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The training of the ear to notice the exact tone quality, tone duration and tone strength.Through minute observation of these tonal qualities, the whole performance an entirely different clearness and more definite character, a sphere of subtle expression without overly strong dynamic or rhythmical changes.
Listening with a critical ear to one's playing and keeping one's touch under continual control with utmost concentration are prerequisites of rapid progress.
I would definitely agree with this. I have instinctively done something very similar when I started learning to play the piano, and it allowed me to progress very quickly.
Originally Posted by Withindale
By "polishing up" small parts of a composition a surprising perfection can be attained, as well as discovering possibilities for improvement.
Not quite sure what this means, but I have found that polishing one section of a piece of music often "sets the stage" for the rest. So, it's often a good idea to learn one section properly and then move on to the rest as opposed to letting all of them settle down in tandem. However, the opposite is also often true in a lot of cases.
Originally Posted by ErfurtBob
The gist of it is that you first memorize all the notes of a piece before playing it (!). So you read the notes, analize them as much as you need to be able memorize them. And then you play from memory.
I have tried this method, but I haven't been successful at memorizing more than 6 measures in this manner (over about a half hour session). I tend to lose track of the starting at that point. I think I could possibly do this over some 20 sessions interspersed throughout the week, but it's too tiring, and I could learn the same in possibly less time if I'm actually at the piano.
This may be easier for someone very talented, who has perfect pitch (or A-grade relative pitch), some kind of photographic memory, or insane working memory. I have a feeling this kind of working memory would go hand-in-hand with, say, being able to multiply two five-digit numbers in one's head. There is an anecdote about Glenn Gould which I read but can't seem to find the source of, where he asked an interviewer to throw some pebbles in the air, and he was immediately able to say that there were exactly 35 of them.
I think most touring concert pianists can actually do this if required, but those kinds of concert performers aren't your average Joe.
The question is why would anyone choose to memorize the score before playing it? What advantage can this possibly have? I can see many disadvantages including the most basic one that most people, even concert artists, can't do it. But even for those who can, what's the concept behind this approach? Are there any well known pianists, even one, who regularly use this approach?
1. The question is why would anyone choose to analyze the score before playing it? 2. What advantage can this possibly have? 3. But even for those who can, what's the concept behind this approach?
Good questions. The following notes give general answers #1 and #2 as does Johnstaf's post. Please note I have substituted "analyze" for "memorize" to focus on the key point in all this, training the ear.
Notes from my previous post
The training of the ear to notice the exact tone quality, tone duration and tone strength.Through minute observation of these tonal qualities, the whole performance an entirely different clearness and more definite character, a sphere of subtle expression without overly strong dynamic or rhythmical changes.
Listening with a critical ear to one's playing and keeping one's touch under continual control with utmost concentration are prerequisites of rapid progress.
An indispensable necessity when training the ear, is an accurate knowledge of the piece. It is essential to visualise the piece and, if done thoroughly, one will be able to play it from memory. The memory must be specially trained to do this quickly not by playing but by visualisation by silent reading.
A further development is to acquire the ability to prepare the technical execution through silent reading, so that the piece can be performed in a short time.
It is only necessary to memorise pieces to be performed in public, Bach compositions and specially instructive exercises, not every piece played.
Teachers should not advise always playing from memory, but the brain should be trained to memorise short phrases.
Teachers should insist upon beginners playing one or two short measures from memory in every lesson.
Concept As I see it analysis and visualisation give the pianist a "mental model" of the piece as a reference during practice and performance. A type of feedback and control loop.
Comment Martha Argerich appeared to be doing that in a lockdown recital, listening to her performance and pulling a face.
Ian Russell Schiedmayer & Soehne, 1925 Model 14, 140cm Ibach, 1905 F-IV, 235cm
for instance the particularities with this method are: 1)read the music sheet and learn the piece separately 2)memorize first 3)play in brain 4)have a "ear warm", brain is practicing all the time 5)the finger practice is much intensive: because the brain wants some kind of sound, if the ears hear different, the fingers will work like crazy to adapt which the brain wants. Consequently learn a piece from the first view to perfection much faster.
the point 4) for me is extremely important today, it is a good way to fight against the electronic distractions.
