This is a subtopic from another thread:

What steps does one take to memorize directly from the score, away from the piano? Are you taking a mind picture of the score? analyzing the chord structure? Hearing the music in your mind? Can you please be specific?

For me - any or all of those things, whatever seems to be working go with it. Take advantage of your own strengths and work on your own weaknesses.

I'm not sure if the OP means memorizing a piece one has never played/heard before or memorizing a piece one has already learned/played.

If you check out Frederic Chiu's Deeper Piano Studies on Youtube,
you can see interesting segments where he has the students studying with him try to learn/memorize from a score. As I remember, there is not too much discussion of the techniques the students tried to use.

I don't remember why Chiu has them try this memorization excercise, but that may well be explained in the videos. I do remember that, although the students were extremely advanced(many with big careers/success already), they all seemed to have difficulty with learning the first few pages of a Scarlatti Sonata.

I would guess from the video that this technique is not very practical for many pianists because it appears to be very difficult. That doesn't mean there aren't other things to learn from attempting to do it.

It does APPEAR difficult, and it may seem bound to fail, before you try it.

But you have to compare this with the hours and hours of wasted "practice" time that people spend hacking through pieces not knowing what's going on. All that waste can be allowed to disappear - so even if memorizing a single page takes me three hours on my first try, I've still eliminated maybe five or six hours of physically-tiring and useless so-called practice.

And you kind of have to make a deal with yourself to not give up until you've actually finished memorizing something using this method, no matter how long it takes, because it never works until you're used to it, and all through that first try you feel like you're failing and wasting your time.

Memorizing at the piano is NOT any faster or easier - you're just distracted by the pretty sounds while you do it, so it seems that way.

Just in case you;re really being serious...
I already explained that a group of extremely advanced pianists with major careers found it very difficult, IMO one can reasonably conclude it is very difficult for the huge majority.

But what is "it"?


You didn't mention whether Chiu's students were in the former group or the latter one.

I take for granted that this thread is about memorizing a learned plece from the score, not attempting to memorize a piece one hasn't played before. Of course, I could be wrong.

Steven

Well, either I guess. I've heard of geniuses who learn an entire score on the train. I want to know how! I can look at a score and notice patterns; I am beginning to learn how to analyze chords. If I don't know a piece of music, I really struggle to hear it in my head from the score and when I succeed, it's usually just a single melody line. So how does one memorize polyphony or complex fingering without repeated hammering of it into muscle memory? Maybe this is just something beyond my abilities but I sure would like to learn some guidelines so I can attempt it.

Memorizing a score directly from the score is something all musicians should work on, on a daily basis.

I personally do so by first looking at the rhythm of the overall piece' clapping or tapping out the basic patterns of the melody and harmony. Then I look at the tonality and melody. Using my inner hearing (this is where solfege comes in to play), I am able get a general idea of the melodic line in the context of its rhythm. I then analyze the harmonies making a mental note of their relationships to each other (tonic, dominant, subdominant, V7/V, etc.) Then put it all together, in my head. Using a slow and steady beat.

How could the type of pianists I described conceivably have difficulty with using the score to help memorize a few pages of a Scarlatti Sonata they've already learned/heard?

Why, you're right! Excuse me for asking.

Steven

A semi-famous example (I think from the late '60's) was GUNNAR JOHANSEN ......don't remember if it was a train or a plane. I think it was on Beethoven's "6th concerto," which is the piano arrangement of the violin concerto. He needed to learn it FAST because he had been called as a substitute on something ridiculous like 1 day's notice. Of course he had a 'head start' because the basic concerto must have been very familiar to him, but still.....

To make the discussion short, these are the assumptions:
1. One page piece.
2. Time signature 3/4
3. LH = Waltz style

This is my way:

1. I memorize the melody. You need to be able to hum the melody line from the beg to end.
2. You have to be able to sing the notes of the melody line (with do re mi etc...solfege).
3. Memorize the LH for example if it is C Major, and the chord progression I - V7 - V7 - I, you should be able to remember the LH= do (mi-sol) (mi-sol) etc.
4. Close your eyes, sing the melody again, and then imagine you play the LH.

If you can do this, you should be ok.

For me, I have to do the above, and also do muscle memorization...

By the way......I personally would tend to avoid even trying it.
Because.......

When you're away from the piano, many of the FINGERINGS that you imagine will probably be wrong, and that might give a wrong mind-set.

I know this because I sort of tried this once. I wasn't trying to "memorize" per se, just trying to work out the fingerings. And when I got to the piano, I saw that almost everything was wrong.

Maybe for some people this wouldn't matter. Maybe they're able to be more flexible and not be bothered by having imagined fingerings that they'll wind up changing. Or, maybe they can envision the piece WITHOUT any fingerings in mind. But I would guess these things would be issues for most people.

