Josephine Greg Niemczuk has a good video on memorizing.

I'll look for it!

Simonb In fact what you've said can happen; you memorise it incorrectly.

That's a fear of mine!

Simonb I certainly advocate trying to get away from relying on sheet music, but for me this is something that happens in my non-classical playing where I play from chords, or lead sheets, or if I'm playing blues nothing at all.

I'm a good sight reader and I think I use it as a crutch. There are pieces that I can play well but if you asked I probably don't even know what note it starts on! I can't play by ear at all. My friend has a degree in piano performance and his current teacher (many years later) is having him do chordal analysis etc. Honestly that sounds like difficult homework that I just don't want to do; figuring out my fingerings and phrasings is already enough work! But I can at least know what chords I am starting on for a phrase, instead of blindly being on autopilot.

ShiroKuro To me, it’s like eating your vegetables, something you do more because it’s good for you than because you want to. 😅

I just made a similar comment to my husband last night 😂

ShiroKuro I think you absolutely will benefit from memorizing something, even if you don’t ultimately play/perform it from memory.

The trick, to my mind, is to memorize something, and then be able to go back to reading it from the score, and I have found that surprisingly difficult.

The only other thing I would say to you is, starting with a piece that has big jumps is fine of course, but I would suggest you start with something that is on the short side, and maybe that has some very distinct sections. This should make it easier to memorize than a longer piece with a bunch of sections that are almost but not quite the same…

My friend said once you transition to memorized it's a different part of your brain and you can't really go back to the score. Actually I should mention, he's the one who originally told me about Dr. Molly! He showed me the layers he has in forScore where he has marked "chunks" to learn and he uses her schedule to learn them, and then after he's learned it he pulls a number out of his hat and then has to randomly play that chunk. I used to think "he's so good at memorizing" but he clearly puts a ton of work into it and doing the practice the right way.

I'm thinking of trying to memorize Chopin Ballade 2 with the jumps, it is "shorter" and in definite contrasting chunks. And I think it's one that will definitely "free me" to play more emotionally if it's not tied to the score.

ShiroKuro Hmm… maybe I should memorize in solidatry with you, @twocats 😆

Let me know if you want to eat your vegetables with me! But just one serving a day for right now 😆

                I found the video that Josephine suggested, if anyone else wants to check it out!

                  Hi twocats

                  I strongly recommend studying chords (Chordal analysis as your friend describes it). I did this when I was in my late teens just to get away from having to have sheet music in front of me. Then I could put guitar chords in front of myself and play without needing any sheet music. This of course was not for classical, but for Rock, Blues and Jazz.

                  But as I've said many times on PW, that effort (which took me several years) eventually fed it's way back into my classical playing, and reading music in general, as I see groups of notes as chords and read music faster as a result.

                  As an analogy it's rather like reading words. You don't read the individual letters, you just read the words. Same with notes and chords. I see the notes but read it as a chord, and with a lot of chords, can instantly play it, or arpegiate it. Of course it takes a lot of hard work and for quite a while I'd have to analysis what was on the page, and check that what I was doing was correct. But the benefits for me were huge, and as a result of that effort I've been playing in Rock, Blues & Jazz bands since the 1980s. The benefit to my reading was an unexpected bonus!

                  Cheers

                  Simon
                  All round average Jazz, Blues & Rock player.
                  Currently working towards ABRSM grade 8.

                    twocats My friend said once you transition to memorized it's a different part of your brain and you can't really go back to the score.

                    This was my experience.... I would memorize something, maybe play it in a recital or something, and then let it slip from my fingers..... Then, some time later, when I tried to bring it back, it felt like I had to learn it all over again, like I'd never seen it before.

                    When I have a piece that I polish (and perform) from the score, in which I play it from the score always, if I put it away and come back to it, the time and effort to get it back is so, so much less! So that was what I mean above by saying that not memorizing helps me have a larger playable repertoire.

                    I suspect the real problem is that, with a piece that was previously memorized and then forgotten, there's probably something I need to do differently to bring it back, and I don't know what that is.

                    But like you, I'm a good sightreader and it feels so much easier and more efficient to just keep the score....

