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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.
I may have misunderstood you. In my previous reply, I was also replying to the other poster who isn't convinced that any kind of mental work is useful at all.
I think a combination of both works well. I think mentally working on sections is possible, and quite useful. You can reduce physical repetitions by 2-3x which I think is very effective as you are essentially playing correctly more times than not, which is great for muscle memory to set in. As johnstaf mentioned, it's definitely possible to acquire muscle memory through only mental practice. The only question remaining is whether it's more effective to practice purely mentally -- and for that, I think for most people who aren't Gieseking, the answer is a hard no.
FYIBasic Principles in Piano Playing as Taught by Josef & Rosina Lhévinne, Explained by John Browning (I can't make the timestamp to work, "memorization" from 8:40)
This video talks about memorizing by playing through the music in one's head after one has learned the piece. This is in itself a very vague concept IMO. What exactly does this mean? Does one hear the music, see one's finger movements, see notes/markings on a page or...?
But the bottom line is this is not what Gieseking's approach talks about which is learning a piece before one has played it by studying the score..
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.
I may have misunderstood you. In my previous reply, I was also replying to the other poster who isn't convinced that any kind of mental work is useful at all.
I think a combination of both works well. I think mentally working on sections is possible, and quite useful. You can reduce physical repetitions by 2-3x which I think is very effective as you are essentially playing correctly more times than not, which is great for muscle memory to set in. As johnstaf mentioned, it's definitely possible to acquire muscle memory through only mental practice. The only question remaining is whether it's more effective to practice purely mentally -- and for that, I think for most people who aren't Gieseking, the answer is a hard no.
I never said or even hinted that any kind of mental work isn't useful. I think both your earlier descriptions of your own attempts with Gieseking's approach(you learned six measures) and your last sentence in this post show this is an extreme outlier method.
As far as acquiring muscle memory through mental practice(again something separate from the Gieseking, I think that depends on what one means by muscle memory and mental practice. Sitting at my laptop right now, I can play through some pieces in my mind by moving my fingers or without moving my fingers although I feel something in my fingers or there is some connection between my mind and fingers. If that's what some people mean by mental practice to memorize it could be possible, but I think actually making those movements at the piano would be infinitely more reinforcing for virtually everyone.
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?
My guess is the working on scores on flights is mostly for already learned pieces or looking at scores they intend to learn but not with the goal of learning or memorizing them in their head.
That a few super pianists can learn new music entirely in their head does not convince me that this approach is useful for even most conservatory students and certainly not the other 99.9% of the population.
As far as most famous concert pianists being able to work out a page or two in their head very fast, I can only repeat what I mentioned earlier on the video of Frederich Chiu's class. The class had around five exceptional young concert pianists with experience in major competitions, and they dramatically failed to learn even the first half of a Scarlatti Sonata.
I never said or even hinted that any kind of mental work isn't useful. I think both your earlier descriptions of your own attempts with Gieseking's approach(you learned six measures) and your last sentence in this post show this is an extreme outlier method.
Well, I'm also a largely self-taught nobody at the piano who started as an adult. Someone with more experience should be able to fare much better than my measly six measures. imo.
His learning process starts with Studying the Score Away from the Keyboard
(a) No mention of Gieseking, but Meffen says Andor Foldes advised to read the score at least twice. The reason, to gain a clear mental picture of the music, "without being distracted by the physical aspects of its playing".
(b) Meffen advises dividing the work up as a "high level of concentration" is possible only for a short timespan. The objective, to make as few errors as possible.
(c) He says you must resist the temptation to try the piece through before you start serious work at the keyboard.
Are there any good reasons why I should ignore this advice and Gieseking's approach of learning a piece by studying the score before playing it?
Ian Russell Schiedmayer & Soehne, 1925 Model 14, 140cm Ibach, 1905 F-IV, 235cm
(c) He says you must resist the temptation to try the piece through before you start serious work at the keyboard.
I can resist anything, except temptation - Oscar
Quote
Are there any good reasons why I should ignore this advice and Gieseking's approach of learning a piece by studying the score before playing it?
Yes. Lack of time. Lack of inclination. Inefficient in the long term, in terms of time spent (i.e. wasted).
But if you're retired and have time on your hands, why not? Better than wasting time on FB, Tik-Tok, Instagram etc.
Me, I have a full time high-stress job totally unrelated to music, and have no time to waste - and ever since I was taught how to sight-read (i.e. spending a few seconds looking through the score to note salient details, before starting to play) for my ABRSM exams, that's the way I normally start when learning new pieces. A look-through for a few seconds (sometimes a few minutes), then start playing. (But if I'm just sight-reading with no thought of learning the piece, I often just launch straight into it, delighting in discovering the piece as I play it.)
There have been a few occasions when I brought a new score with me to read (like a novel) on a long plane or train journey, which helps later on when I get to my piano to start learning it for real, because I've become familiar with the score, worked out fingerings, phrasings, articulation etc (and marked them in the score). But the end result of studying the score away from the piano for some time before learning it on the piano v learning it almost immediately on the piano is that I end up spending much more time overall just to get the piece to the same musical & technical standard using the former method. And no, it doesn't stick in my memory any better either, if I'm intending to memorise it.
