Thanks, Tatyana. Might I also recommend "Reverse Learning ": A simple yet astonishing process which easily and quickly commits large amounts of information to memory. It’s perfect for actors, public speakers and poets, and most especially for musicians. Here’s how to apply the technique to memorising a piece of music: First, play through your chosen piece from the music several times until you’re generally familiar with it. Now, immediately start the memorisation process: play the final bar of the piece. Play it again, this time without looking at the music. If you got any notes wrong, play it again looking at the music. Keep practising until you can play the bar 3 times perfectly from memory. Go back to the second to last bar, and play it from the music. At the end of the bar, continue playing the final bar from memory. Look away from the music as you do so. Repeat until both the final bars are memorised. Go back now to the third to last bar, and repeat the process. You’ve just memorised the final two bars, so you should easily be able to play them by memory. Keep going in this manner, diligently working on one bar at a time, and always continuing to the end of the piece. As you work through this process, you’ll realise that once you start playing, the further on you get in the piece, the better you know it. The first few bars you play are the new ones, and the following bars are more and more familiar. You’ll be delighted to discover that within a very short time, you can memorise an entire piece. During this process, you will learn to treat every bar as an “entrance point”, meaning that going forward, you will be able to start at ANY bar, and continue playing to the end. This idea is not new - it was proposed by Edward de Bono, and is by far the MOST effective method I know of, by which to memorise music, plays, scripts, speeches, etc, in the fastest possible time.
You are absolutely right and thank you for such detailed instruction! From my side I can only recommend this method to everyone, it is really very effective and I always use it when I need to learn a longer piece.
I am from the Philippines, and I could surely say that a teacher like Tatyana is hard to come by here. These kinds of quality teaching are rare. I am deeply grateful to your dedication and love for teaching and guitar playing. Your help is immeasurable to our progress.
You cover a lot of ground others do not, and really appreciate you for the guidance! When you explained the difference between practice and play, I anticipated that there would be people who would have said "well, isn't that obvious?" But for me, I hadn't thought of that and it changed the way I learn for ever, but also made everything to do with progress so satisfying. I wanted to say thanks and just to tell you that you make a massive difference for us. Really really appreciate what you do! Thanks.
Tatyana, I have struggled with the memorization of music pieces forever. I always thought that my problem is that I am too old for this. My piano teacher has tried to explain the very same techniques in a few different terms, however, it just makes a lot of sense the way that you explained the process. Thank you for the guidance. I am going to go try it out right now....
i remembered an article on memorization is to play from the end of the bars of the music score rather than from beginning. Check the music in what key; chords, major, minor, or modulation patterns, sharp or flat, and of course the overall structure of the musical form...like bass notes, melody and harmony structure. Of course, musician or guitarist should possessed strong foundation of music theory and music history in order to play and interpret those classical music more expressively. This will differentiate between amateur guitarist and professional guitarist.
Very smart and interesting tutorial! I often forget sheets that I used to know by heart... But your concept of passive memory seems a good explanation ;-) Xороших выходных!
It will be very helpful for me. I was always troubled with this kind of black out while on playing the guitar. I will try to do that on your suggestions. Thank you.
a good method I use to is to work backwards ,start at last measure and play it , then second last ,third last ,then play last line , then use the memory techniques explained here ,all of them ,thoroughly memorize last line today ,tomorrow 2 nd last line , you should too be able to play any measure in the piece ,pick a random number and play it , Douglas niedt says that most if not all performance mess ups is not technical thing but memory lapse as tatyana says the passive memory crumble s under pressure which then wrecks your confidence for future performance s
Yes, it's an idea originated by Edward de Bono. Learning backwards is super-fast and extremely efficient. I always aim to memorise new pieces within about 1-2 days of starting to learn them. It's so much easier to work on technique, style, presentation, etc, if the piece is memorised. Last year I memorised Capricho Arabe in it's entirety, from scratch, in a day. Similarly I memorised Recuerdos de la Alhambra in a day. Still working on them now, but since I don't need to consult the music, it's easy to practise. Using scores simply adds a layer of mental effort between the brain and the fingers.
Thank you Maestra- excellent video. Yup- most of us play with muscle memory, we can all do better with aural and conceptual memory. Hearing the notes and understanding the progression of the notes/chords, how they move, and how they resolve harmonically helps. We could all do better by playing in your masterclass to improve! But if it’s not not possible, videoing yourself helps since the camera shows everything 😅😱. Right now I’m driving myself crazy re-learning the Sor Etude 12. Lots of quick shifts and intervals...
You're so right about problem with repeating too much at the beginning, that's good advise about this issue especially for my original music themes I'm making for comics book trailers since I've got to remember completely new music that's never been performed before and practice it to express emotions for stories of my bk trailers.
Another thought: making those entances is what music theory is needed for in practise. In order to understand how the compisition is constructed you have to understand and know the names of the musical phenomena you are working with. It can be the music theory you learn on lessons or your own conceptualisation but it has to be there.
the thing is these active memory techniques which are so necessary are really hard work to practice, I am doing it a lot but its exhausting , I have never experienced the feeling that im totally comfortable performing a piece anywhere ,it is supposed to be the most incredible feeling ,I want that , thanks Tatyana for great video
You aren't the only one Alan. Guesd we just have to rely on exposure, discipline and effort to get us there (and I've no doubt it will!). We'll get there man..
