Memory Fading?

David Lai

Hi David.

First, what a fortune to be able to work on "Pictures at an exhibition", It's such a masterpiece. I was lucky enough to see it live last autumn with the Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova, it was a marvelous experience.

I don't know if I can contribute with anything meaningful here but as others have mentioned, the difficulties to memorize this music has most certainly to do with the music itself. There is these repeated themes, specifically the "promenade" theme that repeats itself constantly in new shape and forms which is seemingly very easy to get mixed up. And the structure of the music is also quite "loose" as program music like this often is which, at least for me, makes it harder to remember. When I'm working with a memorization process I find it helpful to work with the music in multiple ways. In this case I think it would be helpful for me to make a structural and harmonic analysis of the music both at, but also without the piano in writing. Maybe in this case I also would find it useful to listen to Ravels orchestra version, perhaps the different instrument colors could benefit the memorization process and be something to refer to. I hope you don't mind me asking but why do you think your professor wouldn't understand? To me this is one of the most normal challenges that are presented to a music student. Anyway this is only my two cents and I'm pretty sure you will sort it out.

johanibraaten I hope you don't mind me asking but why do you think your professor wouldn't understand? To me this is one of the most normal challenges that are presented to a music student.

I've shared with him things that have been going on in my life before that I consider challenging, and he always brushes them off with some kind of compliment or positive encouragement, and I don't need to hear that. For example, when I shared with him regarding my concerns I might not be able to figure out a doctoral project using my own musical experiences, he would say "but you've overcome so much in your life, I think your experiences will be a great resource, especially for us."

Anyway, hope this illustrates some things here. 🙂

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Pictures. I'll take that into consideration. It's not the various promenades that's tripping me, but I feel it's the internal repetitions within the other movements that can stop me.

Jane Hi Jane!

Your suggestion was a god-send for me!!! I just started my journey through the book, and it's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for -- how to improve practice habits and memorization so they stick. It also shows me how far it is between a true academic and a student (in other words, I guess I'm still far away from actual research)… 🙂

Anyway, thank you very much for this. I'll keep discovering as I read.