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Thanks so much TS! I truly appreciate your advice on approaching this piece and will definitely use it. I'm planning to send you a PM later this week after I've had my lesson. I don't want to hijack Richpink's thread with a discussion about Rachmaninoff.

Same age here and started with similar memorization situation. Great memory for anything but music performance stuff.
I used to bring out the sheet music to play a C major scale
It bugged me a lot, so decided to make a study out of it and explore why.
I'm not great at it yet, but always memorize now anytime I start with a new piece. When I feel that I have had enough of one piece and also have memorized it, I move on to the next without worrying whether I remember the old piece or not and do the same thing with the new one.
I'm not doing large pieces, that takes too long and are out of my league for now, only shorter pieces or studies.
I will concentrate on that for now, and I think I can confirm with confidence that the memorization process gets better with use.
Use it or lose it.

Seventy here, and I am currently unable to memorize any piece of music past about 5 to 10 bars. But this inability is not limited to my current age. I tried to memorize a modest piece or 2 on the piano 30 years ago and couldn't, so gave up on the piano. But, given I still had the piano and took it out of moth balls about 2 years ago, I decided to go strait to reading music, and have made progress on playing from sheet music, but excruciatingly slowly. Hope you have better abilities than me.

Memorization is grossly overrated. The vast majority of people making their living from music today don't memorize anything - including collaborative pianists, accompanists, répétiteurs, teachers......in fact, anyone who isn't a (solo) concert pianist. The ability to sight-read fluently is far, far more important.

I didn't memorize any piece of music for the first nine years of my time as a piano student, during which I went through Grades 1 to 8 of the ABRSM exams (I didn't skip any, and did one a year - I had no musical talent worth speaking of, but I loved classical music, which meant that I loved playing the piano). But I developed good sight-reading skills, simply because I'd have a go at anything that took my fancy, and learnt many, many pieces by myself that my teachers never knew about.

Then I went for my performance diploma, and had to memorize my pieces. And promptly forgot them afterwards .

It's much more important that you learn to read music well. It's like any language - if you learn to read well in that language, you can read anything. If you memorize a book (gasp!) - you can only quote stuff from that book......and that's about it, if you can't actually read well.

It's in your blood. I wouldn't mess with this guy, would you?

Carve this in stone ... and place it on the door of every piano studio. I can't emphasize the importance of note reading enough. It is the KEY. Because it opens to the door to truly enjoying your music. Today I can pick up anything and play it well enough to decide if I want to spend more time on it.

But I have a confession ... embarrassing to the max. I acquired three degrees and the coveted Canada Council grant and couldn't sight read. At Juilliard I had no trouble with the required secondary courses ... but to learn something new was agony. Because I'd faked it for years. My first teacher wanted me to love my music so she was lax about those sight reading exercises and allowed me pieces WAY beyond my abilities. I loved the music so much I would spend hours on three or four measures just so I could hear myself play them. I spent a couple of years on the Pathetique. ( That Pathetique paid for my education. Oh I played it WELL .... but couldn't sight read anything else for beans)

Only years later after a hiatus of twenty years in Asia when I returned to the West and began teaching ... did I learn to read those damned notes. And it was a long-delayed miracle. Today ... Oh how easily I could prepare for a recital or performance, how easy it would all have been if only I had learned those notes earlier.

Thank YOU Bennevis ... Hear hear everyone!

( My father climbed Ben Nevis many years ago ... and loved it)

I could not agree more. The irony is that I was born with a disability that makes fluent reading while playing impossible. So I am stuck with learning ways to memorize which is also really difficult, but somehow manageable with time and patience. For any average person I would definitely recommend to concentrate on learning to read.

I've been thinking about the memorization issue, and it is a misstatement to say that I don't memorize anymore. It's more correct to say that I always play with the score, and that I intend to look at the score much more than I look at my hands. But I do unintentionally "memorize" parts of each piece - it would be hard not to when I practice something for months.

