MUSICAL MEMORY - online book

A System To Cultivate The Musical Memory For Musicians.

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	14                                                    MUSICAL MEMORY.
	26. In addition to scale passages, to Class I also belong passages in " grand arpeggio" form, where the same figure, and consequently the same finger-movements are repeated through several octaves.
	27- Passages of hardly less security then these, and which may be included in the same class, are those constructed upon a figure recurring at smaller intervals than that of an octave, but which employ almost identical series of finger movements. Ex. 7 is a type of such, and the Finale of Beethoven's Sonata in A flat, Op. 26, contains many similar passages. To remember their harmonic framework is a precautionary measure:— 28.  Already we have had to refer to the harmonic basis of passages as something from which the student may derive valuable assistance, and it may be well to state once for all, that we shall assume our reader possesses a reasonable acquaintance with the subject of Harmony, the value of which to every musical student needs no advocacy from us. 29.    We now come to the next class of passage which can be memorized largely by means of muscular memory. Class II, comprises passages evolved from a figure or pattern, which figure, hoivever, both in its form and progression, accomodates itself to the harmonic structure of the passage. The greater the irregularity of a passage, the larger number of repetitions does it require before the series of movements are securely memorized ; if, however, we can discover some principle of construction running throughout the passage, and to which we can reduce its apparent irregularities, we shall have found out that which will not merely help us in reading the passage, but also which will greatly add to our security when memorizing it.