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I am sure most people here realize the importance of trying to mentally practice or “think” a score away from the piano to aid memory, understanding, interpretation, etc. And I am sure people have read about many great pianists recommending this tactic. But I have not read any books on how precisely to do this. Obviously, I should try and mentally hear the piece as best as possible, but surely there is more to it than that. Should I be trying to recall the details of the printed score itself, or should I be visualizing my hands actually playing the piece?
I read that Glenn Gould would memorize the entire score before ever playing it (others such as Heinrich Neuhaus have recommended the same thing), but in reference to doing this I also read a quote by Glenn Gould in which he said something to the effect that when he memorizes a score he sort of (I am paraphrasing because I don’t recall his specific words) sees his hands playing each note(s).
I have combed my University’s library and found no good books on the subject. I think perhaps the problem may be that I am confounding mental practice with strict memorization. But it would seem, anecdotally at least, that mental practice leads to solid memorization.
The only book I have heard about that even touches on the subject is “Music in your head: Mental practice, how to memorize piano music,” but none of the libraries in my area carry this book. I have ordered it online but it will not arrive for some time.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject?

P.S. Sorry for the long-winded nature of this post.

-Jeff

You're right, mental memorizing is the best form. My favourite advantage if you can visualize an entire performance of a piece is that you can 'mull' it over. Also, when it comes to performance anxiety, I'm hypothesizing the mental memory is in a place adrenaline can't get at. It's the hardest type to get under your belt and needs a lot of concentration. Whether you visualize the score or hand movements is a personal choice. I visualize the hands. Interestingly, because in reality you only see about one octave of the keyboard at a time, I find you can only visualize your hands on that much keyboard. When visualizing both hands they sometimes intermingal. Also, once you've learned it away from the keyboard it sounds some much fresher when you do play it. Make sure you do the fingering first.

And welcome to PW!

Welcome to PW Jeff,

Memorizing works for me in the following way: I get completely hooked by the pieces I'm playing, and hum them on the road, sing them, tap them on the table, etc. So I 'know' deep down what to expect while I'm performing. This helps me cause if I know what's coming next, I'll just... go that way. It seems that this is coming rather natural to me, even now that I don't practice almost at all anymore.

Some people advocate memorizing the printed score and say that after you've done it, you should actually write out the score, from memory. This will prove to yourself that you really know it and will help solidify the memorization. And it also will reveal any spots that aren't thoroughly memorized.

Has anyone here actually tried it (the writing out part)? I have been thinking about trying it especially in some pieces where I am experiencing recurrent mistakes, but it sounds kind of daunting.

Kind of? It sounds extremely daunting and this is coming from someone who normally enjoyes writing scores and notating music!

I did that only once, when I was fifteen. I wrote out the invention and sinfonia that I was preparing for a Bach competition. IIRC, I even came up with that preparation method on my own.

The invention/sinfonia were not long pieces, but the process was slow and painful. It did help me discover multiple places of memory lapses though (i.e., I had to pantomime with my hands to figure out the notes).

Was it helpful? Hard to say. Of the five years that I was made to participate in the Bach competition, that was the only year that I advanced to regional. It's hard to say how much can be attributed to the score writing exercise though -- it didn't stop me from blanking out during the next stage (but arguably, I started the score memorization process too late).

Now, I think I would just rather work more on improving other aspects before taking this draconian route for memory reinforcement (but then, my piano aspirations are rather modest).

I don't usually attempt memorization, but just now I thought I would try this out on Bach's 8th invention, which I can sometimes play by memory. Luckily, I had some score paper handy (or I could have done it in Finale).

Only made it to the third measure, before uncertainty about one note stopped me and I had to go to the piano for reinforcement. But even this short little experiment was interesting (and amusing). I really started to think much more carefully about how the music was put together, and that is worth it in itself. I think I will try to get this whole invention learned to the point where I can write it out, just to see what the process has to teach me.

Actually, complete memorization of every note is the method I use, except on easy pieces and let me tell you: It is extremely daunting (I can only assume/hope it will get easier with practice) and not to mention time-consuming. In fact, this is what actually got me contemplating the use of mental practice in the first place.

-Jeff

I really like keyboardklutz's post - I love the idea of mental memory being "in a place adrenaline can't get at" - brilliant! I am going to think this the next time I have to perform.