For instance, I am working on a piece for clarinet and piano (Pocket Sonata by Templeton), and in one troublesome passage I have the right hand memorized while I direct most of my attention to the jazz chords in the left hand. But I am looking at the music while all this is going on. I didn't set out to memorize that passage - it just "happened" as I worked toward my own solution to playing this piece.

Sam

-And so the war goes on. What about being able to do both?

"It's like any language - if you learn to read well in that language, you can read anything. If you memorize a book (gasp!) - you can only quote stuff from that book......and that's about it, if you can't actually read well."

-And there are story tellers, esp. in the past. I would rather listen and see one that knew the story by heart, and who could concentrate 100% on expressions and interpretation, rather than reading a story from a book.
I see so many YouTube video presenters of different information reading from some kind of prompter and always think: Why don't I get to read this myself?

"The vast majority of people making their living from music today don't memorize anything - including collaborative pianists, accompanists, répétiteurs, teachers......in fact, anyone who isn't a (solo) concert pianist."

-That makes sense to me also, because it takes time and pain to memorize for most.
It's far more productive money-wise to read it right off the sheet music if you can get away with it.
But many of us who are just enjoying and finding piano/keyboard interesting to learn are not dependent on the keyboard skills for a living.
Some enjoy the extra challenge of memorization, and some get a high of having conquered a piece that way (me included).
I can spend more time on a piece and enjoy the process of really getting inside it and see how it's put together and remember it, at least temporarily, without worrying about the monetary profit.
I don't worry the least if I can still remember it next week, or even until I'm well into the next piece. Once learned, it can be relearned easier next time around. If there is a next time.

My thoughts...

Clearly if someone can get a degree from Juilliard without sight-reading ability or Grade 8, ABRSM, without memorising then sight-reading and memorising are both academically non-essential skills but if 'to learn something new was agony' there is clearly a benefit for good general reading. For any non-ear player reading is the first skill to learn.

Most students, from what I gather, spend long times on most pieces and short times on very few. This is a shortcoming of the teachers and one the 40-Piece Challenge was designed to address.

Spending weeks or months on a two page piece does nothing to improve reading ability, whether we try to read as we play or not, and rewards the memorising-to-avoid-reading ploy.

We memorise whether we're good at it or not - otherwise we'd play all our pieces only as well as if we were sight-reading. Performing without the music, on the other hand, is simply an extension of the process and if such performance is intended then memorising from the outset is the most efficient way to go. For many, internalising the music and reciting it without the score is a necessary liberation for a personal and sincere interpretation.

It would be beneficial to exercise reading, memorising, sight-reading, mechanical skills (scales, arpeggios, chords, trills, etc.) and technical skills (phrasing and interpretation) each day.

Reading will improve, as will the general playing ability, by learning around fifty different pieces, pages or fragments a year, one a week, and typically easy enough to get playable in a couple of days without having to reach full tempo.

Memorising will improve by memorising one new phrase or snippet each day, the same phrase for a few days depending on ability. Schumann's Traumerei, for example, is only six phrases, two of which are the same. It could be memorised in five weeks, assuming the technical skills aren't tested by it. The whole thing doesn't have to be played through from memory, though it's no harm if it's taken that far.

Sight-reading will improve by taking a new phrase or two each day, spending a minute or two audiating it and/or analysing it and then playing it once or twice, either from memory or from the score, unpractised. Playing instantly from a previously unseen score, around five minutes of music a day, is a fine skill to have if the library is exhaustive enough and if collaborative skills are wanted but is over the top for the average player and for the ABRSM exam requirement and will improve automatically as the reading, sight-reading and playing skills get better.

Scales, chords and arpeggios are expected to be played from memory. They are the bedrock of piano technique and for the first year or two, depending on the student, should be an exercise in facility and relaxation more than velocity. Trills, leaps and double notes can be added over time.