This is right. The best way to remember something is to be so familiar and passionate about it that you can explain it in the pub to your friends impromptu and without notes. Similarly, Jordan Peterson says one should know 10 times more about a subject than what one puts in a speech about it.
Really good lesson. Thank you. I experienced that quite a bit when I was a young boy when I was expected by my parents and older brothers to perform at either church or school. It may have been related to my lack of personal investment in what they were expecting. Later when I was a young man it rarely if ever happened but ( as you suggest ) I was much more active about what I was learning. It's a shocking and scary feeling when it happens though.
Wow. This sounds like a lot of work, but would definitely be worth it. I compose, arrange, record, produce/engineer, mix, master, teach the rest of my group, rehearse and perform all my own own work. You’d think that after all of this I would know and could remember the whole of every piece inside out, back to front, upside down and in any randomised order conceivable, but no. When performing I have to use cheat-sheets (if not the entire score), and if I haven’t played any particular piece for some time I don’t have the slightest idea how any of it goes and couldn’t even begin to play any of it; not a note, not a chord, not a word. At times I hear others humming or singing my work, so it’s not the quality/memorability of a piece... it’s me. I thought for the longest time I was developing some kind of anterograde amnesia, or horror-of-horrors early on-set dementia, but I think you may just have handed me a lifeline through a ray of sunshine and given me hope. Thank you.
Здравствуйте! Здорово, что вы ведёте канал на широкую аудиторию и английский практикуете. подобный контент вносит вклад в развитие музыкантов всего мира, а значит и музыки в целом. Спасибо,, Татьяна!!
God bless you dear Tatyana,of course your tips and tricks are so precious!You inspire me a lot!I don't feel lonely in this fantastic adventure called music,my life...Ciao! :-)
Iluminador! Para rever, em partes, e internalizar! E com um imenso significado prático! Não é apenas sobre memorização, é sobre viver cada peça, cada canção, cada execução. Muitíssimo obrigado, Tatyana!
Thanks for this video very helpful, When I look at my left hand I really couldn’t follow my hand it’s faster than my mind so I close my eyes or I look at the wall
I was forced to learn this early on because for the longest time I didn’t have the fretboard memorized and couldn’t read guitar sheet music or sight or read from it. So I would use tabs , and I wouldn’t sight read the tab. I would learn everything in sections. But most importantly it would never be by measures specifically but by phrases at first then form parts by progression and melody. I would never sight read the tab either. I would look at the tab and play the few chords and melody phrases really broken so in my mind I’m like it’s these together then look away from the tab and play them over really slowly and implement the metronome after that. My first final for college that I played for the judges was prelude in dm / Asturias/ saraband and double in bm/ and a piece by Matteo carcassi . These were all learned from tab in this way and I never got a blackout. I understand this isn’t the best way because tabs are a no no but for memorizing it worked for me and I could not stand learning easier pieces because I was obsessed with learning the ones I loved. My guitar teacher was cool with me learning the pieces I wanted and I showed him that I put in the time on my own so he didn’t tell me I needed to learn easier songs. I had been playing power metal for years before even picking up a classical guitar so I had the finger dexterity. So my first full piece I learned was prelude in dm by Bach .
This is as good as a 121 lesson. I feel relaxed, your voice and accent are easy to listen to. My guitar playing is slowly improving and I adapt the active memorisation techniques to learning choir music, with great success. Thankyou Tatyana. 😉
This is the first time I heard this little "dark secret" of guitar playing is addressed. It's amazing that this was/is an issue for you as well Tatyana -- I thought I was the only one :-) Many thanks for your wise and detailed advice.
Here's my question-What would happen if you have not played a piece for several months or a year or two. Can you play it from memory then?I have incorrectly learned my pieces through passive memory.At some point when I "know" them,I no longer am actively engaged in playing them,I am just holding the guitar and letting it sing to me without much effort on my part.However,if I do not play the piece often it will literally "go away" like a computer having a head crash.I am playing again after a break of 3 years and all my pieces are gone.Thanks for your inspiration as I enjoy your tutorials and performances.
The trouble is coming across a better 'transcription' than the one you memorized & relearning the piece again with alternative fingerings and positions.....
Thank you for this. I am very new to the guitar at 62 years of age. This will help me. Question. My left hand fingers touch two strings at once. Example when I play the 3rd string with the same finger will also touch the 2nd sting. Also any left hand finger stretching exercises?
What if a complete beginner in the first lesson can memorize the names and locations of the natural notes in the first 10 frets, will that change how the fretboard is taught?
I also, sometimes just take a rest from it and when I pick it up again, sometimes it comes out perfect, well almost perfect, anyway!!! Mechanical memory, is this the same as muscle memory???
Это очень актуальный вопрос. На некоторое время я даже перестал играть, потому что пропадал интерес к музыке - пока выучишь пассивно произведение, уже всякое желание репетировать и играть его пропадало.
It is not important what memory you use, if you don't play the music you knew for a month or more, you will forget it partly, therefore, you have to play it once in a while to keep it in your memory.
You talk about entrances and go on explaining, that you need to be able to explain the positions, which string, position or chord and fingers. Does that mean, that you need to break up certain parts into small units? learn how to describe them to someone?
Напротив, её поняли даже бразильцы и гавайцы. Свою идею она повторила разными и простыми словами. А произношение забавное, как если заучивалось по буквам, а не в общении. Я так испанский пытался учить ;-)
