TME Tuesday: Finding Patterns

Do you memorize music easily? I do, and it seems that my method of memorizing music isn't all that prevalent out there in the music therapy world, so let me tell you how I do things...

I find patterns.

Okay. I know what you're thinking... "Sure, MJ, that sounds easy enough, but how does that help me memorize music?"

Now, I find that people who did not grow up with piano lessons and who learned to play guitar before piano tend to do this easier than those who are pianists. There seems to be something inherently different in how we learn to play those two instruments that affects how we can memorize things. If you feel differently, please let me know in comments. This is my experience over 35 interns, two organists, and lots of music therapy professionals. I don't know what it is exactly about piano and guitar that tend to send us into different ways of memorizing things, but that seems to be the learning that happens.

Back to how I memorize music. I learn the patterns. This allows me to memorize music pretty quickly because I have a set of predicted patterns that I follow and then I learn the changes. For me, it all comes down to chord progressions.

There aren't that many different chord progressions out there in the world of music, and when you start to analyze them, you find that many of our clients' preferences fall into these chord patterns. When the pattern is known, then all you have to memorize are the variations to the pattern to make songs come alive.

People will ask me to teach them the chord progressions to specific songs that I sing with my clients. I am always surprised by this because they already know the progressions - they use them with other songs. The 12-bar blues pattern is one of the most repeated patterns in my clinic - we have opening and closing TMEs and all sorts of improvisation centered around this chord progression. For me, it is one of the first progressions I learned and it is like coming home. I can play this series of chords in my sleep and can play it around the circle of fifths.

Perhaps I can hear these patterns differently than others do, but one of the things that I do to keep this skill refined is I sit down with songs I don't know, I listen to them, and then I play along with the recordings. I make assumptions about what I hear, and then I test those assumptions to see if they are correct or erroneous. Once I know the pattern, I am able to replicate it without much more effort. I file the progression of the song into my pattern system, and then "hit enter" to save it.

So, I listen, I try things out, and I categorize based on patterns that I already know.

This is one of the reasons that I have found for going through music theory as a foundation for music therapy. Without learning to listen for predictable patterns, I would not be as successful as a musician. I would not be able to hear these patterns and then replicate them. I would not have the foundational information to make predictions and test my hypotheses. So, dictation and ear training have very practical applications in the day-to-day life of music therapists. If you don't practice, though, you won't be able to do this skill. Take time to practice.

Ah, music theory.

Fellow guitarists - do you all memorize music easily? Is it just me and my wild theory out there? I'm interested in whether playing guitar lends itself to better ear training and recognition. I also think that when you learned how to play has a big influence on whether you can memorize songs using patterns rather than learning each individual note. Let me know about you...