John Mortensen

Here are some notes of the series: "How to Practice at the piano" by Dr. John Mortensen (You
can find the videos on Youtube).

Memorizing Music

There are four kinds of memory:

1. Intellectual Memory

2. Aural Memory (memory of the ear: )

3. Motor Memory (muscle memory, subconscious knowledge of the physical motions)

4. Visual Memory (visual cues students get to remember the piece)

Motor memory works well when one is not under stress;

Relying solely on motor memory can not guarantee an accurate execution

Intellectual memory involves:

Memorizing all the score (writing the music without looking at the score; including dynamics,
articulation, etc)

While playing, identify key areas, and harmonic progressions

Making a fake book of a piece: writing the melody and chord symbols above it (identifying
inversions too!)

Play really slow (so slow that you cant feel what is next; dont let the momentum of each
motion carry you into the next motion) while analyzing the piece harmonically (interact
intellectually with the harmonic progression as often as possible)

Intellectual memory is in the lead: you know what the music is like: You can name it, write it,
describe it, transpose it, reduce it, fake it

The aural memory lets you to pre-hear phrases you have not yet played, quickly run through
the sound of the next phrase, it reminds me of the physical motions of that phrase, it gets my
motor memory ready

Practical Approach

Make a list to describe the pieces in terms of : key, meter, harmony

Map of the entire thing harmonically: key areas

What is each phrase doing? Does the first theme take a walk through the home key or does it
modulate to V? Can you narrate it?

Can you play the tune and fake some chords? can you do that in dierent keys?