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Learning Strategies

April 4, 2006 at 1:44 AM

Well I think I've figured out a way to get the Prokoffiev ready for this Monday. I'm dividing the entire movement up into 5 equal sections of 26 bars. Why you may ask? Well, we're often told of this guy who went to a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire and asked a teacher if she'd teach him. She asked "Can you learn 2 bars a day?" He said of course, and she accepted him. Now, in a 130 bar movement, 2 bars a day isn't going to do me much good when I have a week. But, I decided that in reality, I have 5 days to practice it, and one extra day to put it all together. So if I divide the 130 into 5 days, I get 26 bars. So, I'm only focussing on those 26 bars each day. 26 bars a day isn't too hard, and I can worry about the other bars later, and then on Sunday, put it all together so that Monday my teacher is impressed (hopefully) with my progress, and I'm happy :> YAY!

I also figured out that there's 227 days until my recital (Including today). So that's 227 days to memorise all my pieces. But I don't want to be memorising the last bars on the day of my recital. I've already set myself the goal of having my recital completely ready a month beforehand. So that's 197 days to learn all my pieces. I counted up all the bars in my pieces (including the ones that I probably won't do) and it comes down to 5.5 bars a day. Pretty easy hey? What can you do with 5 bars a day? You learn every note, you learn every dynamic, you learn what's in the piano part, you learn the harmony, you learn where you are in the form of the piece. So I'm going to start memorising 5.5 bars a day, and have my entire program memorised a couple of months out from my recital (because I'm going to make sure I memorise my recital pieces first, because they're more important), and then I can start putting on Pre-Recital recitals, where I can run through my pieces in performance settings, and not have to worry about if I stuff up that I will be marked on it. This way, by the time my recital eventually comes around, it will be excellent!

Learning two bars per day is the opposite concept of 130/5 = 26 etc. But good luck!
Ben, you're approaching this problem in a systematic way, which is good. Your plan to learn all the recital material one month before the recital is good, too. However, I suggest a change. Instead of dividing the pieces mathematically, divide them musically. Learn phrases instead of 5.5 bars. Phrases make sense musically. Learning should be easier and playing should be a lot better this way.
Jim, I don't have enough days to do 2 bars a day, so I'm doing the best I can.

Pauline, The idea is to break it down into as small a particles that you can, the idea being that if you've memorised in small amounts (eg 1-2 bars), if you do stuff up then it's easy to get back on board.

That's an interesting concept.
I may try that some day.
Ben, I'm not convinced by your explanation. I don't see how you can benefit from such arbitrary subdivisions of music. I also believe that it would be easier to learn and remember phrases that hang together and, sometimes, repeat.