If for some reason it's NECESSARY to memorize a piece away from the piano, that's a different story. But just as an exercise, I think for most people it's a bad idea. I know that it is for me.

There was a thread on the forum where they were working on memorizing and analysing a score prior to playing it for the first time and then recording and posting their first attempt - without score of course. They were working to the point of being able to write the score out from memory. If I remember right it was something on the order of a Clementi Sonatina movement.

Rich

I'm not sure I agree with the assumption that everyone wastes practice time at the piano. Many have learned to practice very efficiently.



I'm not sure I agree with this either. Memorizing while working at the piano adds elements that are not present when memorizing solely from the score and may indeed help in the memorization process : there are tactile and aural elements present that help memorization when working and memorizing at the keyboard. Suggesting that - we are "just distracted by the pretty sounds" sounds as if the sound has no role in memorizing and also sounds somewhat condescending - as if we don't have the intelligence to realize the importance of the aural element in memorizing; I hope it's not meant that way.

Regards,

It also implies that sound plays no part in memorising away from the piano. I hear plenty of pretty sounds when I'm reading a score away from the piano. They're just in my head.

Can you "hear" the music in your head? I don't find myself memorizing straight from the score very often... however I do often find that as an accompanist, I often have just a minute or two to look over the score before playing it the very first time.

Here's what I do to get familiar with the score:
-First notice all the big things about it - key signature, time signature, style, tempo.

-Then imagine my fingers playing it

-And as I play it I'm hearing it in my head exactly as written.

In this way I am able to know exactly what it sounds like before I ever play it out loud.

So if I had to, I could memorize this way, too. Just by playing it in my imagination and hearing it in my head.

Is this what you were asking for?

Ok, so here is the thread:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/381441/1.html

It was a Scarlatti Sonata and I'm pretty sure that Frederic Chiu was part of the thread.

Here is also a previous thread for Beethoven Op 2 No 2.

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthrea...ite_id/1#import

Rich

You make it sound so simple. I think what I have in mind is a complex piece such as a Bach fugue. Would your suggestions work here? I don't think it would for me. I can hear most music clearly in my head after hearing it only a few times, but to transfer that to my hands - well, that's another mountain to climb.

Well I know it would work for me because I have tried it before, but it prob would not work for everyone...

I think it might be a learned skill (ie, not necessarily a talent you have to be born with) to "audiate" things in your head? Seems like it would be a combination of sharp sight reading skills + sharp ear skills, I think.

I know that a hs teacher I often work with, emphasizes their choir students learn this skill. Of course it would be easier to "audiate" something when it was only one line of music you had to sing. A Bach fugue would be a bit more complicated.

I'm sorry if it sounded as if I meant to imply that every individual wastes a lot of time. I wanted to refer to all of us as a huge worldwide group. I also suspect that the very efficient practicers are a small minority.



No, it isn't meant that way, and again I have to apologize for over-generalized and perhaps hyperbolic statements. Too often though, the tactile and aural become the ONLY things pianists memorize, neglecting the visual and theoretical (or even perhaps not listening all that intently and missing some aural memory as well). This is not from any lack of intelligence, but from habit and expectation drawing pianists straight to the instrument at the beginning of every practice session.

I don't think memorizing away from the piano is the best or only way - but I do think that what it has to offer us is substantial, that it's useful for anyone (but especially for those who need extra rest or recovery physically), and that this useful tool is far too rarely taken advantage of.

Because most of us truly enjoy the music we play, it's perhaps frustrating for many pianists to study without playing. But if right away at our first encounter with a new piece we immerse ourselves in purely-pianistic concerns such as technique and fingering, it's perhaps a little too convenient for many of us to make a resolution to "get around to" the other issues later. It certainly happens that way with me sometimes.

We can't help benefiting from tactile and aural practice, because regardless of our methods all pianists end up playing the music many times. I think that's the reason we have no need to begin with those.

@david a: on an interesting aside, Jorge Bolet -in an interview- claimed that he never solved any particularly difficult pianistic problem at the piano, only away from the piano. Hmmm... wonder how that would have applied to his skills in memorization, though methinks it was never much of a problem for him anyway.

Myself, during my uni years, I was always taught that memorization was part of the learning process, therefore it would have been at the piano for me.

The students in the Chiu lessons I mentioned had never heard the piece which is a huge difference in difficulty.

I find working away from the piano to be extremely beneficial, not only as a memory aid, but also as an opporuntity to strengthen the aural image and to work through some interpretive issues. I agree with the poster above who said that aural imagination is a quality that can be developed through practice.

One thing I occasionally do to strengthen memory of contrapuntal music is to write out the score (from memory). This may sound like drudgery, but it's very enjoyable, and I always notice something interesting about the music that had previously escaped my attention. I've done this with Bach fugues and I think it really helps the transition from short to longer-term memory. I prefer to write in open score (one clef per voice), and I might try to write out one voice completely before adding the next voice, but those details probably don't matter; for me, the act of writing it down is what helps. Perhaps it engages a different part of my brain. I'm curious to know whether anyone else here does this.