Mental practice helps me so much. I use it all the time for memorization. Say I am memorizing four bars at a time - I play the four bars and then, while sitting very still, I feel and hear the music of those bars exactly the way I want to. It makes memorization much speedier for me.

I also sit away from the piano (again, very still) and look at the score, reading ahead, and I hear and feel the music the way I want to. Then I do this without the score as well.

I have tried to use mental practice as a means of improving my playing. However, it is really difficult to concentrate on each note. It is easy for me to hear the music in my head - I have no problem replaying an entire piece in my head - but trying to visualise my motor movements is more difficult. I have been trying this recently with Bach's fugue in F minor book two. It is only three pages long, and I can play all of the first page mentally from memory and by that, I mean I can imagine the notes, the fingering, the dynamics and the arm movements.... but I start to lose it once I get to page two.

I think I need to try and break it down into smaller sections away from the piano to get it into memory. I can also sit with the score and read through the music and hear and imagine what I will be doing at the keyboard.

M

That's one of my favorite fugues from the WTC (I love the prelude too).

It does take supreme concentration. Listen to the UK radio show Just a Minute and you'll get the idea.

I have music going through my head every waking minute. I don't have a lot of time to practice with my full-time job and other obligations, but I have a lot of waking hours to mentally rehearse. Fortunately, it never gets on my nerves, I don't feel haunted, I just always have this soundtrack going. Right now it's one of the more awkward passages of the Beethoven Op. 101 fugue on repeat.

Unless you can play perfectly by ear that's no use. You need to perfectly visualize either the score or the keys.

I know how you feel... the worst part is thinking on variations of the pieces you listen to, and doesn't have enough time and technique to perform them.

BWV 847, it is one of those pieces that plays in my mind almost driving me crazy, strange enough I'm far away to be able to play it.

It seems to work well for me, so I imagine it's some sort of combination of playing by ear, visualizing the score and feeling the keys. All I know is that I can play a piece through a few times, leave it alone for a week, and then play it by memory the next time I sit down. I'm not saying it's always perfect, but after testing my memory I go back to the score, practice it slow and fill in the blanks.

If it's as simple as that for you when playing in front of others then you're lucky indeed.

It depends on the complexity of the piece. Something on the level of a Grieg Lyric Piece could be ready to perform in a week using this method. Ginastera's First Sonata has required almost 2 years of work and I'm not satisfied yet with my memory or command of the piece..

I still want to learn how Glenn Gould memorized a piece away from the piano without working on the fingering first. He must have had an extraordinary ability to hear the music directly from the score. This is something I struggle with and I can't imagine doing it with a Bach fugue because there are so many voices.

Mentally memorizing the musical tones is automatic for me. I have to learn the fingering at the piano and make it very secure, especially with Bach. I can visualize parts of the score with my eyes closed, but I still have to put extra effort into the weak places by remembering little cues such as "start on B". I doubt I could rewrite the score from memory. Daunting is an understatement.

The F minor Book 2 is a favorite of mine too although I like the G# minor better - which is what I'm working on now.

I wish I could say the same. With some music e.g. Beethoven, Haydn or Brahms I can hear an entire piece in my head but not with Bach. I can play Bach without score using "muscle memory" and after much mental effort I can visualize the playing (not the score) away from the piano. With other composers, after learning the notes I effortlessly "know how it goes" and can hear the music mentally. With Bach I can hear a few bars, then it disintegrates. Don't know why it won't stick.

This is a good point; if a person wanted to memorize a score before ever touching the piano how would the person get around this problem? This seems to me to confirm that what Glenn Gould might have been doing when he was memorizing a score was not memorizing the strict notes (i.e. the dots and lines and pitches of the printed score) but perhaps thinking about the movements on the piano, and of course he was almost certainly hearing the proper pitches in his head at the same time. It looks as though a strict memorization of the score would not really enable a person to deal with the fingerings.
For that reason, it looks like the preferable method for memorizing away from the piano is mental practice of the piece and not just pure memorization of the written score, since the former allows you to observe the correct pitches, rhythm, dynamics, motions, and fingering. Whereas the latter only allows you to observe the correct pitches, rhythm, and dynamics.

What does everyone else think? Is this a reasonable statement?

-Jeff

I think you're confused about what memorization of the score is - it's eidectic, what is commonly called photographic memory.

