Pandemic Memory Challenges

I have observed consistent memory challenges throughout this year. Music that students have shown no problem memorizing in the past have stymied students this year. They just can’t seem to hold onto the salient details.

I think it comes down to a few things together:

  1. Singers have had less frequent and less consistent rehearsals than in the past. Zoom rehearsals, shortened rehearsals, interrupted rehearsals – all of these are less effective than a typical rehearsal process.
  2. Singers don’t feel the extrinsic motivator of a concert approaching. Sometimes that’s the only thing that gets students going on memorization.
  3. Singers have trouble hearing and integrating musical information in rehearsal. Singing in masks while socially distancing has the tendency to make each singer feel almost completely musically isolated. That makes the work harder.
  4. Singers aren’t accustomed to working on memorization on their own time. For many choirs, the time in rehearsal is sufficient to memorize music through sheer repetition. That hasn’t been consistently true this year.
  5. Most importantly, we all have a little more on our minds than usual. The COVID-related distractions that we have all carried around for the past year+ have necessarily occupied some of the mental energy that singers might otherwise have spent on memorizing music.