Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Reading vs Memorizing

Very few musicians have photographic memory, and can 'see' the scores in their minds.

I'd say most is muscle memory, supplemented by 'signposts' at key moments (the start, the modulations, the changes in figuration or mood etc), knowledge of the basic harmonic structure of the piece, and of course the melodic lines and phrases.

That is how I play by memory, and how I memorize.

For my part, I see chords. Classical music breaks down usually into simple chords with augmentation and diminishation (my word) and those bits that don`t cause me a problem!

For me, the memory I play from (and can picture in my mind) is the keys and movements on those keys, along with the melody. A mixed audio-visual memory if you will. No notes, although if I've worked long on a piece I will for a time remember the 'look' of the sheet, but it fades quickly after I put it away, which I will as soon as it's memorized. I do have things in my head like 'starts on G' or 'watch out for that A', but again they're keys, not notes on a sheet.

Though I have not worked on developing good sight reading skills (i.e. in real time as I play), I can read standard notation just fine. However, I find that for myself (may be different for other folks), I don't seem to be able to memorize from sheet music very well at all. When figuring out music off of recordings by ear, memorization seems a natural by-product of that approach. I have read in various places that we different parts of our brain for reading than for using our ears. So maybe that is a part of it. Certainly both skills are valuable.

My primary musical interest on piano is new age music, particularly that of Michele McLaughlin, David Nevue, and Joe Bongiorno. I have all the CDs and sheet music from each of them. My use of the sheet music is that, as I figure out the music by ear, I can check myself in a manner similar to a self-study book that has the answers in the back (no peeking ahead of time...). With that approach, I am able to memorize what I am learning, where if I just read directly off the sheet music, without that sheet music always in front of me, I have memorized nothing and would be completely lost despite the hours of practice. I rely much more on my Sony PCM-D100 handheld recorder that can slow down and loop MP3s with amazing clarity and without changing pitch than I do on sheet music. So for me, the ear seems to be front and center for music making, but then again, we each rely more strongly on different combinations of our 5 senses so I am not speaking for anybody else.

Tony

As for JohanB's question, I prefer to have a piece deep into memory before performing live. This means being able to hear the entire piece away from the piano, being able to play with my eyes closed at the piano, and also with the sound off on the digital with eyes open. If I know a piece that well, that I can do without touch, without sight, without sound, it is deep into memory and likely will never entirely leave.

I might suggest the three way memorization for those that seem to memorize and then forget quickly. The downside is the time factor. Double the time vs. the surface level memorization some people seem to be doing, might be a reasonable estimate. Obviously, complicated pieces can't be done entirely all three ways, but sections can be done.

This level of intimacy with a piece of music means a higher level of interpretation is possible vs. sitting with paper and reading off the paper. Hopefully that translates into a better chance of connecting with a live audience. Those that don't perform live? I'd say it probably isn't worth that extra effort, unless a person wants to get that intimate with a piece of music for other reasons.

Some might even add a fourth level, being able to write out the score from memory. Some develop a shorthand for doing this.

How do you conceptualize your chords? As stacks of notes marked on a staff or as a pattern of keys and fingers? Or something else?

Pattern of keys mainly but notes too. Inversion is important . . Busker books refer!

I think it may depend a lot with how you were taught and learned. I did not start with reading, so when memorizing I do not think in terms of notes on a page. I did not start with any understanding of keys and chords either, so do not think much about these. Sometimes chords but not often. When I started, I had to memorize everything. My approach was and remains mostly, far more basic. I focus and try to remember hand positions / positioning, where I need to be on the register and then rely heavily on ear to help keep things on track. Of course the more secure ones come back faster, and less secure require more work.

I agree with other comments made that it is often a matter of balancing to have a reasonable representation of repertoire available for recall with steadily acquiring more material and advancing skills.

I definitely don't think about a score at all, or anything visual, when playing from memory.
Reading is an extra task, separate from playing. Playing is the process of making sound. I'd love for all my playing to just send sound straight from my heart and brain into the air. For all the notes I can't remember, there is reading

Yes good point. I rarely feel the urge to play old pieces again, but this might do the trick. I'm pretty sure I could recover a piece with a week of practicing, but I prefer working on new stuff

There is no vs. they're different skills. My experience is to have a piece performance ready it's good to have it memorized.

I just cannot figure out what stands for.

Could you help me out ?

versus. Which seems to imply that they are two opposed things. They aren't. One complements the other.

Oh ... Well, I knew that.

Now, I just have to go back through all of the previous posts to figure out who made a reference to "versus" and I will know what you were referring to. I checked out Dru Morgan, whom you were replying to, but he made no reference to "versus".

I will keep looking ...


EDIT:

I think I found something ...

Sand Tiger:



or




Were either of these statements what you were commenting about ?

dmd, what is the title of this thread?

Just stumbled on this video of Valentina practicing for an upcoming concert (couple of years back)... looks like all you need to do is read for an hour and it's memorized



Sorry if this has been discussed on the forum somewhere already, but I thought this was relevant to the current thread in a "reach for the stars" kind of way.

BINGO !!! LOL ....

Now that makes sense.

Thank You

I've only been playing just shy under a year and my experience so far, so here is my two cents on the topic.

I believe for beginner's its impossible to not memorize the piece your working on . The reason being , in the earlier phases it takes more effort and attempts to learn . Your not hitting the notes confidently therefor alot of repetition is required before becoming more fluent. This practically makes memorizing the piece without any effort.

Yes sight reading is a good skill but its not required.

Playing more pieces that don't come easily to me, I find that to "read" them through I am technically "memorizing" them. So, what you say makes sense. Especially when I get to a new line, I can't see the interval, so I have to remember which key I start that measure on.

This is all starting to make more sense, and bringing up more questions, at the same time. But, I'm in for the journey and enjoying the experience. Great to know that others are going through the same thing at the same time. Thanks for all the great input.