Memorization (when you hate it)

thepianoplayer416 · 2025-03-25T01:50:08+00:00

Very few people can remember “all” the pieces they played. Depending on how a piece is arranged, there are some pieces you can sit down and work out the sequence by ear if you have good ears. I came across a lead sheet version of “Silent Night” with several chords including C, G & F. There is a lead sheet version of the Simon & Garfunkel “Sound of Silence” with just 4 chords. I showed a friend who plays guitar: Dm, C, F & Bb. The melody with 5 variations is easy to follow by ear.

IMO you can train a student to be a good memorizer or reader early. While traditional piano lessons focus on developing reading skills, Suzuki requires students to learn the Book1 pieces by imitation off the teacher and soundtracks on a CD before learning to read. A student can be conditioned to listen to sound sequences and remember them. It’s like somebody talking about an article in a newspaper. We remember the content based on what was said than having to re-read the page to get something out of it.

The last piece I worked on was a Bach Bourree with 24 bars on 1 page. Has some awkward fingerings. Otherwise repeating the sequences by muscle memory isn’t too bad. Muscle memory is unreliable and requires regular repetition. If you haven’t played a piece for a while, you need to relearn some of the notes. The rest would come back quickly.

twocats · 2025-03-25T03:33:01+00:00

twocats I think my struggle is definitely going to be doing "bite sized chunks"

I did some work away from the piano to define my sections for Chopin Ballade 2; hopefully others can learn from my mistakes!

I made the initial mistake of creating a forScore "page layer" when what I wanted was a "score layer" and had to redo some work. And then another mistake of defining chunks that were way too short in the easy part. I ultimately decided on shorter chunks for difficult sections and natural phrase breaks for the easier sections. Hopefully that amounts to a reasonable amount to memorize in a day. There are 30 total sections but there's some repetition, so when I encounter a repeated part that I mostly know I'll just work on an additional section on that day!

Update: I think having the ability to do layers is very powerful but the forScore implementation kinda sucks. Now that I'm done marking up my sections, I have to manually select the page layer on each page to get back to my original layer! I will have to double check at the top of the page to make sure that I'm marking up the layer that I intend to.

Animisha · 2025-03-25T07:25:08+00:00

twocats I don't think you reached the stage where the piece became a part of you!

You are absolutely right, of course. I don't think that I have ever reached the stage where a piece became a part of me, not even the few pieces that I spontaneously memorised. Would it even be possible for me to reach that stage?
Interesting...

Josephine · 2025-03-25T09:12:09+00:00

Animisha

Me neither. I think because we don't play that long yet? Recently I experienced for the first time it went into that direction. But not completely

SSgisela · 2025-03-25T10:46:11+00:00

twocats Update: I think having the ability to do layers is very powerful but the forScore implementation kinda sucks. Now that I'm done marking up my sections, I have to manually select the page layer on each page to get back to my original layer! I will have to double check at the top of the page to make sure that I'm marking up the layer that I intend to

That’s unfortunate. With Newzik, the layer setting applies to the entire piece (not individual pages). I’m not sure why they would design it to make you re-select a layer for each page.

ShiroKuro · 2025-03-25T11:48:16+00:00

twocats Maybe my goal should be to limit myself to one phrase per day when I'm at the piano.

You’ll have to report back about how this goes for you. I know that with pieces that are sort of “in the pocket” of difficulty level for me (not too hard, but challenging enough to be interesting), I would want to press ahead. Or with pieces that are easy for me, I would read through and work on a huge chunk, or the whole piece…. Especially because I’m lazy and reading is easy,I’m finding it hard to force myself to memorize the piece I decided to memorize.

BTW one thing I’m thinking about is the distinction between “learning how to play a piece” and “memorizing a piece.” In watching the video by Greg Niemczuk, it’s earl that he doesn’t need to learn how to play that piece, he just has to memorize it, and then he’ll be working on interpretation, musicality, expression. And with the piece I’m planning to play first in my recital next month, the “easy” piece, I don’t really need to learn how to “play” this piece. (Btw this piece is Wishing, by Ffrench, the first piece in my Journal thread).

But for other music I play, that’s not necessarily the case. For example, some music I struggle with choosing the fingering, or like Miracles (the Alexis Ffrench piece that Rubens transposed for me) I struggled with distributing the notes between the two hands …

or Una Mattina (by Einaudi), I couldn’t play it until after a lesson with my teacher when he showed me a different way to count it. (Of course after that, it felt so easy, I felt like an idiot).
Here’s Una Mattina:

Anyway, I think, for me anyway, all this means is that I should choose the piece to memorize carefully, so that if my aim is to practice memorization as an exercise in and of itself, then I should pick a piece that I only have to “learn to play it,” rather than a piece that I have to “learn how to play.”