But nobody taught you (not out loud anyway) that moving your fingers over the keyboard is part of the learning process. That was your assumption and your habit, based on everything you saw and heard.

For learning, we obviously need to make use of the keyboard. I'm simply arguing: not all the time, and not first of all.

If memorization was never much of a problem for Bolet, it would be great (from my point of view anyway) to try to find some clues of why he was that way. I'm sure he was not a robot from outer space, and that whatever he did to make memorizing easy for himself is something anybody could benefit from. (Not that I could magically be like Bolet [yeah, I wish], but that I could learn from his methods.)

Yes, I certainly agree with you on this point. Studying the score away from the piano encourages you to see details in the score that you might not otherwise have noticed - or chose, momentarily, to ignore - while occupied and pre-occupied with getting the notes right.

Score studying is an aspect of learning that some of us, perhaps, don't do as much as we should.

Regards,

This response was not directed at me, but I'm going to bite anyway.

There's nothing complicated about this process - but that says nothing about the music. If you want to memorize complicated music, then assuming you consider yourself capable of memorizing the thing at all, working at it away from the piano can only help.

I think of it partly in terms of "tools". For an example of a tool, take pitch-class set theory as described by Allen Forte.

If I want to memorize Schoenberg Op. 33b (and I don't want to by the way), then I will mentally "get out the pitch-class sets" and see if that tool helps me. If I want to memorize Chopin, I'll leave pitch classes buried in the back corner of the mental toolbox where they belong , and maybe look for some chord progressions or regular vs. irregular phrase lengths.

So, when you begin work on an unfamiliar fugue, you don't know everything about the piece yet, but you certainly have some ideas of what to expect, and with a quick scan of the score, you'll surely find several of your expectations confirmed.

You can mentally "pull out" any- and everything you have ever learned about fugues, to see if it helps you with this one. From as basic as "OK, I know there will be an episode right about here..." to (if you like) statistical likelihood of various chord progressions in Bach, what order the voices enter the first time around and the second time around, real vs. tonal answers if you like to think about it that way, ANYTHING that you think might help.

You don't have to know everything about your fugue. It would be crazy to even try. What you have to know is enough to say "OK, I get it" and really mean it. You will know different things about that fugue than I do, because our minds will travel in a bit of a different direction sometimes, because you have more skill in one area and I have more skill in another, whatever. It doesn't matter, as long as it works.

I'd probably slit my throat first. (Apologies to you Schoenberg lovers.)

I'm still new to theory (beyond reading music of course), so this is all still a big challenge to me. I am so ignorant, I only just learned how to tell what key something is in, (I used to just remember how many sharps or flats); I can identify major and minor chords (still working on diminished, augmented, etc); I can name intervals; I now know what tonic and dominant mean; I know what a cadence is...so I'm making progress. It's pretty pathetic that I only heard of the word "solfege", about 9 months ago - although I can sight sing fairly well without the syllables. I've been like a blind person bumbling along using instinct and intuition, playing advanced music from my heart without the tools to understand the structure. That's why I asked for specifics on this topic.

Regarding "pathetic": Not at all! The fact that you just learned something is not important, compared to the fact that you really did learn it.

OK, so the answer to your real question: Theory.

Again something where you can never learn it all, and you're not going to become a theory master overnight, but every little bit more that you understand about music makes it easier to play, makes you a better player, and makes memorizing easier. (Perhaps not true for esoteric stuff in the latest peer-reviewed paper by a theoretician, but the texts and classes that you can find in basic theory, harmony, music analysis, and music history are all helpful in the real world.)

Theory can look (and sound!) so dry - but all it is, is a catalogue of what stuff you might find in music, along with (once in a while) a more or less lame attempt to explain why.

Guess what you really need the most for finding your way around a piece of music so you can memorize it? Reading music, tonic & dominant, cadences, and chord types. You're on the right track. Keep going ahead, in everything - and have fun!

(Note: Cadences are sometimes hard to see in a fugue, because the fugue's moving voices don't look like the way cadences are written in textbooks. However, in a Bach fugue, the cadences are absolutely guaranteed to be in there! You may need some help finding them at first. There are a couple of books that were written just to explain what's in the fugues of the Bach 48 Preludes & Fugues - one of them was by Iliffe - I can't remember if it's still being printed but something like that might help. Or a teacher, or any friendly person who has played a lot of fugues.)

After you know more theory, memorizing a fugue is going to be easier; but you can do it today if you want to/need to. It will be a bit more work, because you haven't learned all the types of things you might expect to see in fugues; but still your questions when you sit down to work are the same:
1. What's in here?
2. What tools & tricks am I going to have to use to remember all of it?


