Memorizing Music

Mrs. Hansberry, my High School English teacher, told the class that after not playing for years she could play Chopin on the piano because of muscle memory. That was the first time I ever heard the term "muscle memory," and since other forms of memory didn't seem to work for me, I thought I'd give it a go. I set out right away to develop muscle memory. I practiced mindlessly during most of my waking hours that were not taken up by school, and got my fingers to obediently play scales, arpeggios, etudes, and pieces without incorporating much in the way of thought.

I etched these patterns into my reptilian brain so efficiently that I still could, a quarter-century after identifying as a flutist, whip through the whole "Baker warmup," and a handful of orchestral excerpts. My "interpretations" of music that I played from memory were one-dimensional. I didn't realize this one-dimensionality until I sat in on a lesson that Julius Baker was giving to Sandra Church, a fellow Juilliard student a few years older than I. Baker preferred the masterclass format for lessons, so by listening to other people have lessons we were supposed to learn something. Sandra Church played the Mozart G major Concerto in a way that was completely new and fresh. She played the same notes that I played, but she made phrases that I had worn down through endless repetition sound like they had brand-new tires, a full tank of gas, a back seat free of debris, and a spiffy exterior.

I couldn't figure out why her Mozart sounded like, well, Mozart. Sandy played the piece in a far more elegant way than my teacher did. I was hoping that eventually I would learn how to sound like Sandy, but I had no idea where to start, and nothing in the way of help. I eventually found out that changing instruments was an effective way to undo the damage that I had caused by exercising my muscle memory too much.

Nobody could diagnose my problem. Nobody knew that the kinetic and intellectual parts of my musical being were so disconnected. I did develop a kind of musical intuition in order to bridge the mysterious gap myself, which helped me to grow in other ways, I suppose, but it did not help me to become musically connected to the flute music I had simply practiced too much.

I switched to violin at thirty-two and had to build a physical technique from scratch. There was so much to pay attention to physically: so much movement, so much figuring out distances, and so much in the way of intellectual stimulation that I managed to avoid the play-by-rote method that got me into my musical flute prison. As a beginning violinist I consciously used written music as a way to experience the physicality of the music, even when playing scales and arpeggios. As a result of not memorizing on the violin and the viola, I am able to return to a piece of music day after day and have a new experience. I can continue to learn more from the pieces I have been playing for decades. I can concentrate on matters of sound, form, and bow control while I practice scales.

Some people memorize music visually, which I suppose means they are "reading" the music that is imprinted on the visual part of their brain. I have never been able to do this consistently, though I do tend to remember where a passage I am looking for is on the page. Some people memorize music kinetically with a connection to the inner ear. And then there are people who memorize music intellectually, keeping track of the names of the chords, and, I suppose the trajectory of the phrases.

I think that people who can memorize music intellectually have an advantage. I have tried, but I find that it doesn't stay in my memory for very long. And I never feel the freedom that some people speak of when they play from memory.

Aaron Rosand writes about the way he memorizes music. He does it visually:

Be honest with everything on the printed page. When beginning to learn a work, repeat a section many times while keeping your eyes on the page. As soon as you possibly can, close your eyes and play it from memory. Unknowingly, your eyes have already photographed the music. If you lose a note, open your eyes and look again at the page. Repeat the process until you can play it in your sleep.

He writes about memorizing by an aurally stimulated kinetic response (which is different from mechanical muscle memory):

Memorization is a process of hearing each note before you play it followed by motor reflex. You cannot fully express yourself in an interpretation if your eyes are riveted on the music.

He believes that memorization is the key to interpretation.

Memorization is the key to interpretation. The music must become a part of you if you are completely immersed in what you play. Remain focused on expressing what your inner ear wants to hear. Trust your memory and do not become preoccupied with fingerings and technical problems. Repetitive practice will do its part and motor reflex will take over. Concentrate on your bowing. The bow is your paint brush and capable of providing all of the textures and nuances required if sensitively employed. It is also your breathing process and breathes life into every note that you play. Imagine how gratifying it can be when you can control your sound and characterise your music making with the fingers of your right hand. Interpretation and memorization are within your grasp.