Does this make sense??

BTW just writing this post makes me think I really need to be firm with myself and try to memorize the whole piece for Wishing, not just a few sections… Being a “reader” makes me so lazy…

ShiroKuro · 2025-03-25T11:50:06+00:00

@twocats re the layers in forScore, that sounds frustrating, if you haven’t already perhaps you might try to google some how-to to make sure there’s not a trick you’re missing?

ShiroKuro · 2025-03-25T11:53:49+00:00

@Animisha and @Josephine I think I reach the stage where a piece becomes a part of me only after playing it a lot (and I don’t mean practicing it a lot), combined with recording or performing it for others, and also after learning it, polishing it, forgetting it and then bringing it back again.

I don’t think it has to do with how long someone has played in general, but more about how someone has interacted with that specific piece.

Although, in the contest of this thread, then maybe the question is, would memorizing a piece speed up that process, or would one still have to go through some of those other steps? I don’t know…

twocats · 2025-03-25T14:35:32+00:00

ShiroKuro @Animisha and @Josephine I think I reach the stage where a piece becomes a part of me only after playing it a lot (and I don’t mean practicing it a lot), combined with recording or performing it for others, and also after learning it, polishing it, forgetting it and then bringing it back again.

The only two pieces that stuck around since I was a teenager were pieces that I worked on for at least a year back then (and when you're young a year feels like forever) and memorized! I have to say that they're indeed a part of me because everything else has gone away but I can't seem to forget these if I tried.

@Animisha and @Josephine I do think it's possible for you to reach that stage, but you would have to keep working on a piece over a very long time, as SK said not just "practicing" but "playing". And I also agree that the act of putting something away and bringing it back solidifies it (Greg N. also talked about "forgetting" a section and "relearning" it).

ShiroKuro Anyway, I think, for me anyway, all this means is that I should choose the piece to memorize carefully, so that if my aim is to practice memorization as an exercise in and of itself, then I should pick a piece that I only have to “learn to play it,” rather than a piece that I have to “learn how to play.”

I'm doing both-- I can play the fast parts of Ballade 2 but slowly. It'll take a lot of work to get it up to speed, but I have stuff like fingerings and phrasing figured out already (Greg N. can do that on the fly but better for us if it's figured out in advance, I think). I'm hoping that the memorization will also help the learning process but we'll see!

ShiroKuro re the layers in forScore, that sounds frustrating, if you haven’t already perhaps you might try to google some how-to to make sure there’s not a trick you’re missing?

I'll Google, the software can't be that stupid, can it?

twocats · 2025-03-25T14:47:01+00:00

twocats I'll Google, the software can't be that stupid, can it?

I was thinking that the solution might be to only use score layers even for my markings (forScore defaults to a page layer) but apparently if you use multiple score layers there is a long-time bug where they might compress into one big score layer and you can't get it back. Or it doesn't save and is lost!!

And there's a person who reported that all their page layers got merged into one as well. I think it's minimal risk for these particular markings as they're easy to erase if needed but it looks like using layers for anything complex may be a little risky. I'm going to be backing up my .4sc individual annotation files more often!

ShiroKuro · 2025-03-25T15:04:29+00:00

twocats I'm hoping that the memorization will also help the learning process but we'll see!

I am sure it will. I just feel I'm too lazy right now to try to memorize a piece that I also have to more active learn the how of as well.

ShiroKuro · 2025-03-25T15:06:12+00:00

twocats Good grief!! forScore is practically an industry standard! I don't have data but I would be willing to be it's the most widely used, and the one most used by professionals and teachers. You would think they could fix this....

Anyway, making a back up of the score and experimenting with the copy is the way to go of course.

twocats · 2025-03-25T15:07:37+00:00

ShiroKuro BTW just writing this post makes me think I really need to be firm with myself and try to memorize the whole piece for Wishing, not just a few sections… Being a “reader” makes me so lazy…

Looking at your markings I'm wondering if I should switch to letters instead of numbers, but then since I have over 26 I'll have to do AA, BB, etc at the end. Letters feel more "right" to me.

I definitely relate to the laziness! Yesterday when I was studying the score I actually found myself thinking "this is in F major, here it's a C chord so it's V (five-- relative chord)" and noticing that in a repeated section that Chopin has added an additional note to each chord. I would never have noticed this if I wasn't trying to memorize!

