Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Memorizing versus Reading Notation

When I first started playing piano I did a lot of memorizing of pieces (mostly pop) because it was "easier" to play if I could look at the keys while playing.

However, I have come to believe that learning to read music notation and also play while looking at the music enables me to keep pieces available for performing much longer than pure memoriation.

I also dabble in sight-reading although becoming a good sight reader is not necessarily a goal.

My question is this ...

Are there pieces of music that you would suggest to one of your students that they should probably just memorize because playing it while looking at the music will not be practical because of the difficulty level of it ?

In my opinion, memorizing is more desirable than reading. Being able to watch the keyboard is one advantage, but when a piece is memorized, the performance is enhanced much the same way as a dramatic reading of prose is better done from memory because reading it sounds mechanical. Furthermore, a piece in your head is more available for performing than a piece of sheet music you have to carry around with you.

Having said that, I would also recommend cultivating the skill of reading without looking at the hands. This requires knowing the keyboard very well, which enables a pianist to play fluently -- no pausing to check position, no losing one's place on the page, no bobbing the head or eyes up and down, etc. It develops confidence, which also affects fluency and allows for more freedom of expression.

You might want to reconsider improved sight reading as a goal. The better you can sight read a piece, the less practicing you'll have to do to prepare it for performance. Developing skill in sight reading pays off in a big way.

I focus on sight reading. The only thing I get my students memorize right away is Hanon.

Most students of average (or even below average) intelligence can memorize music without even trying. In my experience, students who memorize quickly are doing so at the expense of reading notes, and this is precisely the reason I dread Suzuki transfers.

I have my students memorize skills with a big emphasis on chords. For everything else memorization is the icing on the cake, not the cake.

Memorizing definitely comes more easily to some learners but then there are those who memorize because the reading part is somewhat difficult and memorizing makes it easier to learn the piece. Wouldn't it be a happy meeting point if both skills were equal. Is that possible? I know the answer for me but not necessarily for you. Maybe that is a good goal.

rada

I certainly do not advocate memorizing at the expense of reading. Like you, I disapprove of the memorizing methods taught in the Suzuki method. In my opinion, memorizing can be done incorrectly -- and perhaps is a topic needing its own separate thread.

Memorise exercises. Read pieces.

Well, so far ... it sounds like most (if not all) of you advocate reading pieces of music ... period. Memorizing is good but only after having mastered the piece while reading.

That also must mean that if I consider a piece too difficult for me to handle while reading ... then I should not be working on it, yet.

Of course! If you can't read it, you can't memorize it. Very few people can do what Nobuyuki Tsujii does.

It is always fun to see the Suzuki method criticized over and over again!
Here's a question - doesn't memorizing a piece to the extent that Suzuki students do mean that the piece is a part of them? Suzuki students are able to play musically BECAUSE they are taught how to play musically and they listen to quality recordings. They are also able to listen to what they are playing because they know them so well.
They are also taught to read music, by the way.

The concert pianists are able to play from memory becaue they know their pieces VERY well and have played them for years. Is there something wrong with that?

Well, if it's criticized over and over again, there must be a good reason. I've had good Suzuki transfers and bad Suzuki transfers, but the bad far outnumber the good. And the bad ones are truly awful. The students get frustrated. The parents get frustrated. And they all quit piano eventually.


What you describe here applies to non-Suzuki students as well. What good teacher wouldn't do that?


Yes and no. It depends on the individual teacher. And this is the heart of the problem. Most Suzuki students can't sight read. They take a long time to learn repertoire, and a lot of them can't learn anything until it has been demonstrated to them by the teacher.


No, there's nothing wrong with that. But how many of these concert pianists grew up using Suzuki method? Is there something wrong with that?

Wait a minute. This doesn't sound quite right. If I only studied pieces that I could play by reading, I would just be playing the simplest of pieces. I can accept that those of us who play by memorizing are not real pianists, but please let me keep my piano, I enjoy played too much to give it up just because I can't play and read at the same time.