Only after these "essential daily exercises" are done with easy enough material - they need only take ten to twenty minutes - should work begin on 'stretch' pieces that are going to take weeks/months to learn and polish. The learning process might itself be seen as preparatory work for the polishing skills that typically take the most time and are themselves another 'essential daily exercise' that might be applied one or two phrases at a time.

Playing through a whole piece in performance style, with or without the score, is not a daily requirement despite it being the main focus of our attention. It can be left to the end of the practise session or left to the end of the week. It should not be done with music that hasn't been sufficiently practised.

Thanks, Richard.
I've read your thoughts with care.

I doubt that anyone can get a music degree who cannot sight-read.

For anyone serious about classical music, reading is the first, and most important skill.
I have a friend who plays light jazz, and is in a band. He's never learnt to read music, and plays only by ear. I've heard him - he has a repertoire of some chords and a few riffs. But even after several decades of playing, he can't immediately reproduce approximately what someone has just played, without 'trying things out' for a few minutes. If he could read music, he could have learnt a lot of useful theory that would have made a big difference to his 'playing-by-ear' ability without having to watch someone else do it and laboriously copying him, with lots of trial-and-error.

I never practised at playing by ear, but because I have a good knowledge of music theory, I can easily do it - even though it wouldn't be exact copies of what I heard - and similarly, I have no problems playing from a fake book (to accompany pop songs etc) even though I've never practised at it.


Stuff 'gets into the fingers' with practicing, even when not memorised. You see a whole bar of intricate notation, and your practised fingers immediately get into the right position to execute it, because they've done it several times before. Big jumps have to be practised, or it will be too hit-and-miss. Yes, it's muscle memory, but that won't get you far if your memorised piece is all muscle memory.

When I set out to learn a piece to play from memory (which I do a lot of these days, for my monthly recital, which is all played from memory), I adopt a completely different approach to learning it to play from the score. I look for 'landmarks', repetitions (and repetitions which have changes that can catch me out in the heat of the moment while performing), 'shapes' that my hands make on the keyboard, and practise lots of 'stop-starts' so that if I have a memory lapse, I can restart/resume without having to think about where I am, or supposed to be.

The whole memorising process takes me at least five times as long, compared to learning the same piece to play it to the same fluency without memorising. Or to put it another way, memorising is a very time-consuming process.



No, that's not the way to improve at sight-reading. You don't analyse it - you just have a quick glance through it, noting the key and time signatures, the awkward accidentals and figurations, then just play.

Knowing that there is a diminished 7th chord there which resolves to the tonic F# minor with a suspension is pointless when you're just sight-reading.

The best way to improve at sight-reading is just to do lots of it, with a large variety of music. The brain becomes good at recognising notes and knowing where the notes are on the keyboard, and your hand knows where to move the fingers to hit the notes without you having to look at where your fingers are. Whole chords and arpeggios are read instantly, and your hands make the right shapes to play them just as instantly, without you having to look at them. You develop a proprioceptive sense of your hands and fingers in relation to the keyboard. And so on.

If you can easily do it, it is because you have a decent enough ear to easily do it. Knowledge of theory may help you to recognize patterns that are likely to fit, so it may seem essential to your ability to play by ear, but is not what got you there in the first place. I've encountered a few very good ear players throughout my lifetime and all were self taught with no theory.

Oddly enough I was just listening to a Jazz Master class with Dick Hyman last evening talking about playing by ear. He realized at a young age that he could play by ear and got better at it over the years with practice. He goes on to say that is not something easily taught but will improve with practice. Loading up on theory will not make you a great or even modest ear player.

I agree but I suspect she meant below the standard of the rest of her skill set or that of someone at that level.

That's procedural memory, i.e. memorised.

That's because it's in memory, i.e. memorised.

Oh?

That's analysis, isn't it? A quick perusal before the off.

The Board allows half a minute to look over it and even allows you to try some of it at the keyboard. The key is to get good at moving the music from the score to the keyboard without practise. It doesn't imply you can accompany a singer at tempo in an unfamiliar piece. That kind of sight-reading isn't necessary for most of us.