Aaron Rosand's friend Berl Senofsky once told me a story about playing the Bach G minor Fugue from memory and ending up in the A minor Fugue (which made his father furious). A friend told me a story about getting a call from his teacher Ruggero Ricci (a friend of both Rosand and Senofsky, bu the way), who was playing the Bach D minor Partita in a concert. He didn't have the music with him, and he couldn't remember the names and order of the movements!

I play the Sonatas and Partitas on both violin and viola, so it is very easy for me, if I try to play from memory, to find myself playing a fifth lower on the violin or a fifth higher on the viola and getting totally confused. Thank goodness I have no need to play from memory!  

Summer Strings 2019

Last night our Summer Strings orchestra played its annual concert. We begin rehearsing Tuesday evenings as soon as school gets out (the last week of May), and we perform our program the third Tuesday of July, right before the county fair begins (where many of our participants show animals). That gives us seven ninety-minute-long rehearsals to learn an hour-long program of brand-new string orchestra arrangements (that I spend most of the year making). We are very efficient with time.

We always learn the program, and every year the group gets better and better. My goal for the group is to get from "can't" to "can" (and this year, with a difficult program, we made it way past a mere "can"). Adults who don't do much playing during the rest of the year are happy to have challenging music to practice. Kids and teenagers who don't have enough time to practice during the school year have time to practice in the summer. And they really do practice.

There are no auditions, and people can choose what part they want to play. I love it when violinists who spent previous years in the second violin section decide to play the first violin part. I also love it when people who normally prefer to sit in the back move towards the front (we do not have seating assignments). Rehearsals always begin promptly at 6:30 and end promptly at 8:00. We use our time efficiently.

One of the other coordinators of the group makes detailed instructional recordings of the first violin part, the second violin part, and the violin 2b part for every piece. We keep the audio files in a Dropbox folder, and people can use them when they practice. It's like having a personal trainer. My students get the added benefit of working with my colleague, both in the group and on tape.

The experience is kind of like participating in a summer camp program without having to do all the things involved with leaving home. No money trades hands between participants and organizers in our yearly adventure (though support comes in the way of donated rehearsal space and money that we turn into T shirts). We require no commitment: some people who have to be out of town for the concert come and play for the rehearsals. Sometimes people who played in Summer Strings in previous years and have moved away come to town and play with us for the concert.

If you want to listen to the concert (it takes about an hour), you can listen through this link.

You can find a link to the program here.

So many wonderful things happened this summer. A beginning student of mine (in her first year) who could not find her place in the music during the first rehearsal became one of the strongest players in the violin 2b section by concert time. One of my high school students became more confident, more aware of his ability to count, and perfectly comfortable going into third position, and another became confident in fifth and sixth positions. One cellist who used to come with her sometimes-reluctant teenage bass-player son eventually decided to try playing his bass herself. In two weeks she went from zero to sixty on the bass, and you will hear how great she sounds (and maybe be inspired to try playing bass yourself).

It is such a thrill for me to see people take musical risks.

If you are interested in joining the wider community of Summer Strings, I keep all my arrangements in a Dropbox folder and share them with anyone who wants to play them. Just send me an email, and tell me about your group.

Other Summer Strings posts

Robert Musil on Destiny

From The Man Without Qualities, Part 3

When Ulrick was telling this to his sister afterward, late that afternoon, he happened to use the word "destiny," and it caught her attention. She wanted to know what "destiny" was.

"Something halfway between 'my toothache' and 'King Lear's daughters,'" Ulrich answered. "I'm not the sort of person who goes in for that word too much."

"But for young people it is part of the song of life; they want to have a destiny but don't know what it is."

"In times to come, when more is know, the word 'destiny' will probably have acquired a statistical meaning," Ulrich responded.

Agathe was twenty-seven. Young enough to have retained some of those hollow, sentimental concepts young people develop first; old enough to already have intimations of the content that reality pours into them.

"Growing old is probably a destiny in itself!" she answered, but was far from pleased with her answer, which expressed her youthful sadness in a way that seemed to her inane.

