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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
 Posted - 08/16/2002 : 12:20:38 PM
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Russell Letson mentioned a helpful technique for memorizing, when he wrote in (under the Lessons, Workshops topic) regarding his experience at George Kahumoku's workshop: The vocal class had more mixed results--learning songs in a language you don't understand is a tricky business--but I think we made a start at it. George would have us talk/chant through each song, line by line. It was a pretty uneven process, getting the sounds and the meter right, until one student, an ESL (English as a second language) teacher, suggested a technique used in her business: learn each line backwards, phrase by phrase. That, along with George slapping out ipu-like rhythms (especially on "Hi`ilawe") worked pretty well.
When I was a kid, my mother (a pianist) taught me the same thing as the ESL teacher, regarding learning a music from the page. It's a good technique. What happens is that you wind up repeating the *end* of the music over and over, instead of the *beginning*. Thus you are starting out each run-thru with the *new* material, fresh, and finishing the run-thru with, in essence, a review of old material -- reinforcing it each time. I didn't know language teachers used the same technique -- but it makes sense anywhere you are trying to memorize something quite long.
-Sarah
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2002 : 5:36:10 PM
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hi sarah,
this is really good advice. it seems like a variation of keola beamer's advice to isolate a troublsome phrase and work on that out of context. one certainly uses the same trick in learning languages.
i've been trying another approach, though, because i'm learning increasingly more songs from observation rather than from reading music. i try to learn the motif and basic phrases of a song with very little ornamentation. it's pretty easy to get that down. then, i work on the ornamentation... i'm slowly becoming more analytical about songs by doing this, which i think is a good thing.
aloha,
keith
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2002 : 10:39:57 PM
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You both have excellent approaches which I use in different contextx.
Keith, I use your approach when I want to learn a basic song that I will later use with ornamentation or as a basis for improv. I create a lead sheet which has the melody in TAB, chord names written above and one verse/chorus. Pretty easy to memorize.
Sarah, if I'm learning a complex piece which someone else has arranged, I use a version of your approach. (I'm doing this with Ozzie's transcription of Ka Ua Noe.) First I try to analyze the piece -- basic themes, chord progressions, what kind of variations, etc. (This is left over from childhood classical training, but actually I kind of helps.) Then I memorize the first presentation of each "theme." This gives me a structure to hang things on. Then I go to the end of the song and memorize it phrase by phrase moving towards the beginning. That way, I'm always moving towards something I already know. It's like rewarding myself for learning a new measure or phrase. (As my colleagues say, it is self-reinforcing.) I started to do this because I tended to get really good at the beginning of stuff and ended up very sloppy. It was too discouraging. This way, by the time I get back to the top, I've got the whole piece down. I believe it was a tip I got from the book "The Green Room." or maybe "Joy of Music."
The only problem is that as I get older, the damn process is taking more and more time. AND ... if I don't keep repeating the piece periodically, I forget it a lot sooner than I used to forget things.
Raymond
San Jose
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2002 : 4:27:50 PM
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RJS said:
That way, I'm always moving towards something I already know. It's like rewarding myself for learning a new measure or phrase. (As my colleagues say, it is self-reinforcing.)
Exactly!  It makes for a more positive experience that way.
Keith, learning from observation is a different animal -- I say that because although I don't have much experience with it, I find it more difficult. I understand the logic of your approach, however: cut away the frills first, to get the basic structure/sequence; then address the ornamentation. I do essentially that when learning a new song when I must learn from a CD (i.e. aurally). I isolate the sung melody, and get that down first -- the single melodic line. Then comes the guitar and ornamentation.
-sarah
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marzullo
`Olu`olu
USA
923 Posts |
Posted - 08/22/2002 : 7:40:31 PM
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this is all good advice... one piece that i've been struggling to memorize is ke'ala's mele from hansen's book. i get the basic theme and variations down, but he has so many different ideas in that song, i can't get them down. i'll try some of your suggestions.
aloha,
keith
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2002 : 02:55:41 AM
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Opps, I forgot two other "techniques" I use in memorization -- they are grounded in research in learning theory and neural networks, but more importantly, they work - at least for me.
1) I never sapend more than 15 minutes at a time (ok, maybe 20) in trying to memorize any one piece.
2) I only work on memorizing a piece every other day.
After implementing these limits, I found my ability to memorize somehing improve and take a lot less time
Raymond
San Jose
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Sarah
`Olu`olu
571 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2002 : 11:33:55 AM
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In pieces like Ke'ala's Mele (or Punahele, or Ki Ho'alu Slack Key, etc.), where there are many sections and/or many variations, I have found it helpful to concentrate on one section at a time, as if it were a single piece -- and get a good grasp of one section before working on another, then string (kui) them together (like a lei)  . Ron Loo advocates this technique on a measure by measure level, even.
Raymond's tip about not working on memorizing a piece for more than 15 minutes at a time reminds me of something that was mentioned in, I think, The Art of Practicing (by Madeline Bruser), a book which has been discussed before on this site. The idea was to concentrate intensely for 10 minutes, then get up and walk around, and think of something else entirely for 10 minutes, then come back to your work. This seems to let things "gel" in your brain.
Aloha,
Sarah
Edited by - Sarah on 08/24/2002 09:21:26 |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2002 : 1:49:41 PM
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Got to check that book out --
I came by the idea by applying research the Army did at the start of WWI -- seems they needed a lot of clerk/typists right away, so they contracted with Cornell (I hope I'k right there) to develop the fastest touch typing course possible. The researchers found that having the guys work for 15 minutes a couple of times a day was the fastest way. Since then the principle has been validated in dozens of graduate school research projects. (Hope I have the details correct -- it has been many years since I taught that stuff. Many.)
Raymond
San Jose
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