Yesterday, I attended a rehearsal with the Grease band, where in addition to the songs we have known for many months, we were to learn about a half-dozen songs very rapidly. One of the songs is
"Time Warp" from
the Rocky Horror Show.
I was a little jealous when I was not asked to participate in the local production of the Rocky Horror Show, but I imagine that some day, I will have my chance to play Dr. Frankenfurter. Unfortunately, my longing to participate in the Rocky Horror Show has nothing to do with this post, so once again, I must put a topic on the back-burner -- to be forgotten until the desire resurfaces.
At last evening's rehearsal, the bandleader played a recording of
the Time Warp for the band members, in order to get an idea on the key, riffs, and overall structure of the song. As I sat behind the drumset, I had my ears wide open, and I was fully focused on the music.
I had the whole piece memorized with one listen.
Before I fell asleep last night, and my brain was processing five thoughts per second, the issue of memorization crossed my mind, and I began thinking about the musical prodigies of history.
Especially Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Mozart was a musical genius; he demonstrated superhuman memory skills, he was incredibly talented, and intelligent. He had exceptional composition skills, and was proficient in almost every musical instrument of the time. I don't have the time to give you a synopsis of Mozart's life, but I recommend you watch the movie
Amadeus, as it is quite accurate in the account of the events of Mozart's life, as well as his persona.
Mozart was known to have a photographic memory, which was well-documented in the movie. He could memorize an entire concerto with one listen. He would often compose entire symphonies in his head before committing one note to paper. His manuscripts were flawless. All these feats are even more astounding given the limits of 18th century technology. Last evening, while I was contemplating my rapid memorization of
the Time Warp, I considered Mozart's uncanny mental prowess.
The memorization of large volumes of data has a lot to do with the way our brains manage and process information. Mozart must have used a number of tricks to allow him to store huge volumes of data, with little to no loss of data integrity. When I considered the way I memorized
the Time Warp, I surmised that I used a type of mental data compression in order to assimilate a large amount of information in such a short period of time.
If I explain all this in musical terms, I will probably lose most of you with a bunch of jargon you may or may not know, so I have considered using a different analogy to convey my point.
First of all consider a landmark, or piece of architecture that strikes you with awe, at its' immense size or detail. Consider the Sistine Chapel. I have never been there, but even through photographs, I have been awestruck at the architecture and detail of the chapel. As a tourist, there is no possible way that one can absorb every detail, every crevice of the landmark, nor is it possible to absorb every detail Michelangelo painted on the ceiling. The level of detail is overwhelming. Strangely enough, we all have some recollection of the detail of the building.
Consider the process in which we all read. If you think way back to your youth, when you just began to learn how to read, you might recall it being a rather exhausting effort. I recall being taught to pronounce every single letter phonetically, and these letters became syllables, and then entire words. Entire words became phrases, and sentences; sentences became ideas; sentences became paragraphs, and paragraphs were representative of more complex ideas. You can extend this scale as large as you wish, but at the very root are individual characters.
When we memorize a sentence, a phrase, or poem, or any other written material, do you think we memorize every individual letter? If we tried to memorize every individual letter, we probably could not remember more than a few words. Our brains have become adept at recognizing words as individual units, instead of long strings of letters and punctuation. I am sure linguists and psychologists would argue that we memorize phrases, groups of words, even general ideas, as larger, more general pieces of information are easier for our brain to manage.
It's a lot like telling a joke you recently heard. You often remember the punch line, and you make up the rest. It's a way that we can assimilate large pieces of information. The important pieces are retained, and the rest is filler.
This is the same process that speed readers use to quickly assimilate large volumes of information, however it does take some training. When the common person reads, they do not read individual letters, much like a young child does, but their brain sees each word as individual units of information. Speed readers are able to go beyond the individual word and see entire phrases as one unit. They have learned to compress information at a higher level.
Contrary to popular belief, speed readers do not have photographic memories. When they are reading a page every ten seconds, they are only assimilating general ideas of the text. You cannot get them to quote passages word-for-word; instead they are looking at the bigger picture.
When I was listening to the "Time Warp" at last night's rehearsal, I was using the same tactic. Memorizing individual notes takes dozens of listens -- and takes far more time than I have available. I am sure Mozart similarly used these tactics to memorize entire compositions with only one listen.
What the layperson often does not know, is that music is a lot like spoken language; it has rules, grammar, and punctuation. There are rules to follow when writing music, there are motifs, and formulae which are used to develop musical themes. Composers of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods of music followed a much stricter code of composition then what is followed today. So, if a person was well-educated in the process of music composition, they could predict the direction a piece of music would take.
That being said, I am not criticizing Mozart by any means. He was far more talented than what I could ever hope to be. I consider him one of the most brilliant composers of all time. But the process I have outlined above is my hypothesis on how he could possibly memorize such huge volumes of music, and compose entire symphonies before placing one note on parchment.
On a slightly different tangent, the ability for the brain to process large volumes of information at the many levels I have described is likely the key to academic success at the post-secondary level. It seems that university students receive the greatest rewards when they can understand the bigger picture (macro), yet have the ability to memorize the important details at the "micro" level. Abstract thought, reasoning, deduction, and induction also play a large role in a student's level of success in their academic studies; which arguably, is related to a student's intelligence. Ultimately, a student will succeed if they can assimilate, process, and manage the information presented to them in a reasonable amount of time.
It was nearly too late in my academic career before I learned how to adequately manage the high volume of information I was given. I have my lousy grade-point-average to show for that. If I had learned those tricks two (or more) years prior to graduation, I would likely have a Ph.D. by now.
I am still considering the idea of returning to University to complete another degree. When I do, I am going to be unstoppable. I smell a 4.0 GPA in my future.
I would have thought the world's largest Music Archive would have been located at the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, or in the Archives of one of the Big 5 record companies. Apparently, none of these come close.
