"Hey, let me try that," I said. He threw; I cheated. It was surprisingly hard to make my eyes turn loose of that ball. We tried several more times before I could get my eyes to close. Plop! Like magic, I felt a ball materialize in my hand. "I don't know what all this has to do with memorizing Mozart," I said, "but it's pretty astounding." I always enjoy the look of disbelief on someone's face when I try this experiment on them. No one ever expects it to work, because they always half suspect that someone else is cheating and not really closing his eyes.

 

"What prompted you to work with juggling balls today?" I asked Roger.

 

"I was just curious. You keep talking about how it helps people with sight-reading. I wondered if it might have any effect on memorizing." Since actual juggling had proved impossible, he had wanted to practice first only with throwing. Since the throwing and catching had gone to an interesting level, I wondered if there might be any noticeable effect.

 

 

Back to the piano. Back to Mozart.

 

 

"Hey, I don't know whether I'm imagining it or not, but this is the easiest time I've ever had trying to memorize anything," he said after 15 minutes or so of intensive work.

 

He wasn't imagining anything. We found that each time he clutched up about memorizing after that, he could loosen things up by working with the balls. It always seemed to clear his head and get his brain fine-tuned for the job, just as it does with many sight-readers.

 

We discovered an important, unexpected bonus: a work-out with the balls not only gives the brain a boost, it also gives hands and fingers an unbelievably good warm-up. It's great for pianists, string players, clarinetists - anyone who needs strong agile fingers on his instrument. Lacrosse balls, standard for jugglers, are best to use, though tennis balls will do for a start.

 

My theory on all this? I believe the juggling or even the throwing and catching with alternate hands stimulates some complex interaction between the two brain hemi­spheres. Certainly juggling involves eye-hand coordination and timing similar to that in playing music. Whatever it is that happens, it seems worth remembering and experimenting with further. A woman who had worked conscientiously on memorizing a Brahms rhapsody found that whenever she got to a certain measure she would blow it. We worked from every possible angle on awareness, yet she still blew it. What finally worked? A 15-minute session with juggling. Somehow her brain connected with her body and there it was - the whole passage - finally comfortable and playable. The jangles left her body and she was free to make use of her previous work. It's a pretty neat trick to keep up your sleeve.