Memorising securely – free course

Playing from memory frees your eyes, your listening and your expression. But many pianists only know one kind of memory: finger memory, which forms "by itself" through repetition. It is fast and efficient… until the day nerves shake it and, once the thread is lost, it is impossible to restart. A secure memory relies on several memories supporting one another.

The pianist's four memories

Memory	What it holds	How to strengthen it
Aural	The sound, the melody, the harmonies	Sing the melody, sing one hand while playing the other, listen inwardly
Visual	The page, the shapes on the keyboard	Visualise the score, picture hand positions with eyes closed
Kinesthetic	Gestures, the feel of the fingers	Slow, regular repetition, fixed fingerings, playing with eyes closed
Analytical	Structure, harmony, motifs	Name the chords, the form, the modulations, what repeats or changes

Kinesthetic memory is the most fragile under pressure because it is automatic: you don't know what you are playing, only how. Analytical and aural memory are what let you recover.

Analytical memory: an example

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=80
K:C
"C"C E G E | "Am"A, C E C | "F"F A c A | "G"G B d B |]

Rather than memorising 16 notes, you memorise one idea: each bar arpeggiates the given chord: root, third, fifth, then back to the third; the progression is C – A minor – F – G, one of the most common in music. Two sentences instead of sixteen notes, and if the fingers hesitate, you know exactly which note must come next.

Landmarks (safety points)

Choose starting points in the piece: the beginning of each phrase, each section, each modulation. Number them on the score (1, 2, 3…). Then practise restarting from any of them, in random order. If a memory slip happens in performance, you jump to the next landmark instead of stopping.

Mark 6 to 10 landmarks in a two-page piece.
Write their numbers on slips of paper, draw one at random, start there.
For each one, be able to state: key, chord, starting fingering, what comes before.

Memory tests

Play very slowly from memory: finger memory no longer works alone at a slow tempo; what remains is what you truly know.
Hands separately from memory, especially the left hand.
Write out the start of a phrase from memory.
Play mentally away from the piano (see mental practice).
Controlled distraction: play while talking, or with someone in the room.

Memorise early: don't wait until you "know" the piece to memorise it. Memorise phrase by phrase from the start of learning, building in analysis: you'll avoid a purely finger-based memory.

Common mistakes:

Relying on the fingers alone: after a slip, you cannot restart without going back to the top.
Always playing at full speed: autopilot hides the cracks.
Only practising restarts from the beginning: in performance you'll need to restart in the middle.

Exercise

Take Bach's Prelude in C. Each bar is one arpeggiated chord: to memorise it, write the chord name for each bar and sing the highest note of each bar. Memorise eight bars a day, with landmarks every four bars.