I fail to see the logic between what I wrote and what you wrote. You must have misread my previous post.

If you love your piano, please keep playing whatever and however you want.

You are correct, AZNpiano. I can't see the logic in what I wrote either! However, I now see that I misunderstood your post.

@dmd: I think your conclusion is a little too restrictive. There certainly are people who learn to play pieces by decoding the score and memorizing rather than only playing what they can play and read simultaneously. That may not be optimum, may not be desirable, but is a way forward.

Quick point: one of the huge reasons for learning to READ music well is to later be able to WRITE it. I spend a lot of time learning and working with music that either does not exist in written form or that is very poorly notated.

The fact that I write out music by no means says that I can only play what I read. It also means that I can put on paper what I hear, and that means that I do no have to memorize hundreds and hundreds of things that I would otherwise have to keep totally in memory, for all time.

There is something wrong with *needing* to look at your fingers all the time while you play.

If there are Suzuki advocates here, perhaps they can tell us how Suzuki gets round this? It is one of my concerns about Suzuki, that a student starts by not needing to read, and may become dependent on looking at the hands.

The faster you can read, the faster you can learn.

First you look at the music. Learn it. Then you close your eyes. Learn it again.

After that, you can look at your hands. Now play it.

(Of course, this is a very broad and horrible way of going about it - it depends on the piece and student and section and so much more - but there is a lot of truth to it too.)

I know people who do that because I was one of them. I am just trying to find out if I should quit doing that.

If I was one of your students, would you only prescribe pieces that you felt I could play while reading notation and then insist upon it ... regardless of how slowly I progressed with it ?

Or ... Is there a place for memorizing it FIRST and then work on playing it while reading notation afterward ? Maybe memorizing it first will help with this.

Many students who are traditionally taught are also not very good at sight reading. It's not fair to blame a method (Suzuki).
One of the biggest reason for Suzuki transfer students who cannot sight read, is that sight reading is not started until a student begins Suzuki Book 2. Book 1 is devoted to developing the student's ear through listening, developing technique through careful practice, and making a beautiful tone on the piano. This includes the ability to play with a singing melody and a quiet accompaniment.

Another thought to keep on mind is that The Suzuki Method was intended to be started at a young age - 3 or 4. It is a mother-tongue approach, which means that student learn through listening and demonstration, with loving support from their parents.
When you have Suzuki transfer students, especially who were in Book 1, something broke down in the system. Most likely the parents didn't provide the environment that would allow the student to learn best.

Of course these students are frustrated when they start traditional lessons - the traditional teacher is expecting them to be able to do something they haven't learned yet - read. You have to provide an environment where they can succeed - start at the very beginning for reading, and allow the child to continue playing some pieces by ear. Or else do lots of ear training games at the first few lessons with these kids. They will be very good at them (if they listened to their Suzuki CDs) and feel good about themselves.

Or you can just complain about the fact that they can't read music yet and they've been playing for 1,2,3 years - then their confidence will be shattered. Then they will not progress very quickly with reading, when most kids will progress quickly in a supportive environment.

Two things that I don't see mentioned here:

1. In regards to the taboo of not looking at the hands, ever, when reading. For distant keys and such, one can and does look at the piano. You want to have secure reading skills so that you glance at the piano and find your way right back to the sheet music. The instruction not to look at the hands is a way of getting a student not to depend on the hands and memory. I think a better instruction would be TO read the music because that's what the real goal is. Otherwise you get the quandary in the OP: if you should not (ever) look at the piano, then when the music gets hard should you memorize? That either/or should not exist.

2. Nobody has mentioned things like theory, understanding music, musical form and such. If you know there is such a thing as ABA form, can recognize patterns and repeating patterns, know where the music is leading to a cadence point and has reached it, recognize harmonic progressions, etc., then this will help both memorization AND reading. Part of playing is anticipation or knowing ahead of time where the music is going and where it came from.