The Study of Memorisation in Piano Students in Higher Education in Mexico

Abstract

This paper describes how Mexican piano students enrolled in higher education music courses memorise scores, which is necessary to increase their capacity for memorisation and to prepare a repertoire of higher complexity. We also analysed the different types of memory in the musical practice of the students, investigating what they emphasise the most to memorise musical pieces. Interest in this topic arose because it was observed that piano syllabi in the different participating institutions do not include a specific memorisation development process for piano repertoire; however, piano students are required to present a memorised repertoire at the end of each semester. We distributed a questionnaire to 545 students from 18 Higher Artistic Education institutions with a degree in music, with piano as the main instrument, in 13 states of Mexico. The results indicate that the development of analytical memory through musical analysis is fundamental and essential while learning memorisation skills to achieve a better understanding of the score and its piano performance. We also found that there are significant differences between the variables of age range and gender.