Probably. But it's not the only way...

That approach works. It may not be the best, but it works.

If I had a wish fulfilled, it would not be to be able to memorize a piece of music, but to be able to hear the sound of the next note to be played in my head, which I can do now, and then know which combination of keys gave me that sound, which I can't yet do.

Is it possible that that ability will come with time and practice?

I'm currently working to be able to hum the melody in my head while reading unfamiliar sheet music, and making some progress there.

Yes. Just like excellent readers start on the ground floor, so do excellent ear players. You will improve with practice. But, I would not suggest neglecting any other disciplines you may be working on in the meanwhile. Everything contributes and ear training is good addition for a well balanced diet.

No, it's not true memorisation. Because it requires the prompt of the notes on the page to trigger the finger movements.

Whereas if I've memorised it, I can just think of the passage, and immediately play it. Straight off.


No, it isn't analysis. All I'm doing is make sure that I know what the rhythm is, and of course the key signature is all-important.

After all, you don't want to be playing a piece in C major when it's actually in C minor, do you?

I'm not even thinking about what key I'm playing in, or what happens when accidentals intrude (which usually signify a modulation to another key), or when there's a cadence halfway. All I'm doing is.......reading the notes on the page.
No more and no less.

Unless, of course, your definition of "analysis" is different from mine. I don't think I'm a slouch at analysing music, but it does take me at least three minutes to analyse a simple piece of music that's 20 bars long (e.g. Chopin's Op.28/4).

The ABRSM examiner doesn't give you that long. I'm not aware that you're allowed to 'try' anything out on the piano beforehand either. Maybe things have dumbed down since my time.........

I feel you. I read ok, but somehow the reading has gotten entangled in the memorization. I can't play from memory pieces that I've played a thousand times before.

While you mention analysis of a piece sightread as being hard, this seems to be something that my teach can just do. Tonight: "go back to that A7". I spend a few frantic moments scanning the score looking for things that might be an A7. It's sorta second nature to him--but he also has a memory like an iron trap, as well.

Sigh.I guess we gotta work with what we've got to work with.

Yes, it is true memorisation. It's procedural or implicit memorisation. It isn't just cued from the notes on the page. It's also cued from the sound, the movement of the hands, and other cues. But it's certainly true memory; it's stored in the cerebellum and the basal ganglia. It's just not explicit or cognisant memory. Procedural memory is acquired largely by repetition. Cognisant memory is acquired largely by study, understanding and assimilation. When done well it doesn't need that much repetition.

Not all memory is explicit memory.

Yes, it is analysis. It breaks the whole into its constituent parts (Oxford Dictionary of English definition), key sig, time sig, rhythmic figures, accidentals, patterns, etc. It isn't harmonic analysis, which is much narrower in scope, but it's analysis none the less.

Not all analysis is harmonic analysis.

From the ABRSM website:

As I get older my short term memory gets worse, the old cliche but I walk into a room and forget why I am there, but my long term memory is still fine, and procedural memory too. I learned classical guitar for a few years as a child and was taught never to look down at the guitar, but I memorised without effort and usually played with my eyes shut.
I am a newbie to piano, so only on short easy pieces, but as an example, I was assigned Bach's Prelude in C to look at on Tuesday. 1 hr of practice, in short segments, and it is memorised, and yep I am shutting my eyes already, so some habits never change lol.

I definitely think there are both pros and cons to being able to memorise, and I know I will need to do lots of sight reading practice, and force myself to practice even easy measures several times over , forcing myself to look at the music. My approach today was to look at just one or two notes in each measure, to associate it with my finger movements and make sure I keep my eyes open.

I guess it is like the curly v straight hair scenario, if we are blessed with one, we want the other. Good memorisation means less note reading practice when learning a new piece, but poor memorisation means not being able to play without music, but better reading skills.