1970s' Petrof 125 youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrY5TdJHAB6HAYYgdgQliww recent added:Rachmaninoff Paganini variation 18 first day practice
I think there is an advantage to memorizing away from the piano. It can save you practice time repeating sections at the piano and gives you a sort of clarity of mind.
I think there is an advantage to memorizing away from the piano. It can save you practice time repeating sections at the piano and gives you a sort of clarity of mind.
I don’t see the advantage: - you practice at the piano for tone, touch, phrasing and articulation. How do you accelerate that process by memorizing away from the piano? You need to hear and analyze your own sound.
1. The question is why would anyone choose to analyze the score before playing it? 2. What advantage can this possibly have? 3. But even for those who can, what's the concept behind this approach?
Good questions. The following notes give general answers #1 and #2 as does Johnstaf's post. Please note I have substituted "analyze" for "memorize" to focus on the key point in all this, training the ear.
Notes from my previous post
The training of the ear to notice the exact tone quality, tone duration and tone strength.Through minute observation of these tonal qualities, the whole performance an entirely different clearness and more definite character, a sphere of subtle expression without overly strong dynamic or rhythmical changes.
Listening with a critical ear to one's playing and keeping one's touch under continual control with utmost concentration are prerequisites of rapid progress.
An indispensable necessity when training the ear, is an accurate knowledge of the piece. It is essential to visualise the piece and, if done thoroughly, one will be able to play it from memory. The memory must be specially trained to do this quickly not by playing but by visualisation by silent reading.
A further development is to acquire the ability to prepare the technical execution through silent reading, so that the piece can be performed in a short time.
It is only necessary to memorise pieces to be performed in public, Bach compositions and specially instructive exercises, not every piece played.
Teachers should not advise always playing from memory, but the brain should be trained to memorise short phrases.
Teachers should insist upon beginners playing one or two short measures from memory in every lesson.
Concept As I see it analysis and visualisation give the pianist a "mental model" of the piece as a reference during practice and performance. A type of feedback and control loop.
Comment Martha Argerich appeared to be doing that in a lockdown recital, listening to her performance and pulling a face.
Sorry, but I don't see anything in your reply that answers my questions. And I think training one's ears should be done by listening to one's own playing or the playing of others.
I think the same method will have different impact on different people. for me it doesn't make sense to discuss the impact of one method without any attempt.
1970s' Petrof 125 youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrY5TdJHAB6HAYYgdgQliww recent added:Rachmaninoff Paganini variation 18 first day practice
I think there is an advantage to memorizing away from the piano. It can save you practice time repeating sections at the piano and gives you a sort of clarity of mind.
I don’t see the advantage.
Gieseking and Liemerl did. See their book, see pp 9-12.
Regrettably everyone focuses on memorisation instead of analysis and visualisation.
Ian Russell Schiedmayer & Soehne, 1925 Model 14, 140cm Ibach, 1905 F-IV, 235cm
I think there is an advantage to memorizing away from the piano. It can save you practice time repeating sections at the piano and gives you a sort of clarity of mind.
I don’t see the advantage: - you practice at the piano for tone, touch, phrasing and articulation. How do you accelerate that process by memorizing away from the piano? You need to hear and analyze your own sound.
And besides the fact that few can memorize away from the piano(at least exclusively as in the topic of this thread) I think that approach, even if successful, will actually take MUCH longer. I think muscle memory, only possible at the piano, is a major component of memory for pianists at all levels. I've read quite a few of those books where the author interviews and asks questions of a lot of pianists. One of the common questions is how they memorize. I can't recall a single pianist who said they use Gieseking's approach. And in the numerous threads on memorization on PW I don't remember anyone mentioning Gieseking's method.
I don’t see the advantage: - you practice at the piano for tone, touch, phrasing and articulation. How do you accelerate that process by memorizing away from the piano? You need to hear and analyze your own sound.
