Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum An alarming trend: Memorizing is out of fashion

Absolutely right. My 90% figure was conservative because I also worked in dance groups where some of the things we played were standards, so no music. But mostly even there I had "charts".

Even in the so called "classical world" no pianist plays in an ensemble without music. It puts the rest of the group in jeopardy. From everything I've read the same idea use to be true of soloists. Obviously if a pianist plays badly in a concerto he (or she) makes the whole orchestra look bad.

People are sheep. Liszt liked to show off, so now everyone has to show off, because a tradition was started. It does not have to be logical. It is what the sheep in the audience expects, so pianists blindly follow, also sheep-like.

I started earning money accompanying when I was 15. I've also played for Broadway shows and many things like that. All of us who accompany a lot have to be excellent sight readers. The term "prima vista" is nonsense only because people wrongfully think that you build the ability to sightread by only playing things for the first time. In most cases it's more about how much you get right the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time. But if you do that well, you will also play things the first time better than most.

There is only one Richter. The rest of us do not get paid to play a piano concerto. We do not get paid for playing a recital of Bach.

Most successful pianists - pianists who live on performing - are incredibly flexible, learning how to move from one "gig" to the next. The more flexible we are, the more chance we have to make enough money to support ourselves and our families.

People who simply move from competitions to faculties don't really make money playing, in most cases. Their income may be supplemented here and there with formal concerts, but they live mostly on the pay as teachers.

Then you have self-proclaimed "concert pianist teachers" who insist on the kind of things you are talking about. But they don't make money playin either, mostly, and they don't teach their students how to survive as musicians.

Harpsichordists traditionally use the score. So do accompanists, and most other instrumentalists.
I usually don't have a problem getting my students to memorize. The biggest problem is reading.
I do require my students to memorize for recitals. It is just better in my opinion.

Doreen Hall

But you just said that the biggest problem is reading. If you put a big emphasis on performing, from memory, do you not see that that might be part of what stops them from building really fluent reading skills?

We are talking about mostly small kids and preteens, who play in student recitals and exams. Most of them quit playing before they hit 15. Only very few, or if none of them will eventually become as a professional musician.

Nyt Gary D., I got your point. Virtually no pianist earns his living by performing classical music in our country. They all make their living as teachers or as accompanists.

Why not both? Have a nice list of ready-to-go pieces in one's repertoire AND be able to sight read super fast.

I don't think one necessarily precludes the other.

I had no idea that the option of performing with the score even existed when I wa a student. It was expected. I remember being told that Myra Hess was the only performer who used a score, supposedly after a memory lapse. I can remember memory being a spectre looming over every competition or performance and being so terrified of a lapse that I memorized music in small segments and played the segments BACKWARDS to assure I had a "safety spot" if I forgot.

In one early competition the dreaded "memory " lapse jettisoned an entire group of twenty competitors. We were playing a Chopin Etude and perhaps the third or fourth contestant got lost. Immediately there was a flurry of pages as we all frantically consulted our scores to make sure what those missing notes were so we'd not stumble over them ourselves. And then ALL of us floundered. One by one. I was near the end of this tortuous event and was shaking by the time I got on stage ... and predictably made the SAME memory error. Memory lapses can even be contagious

The requirement for a flawless memorized performance eventually pushed me away from performing ... and into graphic arts. I relegated my music to the background ( after three degrees) and I never played piano in public again.

Now thinking back I can see two sides to this debate. For most people, not having to glance at the score does allow for more fluent playing ... particularly with technically demanding works .... Liszt, Brahms, Chopin. But for Baroque music, I find playing from the score much easier since I can follow all the voices simultaneously and "see" the patterns.

But for young students, I never encourage memorizing. It simply takes too much time away from my main goal, which is to get them to read the notes. Note reading is too often sacrificed to two things young students are often compelled to do. Play in recitals and take elementary exams. And both recitals and exams most often expect memorization as well as rote accuracy. I will gladly sacrifice both for fluent note reading. Because only ONE thing will keep that student's interest longer than the usual three or four years .... and that is being able to read the notes fluently.

When the student reaches advanced levels ... and is conversant with theory and chord progressions ... then they can be encouraged to memorize and perform favorite pieces. But until then, it's simply one more burden laid on them ... and an unnecessary one at that.