                    But it's been a long time since I memorized anything, maybe I have evolved (we can always dream! 😛

                    The other thing is that probably, with a piece that's been memorized, we maybe could return to the score before putting the piece away and letting it slip from our fingers... Dunno, never tried that!

                    Anyway, if I pick a vegetable -- I mean score, to memorize, I'll let you know. I guess it depends on how lazy I am! 😃

                        Simonb oh gosh I don't even know where to start! I had to take music theory for RCM but it was decades ago.

                        I can easily recognize a major or minor chord or a diminished 7th but putting it in context of the key signature especially if it's "unconventional" just seems overwhelming. I think with the Chopin there's so much going on that at least if I can recognize the starting chord for a phrase I will reduce my chances of blanking out and getting lost.

                          Simonb I strongly recommend studying chords (Chordal analysis as your friend describes it).

                          I know I need to do this.... I've tried studying music theory on my own, using those random books (like Alfred's music theory course) and there's so much to wade through, a lot of which I sort of half know, that I get bogged down and drift away from it....

                          I also tried having lessons with jazz teachers, my intention being to get a better grasp on chord theory, but both teachers I worked with were a bad fit for me (that's a topic for another thread). And so I reverted to what I know, playing from a score with teachers who take a traditional (classical-esque) approach. And obviously my playing has continued to improve over the years, so it's not like what I'm doing is bad, but there's still that hole in my playing and in my knowledge....

                          I feel like I need a very special kind of teacher, like maybe someone trained to teach jazz to classical players or something?

                          Sigh....

                              ShiroKuro Anyway, if I pick a vegetable -- I mean score, to memorize, I'll let you know. I guess it depends on how lazy I am! 😃

                              Hah!

                                I do wonder if the idea that memorization lets you put more of yourself into it, or more emotion, or whatever, is true? If you listened to a recording, would you be able to tell if the piece was memorized or not? Same for live performances. Is the audience imputing more emotion to the playing when they see an empty music desk, when no difference actually exists?

                                Whether to memorize of not is certainly a personal preference. My gut feeling is that if you have to talk yourself into it, it's probably not for you.

                                  Stub I do wonder if the idea that memorization lets you put more of yourself into it, or more emotion, or whatever, is true?

                                  I think I would access the piece differently in my brain, I did have to memorize everything as a kid for competitions and exams so I kind-of remember what it's like. I will try it and see where it goes. I do that the Chopin Ballade 2 would benefit from being memorized (on an emotional level) and it doesn't seem as daunting as others, so it's a good candidate! My friend didn't think the Bach would be as good an option and I agreed.

                                    Stub I do wonder if the idea that memorization lets you put more of yourself into it, or more emotion, or whatever, is true?

                                    I suspect this is something that each of us probably needs to experiment with, and over years of playing, it might change...

                                    Just speaking for myself, on the one hand, I think for most of the pieces I play, playing from the score is not a detriment to my potential for expressive playing...

                                    On the other hand, I think there are pieces that I would have done better with had I memorized them (September Song by Alexis Ffrench comes to mind...)

                                    One reason, and I'm just totally thinking out loud here.... with a more challenging piece, I notice that I often have trouble at the page turn.... even though I use a Bluetooth foot pedal... But just having to move my foot and turn the page often adds a little cognitive burden.... Probably we could say that means I haven't fully learned or polished the piece, so I guess the question is, would memorizing the piece be that last little push past those kinds of lingering issues?

                                    Dunno....

                                      twocats I found the video that Josephine suggested, if anyone else wants to check it out!

                                      I have to do PT this morning so listening to this video as I do my exercises! Will report back 🙂

                                          Hi ShiroKuro

                                          I taught myself, as when I started doing it, there was no internet, and I couldn't afford (and was too scared!) to find a teacher. It's not as daunting as you might think, and once you get the ball rolling it's immensely satisfying.

                                          I remember the first chord I worked out, which was an F major chord F A C. I never used instruction books, I'd just pick a song then look at the sheet music and the chord symbol above or below, and work out why that chord symbol was what it was. Starting very simply and gradually getting more complex as time went on. It also started my uphill struggle with learning to improvise.

