Playing music from memory is an interesting subject. At times, it is disparaged under the guise of playing by rote, Asia learning to play a piece of music by hearing many times produces a inferior quality of musicianship. Aside from the obvious slight to the method that bears the name Suzuki, those to hold that unfavorable view have to assume that only pitches and rhythms are being memorized, and that matters of musicianship somehow don’t make the journey from what is heard to what is remembered. Many master teachers instill excellent musicianship in their students by example, and I believe that the finest aspects of musicianship can only be learned by hearing, imitating, and then moving beyond pure imitation into creating an interpretation. It is also true that when the greatest musicians practice, they spend a great deal of time repeating parts of works, gradually broadening the small sections into larger ones until the entire piece is encompassed. These musicians certainly do not only practice pitches and rhythms, but just as carefully, methodically and repetitiously they practice phrasing; exploring and auditioning various nuances and expressive gestures until the optimal interpretation for their vision of the music is realized. All of this is memorized until it is firmly established, able to thrive in repetition or remain intact during spontaneous interpretive expression. Indeed, infusing notes and rhythms with expressive elements does not distract but helps the memorizing process. 

In this article, I would like to discuss my approach to memorizing music. Over the years I have tried different ways of memorizing. Some have not worked well, others have been quite successful. I will say at the outset, that I have found simply repeating a passage over and over to learn the notes does not imprint that passage into my memory. I forget much of it the next time I attempt it. I believe the reason this method does not work well is because it does not give my brain enough ways to connect one note to another. It asks my brain to remember individual notes, or worse individual finger movements, which puts unrealistic cognitive demands on my brain. Our minds love connections. They remember things when they can be combined with other things. Try this simple demonstration. Write down five random words, then try memorizing them. Then write down a sentence comprised of five words, and try memorizing the sentence. Chances are you labored to memorize the five random words, but memorized the five-word sentence the first time. That’s because your brain only had remember one thing with the sentence. All those words went together into one thing to remember. But the five random words could not be combined. You had to remember each one individually. That’s much harder. 

Memorizing music works the same way. That passage you’re trying to memorize is comprised of individual notes. Try learn each note, and that’s a lot of work. But group those notes together into a musical phrase, and try to memorize the phrase, not the notes, and you have a much easier task. But the phrase is still more difficult than the sentence, because there is also physical movement and breathing involved to produce the sounds that bring the phrase to life. 

Some researchers believe that memory functions are distributed across three areas in the brain. Those three areas are each dedicated to a different cognitive task. One processes sensory input, another handles motor processing, and the third handles what is referred to as “higher-order information, which can include theories and concepts applied to the material being processed (Mesulam MM (1990); Gaffan, 2002; Rissman and Wagner, 2012). So one area of the brain is taking in the music from the printed page through the eyes, or from the teacher-performer or the recording through the ear. Another area of the brain is learning the finger and/or hand movements that are necessary to produce the pitches as the phrase is aurally constructed, and the breathing that is necessary to produce the actual sound. A third area of the brain is attaching music theory concepts such as scales and arpeggios, so that part of the phrase is not longer so many notes to clump together, but one scale or one arpeggio. This lightens the cognitive load. 

While all of these three processing modes are happening simultaneously as a musician practices, and while no sequence of privileging modes is specified in the research,  it can be helpful to more heavily engage one at a time. For example, it has been taught in music teacher preparation programs that an analysis of melody, chord structure, and rhythmic structure is the preferred first step in score study. This procedure, along with playing the whole piece in its entirety before practicing sections, suggests that focusing on the higher-level, or conceptual mode could be a good place to start. This will bring to mind, during the next step in our sequence, where those scale and arpeggio passages are, and where the repetitions of themes occur. 

For the next step in the sequence, I have found it best to focus on the sensory or aural mode before motor skills. Doing so often improves both musicianship and executive skills. In other words, when the brain is given a goal of what the music is to sound like, it easily imitates the necessary executive functions to produce the desired aural effect. So I propose that the preferred order of modes is higher-order, sensory, and physical.

There are some who advocate isolating the functions, beginning with the motor skills. I do not agree with this approach. While I do agree that privileging one mode over the other two in separate sessions is advantageous, it is important to remember that they do not work independently, but are described in the literature as an “ensemble,” meaning they work together. Indeed, going too far in disengaging one mode in an attempt to engage another may compromise the effectiveness of the memorization effort.

Many of you will recognize that this is opposite of the frequent practice of teaching executive skills first, then adding sensory to improve ensemble work. Conceptual work when added in the middle of the sequence can be confusing, because the student has to backtrack to relate it to the work they have already done, and adding it last is interesting but too late to help the learning process. Learning is most efficiently and effectively done when information is connected and logical. Letting the brain function as it is designed to is the best way to memorize music. 

Mesulam M. M. (1990). Large-scale neurocognitive networks and distributed processing for attention, language, and memory. Annals of neurology, 28(5), 597–613. https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.410280502

Gaffan, D. (2002). Against Memory Systems. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 357(1424), 1111–1121. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3066751

Rissman, J., & Wagner, A. D. (2012). Distributed representations in memory: insights from functional brain imaging. Annual review of psychology, 63, 101–128. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100344