Motor memory

daveskye

I have been playing the guitar since I was 12 and am now 72. I started with skiffle in the 1950s. I moved on to folk and later the pop of The Shadows, and other popular groups, and then, of course, The Beatles - wonderful songs that were easy to play. I played lead guitar in a pop group at school; we called ourselves "The Wasps" - but this was before the Beatles - pure coincidence!
I was never able to sight read music well, so had to learn everything by ear, which came naturally then.
My first guitar was a cheap classical instrument (can't remember the maker), but it served me well for many years until i destroyed it falling off my motor bike! I replaced it with a Vincente Tatay, which I still have.
For our pop group at school, I bought a 2nd hand Burns Sonic (about 1960), but did not continue with pop music. The burns sat in our loft for about 50 years - and I sold it a few years ago for a decent price!
Whilst at university, I played mostly folk music, and dabbled with classical guitar - particularly J.S.Bach.
Since then I have stuck with folk music, ragtime and classical. It was always a mission learning a new piece and despite many attempts at sight reading, it never happened so I learned everything by memory, and this has continued until the present day, and it the reason for this discussion.
Many people play by memory. Very rarely to concert guitarists use music - it is all in their memory - and much of this is 'motor memory'. Your fingers simply know where to go.
I now have a problem with my motor memory and can be playing a piece that I have played regularly for decades and it will suddenly disappear and I stop - not knowing where to go next. it is extremely frustrating! Maybe 5 minutes later it will come back.
Many of the pieces I used to play have gone this way.
I now have a smaller selection of pieces which I play frequently, but still occasionally it just stops.So, I wonder if there is anyone out there, maybe a doctor, a psychiatrist or a psychologist who might have some thoughts on the subject.
If so I would be delighted to hear from them.
Dave Skye

ElectroDan

Hello Dave. Welcome to the Forum. I'm not a Doctor but I can certainly relate to your story.
I have played for over 25 years and have always relied on a combination of motor-memory and visual memory. I couldn't play a guitar without dot markers any better than I could play the Clarinet. I imagine anyone who's seen me play live might be surprised that most of the time I'm playing, I have no idea what Chord or Notes I am using. I've always found music difficult to understand.
I think guitarists that understand Music, 'speak' it on the instrument instead of repeating a series of movements like you and I. In the same way whilst we could memorise a passage of a foreign language text, a person who fluently understood what it meant would have a great advantage when trying to recall it. 

menamestom

I'm not an expert on the subject, but just having a piece of music infront of you and getting used to it can make it enough of a prompt for you to remember all of the parts.  Just try putting a piece of music infront of you that you already know and as you play, glance at the music and just use the bars for reference rather than the notes.  You don't need to read the music, becuase you already know it but just the patterns of the notes might be able to jog your memory (as long as the arrangements are the same).   Concert guitarists may play by mainly memory but many have the music there on a stand, just in case, if a prompt is needed.   If having the actual music seems too complicated, just try writing down the parts in very basic form and trying that.  Look at it the other way, so many people can't even comprehend not having something in front of them, so maybe you've just evolved into a real concert player