You're almost certainly used to letting your fingers memorize your music, where you don't really have to think about this stuff. ("How did you memorize it?" "I don't know, I just kept on playing it and then it was memorized.")
That's a vital skill, and of course you still need it. But the finger part of the memorizing gets much faster and easier, when you do some "smart memorizing" beforehand.

Actually, I have no trouble finding cadences in a fugue because I can hear them. That's how I've always gotten along - with my ears and my heart.

My new teacher is pushing me to catch up on my knowledge of theory so it matches my ability to play. Thanks for the encouragement.

Hi all,
I caught this thread, and thought I would chip in!
The discussion about working away from the piano always seems to turn around the assumption that it is a substitute for physical practicing. I see it differently - there are things that must be practiced at the keyboard, and there are things that must be practiced away from the keyboard (and yet other things that must be practiced away from the instrument and the music, but that will be for another thread, on emotional practicing!)

Everyone can learn something away from the piano. That learning is different from the learning that comes from listening to the sounds, from feeling the fingers on the keyboard. All are necessary.
FOr my DPS workshops, the exercise is meant to stimulate the brain, obviously, but it is mostly to set up the pianist for an experience AFTER the learning, when you first hear the work. Having spent time trying to hear it in your head, no matter more primitive that might be, the expectations and desires are completely different than if you sat down with the score at the piano and started to sight-read.
It is the emotional experience that, in the end, is the key to working away from the keyboard.

One of the major lessons from the exercise is to see how much (and not "if") you can learn without ever "practicing", which helps you build confidence, which then gives you motivation, which then leads to more energy and time spent willingly, more concentration, more retention in an emotionally heightened state, leading to better physical control, better memory and calmer nerves - all necessary for better playing.

SO I encourage everyone, no matter what level, no matter what difficulty level of the piece, to at least experience the effects of learning away from the keyboard.

Much of what I have discovered is counter-intuitive, at least as far as piano-playing is generally taught today (and for the past 50 years). Learning by reading is not so helpful, but learning by doing, and especially learning by doing in front of others is extremely helpful.

Frederic

Frederic: You made an excellent point - no method can truly substitute for another. It's not possible to prepare a performance without playing the music. It IS possible to memorize with no playing, but that's only one part of what needs to be done.

I just think there are a great many people who attempt to make physical practice a substitute for all other kinds. And many are difficult to convince that practice away from the instrument is practice at all.

Memorizing away from the keyboard is an essential way of working out problems such as mental blocks and confusing sections that sound the similar to somewhere else in a piece. What memorizing away from the piano does is force your mind to do the work of associating notes on the page with what you are playing. I've been doing this for the past few months as I am memorizing the Mozart's Fantasy K.475 in c, Poulenc's Movement Perpetuels, and Chopin's Nocturne No. 1.

Perhaps I am lucky as I have photographic memory to a certain extent. When I memorize music, I see the whole page laid out in front of me complete with pencil marks written out and everything else including the page numbers. This is part of the battle won I am sure, but then there's still the reinforcing needed of this image to keep it fresh and easily recalled when needed. I also can hear the music in my head when I read it. This is for any music regardless if I've even played it before. I developed this from sight reading and accompaniment work where I had to learn something really quickly in order to be ready in less than an hour or two.

Anway this is where the memorization away from the piano is very helpful. I look at the score, close my eyes, and play air piano all the while trying to keep the score in my mind. The air piano helps reinforce the finger muscle memory and the feeling of the chord shapes associated with the notation. I don't attempt to play the whole piece, but instead focus on little sections, perhaps a phrase or two at a time. The time away from the piano is also spent analyzing the score for chord progressions, and special things that make the memorization easier such as repeated patterns, and easy things such as obvious scales, arpeggios, etc.

Granted this process takes time just like memorizing at the piano, but this is an adjunct to what we're doing at the instrument only its done in a comfy chair in the living room with a cat curled up in my lap, and with a plate of cookies and a cup of tea on the table next to me.

John

great post John! Even as only an intermediate pianist I like to look at scores away from the piano. Because the pieces I learn are relatively short and my memory is better than my fingers at present I'm not doing deliberate score memorising though.

I am continuing to work on reading scores in my head. I've always been better at this than actual sight reading (adult restarter, fingers need to catch up). The other night I made myself read a whole book of easy pieces in bed (easy classical and baroque), making sure to hear every part of left and right hand I had to really work to keep up the focus. I did this after I first read this thread .

Have done some other deliberate score reading as well. It's funny, but just a few sessions have sharpened my skills already. If a piece gets a bit difficult in places I let my mind go over the melody first for that bar, and then add the harmony. If i'm really stuck to hear a bar fully (without taking too much time) I will gloss over it.

But the best part of john's post is this bit

Now that's my kind of practice.