Great music that's not memorable

[karlhenning]

Of course: those old Bostonians.

[bwv 1080]

Carter is easier for me to remember than late romantics like Reger, Wagner, Mahler or early Schoenberg

I couldn't sing you the opening of any of Carter's quartets, but I can hear them all in my head.  

[Brian]

Brahms . . . Brahms . . . cotton merchant?

You must be thinking of Miss Brahms from the ladies fashions level.

[Daverz]

Much of Miaskovsky's music cannot be called to mind moment by moment, but it's generally very lyrical and has a strong atmosphere that really pulls me in.

[Brian]

David - just as a sideline, I think another issue here relates to individual human senses, i.e. some people are likely more visual or more aural [...] many people are just born w/ certainly abilities, whether related to eyes, ears, athletics, etc., and I'm not sure that listening, reading, or other attempts will provide that 'superior' skill in any particular area - well, maybe a some BS in there?    Dave

No, I think you're absolutely correct! Recall that General U.S. Grant "can only remember two tunes: Yankee Doodle, and that other one." I have another example for you of the spectrum of inherent musical traits - gifts and flaws alike.

My younger brother cannot listen to multiple instruments at once, especially when more than one melodic idea is going on at the same time; he has to focus on a single instrument and relegate the others to the background. For some reason he just can't process a group of players as a single sound; it comes across as different parties clashing. So jazz quartets and combos drive him mad - we went to a jazz club in San Antonio (Jim Cullum's on the Riverwalk - great place!) and he spent the whole night being utterly baffled by the music - they didn't sound like unified pieces to him at all.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I - well this isn't a direct opposite, but whatever   - have a pretty incredible musical memory. Not after the first listen, except in really extraordinary cases, but generally after the sixth or seventh on average, I will start to get a musical piece "memorized" in my head. Not just the gist of it but, in large-scale orchestral works for instance, everything that I can hear in the recordings accessible to me (and more - get to that in a moment). A topic of current interest to me, as I study my own internal radio   , is this: how many instruments/independent lines can I "hear" at once when replaying a piece from memory in my head? Over time I've been able to train the memory to do a much better job picking up the harmonic parts, bass lines, etc. For instance, only over the last couple months has the triple-fugue bit from the finale of Beethoven's Ninth really started to sound "right" in my head. Another thing which interests me is this: do I play music in my head in stereo? One day I noticed that, in the song stuck in my head, there was a distinct impression of the clarinet being on the left. Can this be manipulated and tweaked? Going to try and find out.

Anyways, I have a whole ton of music "memorized" these days, though not really of course, because I have hardly ever seen a score. I've also got the ability to speed things up, slow them down, tweak with orchestration, add lines (used to have big problems with, uh, "improving" some works, including adding several tutti chords to an awkwardly silent moment in a Suppe overture; and to this day I consider my orchestration of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, complete with syncopated gong thwacks, to be the coolest one out there!), and even totally transform the sound. For instance, a fun fact: the first movement of the "Eroica" symphony would probably sound quite interesting played by a string quintet. And I keep having this idea of La Marseillaise on a kazoo.  

With orchestral works it can really become a sort of conducting game in the head. Once, while working an appallingly slow shift at Wal-Mart, I decided to see how quickly the Symphonie fantastique could be played while (a) being playable, and (b) maintaining an excellent interpretation. Then I decided to see how slowly it could go and still be interesting and engaging. All repeats were observed. The answers were 47 and 69 () minutes, respectively.* But anyways - I have a very hard time not remembering music if I've heard it a few times. Basically, it has to either really stink or have absolutely no striking melodic/thematic/interestingly-scored material. 

*Timing for the long version was something along the lines of 18/7/24/8/12.

[mwb]

John Cage's 4'33" - I always draw a blank with that one.



*runs and hides*

[Brian]

Did she play Ahme in Help!?'

She was in Help! - but she played Lady Macbeth and her scene got deleted. Her name is Wendy Richard.

[sul G]

Was. She died a few weeks ago.

[Dr. Dread]

This thread will tie in nicely with mine: "Great Memories That Are Not Musical".

[Diletante]

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I - well this isn't a direct opposite, but whatever   - have a pretty incredible musical memory.

Sounds cool! Sounds like you don't need portable devices.

On topic, I have a *much* harder time remembering melodies from music from the Classical period. I have, for instance, listened to Schubert's Fifth Symphony many times, yet right now I can't remember a single melody from it.

