The best way of describing it is the feeling of being on auto pilot. It is by far the most common kind of memory that we employ whilst playing an instrument. Kinesthetic memory is more commonly known as ‘muscle memory’. From different angles you will have a fuller understanding of what the object is and also a more comprehensive memory of it. It is equivalent to looking at a 3D object from different perspectives. The more types of memory that you employ, the better. It is building a support network of memories to catch you when you fall. So the process of memorizing a piece of music is not so much stopping the breaks of concentration. These things happen to everyone all the time. Rather, it is an interruption in the stream of consciousness-a distraction, a break of concentration. It is not that you have forgotten something or you don’t know it. Let me be clear, a memory slip is not what you think it is. In doing so we are not preparing as thoroughly as we could for the memory slip that’s around the corner. Normally we only use one or two types of memory in a piece. The following techniques may aid the memorization process making it more time efficient and reliable. Whatever the reason, the tendency for guitarists to memorize their pieces is very common. After all, it is not worth having the score if it will be more of a hindrance than help. Part of the difference in this trend is to do with the lack of ability of guitarists to sight read. If you go to recitals of instruments other than the guitar (which I can not recommend highly enough!) you will notice that it is more common amongst other instrumentalists to use the score rather than meomorize. And this reduces the stress of performance, which can adversely affect music making. Psychologically, however, having the score provides a great sense of safety. In fact, you may not even use it for large portions of a piece. Having the score during performance does not mean you have to have your eyes glued to the page the entire time. However, personally I think the advantages of having a score during performance outweigh those of memorization. The 19th century idea of the music virtuoso first brought around this idea and it has endured to our time. It also may come across to some people as an impressive feat of virtuosity having memorized the thousands of notes that are played in a concert. Often musicians feel more ‘free’ to express themselves when they memorize the music and the score is absent from the stage. Memorizing music definitely has its advantages. Before going on to talk about methods of memorizing music I would like you to first give some thought to why we perform from memory? Why memorize? It has become almost par for the course to have an entire recital memorized and performed without mistakes (if our job wasn’t already hard enough!). These days it is more common than not to see a classical guitarist perform from memory.
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