I start a new piece by sight reading very slowly. As I gradually get to know it by practising it every day I start to stop reading and start relying on muscle memory. I then end up by not sight reading at all but relying on memory. If I then lose track I'm lost because I don't know where I am on the page. But the problem is that, no matter how much I practise a piece, my memory never gets quite good enough. So that must mean that I need to sight read the piece as I'm playing it even if I think I have it memorised but my sight reading is not fast enough at the moment. I have got some sight reading exercise books and I'm practising sight reading every day so I hope this will help.
Has anybody else had this problem? Any Tips/
Thanks - Ted

Muscle memory will let you lose your place. If you have a piece memorized in your head, you should be able to start anywhere.

I was never good at memorizing note by note myself. I rely more in a combination if playing by ear and remembering the notes that make the melody and harmonies.

muscle memory helps to play the piece smoothly and with confidence, but it needs some help from your brain to get through the whole piece without getting lost.

Oh, I struggle with this a lot. I tend to believe I'm reading the notes, until I find myself lost on the page. I then realize I've obviously got some of it in memory so I must be drifting along enjoying the song - until that lost moment occures. Tips?? I wish I had some since I tend to believe I'm reading in the first place. I'm just working on greater concentration which can clash with my playing to verify all the dynamics in the piece if I think I'm to that stage of playing it.

Memorizing and reading are both critical skills. My advice would be don't sacrifice one in favor of the other just because you happen to be better at one.

As Joe said, memory has to come from your brain, not just your fingers. Work on memorizing away from the piano, where you won't be tempted to rely on muscle memory. Play pieces in your head, HS if necessary, small chunks at a time to make sure they are memorized.

Work on reading even with pieces that are well memorized. You may have to play them slower, but it's helpful to periodically go thru and read/play every note. Also do daily sight reading of pieces you don't know. They may sound god-awful, but it will improve your ability to play practiced pieces from the score instead of relying totally on memory.

Search the forums for memory and sight-reading and you'll find a ton of info.

I'm having a HUGE problem with this very situation right now as I am trying to learn a new piece from a written score.

Although I can (poorly) read music, I have spent so much time in the past couple of years developing my improvising and play by ear techniques that my sightreading has terribly suffered.

As a result, even though I am learning a score now as written, the moment I start to "get it" is when I stop reading and start memorizing. The problem is if I lose my place, I have no idea where the heck I am in the piece other than the general area.

What Bluekeys says is very true. Both sightreading AND memorization techniques are important and you should'nt let one or the other suffer too badly. I did and now I'm paying for it.

I have found that making various colored marks on the page at certain melody changes helps me find my way quicker when I get lost but probably is some form of cheating; who knows?.

it's normal at the beginner or even intermediate stage, when most people would focus on learning and memorizing the music and playing without music.

i was like that when i met my teacher. i thought i memorized the piece and played it for my teacher and then stopped in the middle and got lost and didn't know how to continue. so my teacher said, 'just look at the music', and i tried to find the spot and didn't even know where that was... that's pretty much how i experienced it for a while at lessons. since my teacher kept telling me to look at the music while playing, i learned to read while playing. it's not automatic after you have already memorized music, but by focusing on following music while playing, you will learn to do that. it just takes time and patience to get used to.

Actually, it's not cheating at all; but you need to then memorize these marks too. Things like changes of melody and key are just some of the structural landmarks you can memorize to provide an "intellectual" supplement to pure muscle memory.

When I have a piece really well memorized, I find that I have a kind of mental map of the piece that I can follow along in my head: the sections, the repeats, the key changes, which section is a repeat or variation of an earlier section, etc. I certainly don't have an eidetic image of the score in my head, but I do have a very hard-to-describe mental picture of the piece.

And then there's aural memory: playing the piece in your head and having an exact idea of what sound you want at each point.

I memorize everything I play. Although I can play by ear I prefer to read the score . To help my memory I analyse the chords, inversions, any unusual note combinations....the more you learn the easier the memorizing becomes. I also study many different styles of music to help develop an understanding of the music and the piano from every possible angle. Lots of challenges...lots of fun.
rada

This topic caught my interest. Some months ago my teacher stressed the importance of memorizing. Last week we reviewed why I should be sight reading while playing. Another day it's use the metronome. Later I must count in my head or count out loud. Where do I start? Sometimes there is a cacophony of "must-do's" and I end up paralyzed. During a lesson when things are going badly, it feels like driving a car in a place you have never been to and three people are in the car yelling to take a different route.

There are so many skills involved in playing. My teacher says they are all important. If I try to concentrate on every skill at the same time my brain shuts down. As a result I will spend a month or so focusing on one thing more than another and then move on to the next. The selection of the skill to focus on is driven my what the teacher (in a very nice way) lets me know that I have done rather badly and need to take better care with.

Luckily, my new piano arrived a few weeks ago and so working on any skill is a bit like being in heaven.

New here, not quite ready for Chopin Etudes, playing at the level of an average 6 year old,

Carole B.