In the original German

Als das Ulrich nun nachträglich seiner Schwester am Spätnachmittag erzählte, gebrauchte er von ungefähr das Wort Schicksal, das ihre Anteilnahme erregte. Sie wollte wissen, was "Schicksal" ist.

"Ein Mittelding zwischen 'Meine Zahnschmerzen' und 'König Lears Töchter'!" erwiderte Ulrich. "Ich gehöre nicht zu den Menschen, die mit diesem Wort gern umgehn."

"Aber für junge Menschen gehört es zum Gesang des Lebens; sie möchten ein Schicksal haben und wissen nicht, was es ist."

Ulrich entgegnete ihr: "In späteren, besser unterrichteten Zeiten wird das Wort Schicksal wahrscheinlich einen statistischen Inhalt gewinnen."

Agathe war siebenundzwanzig. Jung genug, noch einige von den hohlen Empfindungsformen bewahrt zu haben, die man zuerst ausbildet; alt genug, schon den anderen Inhalt zu ahnen, den die Wirklichkeit einfüllt. Sie erwiderte:

"Altwerden ist wohl selbst schon ein Schicksal!" und war sehr unzufrieden mit dieser Antwort, in der sich ihre jugendliche Schwermut auf eine Weise ausdrückte, die ihr nichtssagend vorkam.

Tanglewood, The Planets, French Bread, Brie, and Ben

You cannot imagine how proud we are of our son Ben, who, in addition to his other work at WGBH-TV in Boston, is hosting this weekly exploration of the WGBH archives.



One thing that makes this extremely poignant for me is the fact that Ben's grandfather (my father) was a new member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra when WGBH began their recording project at Tanglewood. And Ben is the person who gets to tell people all about it.

Here's the first program in the series, which appeared on the Fourth of July.

Ravel Kaddish Transcription adapted for Solo Cello and Strings!

This piece works so well for cello and strings! What a brilliant idea!

(I'm getting to work on a version to mirror this performance now.) You will find my arrangement for cello and strings on this page of the IMSLP.

It was performed by Yuri Karavayev and the Belarusian State Philharmonic with solo cellist Ivan Renansky playing the vocal part on January 21, 2018 in for their International Holocaust Remembrance Day concert:

Dances from "The Harlot's House" performance from 2017

I just found this performance on YouTube, and thought I'd share it here. This is the first time I have heard it played by a full string orchestra, and I am thrilled.

Remembering Aaron Rosand

Rarely does a day go by when I don't do some Bach. And when I do it it's never the way I did it the time before.

Aaron Rosand (1927-2019)



I never got to meet Aaron Rosand, but I feel like I have known him for most of my life through his recordings and through stories told to me by his friends and colleagues. The Strad has an excellent collection of video links to performances and interviews, as well as links to articles about him and by him. I'm hoping that my friend Daniel Morganstern, who knew Aaron Rosand very well, will write a blog post about him.

My friend Bernard Zaslav, who died a few years ago, tells a story about a time Aaron Rosand visited him in Milwaukee in his memoir The Viola in My Life. I know that Bernie would want me to share this story here, so I will.

My good friend, the violinist Aaron Rosand, stayed with us when he came to town to play an outdoor concert with the Milwaukee Symphony in one of the city's parks. Nomi [Zaslav] and I attended the afternoon rehearsal, which was conducted by Alfredo Antonini. Aaron (his close friends usually called him Archie) stood holding his famous ex-Kochanski Guarneri del Jesu violin of 1741 in hand (perhaps the finest del Jesu of them all) on a platform with two enormous, eight-foot-high loudspeakers on either side of him. Before Archie played a note, the midwest summer breeze sharpened stiffly, and toppled one of the speakers, striking both Archie and Antonini. I ran to help Archie, and was able to grab the fiddle from him before he fell.

We followed the ambulance that carried the barely-conscious Archie with the slightly-injured Antonini to the hospital. When Archie opened his eyes, the first thing he asked was, "How's my fiddle?" (It was fine.) One the way back to our house, we passed a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Archie had to stop and order a whole bucket after his ordeal.

Then there's another story that isn't in the book which Bernie, Danny, Berl Senofsky, or another friend who knew him in New York told me. In order to have the resources to have a solo career in Europe, Rosand did a lot of commercial work in New York. He did so much commercial work that he would often arrive at recording sessions at the very last minute. When asked how he could do all this his response was, "I made all the lights."

