How I Memorize Every Piece I Play [5 Steps in 5 mins ⏰]

how many of you have had the experience of playing a recital or giving a speech where you completely forgot what you had prepared freezing up on stage can be one of the scariest experiences that can happen so how do professional musicians do it as a concert violist I have hundreds of hours of Music memorized for my performances at any given time so today I'm going to be revealing my process to memorizing so that you too can apply it to the things that you would like to memorize and be able to recall Under Pressure so my process actually starts before touching the instrument which may seem counterintuitive but it is important because as soon as you pick up the instrument there's going to be a million other things like intonation or sound that will distract you so we want to stay focused on the memorization part instead of all the other things that come into play so I've broken this down into Five Easy Steps step one listen to the piece a lot it's like listening to your favorite song and it adds practice time even when you're not holding the instrument now most people have a tendency to separate in their minds practice time from other activities where they think they can only learn something if there's a clear designated time set to it but a lot of learning can be done in a non-designated practice hours you set for yourself for example you could be listening to a piece you're trying to memorize when you're on your way somewhere or while you're doing the dishes a lot of subconscious learning can be done to maximize and increase your learning and memorization abilities Additionally the value you receive from listening to a piece that has other instruments or voices for example a string quet or a conto is gained by an understanding of what's happening in the other parts step two study the score visually this helps reinforce step one which was about the oral memorization and now step two is about developing your visual map in your memory where it's easier to fix mistakes and make small adjustments for example I might be trying to learn and memorize a bar fug where there's a point in the phrase where I need to make a shift otherwise I'll get thrown back to it the first time where the phrase appeared essentially trapping myself in a loop now this is where I might use a visual cue in the part such as a fingering that I wrote myself to get into the new phrase step three start to play now this is is where muscle memory comes in muscle memory is an extremely powerful method of memorization and our everyday existence relies on muscle memory from eating drinking and to breathing these are things that we don't have to think about because they are so deeply embedded in our system we can develop muscle memory when we're trying to learn a particular skill but the worst thing that can happen is to develop a bad habit which then becomes very very difficult to undo often times I'll ask students what do you think is going to happen if you were to practice a passage incorrectly nine times and only get it right once which version do you think is going to appear in the concert this is why it's important to do steps one and two and not just play passages over and over otherwise you're only reinforcing the bad playing rather than developing the good step four trying it out in front of a live audience this is where you're essentially replicating the conditions of the performance and how you're going to not only be able to memorize things but also recall everything during moments of high pressure you also want to use this as an opportunity to catch all the mistakes that you might make in a concert which is extremely Val valuable because every mistake you make while practicing in front of people is a mistake that you didn't make on the day of the performance now the problem is for most people it's very difficult to find an audience that's willing to listen to your practice much less one that understands that you're doing this all in the context of work in progress where it's not ready yet or not the final version luckily though there is an easy and free solution for this which is tonic and it's an app where you can practice in front of others and receive feedback live now since everyone else is doing the same thing there's this incredible opportunity where everyone gets to practice their performance mode so that by the time the important day arrives you'll have actually gotten used to the experience of playing for others I use it all the time for my concert prep and it's amazing it's how I'm able to revise all this vast repertoire before playing it at my concerts and I've left the link in the description below so you can find it very very easily now final step here step five this final step is where you basically cycle through all the previous steps and find Opportunities to do all them for example I like to combine steps one and two together where I listen and study the score and then do steps three and four where I'm memorizing while exploring all the various musical ideas and trying out all the possibilities that really only come to me when I'm inspired which is when I'm in the process of sharing now it usually takes me about an hour to learn and memorize a minute of Music enough where it's embedded visually orally as well as in my muscle memory a 30 minute conto should take about a week if I'm practicing 4 to 5 hours a day or 2 weeks if I'm taking it easier again practice does make progress so while it might only take me a certain amount of time it's only because I've practiced this my entire life and that's my approach to memorization I hope this video has helped you with ideas around learning and memorizing and my goal is for you to feel absolutely comfortable as you can be when you're practicing or playing for people so if you enjoyed this video please let me know by giving a thumbs up and a comment below and if you're curious to a partial list of all the controlls I've memorized check out this video where I rank the most popular violent controllers from easiest to most difficult happy practicing and I'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Ray Chen

Views: 79,181

Keywords: Twoset, Brett, eddy, violin, cello, viola, Youth, orchestra, tonic, practice, symphony, Stradivarius, twoset, brett yang, Ray Chen, music, classical, opera, education, learn, piano, singing, public, funny, jazz, guitar, bass, Memory, memorization, muscle, hearing, aural, oral, visual, vizual, rote

Id: VI3mfWBz3iM

Length: 5min 4sec (304 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 20 2023