Eli5 How did classical music composers memorize their songs back then after creating them?

543 views

Let’s take for example the nocturnes of Chopin.

My preferred one is nocturne n. 20

He certainly didn’t have studio machine to record their sound AFAIK

How then did he memorize and write down everything to remember later?

Did he start playing the piano, write down the notes, continue playing or did he memorize the whole song by heart without any writing process?

Sorry 4 my bad English btw. Not a English native speaker.

EDIT : thanks everyone for the explanation.

In: 157

23 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Come up with a story in your head, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what you want it to be about, the where, the who, the twist, the climax, the end, the epilogue. Sit down and write it. Read it, edit it. Read again. Build the parts that will get you where to need to go. Add flourish, add details, add dialogue, add foreshadow.

Consider composition of music as a language, the analogy is the same. He had an idea, rough drafted, embellished. Some people have more colorful imaginations to write down right away. Some people need lots of time Anne effort to redraft.

You are viewing 1 out of 23 answers, click here to view all answers.