Sorry, I think some people are misunderstanding me, my goal is to establish the best way to "think a piece of music away from the piano" as so many great pianists recommend. I am confused about the way to go about doing this, and from what I have gathered, there seems to be two principle ways of going about this. 1) Thinking about the score itself whilst trying to mentally hear the correct pitches. or 2) Thinking about playing the piece trying to see the proper motions and fingerings and hear the correct pitches.

#1 does not necessarily imply the use of eidectic memory since one can employ knowledge of chord progressions, interval relationships, etc. to help remember what notes go where.
Sorry again for the confusion.

I will try the question again:
It looks like the preferable method for thinking a piece of music away from the piano is mental practice/memorization of the piece and not just pure memorization of the written score, since the former allows you to observe the correct pitches, rhythm, dynamics, motions, and fingering. Whereas the latter only allows you to observe the correct pitches, rhythm, and dynamics.
What does everyone else think? Is this a reasonable statement?

-Jeff

The best is by ear or eidectic. These can only be done by those who start at age 3 or 4. Next comes visualization of your movements on the keyboard. For that you need all your theory knowledge too. Memorizing 'rhythm, dynamics, motions, and fingering' without knowing why is poor learning. Knowing the theory helps you draw the performance from memory as you've put the info where the composer got it from in the first place (so to speak). Muscle memory's a joke when it comes to performing in front of others.

You may find this book really helpful and has ALOT of info about MP (Mental Play) pages 104 - 114 especially. This is available as a free pdf download with permission from the author "Fundamentals of Piano Practice" by Chuan C. Chang.
http://www.pianopractice.org/

Click on the "complete book" highlighted, get it printed off and study this book. The only thing I do not agree with is his idea that anyone can tune a piano - they should check their warranty as a DIY could void it. Enjoy!

While I think some people may use photographic memory, I think others are memorizing the actual information contained in the score, rather than what it physically looks like. And yet others do a combination of the two.

For example, in the Bach invention I mentioned earlier, I have memorized this information: it is in the key of F major, and thus the key signature will have one flat, and that it is in 3/4 time, and that the first measure starts with an eighth note/quaver rest followed a quaver F above middle C, which is the first note of the theme. I don't necessarily need to memorize how an existing paper score looks in order to visualize the notation for that mentally, because I know how that information gets represents. But, yes, originally I got the information I have memorized from a paper score.

Jeez, how long does it take to retrieve all that!

First, It is not my intention to offend anyone, but this book contains a lot of rubbish, especially with regard to the "scientific" aspects.

Second, When you "think" a piece of music away from the piano you cannot separate this from memory. You, need your memory to do it, but obviously you can refer to the score if you forget something.

Third, WR is correct

This is what I mean by thinking/memorizing the score itself.

Fourth, However you choose to "think" a piece of music away from the piano you will naturally be reinforcing your memory of the piece.

Fifth, We can add that "thinking" the score itself enables you to more easily analyse the compositional reasons for certain things, which can help guide a persons interpretation of a piece. But I think it is safe to say the mental practice also allows you to work on interpretation and (albeit more difficultly) the compositional elements as well.

-Jeff

That's very important and what I mean by mull it over. To play it in your head you need to know it so well - you notice stuff you wouldn't usually.

I just tried this with a "problem" piece. It definitely helped. I realized where the really weak spots were in my memory, and was able to focus on them - and now when I play, if I make a mistake (and there are a lot fewer mistakes !!) I actually know which note I should have played, instead of just knowing it was wrong.

Now my question is - this was a short piece, how can I even think of writing out longer ones? There has to be another technique !

How do you think you memorize longer pieces? Why do you doubt your abilities? It doesn't come down to memory it comes down to concentration - that could be your problem.

I can only read music slowly, and only then after thinking about it for what seems like way too long.
Therefore, I instead learn by ear and watching others play. Once I have played a section a few times, it becomes ingrained in my mind.

If I knew how to work on longer pieces I wouldn't be asking, would I?
I doubt my abilities because I have a very good memory for pretty much everything, but I'm struggling with this.
You can concentrate all you want, but if you don't remember the information it is like looking at a blank wall.

How long of a piece? It you can do shorter ones, it shouldn't be a problem.. Analyze the piece first, so you can play it from any part.

After all, a longer piece is just some shorter pieces put together!