Here's how musicians use a powerful memory system in our brain to memorize 30,000 notes, and how you can too! (According to science)

Have you ever wondered how musicians, such as piano players like Daniil Trifonov, can memorize long and often extremely complex music without any references or musical notation to go by?
While on the surface it may seem like they are simply memorizing the piece like you or I would memorize facts about whales, they are actually harnessing a critical yet entirely unique memory system that we use every single day, both to drive a car or like YouTube videos. Better yet; we use it completely unconciously.
Here's how you can use it, like a musician, to turn your brain into a biological harddrive, explained through science.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:49 Procedural Memory and How You Use It
1:43 The 3 Critical Stages of Memory Formation
2:22 How Musicians Use Procedural Memory
3:03 Other Use Cases
3:27 The Cons of Procedural Memory And How To Prevent Slips
5:25 How Muscle Memory Is A Completely Different Phenomenon (But Relevant)
6:38 Non-Compatible Use Cases
6:55 Outro

YT Sources:
   • Rubik’s Cube European Record: 3.97  
   • How To Use Muscle Memory To Re-Build ...  

Sources:
Bricard, N., & Woods, S. M. (1978). Memory Problems for Musical Performers. College Music Symposium, 18(2), 102–109. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40373972

Johnstone, A. (2018, June 18). The amazing phenomenon of muscle memory - Oxford University - Medium. Medium.   / the-amazing-phenomenon-of-muscle-memory  

Jeff Nippard. (2018, June 19). How To Use Muscle Memory To Re-Build Lost Muscle (Science Explained) [Video]. YouTube.    • How To Use Muscle Memory To Re-Build ...  

Margulis, J. (2016, June 18). How Does a Pianist Remember the 30,000 Notes of the “Rach 3”? HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/piano-...

Pianojerome. (2006, April 17). How many notes are in Rachmaninov’s 3rd Concerto? Piano World Piano & Digital Piano Forums. https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthrea...

Hong, J. Y., Gallanter, E., Müller-Oehring, E. M., & Schulte, T. (2019). Phases of procedural learning and memory: characterisation with perceptual-motor sequence tasks. Journal of cognitive psychology (Hove, England), 31(5-6), 543–558.

Bruusgaard, J. C., Johansen, I. B., Egner, I. M., Rana, Z. A., & Gundersen, K. (2010). Myonuclei acquired by overload exercise precede hypertrophy and are not lost on detraining. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(34), 15111–15116. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0913935107

Tags:
#music #science #documentary #selfimprovement #classicalmusic #musicproduction #piano #memory #physiology #training