Memorization, Part 5: Okay, the Plan

I’m about to teach my first memorization process via Zoom. We’ll see how it goes. But preparing for that has inspired me to go ahead and publish this almighty, all-fixing Plan I keep referring to in this series on Memorization. Ninety-five percent of this is from Clyde Holloway:

If you take my previous advice of starting from the end of the piece and memorizing cognitively, then the process goes like this:

1) Fingerings and pedalings. I’m not kidding. Write them in, follow them, and change them when you need to. You should see my scores littered with cognitive ‘rubrics’ like that. You can’t memorize anything if you don’t know which body part is supposed to play at any given moment. Bonus: Fingerings on the first notes of each page will also help, so that you’re not having to backtrack to get into that measure over and over;

2) When all markings are in place, then memorize the right hand from beginning to end (end to beginning), by itself;

3) Likewise the left hand;

4) Likewise the Pedal, including box movements. Pistons and other registration changes will have to be inserted later. Some of those might require some slight re-fingering or re-pedaling, but by that time, you’ll know the notes much better. Making changes later to a memorized piece is much easier than making changes to a piece you never had a Plan for in the first place;

5) This is the interesting step: Now close the book and from memory combine one hand with Pedal from beginning to end;

6) Likewise the other hand with Pedal;

7) Likewise the two hands with no Pedal;

8) Everything together.

None of this is accomplished in a day. As a matter of fact, depending on the piece, Step 2 could take 3 days. Step 6 could take 4. Step 8 could take only a few hours. Who knows?

Fugues take weeks, because there are so many ‘turnaround’ points where voices go one way and then the other, often from a similar starting point. Weeks, I say.

Vierne Symphonies don’t take so long, believe it or not. They are so chromatic and the fingerings so contortionistic that those are actually more memorable, therefore, more memorizable.

Franck appeals to my sense of harmony so much that he gets into my head faster than anything else. I recall getting the E Major Choral fully memorized in just a couple weeks. But BWV 541 took a month. There is no predicting the timeframe, but there is predicting the outcome, if you stick with it and disallow guesswork.

I can also say that the use of your brain cells in this manner is very good for the brain, much like muscles. Use it or lose it. And it you use it, you get better at it. What used to take weeks now takes only 1 or 2. What used to take hours now takes only an hour. And so forth. 

Catharine Crozier was probably our poster child for organ memorization. Had she not started memorizing in her 20s, she might not have been playing from memory in her 80s. Getting started is the key. And although many of my students might not memorize in their careers, they have nevertheless been taught how to, and they know how rewarding and useful it is to the body in all ways.

Go and do thou likewise. And let me know how I can help.