At my lesson the other day - trying to play Brahms Waltz with the right rhythym my teacher said "and don't memorize".

The funny thing is, is that I don't memorize anything, it just happens - my teacher said that it's because I have a good ear and we both said at the same time "it can be a pain in the ----

I always have to keep reminding myself to look at the music - fun and games. Does anyone else have this happen?

Can you explain why she said "don't memorize"...I'm not getting the problem. Thanks.

It's really not a problem - I think she said it because I don't always look at the music and if I get lost -- it's hard for me to find the right note to get back on track.

She wants me to always look at the music - we both laughed when this was said. I guess it's good to have a good ear, the funny thing is I wouldn't know how to memorize as I mentioned it just happens.

This exactly mirrors my experience with my teacher. I tend to superficially memorize without thinking and my teacher encourages me to keep my eyes more on the music.

As noted, it's hard to find your place after a minor mistake if you take your eyes off the music. It's also true for me that if I start relying on memory too early I haven't really taken in everything that the score offers in the way of dynamic, tempo, and phrasing marks.

I think that many people who memorize quickly are like me and only absorb a quick "muscle memory" version of the notes. If I really want to depend on my memory for a confident performance I've still got to consciously spend additional time developing my aural, visual, and intellectual memory of a piece. I only do this for a minority of the pieces I work through and always at the very end of the process.

Yes! I memorize stuff all the time even when I am not trying too. It's almost unavoidable when you are doing something repeatedly.

Maybe she just wants to make sure you develop your reading skills. That's the only "problem" I can think of. Since I remember things too quickly then I stop looking at the music... then I don't develop my site reading. Or, if I forget a part and I am not reading along then I am lost...

I read somewhere to site read something new everyday. I think that is good advice. Then you develop your reading and you are not playing by memory,

I am working harder on following along with the music as I play so I will know where I am if I forget something. But, I am still playing by memory even if I am looking at the music.

Now I'm REALLY confused. In my ignorance I sort of thought memorizing a piece was sort of the whole point of the exorcise.

It's good to have fellow travelers.

I'm always telling myself - look at the music - wonder what it would be like if we had a wind-up doll saying "sight-read, look at the music" until it became second nature.

It's definitely not for me. In a typical year I may seriously work on 30-50 pieces but almost all of those are only partially developed. I work through the major issues with my teacher and then we go onto something else.

We're trying to cover a lot of literature from a lot of periods so that I get exposure and some experience with the widest possible range of technical and musical issues. Only a few of these pieces do I spend the extra time to really polish and securely memorize.

And I'll say it again: the kind of memorization that happens automatically with me is a very shallow kind of "muscle memory". It is quite transient and not particularly reliable for serious performance. I've got to work a lot harder to memorize in the complete sense of that word.

When you're not looking at the music are you looking at the keys? I'm curious if you don't look at the music AND don't look at the keys if you still exhibit this memorization capability. It's possible you're memorizing the visual image your hands present, and it's easy to test that theory by staring off into space to see if you can still play from memory.

I don't look at the keys has I play - my father always said I have a good ear for music and my teacher said the same thing.
Someone wrote that it may be repition - who knows.

It just happens - don't know how. How does that song go "doin what comes naturally".

Occasionally I do take a quick look at the keys - but it's just a quick check.

What about Concert pianists? I've seen them play a whole recital without any music - AND they seem to look at the keys quite a lot. Sure I look at the music to practise the difficult bits but when I "perform" it I play entirely from memory
If it's good enough for the Professionals..........

Don't be confused. It varies from person to person. For me, memorizing a piece is the whole point of the exercise as you say. I consciously work at memorizing the pieces that I learn and I don't consider a piece learnt until I can play it from memory. My whole goal is to acquire a repertoire of memorized pieces that I can play anytime, anywhere, anyplace without the sheet music. And since I am playing from memory I do look at my hands; a memory of my hands' configurations on the keys goes along with muscle memory, theoretical memory, and auditory memory. Looking at one's hands is only discouraged when one is sight reading, not when playing from memory.

I happened to be re-reading a chapter of Josef Lhevinne's "Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing" just today and ran across this observation (written in 1924):

"The custom of playing everything by memory is of comparatively recent introduction. Very few musicians at the time of Mozart, Hayden or Beethoven ever thought it necessary...it gradually became the thing to appear in concert without the printed notes and very few artists of any considerable standing have played with notes to any extent during the last twenty-five years."

A couple of years ago I saw Stephen Hough premier a new piece in concert with the printed score. It's also interesting to notice the use of printed scores by major conductors where there is a decided mix of practices. I wonder whether, in a few more years, conducting without the score will become as expected by critics as memorized performance by soloists is now.

