Method of Loci - From Memory Technique to Creative Framework
Lectorate at the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague 2025 - 2026
The 'Method of Loci' is a memory technique from classical rhetoric, which involves locating the items to be remembered in an imaginary 'palace'. The goal of the research is to explore how these processes of imagination and mental organisation could be applied to musical practice, both in the past, and now. Analysing musical compositions using the principles of the ‘memory palace' involves defining musical material according to 'objects', 'rooms', 'plans', and 'routes', and placing in a mental 'structure' that we can move through in our imagination. This analysis can help us realise why the composer made certain choices, understand the relation of musical material, and serve as a tool for learning and memorising own repertoire.
The result of the analysis, being used as a creative tool, makes a link between learning existing music and improvising/composing. Understanding how an existing composition is just one 'route' through the 'palace' of musical ideas helps us to improvise or create new compositions by finding different 'routes' in the same 'palace', which one may not have thought of if only improvising or composing intuitively.