Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Memory slips in a concerto...

What do you do?

You have the whole orchestra with you and they rely on you as you do with them. What if you forget a certain passage and can not recover? What do you do?

Either they eventually reach a point you remember or it falls apart and you pick it up some place (possibly with score).

Good question. You need to know the orchestral part as well so you know where to come back in if you need to. Practice starting at various places in your concerto so that you can start anywhere you want under pressure (that's the most important tip!)

It's better not to think of such moments, but really it happens. It is important to study the orchestral score as well. That might help in a situation like that.

However, pressure shouldn't be there at all. I never feel pressure while performing on a concert. It is important to feel free and comfortable on stage. If you do, that minimizes the possibility of memory or any different slips.

it happened to me about a decade ago...

i got lost before the cadenza in beethoven 1...

let me tell ya the experience wasn't positive.

just don't go there... EVER.

well what happened tell us

I feel that I am pretty confortable on stage. But the ineveitable will happen eventually, especially if you are a frequent performer.

I can't really see how one can dispense with pressure completely, unless one is completely happy and in control of their sound and nothing ever goes even slightly wrong. For the mortals among us, pressure and nerves are natural and can even inspire us to adrenaline-fueled heights.

By far the best thing, IMO, is to learn to deal efficiently with one's nerves and fears, and to accept them, therefore not allowing them to affect our hands or memory.

Your preparation is really the only thing that you can rely on in this area -- good memory work is the most important, coupled with relaxation and nerve work. Why relaxation? I for one always know just before I'm going to have a memory slip and it always is caused by and causes physical tension (or poor memorising techniques).

Iain how do you know you're bout to have amemory slip can you elaborate on that?


p.s. pianojerome should be able to tell you guys more about this I believe a few years ago he posted a recording of the grieg concerto he played with his school and he had a big 20 second memory lapse while the orchestra played on but he managed to find his way back in and continued to play. The recording still might be in the members recordings section somewhere.

It's hard to say for sure, but it happens at a place that I have been dreading in the music, a technically difficult one, or one that I have not spent enough time on. Usually I know if it is going to work or not a while before I play it.

Those times when my preparation is very good, memory lapses are caused by a lapse in concentration, and I can feel myself thinking, "oh no I'm drifting, I need to focus on what I'm doing," as I think about why the audition jury has just started scribbling furiously on their paper.

p.s. I doubt pianojerome would like that resurrected!