I'm going over explore the article in The Strad I linked to in the first paragraph now. I hope you will too.

And here's his YouTube channel.

Pauline Viardot!

In the 1990s I became fascinated with the life, career, and music of Pauline Viardot, and I felt quite alone in my quest. I managed to get enough information to write this article for a small magazine devoted to the work of women in music (the article I wrote about Viardot and her family begins in page 13). Things sure have changed!

A very kind person has been uploading Pauline Viardot's songs and piano music into the IMSLP during the past week. I find this very exciting. You can find this ever-expanding motherlode here.

Vi Hart's "Peace for Triple Piano"

While going through the Musical Assumptions "archives," I was happy to find myself re-aquainted with Vi Hart, a brilliant mathematician/musician who tickles my love of things math-related even though I have no way of understanding any of it once she is finished explaining things with her magical set of markers.

You can watch a video about the making of this video here.

And then, if you want more (who wouldn't?) and you have half an hour to be enlightened/entertained, you might enjoy her take on twelve-tone music.

Eva Kor (1934 - 2019)

I heard about my friend Eva Kor's death through the national media today. (Well by text message from Michael, who heard it announced on NPR.) I have had Eva on my mind all afternoon.

During a massive power outage one Friday morning in February of 1994, I was at work at WEIU-FM, a college radio station in East Central Illinois. We had gone off the air. I knew there was an older guest coming to be interviewed that morning in the television station (WEIU-TV) that shared the building with the radio station. I grabbed the flashlight that was in the radio station and helped make sure that this guest could see her way to safety.

That's how I found myself spending two or three hours sitting in a darkened room with Eva Kor.

She had traveled the one-hour journey to Charleston from Terre Haute, Indiana where she sold real estate. A few years earlier Eva had taken a speech class at Indiana State University from Sue Kaufman, the newly-hired news director at WEIU-TV. She took the class in order to be able to learn to speak publicly about her experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz. Sue wanted to give Eva the chance to speak on television, and also thought it was a great chance for the (fledgling) television station to do something of real substance.

In those few hours Eva told me about her experiences as a victim of Mengele's experiments. She told me about the struggles she had to get people to take her seriously. She really needed to speak, and knew that what she had to say was important. Being taken seriously was a constant uphill struggle for her, and she was desperate for people to believe in her work. She told me that her dream was to create a Holocaust museum in Terre Haute. I offered my string quartet to play (as a gift) for the opening of her museum.

Once the date for the museum opening was set I started thinking about music to play. I couldn't find anything that was truly appropriate for the occasion, so I looked through a book of Chassidic melodies with the hope that I might be able to find something to arrange. I looked first at the texts, and I chose five that seemed to resonate with Eva's character and mission. Then I used the melodies associated with those texts as a basis for a set of pieces.



You can listen to a performance of the Five Pieces through these links:

I. Im en ani li
II. Mi ho ish
III. El male rachamim
IV. Rikud
V. Ani m'amin

Earlier this evening I picked up my copy of Echoes from Auschwitz (which I hope will go back into print) and found this inscription inside. I believe that date (my birthday!) was the date of the museum opening.



Eva and I continued to have a close relationship (sometimes a "surrogate" mother-daughter relationship) for many years. In 2005 Michael and I played for the museum's reopening after the building was destroyed by an arsonist.

Over the years Eva reached a wider and wider audience with her message of love and forgiveness (the only way she could see a way to heal from the trauma she experienced was to try to forgive the people that hurt her and her sister) and every time I read about her activities I would be filled with pride. I knew where she came from. I knew her struggles (and there are many I'm not sharing here). I knew her need to be taken seriously and to do what she could to try to ensure that the ugly part of history that robbed her of her family and her childhood would not repeat itself.

Sensitizing the Musical Palate

Maybe this post is just an excuse to talk about dark chocolate.

One thing I have noticed about dark chocolate, which is the only kind of chocolate I really like, is that it takes a while to actually taste it. You need to sort of "settle in" and "listen" for the flavor. It has to be the right temperature in order for chocolate to release its flavor, and if you don't really pay close attention you might miss something before it melts away to nothing.

