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Playing from memory at the organ?

Doug Sjostrom

New member
You folks that sight read are rock stars! I'm total organ autodidact. As a boy chorister, it was love at first note and If I liked the music, it became memorized almost in real time. Hating the electronic sound, I studied organ building and began building my own instrument in 1975 at age 23. Only since retirement in 2005 have I been able to devote serious hours to practice. In music as in design engineering, "God is in the details". I find I can do a reasonable job of playing by ear, but it is the inner details that really bring out the full beauty of the piece that frustrate me. I'd love to locate a teacher north of Boston that would be willing to work with what is nearly a lifetime of what are probably some pretty bad habits.
Doug
 

Luis Enrique

New member
Joyce Jones -a great organist and human being- who may manage billions of notes in her brain and heart, gave us the next ELEMENTS OF MEMORIZATION:
1. MOTOR MEMORY
a) Involves: fluente coordinatios and finger memory
b) achieved by: drill, repetition, disiplined practice
c) often the first way we memorize

2) AURAL MEMORY
a) the practical ear - remembers and directs fingers
b) the artistic hear: evaluates and relates material: creates and expresses

3) VISUAL MEMORY
a) Inner visualization - the mind´s eye
b) outer -the keyboard patters

4) THERETICAL-ANALYTICAL MEMORY
a) Structural -form, phrasing, motives, sequences
b) linear - horizontal flow and relationshiops
c) tonal - key, modulation, key relationships
d) harmonic -chords, progressions, cadences
e) inetrpretive - markings of scores, mood and coloring

5) MEMORY TECHNIQUES
a) conceptual memory
b) away from the keyboard
c) "stations"
d) hands apart (countrapuntual)
e) concentration under pressure.

¡HOPE THESE HELP! (sorry misspellings)
LUIS E.

c)
 
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Contratrombone64

Admiral of Fugues
Luis, don't worry about your errant spellings, it's fine. I like what Ms Jones has to say on the art of memorisation, very interesting.
 

acc

Member
Thanks a lot, Luis, for sharing Joyce Jones' very detailed insight on the matter. :tiphat:
 

Contratrombone64

Admiral of Fugues
Some folk find memory work easy and effortless (Mr Jacobs from the Juliard School of Music spirings to mind) and others (myself) find it repetitive and tedious.
 

Nikam

New member
Thanks to Luis Enrique for bringing this thread to the fore with its wealth of views and information from a good number of forumers.:clap:
 
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