Memory types, attitudes and strategies in piano students’ memorizing process
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7203/LEEME.26.9817Keywords:
Types of Musical Memory, Music Memorization Strategies, Performativity, Piano.
Abstract
This research analyzes different memory types -muscular, visual, auditive..- and the strategies followed by a group of 10 piano students from the first year of “Conservatorio Profesional” (5th year of studies) when memorizing an unfamiliar score depending on three conditions: in the first one the students may use the piano (physical practice); in the second one they may not use the piano (mental practice with listening) but have an audio recording of the score, and in the third one, they have no piano and no recording (mental practice without listening). The memorization phase (30’), the performance by heart of the score (1’-2’) and a short interview of the student are video-recorded to evaluate the performance and the memorizing processes. The outcome of the performance is analyzed as a function of the students preexisting skills (piano and musical language), of the behavior and attitude variables and of the memorization phase processes. The results show that the performance quality depends significantly on the access to the piano during the memorization (p<0.01) and, to a lesser extent, to the audio recording. This shows the importance of muscular and also auditory memory, corroborating the results in the literature. The preexisting skills of the participants, in particular note-reading skills (p<0.01) and piano technique (p<0.05) influence the performance quality, while the different memorizing strategies used have no significant correlation with the performance or the skills, contrarily to our expectations.
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