There is music that behaves like chocolate, and there is music that behaves differently.

Sometimes it takes a while to get accustomed to the musical language of a piece, and sometimes it is difficult to understand the contours of the phrases. When music is mostly made of sound that seems unstructured, it is difficult to recognize and enjoy the "taste" of it. And for me, when there is too much repetitive musical color, my aural "taste buds" become dulled.

It's kind of like what happens when you taste highly spiced food while you are cooking it, and you become desensitized to the spice. If all goes well, though, and you taste carefully and knowingly, and if you use spices properly, the resulting flavors can be surprising and exciting.

So now, after this talk about flavor, you might be ready for this tasty set of variations I found today that Anton Reicha (1770-1836) wrote on Se vuol ballare from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

Distressed Fourth

Michael Leddy, who posted this image today, cites 4 U.S. Code §8 which states that the flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

Michael's words eloquently express the distress I also feel today:

This Fourth of July, with its tanks and cages, is no ordinary Fourth. I am living in a country whose racist, xenophobic, predatory leader exhibits contempt for democracy and the institutions of government as he monetizes his office, demonizes his opponents, befriends autocrats and despots, welcomes foreign interference in elections, lies to the public and the press, and stages a cruel spectacle on the southern border. He is abetted by all those who cheer or shrug or whisper in dismay. Today’s flag is a signal of dire distress.

Metaphoric Musil Morsel

From chapter 115 of The Man Without Qualities:

He understood the relationship between a dream and what it expresses, which is no more than analogy, a metaphor, something he often thought about. A metaphor holds a truth and an untruth, felt as inextricably bound up with each other. If one takes it as it is and gives it some sensual form, in the shape of reality, one gets dreams and art; but between these two and real, full-scale life there is a glass partition. If one analyzes it for its rational content and separates the unverifiable from the verifiable, one gets truth and knowledge but kills the feeling. Like certain kinds of bacteria that split an organic substance into two parts, mankind splits the original living body of the metaphor into the first substance of reality and truth, and the glassy unreality of intuition, faith, and artifact. There seems to be nothing in between; and yet how often a vaguely conceived undertaking does succeed, if only one goes ahead without worrying it too much!

In the original German:

In diesem Augenblick trat jene Helle des Bewußtseins ein, wo man mit einem Blick seine Kulissen sieht, samt allem, was sich dazwischen abspielt, auch wenn man diesen Eindruck beiweitem nicht darlegen kann. Die Beziehung, die zwischen einem Traum und dem, was er ausdrückt, besteht, war ihm bekannt, denn es ist keine andere als die der Analogie, des Gleichnisses, die ihn schon des öfteren beschäftigt hatte. Ein Gleichnis enthält eine Wahrheit und eine Unwahrheit, für das Gefühl unlöslich miteinander verbunden. Nimmt man es, wie es ist, und gestaltet es mit den Sinnen, nach Art der Wirklichkeit aus, so entstehen Traum und Kunst, aber zwischen diesen und dem wirklichen, vollen Leben steht eine Glaswand. Nimmt man es mit dem Verstand und trennt das nicht Stimmende vom genau Übereinstimmenden ab, so entsteht Wahrheit und Wissen, aber man zerstört das Gefühl. Nach Art jener Bakterienstämme, die etwas Organisches in zwei Teile spalten, zerlebt der Menschenstamm den ursprünglichen Lebenszustand des Gleichnisses in die feste Materie der Wirklichkeit und Wahrheit und in die glasige Atmosphäre von Ahnung, Glaube und Künstlichkeit. Es scheint, daß es dazwischen keine dritte Möglichkeit gibt; aber wie oft endet etwas Ungewisses erwünscht, wenn man ohne viel Überlegen damit beginnt!

Nicola LeFanu talks about writing music

I enjoy what Nicola LeFanu, the daughter of Elizabeth Maconchy, has to say about writing music. And I like listening to her music.

Surprises from the BeeBC

Here's a beekeeper who uses a cello as a hive for bees

The BBC has a bunch of other bee videos there too!