You hear the sound in your mind, and have an accurate enough kinesthetic sense that you can imagine making the hand movements without actually making them. On another forum, people once challenged each other to make improvisations with no sound. The improvisations came out just as good as their normal improvisations, pretty much.
This will obviously be more effective as you master various kinds of movements and have a good idea of sound production at the piano. I find that my experience with improvisation, listening, and figuring out the notes based on pianists' hand movements from videos has helped.
I have poor reading skills. So there is a great tendency to look away from the page and do my own thing, or play the same few bars over and over again because it's easy. By trying to memorize away from the piano, I can force myself to get out of that sort of unproductive loop.
It will be more effective if the techniques are not completely new.
My greatest "success" with this method was memorizing six bars of the Revolutionary Etude away from the piano. I see no reason why anyone couldn't do the same as long as they are able to visualize themselves playing the piano in their mind. You see the groups of 4-5 notes in each hand, imagine the piano in your head and figure out logical fingering, then see the next group of notes. Then you check the transition between the two figurations to see if there is any discontinuity.
However, as I mentioned, it would possibly take a long time for me at least (I would expect at least a week for a page of music).
I certainly don't think this is only possible by concert artists. I would say anyone can do it eventually. But it might take 10x the time. And it's also strenuous mental effort.
"Mental repetitions" also work for muscle memory. The positive when it's purely mental is that your hands in your "mind's eye" do exactly what you tell them to. They don't mess up randomly like they do in real life. This is where a truly competent pianist would be able to save time, by always practicing the right movements in their head by default. I've always found that if I'm trying to prepare a piece in very little time, the ratio of the number of physical repetitions vs mental repetitions is crucial. I still need to do physical repetitions, but the mental repetitions are what help solidify a piece for me because you can't directly rely on muscle memory.
So the workflow is like this: see groups of 4-5 notes in each hand (identifying arpeggios etc. can help with this). Imagine playing them in your mind's eye and figure out the optimal fingering. Try and play both of them together in your mind -- this mental visualization can be appropriately slow as necessary. Now repeat the visualization of your hand movements in your mind's eye a few times. Move on to the next group of notes. And so on. While doing all of this, any kind of chunking or analysis will help speed up the process and with big-picture ideas.
I tend to also listen to a recording to get an instinctive idea of the notes, but I'm sure that this can be bypassed with the help of a great ear or perfect pitch, or if you have listened to the piece before and remember the audio.
My greatest "success" with this method was memorizing six bars of the Revolutionary Etude away from the piano...
However, as I mentioned, it would possibly take a long time for me at least (I would expect at least a week for a page of music).
I certainly don't think this is only possible by concert artists. I would say anyone can do it eventually. But it might take 10x the time. And it's also strenuous mental effort.
I'm afraid every time you write about this the technique becomes less and less reasonable to me. I didn't quote your comments about muscle memory, but I think that's done with actual playing of the music and do not think it can be done by imagining hand movements in one's mind. In fact, the whole idea of imagining hand movements in one's mind does not seem reasonable to me. I also strongly disagree about figuring out fingering in one's mind.
So far no one has mentioned a single pianist other than Gieseking that uses his method to any significant degree.
The advantage of Gieseking's approach is that it encourages the pianist to build a mental model of the piece that doesn't depend on feedback from the actual instrument.
I never feel truly secure unless I can play a piece through in my head.
Didn't Glenn Gould learn the Goldberg Variations away from the piano?
John Ogden often learnt pieces by looking at the score without touching the piano.
The advantage of Gieseking's approach is that it encourages the pianist to build a mental model of the piece that doesn't depend on feedback from the actual instrument.
I never feel truly secure unless I can play a piece through in my head.
Didn't Glenn Gould learn the Goldberg Variations away from the piano?
John Ogden often learnt pieces by looking at the score without touching the piano.
"Building a mental model"(don't really know what you mean by that)isn't something that most would call memorization. Why would building a mental model away from the instrument be better than at the instrument?
Assuming Ogden or Gould could learn scores that way, I think that shows that one can always find some infinitesimal percentage of the population that can do something that's not possible for everyone else. My guess is that only the tiniest percent of pianists at the most prestigious conservatories choose to or even can learn music that way. So if 1 out of 10,000 of those who play piano can use Gieseking's method, I consider it a super outlier approach.
