TUTORIAL: Learn Difficult Spots Using Analytical Memory

[@mitchnew3037]

Exceptional ❤

[@binpacker]

After all these years me learning to play piano, finally you explained clearly how to memorise the music. You are just great! Thank you Denis!

[@bzeliotis]

Excellent logical analysis for developing motor skills, kinaesthetic memory, visualisation, theoretical and associative thinking. Amazing instruction based on years of experience. Thank you so much Mr.Zhdanov!

[@zitaaufdermaur2975]

Wow! Fantastic explanations and tipps! I feel privileged to have piano lessons with you! I very much look forward to that concert!😊

[@growingpianists]

These are great and I use these strategies as well! I don’t utilize grouping fingerings enough though - sometimes because I also have to think about what appropriate for my hand size:)

[@neomelodi]

This is a great video and helped immensely to understand how pianists use different types of memory. Thanks for the informative vid!

[@jamessingleton4856]

Absolute brilliance once again! Big thanks for these incredible insights

[@DenZhdanovPianist]

🤗🙏💚

[@jeffh5388]

Such great information from a real professional.

[@mateoviscarra5254]

Thanks, very helpful video :)

[@m64collins]

Fascinating--and so useful! One question: When you refer to visual memory, it sounds as though you don't mean memory of the way the notes look on the page but rather a visualization of your hands on the keyboard. Is that right?

[@DenZhdanovPianist]

For me personally - yes. But I know people who remember the look of the score easier than hands on the keyboard. I would develop here what feels more naturally for you.

[@elenakondarev4712]

Нашла этот урок, большое спасибо! Попытаюсь применить к ребёнку 😅 . Большая проблема с ошибками, которые то тут то там все время выскакивают 😒. Насколько труднее бороться с этим, если нет теоретической базы? Есть какой-то прямо убойный способ как достигать стабильности? Спасибо!

[@DenZhdanovPianist]

К сожалению, стабильность достигается только бесконечными часами сосредоточенных занятий, развитием способности держать концентрацию, и развитием комплексного восприятия музыки, где теория, конечно, один из основных кирпичиков. Но так же нужно иметь ввиду, что ошибки во время выступлений часто имеют психологическую природу из-за стресса, или слишком большого груза ожиданий, который мы порой склонны навешивать на учеников…

[@ericastier1646]

I have a problem memorizing chords that with double flat notes. I think that when i see the score my brains does not visualize the notes on the keyboard as easily. An example of this is Op 25 n 9 by Chopin.

[@ananthd4797]

4:46 Smoke on the water! I find it hard to simultaneously use analytical memory with the score. I tend to try to analyze the piece and commit it to memory immediately. However, many people have told me that sight reading through a piece multiple times is the best way to memorize it, and one should be wary of memorizing too soon. Do you have any thoughts on this?

[@DenZhdanovPianist]

Both approaches are valid. But in my experience it’s more difficult to memorize the piece at once, and memorization goes slower, if you have never played it - too many tasks at once! There is also a trick between short and long term memory that makes an immediate memorization to be useless quite often (at least if the piece is really hard for memorizing ) Usually on the first day I just read a new piece through a few times, repeating each short section a few times so I can play each such section quite fluently with the score understanding everything about it (and then without the score if I feel I can, but no commitment to memorize) but very consciously, choosing the best fingering and analyzing the music. And then on the second day when I feel that my fingers and ears are already familiar with the music, I start memorizing it and working on the automatization. I know people who learn naturally very fast without even putting any thinking effort in that, so they really just read the score half-automatically a few times and voila. However, many of them have memory lapses during performances more often, because a memorizing process was not conscious enough, so any bit of stress ruins the performance.

[@ananthd4797]

@@DenZhdanovPianist Thank you very much! That is quite useful to know. I see what you mean by the short term vs long term memory thing. I've found that I memorize better if I memorize early (if it's more than a few days my memory gets tied to the score which makes it harder to memorize). But I hadn't realized that on the very first day it might be more muscle memory and less analytical, it's good to know that!

[@RolandHuettmann]

Are there possibly also ways to create associations? I can learn a word in another language using an association of the sound with something funny maybe, or I place it into a mental "palace" where I can find it when going to a specific spot in some room of that mental palace. But for notes and clusters of notes this might be challenging. I could give such clusters funny names, or give them symbols. For example for a chromatic passage using tritons I would imagine little devils jumping down a "cliff" when the first note is a "c". A d-flat (German "des") would be a "desire", and so on... So some or even many stories might be invented building a bridge for memory to work more easily for a piece of music. Just thinking aloud...🐜🐜🐜

[@DenZhdanovPianist]

Sure, what makes us memorize things is actually emotion. Creating an entertaining association you experience a bright emotion, so this event will more likely to be memorized.

[@homamellersh8446]

Hi Denis, I am watching this brilliant video for the second time , great tutorial, great tricks for memorising, thank you so much as ever .

[@velcroman11]

Within a month I can’t remember how to play the last piece that I leant. I feel I must have Alzheimers.

[@DenZhdanovPianist]

If you have only a few years of experience, and started in an adult age, I’d say it’s absolutely normal. I would actually also definitely refresh a piece thoroughly for a performance if I didn’t play it for a month.