1)The brain memorise first doesn’t accelerate the learning process, in some cases it could make it longer. In effect it takes time to memorise, especially once memorised one part before touch the keys, the brain doesn’t allow fingers to play incorrectly anymore, so the fingers will practice until the brain is satisfied. 2)to reach a reasonable level it is maybe a good approach, because fingers practice much more intensively than a normal approach. This is a method for quality not for quantity. 3)Ginastera maybe not the best piece for this method, analytically could be difficult. 4)good mental exercice.
1970s' Petrof 125 youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrY5TdJHAB6HAYYgdgQliww recent added:Rachmaninoff Paganini variation 18 first day practice
His learning process starts with Studying the Score Away from the Keyboard
(a) No mention of Gieseking, but Meffen says Andor Foldes advised to read the score at least twice. The reason, to gain a clear mental picture of the music, "without being distracted by the physical aspects of its playing".
(b) Meffen advises dividing the work up as a "high level of concentration" is possible only for a short timespan. The objective, to make as few errors as possible.
(c) He says you must resist the temptation to try the piece through before you start serious work at the keyboard.
Are there any good reasons why I should ignore this advice and Gieseking's approach of learning a piece by studying the score playin beforeg it?
I think studying the score beforehand is perfectly reasonable, although I never do it since I've always heard the piece many times before. But I doubt what Meffen means has anything to do with what Gieseking is saying. It's probably more like what bennevis mentions in an earlier post. I also see nothing wrong with trying the piece all the way through in the beginning.
One reason for ignoring Gieseking is that very few pianists do it.
One reason for ignoring Gieseking is that very few pianists do it.
I think everyone is talking past each other now. Define what you mean by Gieseking's method. It appears you are only considering the extreme point of view where the entire sheet has to be memorized before even touching the instrument, while others are talking more about the general principle or "variants" of the very strict score-only method.
It also depends on context. Suppose you are extremely good at the piano and good at sight singing, and you find a pop arrangement online which has a total of six chords. Don't you think it might actually be more efficient to learn directly from the score before actually playing it on the piano? At the very least, it sounds like a reasonable supposition to me.
I think the main point of memorizing a piece away from the keyboard is to learn to analyze music thoroughly and to learn to find more patterns in it, because obviously it would be too difficult to memorize note by note. The second point is to develop ability to imagine music more precisely. It requires ear training and solfeggio. And thirdly I think memorization away from the keyboard helps to learn to pay more attention to details in the score.
I think the main point of memorizing a piece away from the keyboard is to learn to analyze music thoroughly and to learn to find more patterns in it, because obviously it would be too difficult to memorize note by note. The second point is to develop ability to imagine music more precisely. It requires ear training and solfeggio. And thirdly I think memorization away from the keyboard helps to learn to pay more attention to details in the score.
Those reasons make sense but studying the score is usually done after/during the learning of a piece and as only a part of the overall approach to memorizing.
One reason for ignoring Gieseking is that very few pianists do it.
How is that relevant?
If an approach was good more pianists would use it.
Originally Posted by ranjit
Originally Posted by pianoloverus
One reason for ignoring Gieseking is that very few pianists do it.
I think everyone is talking past each other now. Define what you mean by Gieseking's method. It appears you are only considering the extreme point of view where the entire sheet has to be memorized before even touching the instrument, while others are talking more about the general principle or "variants" of the very strict score-only method.
It also depends on context. Suppose you are extremely good at the piano and good at sight singing, and you find a pop arrangement online which has a total of six chords. Don't you think it might actually be more efficient to learn directly from the score before actually playing it on the piano? At the very least, it sounds like a reasonable supposition to me.
I am talking about what was described as Gieseking's method at the beginning of the thread.i.e. memorizing the whole piece from the score before playing it. As far as your context example goes, I don't think Gieseking was talking about a pop song with six chords.
I don't think Gieseking was talking about a pop song with six chords.
You don't need to look at a score - or "study" it - to play/sing a pop song.
If you can't play (& sing) it by ear, there's no point in trying to learn even a few bars of any Scarlatti sonata by staring at the score for days and weeks. Because you won't be able to 'hear' it in your mind, so is it music - or abstract art?
I think the main point of memorizing a piece away from the keyboard is to learn to analyze music thoroughly and to learn to find more patterns in it, because obviously it would be too difficult to memorize note by note. The second point is to develop ability to imagine music more precisely. It requires ear training and solfeggio. And thirdly I think memorization away from the keyboard helps to learn to pay more attention to details in the score.
Those reasons make sense but studying the score is usually done after/during the learning of a piece and as only a part of the overall approach to memorizing.
I'm afraid I don't understand. Don't you study the score before playing a new piece?
I think the main point of memorizing a piece away from the keyboard is to learn to analyze music thoroughly and to learn to find more patterns in it, because obviously it would be too difficult to memorize note by note. The second point is to develop ability to imagine music more precisely. It requires ear training and solfeggio. And thirdly I think memorization away from the keyboard helps to learn to pay more attention to details in the score.
Those reasons make sense but studying the score is usually done after/during the learning of a piece and as only a part of the overall approach to memorizing.
I'm afraid I don't understand. Don't you study the score before playing a new piece?
I think most pianists at all levels do most of the studying while one is learning the piano at the piano. Some do a little studying before but not what Gieseking advocates.