I'm afraid every time you write about this the technique becomes less and less reasonable to me. I didn't quote your comments about muscle memory, but I think that's done with actual playing of the music and do not think it can be done by imagining hand movements in one's mind. In fact, the whole idea of imagining hand movements in one's mind does not seem reasonable to me. I also strongly disagree about figuring out fingering in one's mind.
What do you mean that it doesn't sound reasonable to you?! I told you that I do it often for small sections of music, and I have used it in the past. I'm just an amateur -- a professional will presumably by able to use it much better if they decide to do so. I gave an example of where I actually did work out the fingering and hand movements in my head (and it was correct). Later on, I was able to play it correctly the first time I touched a piano because I had rehearsed it so many times in my head. That doesn't mean it was ideal in terms of technique, but it was definitely workable.
Originally Posted by pianoloverus
So far no one has mentioned a single pianist other than Gieseking that uses his method to any significant degree.
There are other pianists -- Ogden and Gould are examples. And these are people who could memorize concertos by reading through them before their first performance. I have no reason to doubt that most famous concert pianists would be able to work out a page or two in their head very fast. I think pretty much all of them work on scores on their flights -- what do you suppose they're doing?
John Ogden often learnt pieces by looking at the score without touching the piano.
"Building a mental model"(don't really know what you mean by that)isn't something that most would call memorization. Why would building a mental model away from the instrument be better than at the instrument? [/quote] It eventually develops the skill where you can think about music and how to play it on the piano when you aren't at the piano bench.
Originally Posted by pianoloverus
. My guess is that only the tiniest percent of pianists at the most prestigious conservatories choose to or even can learn music that way. So if 1 out of 10,000 of those who play piano can use Gieseking's method, I consider it a super outlier approach.
I'm sure most of them can with adequate training. Trying to memorize with the score in hand + a recording, or perfect pitch is very common imo.
The true 1 in 10000 would be being able to learn reasonably intricate pieces away from the piano in a very short time frame. Most people wouldn't do it because the alternative is faster and more enjoyable. But if you don't think there is precedent for this approach, you're wrong -- a lot of concert pianists practice by writing out the score from memory, away from the piano, which I'd say uses a similar skill.
And I really don't see your continued skepticism that it's possible to do in the first place. Three separate forum members have already said that they do so to varying degrees.
John Ogden often learnt pieces by looking at the score without touching the piano. "Building a mental model"(don't really know what you mean by that)isn't something that most would call memorization. Why would building a mental model away from the instrument be better than at the instrument?
Assuming Ogden or Gould could learn scores that way, I think that shows that one can always find some infinitesimal percentage of the population that can do something that's not possible for everyone else. My guess is that only the tiniest percent of pianists at the most prestigious conservatories choose to or even can learn music that way. So if 1 out of 10,000 of those who play piano can use Gieseking's method, I consider it a super outlier approach.
A mental model of a piece doesn't have to be detailed. It can be quite vague if it depends on muscle memory, for example. I know pieces that I can play from memory, but I don't know them well enough to play them through in my mind.
I find it very difficult to build a precise picture of a piece at the piano, because it is too easy to fall back on various memory cues. It's not impossible to build a precise picture of a piece at the piano, but it's much easier (for me) to do it away from the piano. It's hard to concentrate on details when you don't need to concentrate on them. Studying away from the piano forms different types of memory.
Towards the end of last year, I had a finger sprain and decided to take time away from the piano. I got some scores for Christmas and wanted to study them. I learnt the first few pages from each and then moved on to something else. I returned to the piano a little while ago, and I haven't actually played these pieces yet, but they're as clear in my mind as if I had. It was only in this discussion that it occurred to me that I hadn't actually played them.
If I can use this way or working, I'm sure more than 1 in 10,000 pianists can. I don't have any unusual aptitude for anything piano related.
Newport I applaud the guidance to confirm your knowledge of a piece by playing it in your head including all elements , but this is far different from replacing at the keyboard work by starting out with only mental learning.