I guess I just don't get the whole competition thing, where you need to play from memory. On second thought, I don't get competitions at all. Since when is making music a sport, where there are winners and losers? I always thought that whatever serves the music best is what's right.

And I also agree that there's much more value in learning to be a good sight reader than in memorizing pieces. Your chances of finding solid work out in the real world will vastly improve as your reading skills do.

+1

Sight reading is far more important, especially for
people like me who memorize music quickly. I can't help
but memorize music automatically.

I kinda agree with the art as competition thing being
a bit weird, like the oscars. Very difficult to be
objective with the quality of art, and there is such
a huge variety of "taste", that it makes it hard to
pick a definite "winner", unlike in chess, where there
is no question. However, you can still make objective
observations about how evenly someone plays their scales
and passages, or how much dynamic range they have, or how
few mistakes they make in a performance.

I agree. But I think reading should come first for music that will be performed as written because most students use memorization as a way to painfully learn music, one measure at a time, and then they can only play from memory because they could not read the music to save their souls.

The other side of music is being able to play what we hear, and that aspect music is horribly neglected in so called "classical" music.

But that is another subject.

My students do not know that memorization is terribly important to other people because they assume that the goal is to play music, as well as possible, with the best sound possible, in the shortest period of time, and with the most efficient means possible.

I tell each child that I do not want him (or her) to play in front of people from memory until he has played successfully at least 5 times. Then after then, if he plays from memory, and it goes wrong, he will not remember it as a horrible experience.

If you had to give a speech, would you rather do it, for the first time, with or without something to look at?

I would argue that if you would prefer to give the speech, with nothing, it would be because you are partially illiterate.

And most performers are partially illiterate in the sense they can NOT play from music, smoothly, convincingly, because their reading skills are undeveloped.

Again and again we read about the insane bias of judges who would not give equal marks to two performers who both played superbly, one with music, the other without.

Worse, the student who plays from memory, in an inferior manner, would every time get a better rating than someone else who played far better, with music.

Someone like Joseph Hoffman, who could not read music to save his soul, will always be given more credit than an aging Richter, who could still play with complete mastery with music but, for whatever reasons, no longer felt comfortable playing without it.

Just one of many reasons why I loathe the whole "classical" mindset. It is always ruled by rather stupid and narrow-minded people. And also, by the way, why I have almost completely avoided this forum.

Let's stop there for a moment. Now we have TWO famous, amazing pianists, who used music - Hess and Richter. So turn it around. Have you ever heard anything by Hess that sounded less than marvelous? Shouldn't that be the whole point? If anyone else, playing from memory, could not equal Hess, with music, should that not end the discussion?

Should we not laugh at people who are so impressed with the theatre that they only judge with their eyes, when music should be all about the ears, what we hear?

Brubek was once told that he could not get his degree unless he promised not to teach, because he could not read.

What a strange, strange, STRANGE world we live in, where one musician is criticized for NOT being able to read, and another is criticized for PREFERRING to read.

Some people memorize effortlessly, and it has nothing to do with being musical. Think of people who have photographic memory. Such people are reading, without music, because they see the music in their minds. This says NOTHING about their superior musicianship. It only means that the are much like idiot savants.

I know people with such horrible ears that they can't hear a door slam, yet they play with no problems without music. They can't improvise. They can't create anything. But they can play from memory.

Most students are terrified at the thought of playing without music. Some push through, but most play pieces for the best part of year (or more) and are rewarded with a good grade, or good comments. Meanwhile they could not learn something quickly and then perform it to save their lives. And later, even if they want to, they will earn no money playing, because money is usually about learning quickly and playing with other people who learn quickly.

The whole things is upside down.

Because most people are never taught HOW to memorize. Even though I do not like to memorize - because it takes time to play things without music that I can play perfectly with music - I play my students' music from any measure, and even backwards. I play from many starting parts, hands separate, and backwards.

When people rehearse a play, they never start at the beginning and go through the whole thing - except when doing a dress rehearsal or a final performance.

Most people use the "go magic fingers" method. That means that they pray they will not forget, and they try NOT to think about the music. It is insane.

