Working Backwards
by Jacques Rizzo Retired
Jbrizzo@optonline.net
good number of years ago, I read a study in a psycho- logical journal about univer- sity students memorizing piano concerti. The study divided the pianists into two groups. The control group memorized the concerto starting from the begin- ning proceeding to the end. The experi- mental group memorized the concerto starting at the end of the piece, working towards the beginning: i.e., they would first memorize a reasonable portion at the end of the concerto, perhaps only the last phrase. Then the would add the another segment, connecting that with the previously memorized segment, and continue in this fashion, adding each newly memorized portion to that already learned until they reached the beginning. The premise of the study was that those who worked from the end of the piece would, as they added each new seg- ment, be playing back into portions that they had already memorized, reinforcing their recollection of these already memo- rized sections. And so the study found. Reading the study, I thought that this strategy would transfer well into teach- ing the music itself. So, when students had problems with a particular phrase, I would subdivide the phrase into man- ageable parts, and have them practice the last portion (perhaps only two or three notes), perfecting that, and proceed backwards from there, adding another portion until the phrase was learned. Typically, students play music from the beginning until they made a mistake.
A TEMPO
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