[Superhorn]

   Some atonal music has genuine themes which can be recognized and remembered, such as the music of Schoenberg. Other composers avoid recognizable themes altogether,such as Carter and Boulez.
  But if you take the time and effort to give repeated hearings to atoonal or 12 tone music, it often will start to make more sense.
  As a horn player, I once played Webern's 6 Pieces for orchestra at a concert. During the rehearsals, the music actually started to sound more tuneful as the reharsals proceeded, and now I have no problems listening this piece.
  One of my mottos in classical music is  "Unfamiliarity breeds contempt".
 

[greg]

   Some atonal music has genuine themes which can be recognized and remembered, such as the music of Schoenberg. Other composers avoid recognizable themes altogether,such as Carter and Boulez.
  But if you take the time and effort to give repeated hearings to atoonal or 12 tone music, it often will start to make more sense.
  As a horn player, I once played Webern's 6 Pieces for orchestra at a concert. During the rehearsals, the music actually started to sound more tuneful as the reharsals proceeded, and now I have no problems listening this piece.
  One of my mottos in classical music is  "Unfamiliarity breeds contempt".
 

Nicely put!

I should add: for me it's the opposite. The more challenging a piece is, the more drawn I am toward it. It still feels like it's left hanging, not figured out.

[owlice]

(I got to this thread from the "Hearing music in your head" thread; thanks, Brian!)

I've listened to classical music for decades, and then if I hear even famous works on the radio (e.g. NPR), I'll sit there and say GOD I know & own this, but what is it!  It's really irritating, and age is a factor

It IS really irritating, and I've been the same way all my life! There are works I've performed, and when I hear them on the radio, I couldn't tell you what they are.

But I'm the same way with other sounds, which I noticed with bird calls. I have often thought that perhaps the two halves of my brain don't talk to each other very well, and that music, and music-like sound (such as bird songs and calls), are on one side of the brain and the labels for the music and music-like sounds are on the other. What seems to be missing is the link between the two.

If I have seen a bird singing -- such as a mockingbird or cardinal, which are very common -- I have associated the song with the visual and then can name the bird from the sound with ease. I have no trouble retrieving the label for a visual.

There is some music which sticks with me, which I can retrieve at will, or name immediately, but most music is disassociated from its label. SO annoying!

[DavidW]

I forgot about this thread.  I must appear to be obsessed with musical memory since I've created two threads on it.

[karlhenning]

There's Grade B [ composer N. ] that I always know that I know when the radio plays it, but I never remember just what it is, really.

[owlice]

David, two threads, but they discuss opposite sides of the subject!

[DavidW]

David, two threads, but they discuss opposite sides of the subject!

Ah so you'll forgive my obsession then. 0:)

[owlice]

David, it's interesting stuff! I haven't read Musicophilia yet, but will get to it eventually. I've read a number of his other books.

SonicMan's comment ... if it hadn't been for that, I might not have posted, but wow, do I ever know the irritation of hearing something, something I recognize, and not being able to come up with its label!! And Brahms symphonies? I know I've heard 'em, and I even have a favorite among 'em, but I can't even recall the big "homeland"ish theme in the last movement of the First at the moment, though I know it's in there!

Yes. Yes, that irritating is something with which I'm very familiar! Made listening exams in college music courses a challenge, too, this "not able to name works" thing! That's where ditties -- "Oh, my word; it's Beethoven's Third" and "Mr. Mozart is locked in his closet! Let him out, let him out, let him out! He wants to write his fortieth! Let him out, let him out, let him out!" and "This is the symphony, which Schubert wrote, but never finished" -- set to the themes of various works come in handy!

[DavidW]

Those music exams are kind of insulting.  I can see their place in 101 to make sure the students are listening to the music that they are supposed to, but they had them in the Beethoven class I took.  At upper level it seems kind of insulting.  Being asked to identify by sample sonata allegro form is like being asked to identify an electric field in an upper level physics class.  Kind of lame.

[owlice]

Oh, back in college, one of my pianist friends and I were talking one night, and she admitted she should be going over music for a listening exam the next day, and then she shrugged and said, "I'll have to rely on my sense of key." I don't remember what works were going to be on the exam (WTC? Beethoven sonatas?), but apparently, being able to tell which key they were in was key! I was envious of her perfect pitch!