                                          In the 1980s and 2000s I did have lessons with professional Jazz Pianists, and whilst I found this beneficial in the end the work I did on my own is still the foundation of how I play and read to this day.

                                          Which is not to say I'm anything special; I'm most certainly very average, but I'd be a much lesser musician without that work that I put in all those years ago.

                                          Cheers

                                          Simon
                                          All round average Jazz, Blues & Rock player.
                                          Currently working towards ABRSM grade 8.

                                              Simonb I taught myself, as when I started doing it, there was no internet, and I couldn't afford (and was too scared!) to find a teacher. It's not as daunting as you might think, and once you get the ball rolling it's immensely satisfying.

                                              I have a lot of respect for people who can be successful in a self-taught way!

                                              I have never been one to find success in a self-taught or self-guided venture... I need a syllabus, I need a teacher or a coach... Although it's been years since I looked at my music theory books, maybe now is a good time to take another look...

                                                twocats listening to this video as I do my exercises! Will report back 🙂

                                                Ok, he's memorizing a piece he's never even ever heard for the video. These are the techniques he's developed for himself and that he teaches to his students.

                                                He always memorizes hands separately because it's easier for the brain. @ShiroKuro he says it makes it far easier to recover a piece when he comes back to it in the future!

                                                He does it small phrases at a time (just a few bars), closes the book, plays it in his head, makes mental notes. Sometimes he plays it different ways or with both hands (just for right hand part).

                                                He says to learn it properly you need to "forget it a few times" and relearn it, and then it'll be deeper in your memory. He says he tries to artificially forget it to speed up the process, I'm not sure what that means.

                                                Now he's playing a phrase without the piano (with the fallboard closed), saying the chords out loud.

                                                If he forgets a spot he tries to recall it from his memory before he looks at the score, he says that makes it commit deeper into his memory.

                                                He's playing RH from the beginning from memory, he says sometimes it helps to close his eyes.

                                                He says he memorizes a whole piece hands separately, up to speed, with phrasing, basically performance level hands separately. And then when he puts it together it's much easier. He says the first time you do it it'll take much longer and be difficult but it gets easier.

                                                Can't hurt to try this!

                                                    twocats Can't hurt to try this!

                                                    Yes it can, my brain hurts just reading it!!! 😆

                                                    Joking aside... what he's doing sounds very, very hard! I almost never play/practice HS and so much of the time, fingering and other gestures on one hand are partly determined by what the other hand is doing.... And then my memory of music (by which I mean, playing music, even when I'm playing from a score) is clearly based at least in part by the two hands together.... So I'm super interested that he's doing this HS approach!

                                                    Ugh, where's the "memorization for mortals" video?? 😅

                                                        ShiroKuro I think your preferred kind of music is very difficult to play hands separately because it doesn't really make sense. Maybe ignore that part of the advice but try the other parts 🙂

                                                            twocats I think your preferred kind of music is very difficult to play hands separately because it doesn't really make sense.

                                                            Ok this makes me feel better..... And maybe I should have thought of that myself!! 😆

                                                              One can memorize a piece but still choose to have the score on the music desk when playing it. This avoids the fear of memory problems and would offer some of the supposed benefits of memorization.

                                                              On the other hand, for most people and most pieces I think memorization is not a good idea because it takes so much time that could be MUCH better spent learning a LOT more repertoire. When I used to play Christmas programs at a senior center, ftaer doing it for quite a few years I had at least 100 pages of pretty advanced music I could play Which was at least five times as much as I could have memorized even if I spent all the time learning those hundred pages just on the 20 pages. Memorizing a few pieces is at least reasonable but I think it's a serious mistake to memorize most or even many of your pieces unless you're a professional where it may be required.

                                                              twocats I’ve got a long reply; hopefully it’s useful. When I was a kid, I didn’t find memorization ‘difficult,’ per se, but I did find memorization problematic. The pieces that I was asked to memorize, I felt like by the time I got to the point that I needed to memorize them, I could play much of them from memory. But I didn’t have fantastic security in my memorization. To this day, I have nightmares of bad memory lapses during performances, and I was always more comfortable with the score.

