Muscle Memory in Music

 Muscle Memory in Music 

by Sara Penny

     Imagine you are at the piano ready to play a Mozart Concerto with an orchestra. You are in front of 2000 people and they start a different concerto than you prepared. Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires was in Amsterdam when this happened at an open rehearsal. She panicked, the conductor leaned over and said you can do this, and she played beautifully. She prepared #23 and the orchestra started playing #20. Details matter. It had been perhaps 11 months since she’d last played the piece. She said, “that’s the moment where you start losing the memory of the details. That’s how the memory functions, you know. And when people see this panic, they perhaps don’t know that the reality is, we lose our memories after just a couple of months.” In the Open Culture article they explain, "The eleventh-hour call Pires received asking her to take the gig was part of the problem, but so was a misheard number. According to the Köchel catalogue, which organizes all of Mozart’s work, the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor is 466, whereas the Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major is 488." It is not clear if Pires misheard the K‑number or the caller misspoke.

     Muscle memory came to the rescue. When you repeat an activity your muscles retain the action. This is why accurate practice is so important. The music transfers from an analytic activity into an automatic response. If you get nervous sometimes this process short circuits, so soloists have to learn their pieces as perfectly as possible. The famous Utah piano teacher Dr. Irene Peery-Fox told her students they needed to be able to play straight through a concerto from memory three times in a row as preparation for performance.

     The Orchestra of Southern Utah is preparing some of the great American compositions for the upcoming Feb. 19 concert, as part of America250 celebrations. The first time I played the Copland Rodeo Suite was in 1970 at Cedar High under June Thorley. It is amazing how the finger patterns come back quickly. The tricky part for me is that I have to relearn sections as harmony since I am playing the second violin part this time. My fingers want to go back to what I played before, so some retraining is in order. Even though we have played Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue before this is also taking some extra practice to remind my fingers where they belong.

     Four-time national figure skating champion Ilia Malinin, the only person in the world to have landed a quad axel in competition, talked about after all the practice and repetitions he relies on muscle memory for competitions.

     Muscle memory came in handy while preparing Claire Wood for the Honors Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 7. They programmed the fast and furious overture from Ruslan and Ludmilla by Glinka. There are cascading scales and some tricky rhythms. I was lucky because this was another piece that June Thorley drilled into us in high school. At a music workshop the clinician reminded us that we are "small muscle" athletes. The intricate finger action required to place the finger on the exact spot on the fingerboard and adjusting through hearing is a  practiced skill.

     One of the advantages of learning music with so many modern professional recordings available is that it is easier to listen. This helps with pitch, rhythm and musical expression. At a music lesson it is pretty obvious when a student has taken the time to listen and when they have not, because they have mistaken ideas about where the music is headed. You can preview the orchestra concert music at https://osulistening.blogspot.com. It is more enjoyable to hear orchestra music if you are familiar with the music because there are so many layers of sound. Sometimes you really notice the woodwinds and other times you are super aware of the brass. Orchestra music stays exciting because there is so much to hear.  I know I am ready for a performance when I wake up with the music in my head.  

     Dancers and other athletes also depend on muscle memory. The drills and the repetition allow the body to respond for a leap on stage or catching a ball on the field, as well as intricate finger movement. Hooray for muscle memory that rewards those who practice carefully.