously valid, I do not believe that a musician cannot memorize and master a piece of music without the ability to learn by ear. As you said, a true mastery of aural skills is important, however, there are many different elements that go into memorization besides aural memory.

Visual and conceptual memories are both very important for a musician to be able to memorize a piece of music and to command the performance of that piece. Without seeing the notes on a page, a musician can gain only a limited amount of knowledge about the piece. He can hear it and interpret it to his liking, but the actual structure of the piece and how the composer imagined it will be lost to him. Also, being able to visualize the notes on a page allows the brain to remember the shape and sequence of the notes. This contributes to the memorization process. A musician must also have good conceptual memory to be able to memorize a piece. He must really be aware of what he is memorizing in order to retain the music. This includes musical text, phrasing, notes, harmony, etc. While the musician can hear some of these aspects when learning by ear, some are not as obvious and must be seen in print in order to grasp them.

Because the brain uses many different tools in the memorization process, I believe that it hinders a musician to learn a piece by ear only. The ability to play or sing by ear is a great talent, but the ability to read, interpret, and understand written texts and music is essential to any good musical training.

The Big Bang: New Opera is Taking America by Storm

In America, traditional, stuffy operas are out, and new, more racy operas are in. Now that is not to say that Puccini's Madame Butterfly and Verdi's La Traviata will never be performed again. They are classics and the basis on which contemporary opera originated. However, a decline in ticket sales and opera popularity has forced composers to develop new ideas to capture the American public's attention.

It has been speculated that the popularity of opera in America is dwindling. The 2005 Metropolitan Opera Annual Report supports this theory. A summary of the income and expenses from the past ten years is seen in the image to the left. According to the report, the 2004-2005 season "continued to languish below the pre-9/11 levels" ending with a deficit of $833,000. Because the Metropolitan Opera has the most press coverage of any opera house in the country, with an annual attendance of over 800,000 and a $200 million dollar budget, people look to the Met as an example of opera in America. However, there are hundreds of smaller opera houses throughout the country that are prospering and growing. In fact, according to OPERA America, The National Service Organization for Opera, the number of opera companies has increased by 60% since the 1970's, reaching a record high of 125, making the U.S. one of the global leaders in opera. The reason for this is that Americans are now embracing a wider variety of opera. The newer, smaller opera houses are starting to produce more adventurous, modern operas. And while most of these opera houses hold only a fraction of the Metropolitan's 4,000 people, they are bringing in more revenue and attendance is higher.

The reason for the change in style in new operas is simple: the older, more formal styles of opera were starting to be considered art forms meant only for the elite. And the population attending these operas was getting older. The artistic directors were forced to think about what was going to happen in ten years when the opera going population had passed away and a new generation had emerged. Since over 80% of the funding for opera houses in America comes from public donors and not the government, the opera houses had to insure that their popularity did not dwindle, because with dwindling popularity comes a decrease in funding. So the leaders of the opera houses came up with a simple solution: create operas that had not been done before that would appeal to the younger generation of Americans.

Producing new operas seems like it would be a relatively easy task. However, for opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, it is just the opposite. The Metropolitan Opera has to get all works approved by their board members, who censor what their company produces. Also, the Metropolitan's performance schedule is planned eight years in advance, which makes it hard to fit in new productions. Because of this, there are now a growing number of smaller opera houses nationwide. It is simply easier to produce contemporary operas in these smaller opera houses. They do not have to report to board members and their schedules are usually planned only three years in advance, which gives them more room to fit in new productions.

Another venue for new operas is at the collegiate level. Educational institutions are more able than big opera companies to take risks and therefore are beginning to produce operas that are attracting more attention. For example, Ken Cazan, the Opera Stage Director and associate professor of vocal arts at the University of Southern California, is in the middle of producing a new opera entitled Miss Lonelyhearts, written by composer Lowell Liebermann and librettist J.D. McClatchy. This controversial new opera based on the 1933 novella by Nathanael West features nudity, violence, sex, and a scene where the main character assumes a crucifix pose. Miss Lonelyhearts first premiered at The Julliard School last year and then twice at the University of Southern California in the spring of 2007. After the California premier, image seen at the right, Mr. Cazan says that "for weeks [he] had people calling [him]." Some were outraged and some sang his praise. However, whatever the comment, the opera definitely attracted attention and had people engaged. This was exactly the response Mr. Cazan was looking for. He realizes that in order to keep audiences interested, performers must come out with "bold new works." The opera will also premier at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music next February.

With growing support from audiences and monetary support from donors, opera houses nationwide are flourishing. A new genre is being produced that is revolutionizing the way people view opera. It is no longer a form of entertainment only for the wealthy. Instead, it has become a typical Friday night activity for the general populace. People are beginning to say goodbye to the long lines at the movie theatres and starting to welcome the fabulous art that is opera.