The Memorization, Preparation, and Performanceof Piano Music:

Cognitive Foundations and Current Neuro-Music Research

AMY M. SIMPSON

DOCTORAL CANDIDATE IN PIANO PERFORMANCE

DR. PETER AMSTUTZ, RESEARCH CHAIR

Why this Topic?

As a performer and private teacher, I am interested in improving:

PracticingLearningMemorizing PerformingTeaching

I COMPILED CURRENT INFORMATION FOR

PROFESSIONAL PERFORMERS, MUSIC TEACHERS,

MUSIC STUDENTS, AND NEURO-MUSIC

RESEARCHERS, WITH A FOCUS ON PIANO MUSIC. I REVIEWED ABOUT 140 SOURCES FROM 2000 TO PRESENT.

Why now? Modern imaging techniques allow scientists to study brain activity “online” while people

perform music, study music, imagine music, or listen to music.

New research presents a wealth of new knowledge.

A SUBJECT PERFORMS ON AN

MRI-COMPATIBLE KEYBOARD

DURING RESEARCH

(BROWN AND PENHUME, 2018).

Human Memory Systems

MAKING A LONG TERM MEMORY

WHEN ELECTRICAL AND NEURO-PHYSICAL CHANGES

IN NEURONS OF THE BRAIN

PERMANENTLY STRENGTHEN THEIR

CONNECTIONS,

ENCODING CREATES WHAT WE

THINK OF AS A MEMORY.

Working Memory is Crucial for Music Performance

MUSICIANS HAVE MORE EFFICIENT WORKING MEMORY

THAN NON-MUSICIANS.

ATTENTION GUIDES THE OPERATION

OF WORKING MEMORY.

HTTPS://WWW.PSYCHEDCONSULT.COM

Procedural MemoryMemory for Learning a Skill or Motor Memory

An important focus of this research.

Requires repetitive practice to form.

Refines and changes slowly.

Is automatically recalled without conscious effort.

Is usually expressed by performing the skill.

Generalized Motor Programs - GMPsHow procedural memory operates.

Our brains generalize similar movements to handle various, specific situations.

Example: Throwing a ball

Our minds create an abstraction of the overall skill.We form a generalized set of rules that update each time we throw a ball.

We observe the specific details each time we need to throw a ball;the GMP responds flexibly, and records the quality of the motion afterwards.

The more instances of a GMP that are exercised, the more skilled the GMP becomes.

Generalized Motor Programs - GMPsVaried conditions improve long-term learning

of a motor skill.

Children who practiced throwing from various locations, performed better than those who only practiced from the test location. (Kerr and Booth, 1978).

Generalized Motor Programs - GMPsin Music Practice

Varying Practice - using different parameters often, increases cognitive demand:

Changing tempi or rhythmic patterns.Changing octaves or switching hand roles.

Performing the generalized skill in a different way, i.e. transposition.Improvising in the style of the piece.

Learning in this way strengthens our motor memory and provides transfer skills.

Transfer – using a learned skill to perform a different one, with some similarities.Necessary to learn complex tasks, like piano performance.

Advanced pianists transfer skills like balancing voices and creating dynamic contrast.

Memory ConsolidationA second focus of this research.

The process of acquiring a new skill, and the brain’s processes for stabilizing and improving that skill.

Stage 1: Acquisition. Practicing encodes a new skill into memory.

Stage 2: Stabilization. Fragile, new memorizes become stronger and more stabilized in 4-6 waking hours after practice.

Stage 3: Enhancement. Overnight sleep provides extra learning while we sleep. Modest gains in accuracy and speed happen via

chemical processes during non-REM, Slow-Wave-Sleep.

Memory Consolidation

My research compiles details on optimizing piano practice via spaced practice and overnight sleep. Research is ongoing.

Considerations: Taking early or late practice breaks.Skill level of the person practicing.Length and kinds of practice used.Imposing potential interference.

The brain gives more attention to the most difficult things we need to learn!(Debarnot, Castellani, and Guillot, 2012)

Auditory Imagery In Practice and in PerformanceA third focus of this research.

Imagining features of sound that does not exist in the real world.

Auditory imagery uses many or all of the senses, and/or emotion.(i.e.) Horowitz used mental practice before a concert.

Musicians create this on purpose. Research has proven it beneficial to performance.Everyone may have involuntary aural imagery – i.e., getting a song stuck in your head.

Musicians use it in practice and in performance.

Auditory Imagery can be very vivid.

Multi-modal Imagery

Combining different kinds of imagery:aural, motor, visual, or emotional imagery.

Combining other imagery with emotional imagery is highly effective for memorization.

Using more than one mode of imagery at once benefits practice,memorization, and performance.

Some Tenets of Ideal PracticingAccording to Research

Obtain a clear, correct aural image of your piece first.Fully understand its hierarchical structure.

(Understanding structure is how we create musical expressiveness.)

Use multiple memory systems in learning: auditory, motor, emotional, visual.Vary practice to increase cognitive demand.

Learn starting spots thoroughly.Interleave skills that must be practiced.

Create ways to forget and remember.Practice beyond what is sufficient. (Overlearning)

Take breaks when fatigued.Get enough overnight sleep.

Ideal PracticingThree practices found in coordination in highly successful pianists:

1) Create achievable goals and continually assess the effectiveness of the strategy being used to obtain them.

2) Listen and compare what you hear to a desired mental image.

3) Use a variety of strategies to solve problems.

