Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Memorization vs Sight reading

Looking at some recitals, some on Youtube, it seems that memorization is more the norm. I'm 42 and my memory isn't the greatest (and I've only had a year of lessons at the age of 8, but taught myself after that). Anyway, memorizing a song seems intimidating to me. How do y'all do it? A few bars at a time? Or do you practice so much by sight-reading that memorization falls into place after so long?

Just wondering. I'm trying not to feel discouraged and overwhelmed, but it seems to me memorization would be better because it would be easier to put a lot of feeling into a piece, not to mention finding/reaching the notes more readily.

Help! I'm just getting back into the swing of things after several years without a piano. I'd love to be able to memorize some challenging pieces!

Hi

I've the same problem like you, I'm 48 years old. There are so many tips on how to memorize, but the only thing having found that works for me is to repeat the pieces over an over again.
It helps also to hear the piece from a recording as often as possible.

Forgive me, I just found a thread called "Memorization" which is very helpful.

That said, it's funny that I remember beginnings of songs from my high school years...MacArthur's Park, Sesame Street (don't laugh), even a couple Chopin pieces. But I really REALLY want to have a full song memorized from start to finish. My mom is a great pianist and I don't think she has anything memorized, then again she can play by ear as well as sight read very quickly. She plays a lot of Chopin, beautifully but sight reading the entire pieces.

I guess one of my goals is to be able to sit down at any piano, anywhere, and play something really well from start to finish.

I'm impressed by the pianists on this beginner's board! It is very inspiring to me as I get back into playing again.

[cross-posted!]

Isabelle7007, there are some tips for memorization on the recent Memorization thread. (ah, I see you've found it.)

I wouldn't call it memorization vs. sight-reading. I would call it memorization vs. reading. To me, sight-reading is what you do the first time you see a piece. After that, when you're practicing or performing with the music in front of you, it's reading but not sight-reading.

Thanks, Clavboy. Sucks to have memory issues in your 40's, huh?!?! I'm going to take your advice and listen to recordings of the pieces I am learning, I think that'll really help cement it into my thick head!

Good point, PianoStudent 88.

I think it is different for for each individual. I did not start learning piano and reading music until ~ 6 years ago. Because my "sight read" is so poor, I tend to end up memorizing as a result.

What fascinates me is that people are able to substitute memorizing for reading. You never hear people say, "My reading is poor, but my memorization is even worse, so I've had to work on my reading."

Here is what I hope will be encouragement. I'm mid-50s and have been playing jazz for 5 or 6 years. I don't play by ear, but decided a year or so ago that I needed to play most pieces by memory (you don't see many jazz musicians using music!). What I've found is that with each piece I memorize, it becomes easier. I can memorize most pieces very quickly now. Jazz, of course, is different becuase you are memorizing chord progressions, and there is a logic to them that you learn. Classical memorization is much more complex becuase every note has to be perfect. However, I do believe that memorization is a skill that one can get better at simply by doing it.

I'd also add that the first time I memorize something, it's always a bit tenuous. I then come back, a days or weeks later, and re-memorize it, and it gets firmer. It's really only after playing a piece by memory for months and months that it can become second nature.

There are three posts with memorizing tips on the Let's Talk Cocktail Piano in the Pianist Corner - Non-Classical. That link should take you to the first of them, and then there are two more right after it. It's in the answers to question #2.

Isabelle7007, ah to be 40 anything.....
Anyway, I started from scratch at 60,first 3 years on tenor sax, and now I'm on piano no sax. 1-2 hrs/day 7 days/wk. Memory is a big deal for me, since I have not memorized any complete song even though there are some I've played 100's of times!
I guess I've put the memory thing aside and I'm consentrating on technique. Why didn't I take this up in my 40's I'll never know.
Hang in there....
frank

You guys in your 40s are just kids - wait until you reach your late 50s...

I was relying too much on memorization last year at this time. My memory is not what it used to be. It was adding too much stress to my playing. So I have been concentrating on improving my reading skills since then. Not so much sight reading, but playing difficult pieces that I have been working on for a while by reading the music and not looking so much at my hands.

I think having to look at my hands so much was what lead to relying on memory - obviously I can't focus on my hands and the music at the same time. But I think I have successfully broken that habit except in the worst cases (like fast octaves in the left hand). And I am happier without the stress of memorizing...

Sam

I think I would find it more difficult to NOT memorize a piece than to memorize it. Seriously, whenever I try and improve my sightreading abilites (which have nowhere to go but up) I have to force myself to stay on the page instead of just playing from memory or winging it.

Since I've done this so many times with the same results, I have come to the conclusion that I seem to do much better memorizing a piece than I would sightreading it.

I have a huge problem with sightreading in that I easily get lost because I'm probably not paying full attention since my mind is thinking about so many other things (like how certain improvisations might sound in a given section).

Different strokes for different folks. We are all very different and thus learn things in a very different manor. It's all good though.

A lot of times when people play by memory they are really playing chords. It is very hard to play an intricate song completely by memory. Most of the time when people play like this they are playing chord progressions. They know the progressions in the song and then embellishing on the melodies in the song and adding other parts that fit.

What I do is memorize the chord progression, then I memorize the melody or the key part to the song. Then I can play just about anything that fits in that chord and scale. It looks like to people that I am playing a very difficult piece and that I have it all memorized, when really I just know the progression and the melody. Hope this helps.

sorry, posted on wrong thread.

I believe it's hard to play an intricate piece any other way.

Practically all the pieces I've learned since I started piano lessons in the seventies, I still play today. There are no pieces in my repertoire that I play from the score, only those I'm learning. I know pretty much every note, its touch, its volume and its articulation.
I very much doubt I COULD play a Bach fugue from the score.

For some of us working on reading is far more frustrating than memorizing. I have some vision issues related to migraines that are worse some days than others. On better days I can read some music fine if the font is reasonably sized and uncluttered, some days I have to stare intensively to determine what line or space the note is occupying. Some days I just can't stand to look at the music at all. As long as I need to stare to figure out what note I'm playing I may as well try to memorize it.

I started off learning sight reading but now I don’t see the point in sight reading or see the point in having any sheet to read music off , I am happy to play by ear and if I am feeling lazy I can look online for guitar music chords and again make it my own and find the melody’s . I think when you don’t have sheet I put my own notes down on paper first the chords or progression and then the melody notes but that depends on the songs . I am still new to playing piano and by ear but i have created about 3 songs by ear now and i am more than happy with them.

Unless you're in a situation where you HAVE to memorize pieces, I don't think it's a problem not to memorize. Like mr. super-hunky, I have a tendency to memorize things just because I've practiced them so much. I think it's far more important to be able to read music, so when your memory fails, you can find your place and keep going.

Having said that, when you're learning things that are at the limit of your playing, memorizing means you can look at your hands rather than the music. I'm not sure this is a good thing, but it gets me through.

Thanks to all who replied, your responses were very helpful. I decided I am going to start memorizing one of the pieces I'm working on, but refer to reading the music for the vast majority of what I play.