Music and memory

[french frank]

An interesting article on the BBC Magazine site about how it's possible to suffer from severe amnesia about everything and yet remember music.

I find that interesting because I have a poor memory for music and if the faculty is housed in a special part of the brain it accords with the Mozart/Miserere phenomenon (which I find almost impossible to believe) and many of us who, for example, recognise a piece of music as being very familiar but haven't a clue what it is.

[amateur51]

Interesting insights indeed.

Taking it a step further ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdYplKQ4JBc

[MrGongGong]

An interesting article on the BBC Magazine site about how it's possible to suffer from severe amnesia about everything and yet remember music.

I find that interesting because I have a poor memory for music and if the faculty is housed in a special part of the brain it accords with the Mozart/Miserere phenomenon (which I find almost impossible to believe) and many of us who, for example, recognise a piece of music as being very familiar but haven't a clue what it is.

I find the Mozart/Miserere "phenomenon" quite odd really
as if one listens to the various versions of the Allegri it's not much harder than a Grade 5 theory exam question to be able to write it out from memory. It repeats the same material over and over and once one develops the ability to remember it then all one has to do is to sing it over and over in your head. There are much more astounding feats of musical memory IMV such as how one can remember multiple concertos etc etc

[mercia]

I find the Mozart/Miserere "phenomenon" quite odd really
as if one listens to the various versions of the Allegri it's not much harder than a Grade 5 theory exam question to be able to write it out from memory.

yes, that's exactly what I have always thought (unless he also memorised all the words)

[french frank]

It repeats the same material over and over and once one develops the ability to remember it then all one has to do is to sing it over and over in your head.

But are all the parts exactly the same, just at different pitches?

I don't think the feat of memorising a concerto is essentially any different from memorising a part in a long play - and I can do that.

[Ferretfancy]

I seem to remember that the treble descants and other frills were added to the Miserere after Mozart's time, and that would have made the original easier to remember. As for the words, surely any good catholic would know them anyway, so perhaps it was not such a miraculous feat. Of course, Mozart was a miracle in himself, but that's another argument.
I have no practical musical ability as a sight reader or performer, apart from having been in a school choir long ago, but I am quite good at recognising the provenance of a piece, sometimes by hearing the composer's signature, as it were. How many of us have music going on in our heads all the time, sometimes to distraction ?

[Biffo]

I agre with Ferretfancy and others, the Allegri Miserere is a very simple repetitive piece and the words would have been available in a missal. It would probably have been easy enough for Leopold Mozart to remember it (even with the spurious 19th century twiddly bits) let alone his prodigiously gifted son. As for the Papal ban, Dr Burney noted that pirate copies were freely available on the streets of Rome.

[Chris Newman]

On Saturday Night I went to my old school reunion. The Old Lady started four hundred and fifty one years ago. After about 40 toasts and a good tuck-in we sing the school song which has two verses. We all remember the first and the chorus, have to look at the words for the second and in the final chorus sing the naughty version.

[amateur51]

On Saturday Night I went to my old school reunion. The Old Lady started four hundred and fifty one years ago. After about 40 toasts and a good tuck-in we sing the school song which has two verses. We all remember the first and the chorus, have to look at the words for the second and in the final chorus sing the naughty version.