However, physical or intrinsic memory of music cannot exist independently of mental preparation. Most conductors use a healthy mix of methods 2 and 3 when memorizing a score. When asked to recall the music, the musician will rely on their muscle memory to aid their memory. Constant repetition allows for muscle memory, or intrinsic memory, to kick in. A musician can memorize a piece of music either totally by ear using this method, or by reading the music (at either a highly proficient or painfully slow level) on an instrument. Physical or intrinsic. This kind of memory applies best to a few layers of music only, which can easily be played on a piano or an instrument with a more limited polyphonic ability.Mozart can hear a piece of music and conceptualize it without the aid of reading notation or utilizing muscle memory through performing the music. Alternatively, a person with a tremendous ear such as W. In this way, a score could live entirely inside the mind. Mental. A person with fluency in reading music and clefs can, with enough time and study, read a score without the aid of any musical sounds, relying only on his or her inner ear.Assuming EM is a real trait: simply pouring over a score visually could allow EM possessors to memorize music. The three ways to memorize a score are as follows: Score memorization, for these purposes, means that if suddenly all copies and recordings of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps disappeared, an individual could recreate the entire score, including expressive and tempo indications. There are potentially three ways in which one can memorize a score. Most adult cases of EM appear in individuals with severe mental retardation or savant syndrome.ĭoes this mean that all those maestros with purported EM capabilities are either lying, exaggerating the truth, or allowing a popular myth about their abilities to live through sensational journalism? There has been no research which supports that EM can be learned later in life, though such research would no doubt be interesting and rewarding. William Lee Adams, and many other scientists, believe that “it’s impossible to recall images with near perfect accuracy.”Īccording to Alan Searleman and others, “The vast majority of the people who have been identified as possessing eidetic imagery are children. The prevalence estimates of the ability among preadolescents range from about 2 percent to 10 percent.” The ability usually begins to fade around a child’s sixth year, perhaps due to the increasing demand for verbal real estate in the brain, which alters brain architecture. A true photograph can last forever, and can be examined down to the minutest detail at will. Part of the public confusion may be due to EM’s popular name, and the analogy to a photograph. According to most research, this description of EM is a dramatic overstatement. The popular conception of EM is that a person could look at a page of words or images and retain the entire page in their memory with perfect or near-perfect accuracy (à la Lt.
What is eidetic memory? How does it work in the brain? Does it exist at all? Is it something that can be developed? How can you memorize scores without it? These are some of the questions which this blog will attempt to address. The question remains: was it a superhuman ability that allowed these maestros to memorize complex scores, or does a combination of score preparation methods and vast experience deserve the credit? Maazel had some kind of photographic memory, allowing him to perform the symphonies of Mahler from memory.” Note the authors’ trepidation at claiming fully-fledged eidetic memory (which I’ll refer to as EM from now on). When reading the biographies of many famous conductors one often comes across statements such as “Seiji Ozawa purportedly had a semi-photographic memory, and was able to memorize complex contemporary scores,” or “Mr. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, photographic memory, or eidetic memory, is an ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with high precision for a few minutes without using mnemonics.
0 kommentar(er)