                                                              Fast forward to resuming piano as an adult, it was very pleasant to realize that the technological advances of tablets and page turning devices really meant that I could use the score and not have to worry about clunky page turns, or multiple sheets that could have issues on the music stand, and so performance with the sheet music in front of me was not a big deal. In general, I haven’t put effort into memorizing things, and I feel this in many ways gives me more freedom, as I don’t have the mental anxiety of worrying about a memory lapse.

                                                              I did memorize the last piece that I submitted for a PT recital, but this was the exception. I ended up deciding to memorize it because I realized it had kind of memorized itself. The piece had a number of technical challenges for me, but I think musically it was more straightforward than a lot of things I have worked on recently. I think this was the reason I absorbed it. Even so, I think the biggest issue with the performance was ultimately an issue related to memory. Do I think memorizing it made me feel more free in my playing? Not really. But it wasn’t a big deal to memorize it, although the memorization was also imperfect.

                                                              This takes me to my current project, which is another 20th century piece. It’s got a few spots that I’ve found particularly troublesome to learn. There’s one particular spot that’s just 6 measures, but I spent several weeks on it, trying different practice techniques, and it was giving me no end of trouble to learn. I don’t think this was for particularly technical reasons, but the passage is on the way to being atonal, if not fully there, and I just felt like I was spending a lot of time on it without much progress. My teacher had suggested a few things and I was still struggling. At my last lesson, he suggested that I work on memorizing it, and he gave me some suggestions for how to work on memorization. And I’ve implemented this, and the passage is finally coming together.

                                                              He had some very concrete recommendations for approaching memorization. 1. Work on small chunks — maybe a few measures. 2. Start with the music, then try to play from memory, then go back to the music and read through the phrase. Continue this (alternating between memory and the music) until every note in the small section is memorized. Then expand the section or work on the next section, but always alternate between reading the sheet music and memorization (I think this will actually help to not have the problem of feeling that you can’t continue to work both from the sheet music and from memory, which others have described). 3. There are several aspects to memory, and each is important. They include a. Visual memory — both the visual memory of the notes on the score and the visual memory of the appearance of the phrase on the keyboard (what does it look like your hands are doing?) b. Kinetic memory — how are you moving between notes/chords? C. Aural memory - how the phrase sounds; my notes from the lesson say “hear the ‘song’ of the phrase,” d. Conceptual memory - what is the structure of the music? Chord progression, etc. my lesson notes are, “ it is Impossible to memorize without understanding a phrase” and “Transitions can be perilous; it is important to understand these.” And finally e. Technical memory. Lesson notes: “technical failures often causes memory slips.” Make sure you are technically secure. As you memorize a section, you need to pay attention to each of these things and memorize each of these aspects.

                                                              The recommendation was also that if you are planning to work on memorizing a piece in its entirety, it is beneficial to do so from the beginning so that you incorporate all aspects of memorization before the purely kinetic memory sets it (and you will be over-reliant on ‘muscle memory’). He also recommended memorizing hands together as much as possible.

                                                              Anyways, I’m not really planning on attempting to memorize a whole piece, but working on specific tricky passages in this way, I did actually find that I made more progress than anything else I had been doing. And while it is somewhat time-consuming, I think if I were to approach an entire piece this way, it would be an approach that would help me simultaneously learn and memorize the piece in a way that felt secure.

                                                                  I agree with pianoloverus. I hate memorizing sheet music, and the only practical reason to do so is if a piano randomly appears and I am without my documents.

                                                                  Here's a nice article that makes the point that I'm too lazy to make myself.

                                                                  The growing taste for watching soloists play from memory has actually narrowed the breadth of the repertoire. Vladimir Horowitz, for example, played a huge number of works at home from the score, but only performed a small repertoire from memory in public. Today many soloists won't commit themselves to more than a handful of works each season, no doubt partly because of the burden of memorisation. In the past few years, I've successfully memorised several solo recital programmes, each lasting about two hours. Had I allowed myself to use music, I could have performed the programmes much earlier, and with equal interpretative power. It was the sheer effort of memorising that added months to the process.