I guess the point of all this rambling is that performing without the score is a practice with a varied history and is certainly not essential to the artistry of the music.

I might add that sometimes "I hear the music" before I've learned the piece. Usually it's something I've heard along the way. My father played for himself quite often, ballet classes etc..

Concert pianist probably look at their hands to be sure they are in the right place at the right time - concertos and the many pieces they play - maybe someone with performance experience can jump in.

Anyway, I'll keep telling myself to look at the music until it becomes second nature.

It's a blessing and a curse. When you memorize unintentionally, and you "zone out" and don't pay attention to the sheet music (this happens to me often), you can often lose your spot. Or worse, say that you're performing, and you are going off on auto-pilot, if you freak-out, then everything you memorized unintentionally goes out the window. This is why it was suggested to me that you should try not to play on auto-pilot. To a certain degree, you HAVE to memorize the music (even if it's just reading off of the sheet music), especially for complex pieces - whether you know it or not.

I think memorizing unintentionally can stem from a wide variety of sources, such as through muscle memory, ear-training memory
and photographic memory. Sometimes I surprise myself because I remember being really bad, but the next time I come to the piano, I end up playing it perfectly. I read something about PPI? (post-performance something?) in which your muscles develop and your memory develop when you're away from the piano and sleeping. Kinda like how when you develop your muscles, you work them out, but the developing is done when you're sleeping. Very interesting theory... Maybe someone else read about it and can share more.

I can relate to that. Especially finger exercises. I don't usually get them the first time, but some quiet time later it seems alright.

I tend not to memorize, but I know parts of it are there, because I can phase out and completely lose it. It's not often that I totally misplace myself on the sheet though, I'm usually right there, but some times I know I'm not reading and it kind of freaks me out. I know I could memorize (and I do want to memorize some pieces because in the end, I want the same thing that Jazzyprof wants to do), but I haven't found the pieces I'd like to do that with yet and I don't trust myself -- if that makes any sense -- without the music open.

For me piano = practice with sheet music and study as long as it takes until all notes (finger+hand movements) are stored in 'muscle memory'.
By that point I still need the sheet music for some time, to keep track of where I am and to study in more detail all the other musical symbols (like dynamics and tempo indications). Then after a while I simply don't need the sheet music anymore.

Unless you are some sort of piano god and can play advanced pieces just by looking at the score, isn't memorizing the very essence of piano playing.
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat until it's stored in memory... and when you can finally play the notes on auto-pilot, you can actually take control, LISTEN to what you play, start polishing and bring more feeling into it.

Wow...what a great thread. I definately have "muscle memory". I can't memorize worth beans when I try, but it does seem to just happen when I play something repeatedly. Of course, then if I WANT to play it from memory I can't! I'm glad I'm not alone out here......

So my question is: is muscle memory really "bad"? Do I have to work at trying NOT to do it?

Muscle memory happens by repetition of the same physical action over and over. It's not necessarily bad, but it will forsake you in the middle of a live performance. That is, when you get stuck, you won't be able to start again at the same place.

True memorization has to be in the brain. If you have a piece memorized, you should be able to start, or re-start at any measure and proceed from there.

If you mean that unless you are performing without the printed score you can't really "take control" of the piece in a musical and artistic sense, I guess I disagree. And I wonder where that leaves the thousands of orchestral and chamber players who nearly always perform with music on the stand.

My position remains that the pratice of actually performing without music is merely a custom and not an essential part of musical performance. I do, however, agree that you can't learn a piece to performance level without internalizing the details and that almost surely means that you have memorized a lot even if you haven't memorized everything and still prefer to keep the music in front of you.

Not bad. It's important but unreliable and incomplete. For me, I don't work at not doing it, but I do have to work hard to go beyond it.

Here's the kind of tests you can use with classical music to see if it's really memorized in a total sense:

Can you say immediately without looking at the score what key and time signature applies to the piece?

Can you identify in your mind where every change of key occurs and can you play all of these transitions from memory on demand?

Can you play only the melody or only the harmony for any arbitrary phrase or section? If it's polyphonic, can you play each voice separately from memory?

Can you look in your memory and play a phrase backwards even if slowly?

Can you play the piece at an incredibly slow tempo that is radically different than your intended performance tempo? (I've never been exactly sure why this one trips up my muscle memory so quickly but it sure does for me)

THERE is my problem....I CANNOT find my place once I fumble. And yet, I cannot seem to memorize....I feel terribly handicapped. It came to a head finally one day when my teacher said "I'll play the right hand and you play the left". I froze...I had no idea what the left hand was, but I can play the piece hands together perfectly. If anyone has a plan for me I'd love to hear it. I WANT to do it right and do it well....

P.S. I have a wonderful teacher, but she isn't quite sure why I have so much trouble memorizing....she has taught me how, but it's not working....