I could tell the story of at least a dozen people who had your same experience.

You are missing the most important thing. People who read effortlessly memorize the parts that cannot be played while looking. You mention Chopin. But there is a whole universe of difference between most of the Etudes, which must be memorized, and slow sections of so many other things (like the Ballades), which can be played with complete confidence with music.

Think about how an experienced musician tackles these pieces for competitions. Such a musician nails the technical spots that must be played while looking at the hands but feels free to look at the score for lyrical parts, then later memorizes everything.

Watch master classes. Always the teacher and student refers to the score and plays from the score. It is just moronic not to.

Maybe not completely another subject. One way to play without music is to know the piece and play it by ear. That must require memory but it is not the traditional note-by-note memorization that is more common.

Assuming this is true (I think it probably is, but I don't know enough "real musicians", meaning people who make their living from their music, to tell), I wonder whether you have a theory about why.

Most people can read Shakespeare (though not necessarily understand what it's all about) after 12 years in school, after all. Why is it that so many classical pianists cannot read Chopin after ten or more years of piano lessons?

Maybe they work only on stuff that's too hard.

Quite possibly true for many piano students who cannot read, including yours truly.

However, Gary was talking about "performers", which I took to mean professionals of some kind. It strikes me as odd that it would be a problem even at that (the professional) level. But if it is, I wonder why there hasn't been a widespread questioning of the teaching methods yet. And that includes assigning music (or letting people pick music) that's too hard for them.

What I was thinking is that when you work on difficult material, you can't read fluently. You must work out small chunks slowly, and you end up memorizing much of it accidentaly. So you never get the opportunity to play something easily fluently, and you incorporate some stuttering.



I took him to mean concert or recital performers rather than working musicians.

The gist of the posts as I understood them were about professional musicians, which by definition means working musicians, and also I think the gap that exists between those preparing students for that role, and the reality of that role.

In what way is a concert pianist not a working musician?

Hi Gary D. and others, I don't know if I am alone here, but although I am literate I find reading to be a task that demands mental focus and attention. If I am trying to perform a piece as well as I possibly can, I am thinking very hard about what I'm hearing, what I'm doing, and where I am on the keyboard. Reading at the same time is one more task, and if I have to do it, there is less mental bandwidth available for all the other stuff. The big benefit of memorization is eliminating reading thus enabling me to be a more attentive musician in every other way.

I think that for most people this would also be true, with the exception of those who would be distracted by fear that they would have a memory lapse. So I'd really prefer that students play from memory, except for those who are too scared, and they should play from the score, no big deal.

HOWEVER

This definitely SHOULD be addressed. But I don't think it needs to be addressed in the context of a recital, in which students are playing alone with lots of preparation time to the best of their ability. Instead, it should be addressed by real-world tasks that give an immediate benefit to reading and quickly making sense of a score with limited prep time. Like you, Gary, that's what most of my work life has entailed. All my students get short-term reading assignments: sight-reading in lessons when beginner through early intermediate, then short easy-for-them pieces assigned by the week (starting with Czerny Op. 139 at the same time as they are tackling Clementi sonatinas as longer-term repertoire.) Then, I help the ones who have an interest in developing their playing skills beyond private lessons to find opportunities, maybe accompanying a violin student, playing for school chorus or school play, playing in jazz band etc. Sometimes I am the one to connect them with these opportunities, and sometimes they find them on their own and I just cheer and help support them when needed. Really, their reading improves fastest when they need it to, especially if they need it to in order to do something cool with peers.

Piano lessons really shouldn't just be training to learn the hardest solo pieces you possibly can, then performing them in a concert setting. They should be training for many different facets of what piano-playing can involve.

Very well said Heather, especially this:



Unfortunately many, if not most, students/teachers are doing exactly this. And 3 months after their recitals the students can hardly play the pieces they "mastered".

It would be great to fully develop a student on every front, but few of today's busy student will have the time and drive to get there.

If we have to choose between able to play a few difficult solos very well or able to pick up easier pieces and play them well on short notice, like on the spot, I would pick the latter every time.

And for the kids at school, to be honest, who cares if you can play Chopin Andante Spianato, but if you can play just "The sun goes down, the stars come out", everyone cheers.