Other Interesting Research Findings

Musicians probably have a second working memory function for tonal information.

There is no such thing as muscle memory.

People are not very good at estimating how well they have learned something.

The development of world scales (5-9 notes, often 7) is probably due to the capacity of short-term memory.

There is evidence for individual aptitude for music.

Motor movement in performance is controlled by more abstract thought as skill level increases.

Both real and imagined sound activate common regions of the brain.

Future Research

Aptitude for Music/PedagogyCan a level of expertise be predicted?

Does aptitude interact or change with training?Can individualized plans optimize music learning?

Spaced Practice and Memory ConsolidationHow does complex music learning interact with spaced practice in skilled players?

Working Memory Operation in PerformanceHow is working memory altered under stressful performance conditions?

How is attention optimized for best performance?

Relationship of Perception to Memorization and RecallLikely to reveal more about brain networks and wholistic human processes in learning.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents – Page 2

Table of Contents – Page 3

Summarized Conclusions of Research

Pianists have the distinct advantage of benefitting from current neuroscience research. While some research findings may simply confirm knowledge that musicians already possess, there is value in having scientific confirmation. Research that clarifies, rebalances,

or introduces new concepts for optimizing musicianship is invaluable.

It seems likely that first modes of learning are most deeply related to one’s own strengths. In the future the original mode of practice will likely be shown more definitively to be insignificant.

Strong practice habits embrace desirable difficulties, including variable practice for motor skill strength, interleaving to create contextual interference, spacing practice for optimal memory consolidation, and recall strategies that optimize testing effects and seamless coordination with associative cuing. These techniques are essential, even if they detract from early performance gains.

Practice that connects different modes of memory, such as hearing and spatial skills, or motor skill coordinated with emotion, strengthens multimodal memory connections. Increasing cognitive complexity and multimodality in practice creates more synaptic

connections, and builds wider, stronger networks of memory interconnections for memory strength and long-term learning.

Repetition is still important. Motions must be allowed to become automatic, and overlearning is highly beneficial. Continued practice when gains seem to be incremental continues to increase one’s mental representation of music in the brain.

Summarized Conclusions of ResearchContinued – Slide 2

Overall, expertise in piano music is the most important factor for how well one can memorize and perform piano music. Pianists should spend time, not only practicing, but studying, and listening to music.

Attention guides working memory. Practice that changes the focus of attention allows for flexibility, and confidence that duringperformance, if one is distracted, one’s performance need not be derailed.

Paying attention to varying aspects of the music allows a mental representation to be as strong as possible, and provides ample opportunity for making the best musical choices for attention in performance.

Music is hierarchical, and so is our brain function for music. The hierarchical constructs of music are inextricably tied to how the brain memorizes and retrieves that information in performance. Musicians must understand structure, and which hierarchical levels are

deeper than others, in order to create valuable, musical goals, to memorize, and to perform well.

During performance, memory systems may be trusted to update one’s sense of timing and to help in executing plans for expression.

Research in planning during performance strongly suggests that one should concentrate only on the current sound that is being made and the planning of the next one, not on the physical motions required, and never on the past.

Because an entire phrase can be kept in working memory at once, it seems likely that planning for the next phrase will be shown to be the largest future event one can plan during a performance.

Summarized Conclusions of ResearchContinued – Slide 3

Focusing on the desired sound is far more optimal than focusing on motor motions, themselves. One should hear the auditory goal,then allow it to happen as simultaneously as possible.

Practicing multimodal imagery with the singular intention of creating the currently desired sound is optimal. This places auditory imagery and its action as tightly together as possible, and facilitates its happening in actual performance. In the future, perhaps research in music embodiment will lead us beyond the dualism of hearing an image prior to creating it. We might find ways to

heighten our abilities for “thinking-doing”, or “anticipating-acting” in a more wholistic way.

Memory consolidation research will likely lead to more specific guidance for practice. Perhaps future research might incorporate music of higher difficulty and greater length. Until more details are known, pianists can place more trust in taking breaks and getting

enough sleep to support their work.

Mistakes tend to happen in musical textures that one “already understands” or where one directs the least attention, due to humanhabituation and the operation of style schemas. Knowing specific practice methods that provide proper attention to everything, and

more about the operation of style schemas, may help to reduce common, rather predictable errors.

How clear should an original auditory image be? If multimodal practice is optimal for strong memory representations, and auditory and motor systems are strongly coupled in musicians, perhaps one cannot achieve an optimal auditory image until other forms of

practice, especially physical practice, have ensued.

Summarized Conclusions of ResearchContinued – Slide 4

Many questions still remain concerning individual differences, their sources, and how they operate in real world situations. Since how much one cares about music is a factor in learning, future research may determine if there are limits for the amount of

expertise one can attain, or if training, or the choice to continue long-term learning, may affect learning or its speed, even when predisposition is not present.

Future research has the potential to optimize music pedagogy, preparation, memorization, and performance, perhaps in the foreseeable future.

The strength and tightness of networks between sensory modalities is a rich and complex topic for research, still in enough infancy that it is difficult to predict what may be revealed or what its ramifications might be.

Future research is likely to uncover cognitive ability that is greater than the realm of music, especially because research is often using the field of music to learn about the larger human condition.

Music “offers a well-defined domain in which to study basic psychological constructs underlying sequence production, skill acquisition, individual differences, and emotional response, all of which will be the focus of future research directions“

(Caroline Palmer, 1997).

Thanks for exploringNeuro-music with me.