Dale Kavanagh: Memorization Techniques or Fighting the Autopilot!
Today I am extremely to welcome the wonderful Dale Kavanagh for her first livestream on tonebase! 
Canadian-born Dale Kavanagh is one of the guitar world’s most gifted interpreters. Between 1986 and 1988 Dale was a top prize-winner in Spain’s“ Segovia Competition”, Italy’s “Gargnano Competition”, Switzerland’s “Neuchatel Competition” and First and Special Prize winner in Finland’s “Scandinavian International Guitar Competition”
She is going to share her immense experience in performing and teaching with us and talk about MEMORIZATION or How to fight the autopilot!
Over the past 30 years I have run into the classic case of autopilot playing repeatedly in master classes.
When a student sits down to learn a new piece, often, they have not given themselves enough tasks or projects to keep practice time interesting. Perhaps they are trying to do everything at one time, or it may appear to them to be easier to simply play a piece over and over and over again. I am not saying, of course, that difficult sections should not be drilled. Drilling is at times required, but I do believe that a lot of practice time is wasted and injuries are developed by mindless repetition.
There are many different techniques required in order to learn, enjoy, memorise, and understand a piece, in order to make it ready for performance level. I would like to discuss some different techniques which help a student learn a piece with both memory security and musical depth.
- When did you run into memorization issues?
- Have you recognized turning on the autopilot?
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Hi, Martin! This workshop will be recorded? I guess I'll attend just half time, due to schedule issues. Thank you!
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Moyses Lopes yes, like all regular livestreams and guest workshops, this one will be recorded and archived :)
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Hi Martin. Thanks for the topic. It reminded me that being able to recognize chords have helped me to learn and remember pieces. I could not recognize chords and asked my teacher for help. As I learned about chords I realize I have seen some before and when I start new pieces there they are again. It is like seeing an old friend. Before picking up the guitar I try to identify the chords. There are some notes that are not part of a chord and I ask my teacher what they are and what are their functions. This prep work has helped me a lot.
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Claudia Roth What a wonderful description: "It's like seeing and old friend", love it!
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Hello. Just watched the recorded event and it helped me immensely. Dale is so enjoyable to watch and listen, and what a great personality! Took some notes during the session and will be sure to utilize them in my practice. Thank you both Dale and Martin!
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Tony Gunia Great to hear! I had so much fun interviewing her!
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It would be great to have the titles of the books Dale mentioned towards the end of the conversation. Possible?
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Just watched it, so good! Thank you so much both for another great session. It will help me a lot!
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I feel one additional thing that was not really addressed was that the process of solfege singing should include hearing and identifying the intervallic distances between the notes--viz, applying our previous study of recognizing and reproducing with our voices how specific intervals sound. Also hearing how the intervals sound between the voices of a polyphonic work. Is this not another dimension of our inner experience of the music? In conjunction with the visualization(s) and pre-kinaesthtic awareness (or proprioception) of how our hands FEEL as if we were to play these notes these different (but certainly related) awarenesses can all be mutually reinforcing. And even stronger when we include harmonic analysis and awareness.
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I have just now viewed the replay. I met Dale at the GFA in Louisville in 2018 and am happy that she mentioned it will return there in 2024. Dale used very large fret dots and it then I started using them. It has really helped me.