There's actually 2 types of "memorization" First is the muscle memory, where you remember the notes as a visual cue, or the finger positions. The second is "playing by ear", where you hear the song and melody in your head first, and know exactly what note to play.

I play only jazz now, and I don't use sheet music when I play. I may use it to figure out the chord changes and melody when I first learn the song, but I rely mainly on hearing.

Hear is a good test. Take a simple classical piece that you have on a CD or mp3, play the song entirely, should be only 1-2 minutes.

Then try learning the song WITHOUT SHEET MUSIC at all. How?

Play the first 4 bars, or 5 seconds, pause the song, sing back the melody and try to play it on the piano. First the melody only, then see if you can figure out the harmony.

Repeat as many times as needed, meaning you may have to replay that passage 5 times or 10 or 20, to really know it.

What this does is imprint the music and sound in your head FIRST, then transfer it to your fingers.

I too went through the entire classical piano training, so I know the flaws that this method entails. I could play hard Rachmaninoff pieces easily with sheet music but was at a complete loss without.

musdan- I recommend playing as much as you can BY EAR. It sounds like you have a good ear. Disregard your teacher's advice about always looking at the sheet music. Learn the song well enough that you could sing or hum the entire melody to me if asked.

pianoobsession- same advice, you may be having trouble memorizing because you don't know the song well enough. If I asked you to sing the "happy birthday song", you probably could.

Do that for the song you want to play. You are fumbling cause your mind can't recall the SOUND of the song.

Here's a great article about using sheet music effectively and playing by ear:

http://www.treelight.com/music/sheetmusic.html

Hope this helps!

This is all fine as long as you want to play improvised pop or jazz arrangements. It doesn't help if you actually want to play classical music (which I do).

I'm not interested in improvising on a tune by Brahms. I want to actually play Brahms (to name one of my current interests), and in that case there just aren't any shortcuts (which I guess some people consider a flaw in the method).

I also continue to resist the idea implicit in many of these posts that playing from printed music is somehow wrong or can't really be artistic.

I thought i'd drag up this thread as it's something i'm experiencing as well. I don't mind memorizing, it sounds like it's something positive bur for me, i have only been learning a couple of months, it's a hindrance when learning to sight read, at least i think it slows down the process.

Each week i have a lesson and my teacher normally gives me three to four pieces to work on before the next lesson. I have always completed them up until now but i'm sure that i am memorizing to some extent. I'm not physically trying to not memorize them i'm just trying to play from the sheet. I'd say i only look at the piano very occasionally, i try to focus on the sheet totally.

So when i play these pieces, most of the time, if you were to take the music away, i'd get lost at a few parts. So you may thunk i'm not really memorizing. Well when i'm with my teacher, we go through the previous weeks work, which is normally fine but when we move to the next piece of music, i really struggle. Although i think part of that is freezing up (i've only had five lessons so far). Makes me feel like a dummy, hopefully i'll get over that whole thing!

So i guess i'm going to try and sight read from lots of pieces before they start becoming familiar. With the work i get from my teacher now, i try not to play any piece more than twice in a row. I'll go on to the next piece, then the next, then i'll repeat the cycle.

I thought i had a question but maybe not.

Now that you've brought it back ......

From Ludwig:



HOW you memorize affects the results you get. People who easily memorize things are blessed and cursed (as someone else has noted). My son has this ability, and in his case it does not have anything to do with a good ear. His current teacher has positively told him NOT to memorize until the piece is really understood. The piece must be pulled apart measure by measure until it is understood.

People who memorize too quickly often do not fully grasp the musical idea. They may not understand the phrasing, voicing or dynamics, and they may not understand where the music is going (what to emphasize and bring out in the melodic line).

Lastly, quick memorization often leads to a plethora of simple errors creeping in that become fully internalized by the player. Always remember that old line about "practice makes permanent." It's hard to undo what you have memorized when you finally realize that you have mismemorized notes, chords, and musical intent.


jw has summarized the point nicely:



True memorization does indeed have to be in the brain, not just the hands. The brain has to remember chord patterns, melodic lines, particular dissonances that show up, and differences between seemingly similar phrases that appear in different parts of the piece.

A great example of that last one are the infinite loops that pianists sometimes encounter because they forget that the second (or third) time a particular theme is heard it is different from the previous times. If they play it like the first time they can wind up repeating sections ad infinitum because they have forgotten the subtle finger pressure differences that launch their finger memory into the last section.

I have watched my son bump into this one on a few occasions. It can be rather amusing! I have also heard a professional pianist do it ... skillfully, I might add. She realized that she had gotten lost in the middle of a piece, but she knew it so well that she just cycled around again to a part she knew and then continued on as though nothing had happened. No one noticed.