ShiroKuro I am sure it will. I just feel I'm too lazy right now to try to memorize a piece that I also have to more active learn the how of as well.

In my opinion you should start with a piece you already know and memorize that. That way there's less risk of memorizing it wrong as well!

twocats · 2025-03-25T15:10:27+00:00

ShiroKuro You would think they could fix this....

Apparently it never fully worked and iOS also keeps changing so the developers haven't been able to figure out a fix. My understanding is that to save time they compress everything to one layer and then uncompress it, but then sometimes it doesn't uncompress

ShiroKuro · 2025-03-25T15:48:03+00:00

twocats Looking at your markings I'm wondering if I should switch to letters instead of numbers, but then since I have over 26 I'll have to do AA, BB, etc at the end. Letters feel more "right" to me.

I go back and forth about this.... IMO the best way to do, which I don't always do, is this:
Analyze the score to find sections that have the same theme or other commonalities, those would be labeled similarly. For example, A1, A2..... then if you need to break them up into smaller pieces, you could do A1-1, A1-2 etc.... This way you don't run out of the alphabet, and you see connections across the score.

This takes more time on the front end, so the several pieces, I've just gone from the beginning and labeled A, B etc. so I do indeed sometimes get up to AA etc... This "feels" more efficient because I can start practicing right away, and then use those rehearsal marks for "drop in practice etc....

just fyi!

ShiroKuro · 2025-03-25T15:48:22+00:00

twocats My understanding is that to save time they compress everything to one layer and then uncompress it, but then sometimes it doesn't uncompress

twocats · 2025-03-25T15:54:00+00:00

ShiroKuro Analyze the score to find sections that have the same theme or other commonalities, those would be labeled similarly. For example, A1, A2..... then if you need to break them up into smaller pieces, you could do A1-1, A1-2 etc.... This way you don't run out of the alphabet, and you see connections across the score.

Thanks, this is very helpful! I think I should "get it right" before I start to mentally associate the chunks with a label. I am currently thinking big sections are A, B, C, and inside them I can do A1, A2, etc for memorization phrases. Even if A and C have a similar theme (they're similar but not identical), I can remember that.

This has the bonus effect of if I decide to add or remove a chunk (which I did yesterday), it only affects the numbering for that section and I don't have to adjust for the whole piece!

twocats · 2025-03-25T17:41:08+00:00

twocats Thanks, this is very helpful! I think I should "get it right" before I start to mentally associate the chunks with a label. I am currently thinking big sections are A, B, C, and inside them I can do A1, A2, etc for memorization phrases.

I updated the sections and it was definitely the right decision, because I will now start associating each larger section with a letter. I'm up to M by the end I also added a bunch of smaller chunks for learning. I think the goal while memorizing is to do it one chunk at a time, but once it's solid my goal is to be able to erase all the subsections (K1, K2, etc) and be able to play each letter section (all of K) at will.

This is going to be lots of hard work but I also think there is a lot of payoff to going through this! If I succeed I don't think I will ever "lose" this work and it will be easy to recover even if I put it away for years.

twocats · 2025-03-25T17:46:55+00:00

twocats I updated the sections and it was definitely the right decision, because I will now start associating each larger section with a letter. I'm up to M by the end

Now thinking I should change it to what SK suggested, this is too many sections to track. I should do A1, A2 for every time the same theme happens. I can use a different color pen to create the subsections for the smaller memorization chunks, because those are temporary.

I've been solving my "layer selection" issue by making sure I click on the page layer every time before I exit a page, since the memorization chunk layer is more of a "one and done" thing (if you do it right the first time, which I am not).

twocats · 2025-03-25T19:01:54+00:00

twocats Now thinking I should change it to what SK suggested, this is too many sections to track. I should do A1, A2 for every time the same theme happens. I can use a different color pen to create the subsections for the smaller memorization chunks, because those are temporary.

Done, and I like this so much more! I think this method is the winner. There's really only 3 distinct main sections and two of them are repeated but with variations, and I wanted to represent that in a way that made sense. So I called the main themes A/A1 and B/B1, etc (thought about calling it "Theme" and "Presto" but it felt too wordy, I can easily remember that A means the original theme and B means the Presto), and called the end Coda because that's what everyone calls it rather than to make up a letter name (even though it happens to be C). And instead of more letter names for the different transitions I called it "A1 bridge". I think these will stay in my memory far better than assigning numbers or letters.

I used a different color marker to break down the chunks for memorization. As I learn these I may erase what I currently have and merge them into bigger phrases. But visually and organizationally this makes so much more sense and should help it get locked into my brain.