I'm really frustrated.

I've played piano for 40 years. I've learned hundreds of songs in many genres. I want to be able to sit down and play my repertoire by memory, anywhere, any time.

But my memory fails me.

Memorization is not the problem. I've memorized dozens of songs.

The problem is maintaining memory. I am shocked at how quickly I'll forget bits of a song that, just two weeks ago, I had finally worked up to performance level.

And, of course, when you're performing, forgetting even one bit of a song can take a performance from a 10 to a 6 in the blink of an eye.

I've tried "maintenance practice," in which I cycle through recent repertoire every couple weeks to keep it fresh in my mind. But time is always the limitation: If I had more time to practice, then sure I could keep everything fresh; but I don't have that much time. I'm not a professional. I have a job and a family. Piano is not my life, it's just an important part of it. Some weeks I don't touch the keyboard. Some days I only have time to do that one current piece once through.

I've tried choosing a small set of pieces to keep fresh... but they grow stale. They get boring. I become sick of them. "That one... again? I have nothing new to do with that one. If I practice it more, I'll just risk developing bad habits." My wife and neighbors must be sick of these pieces!

Besides, letting a piece rest for a few months can help me bring a fresh interpretation to it.

It feels like, having played for this many years, I should have a more intimate, embodied relationship to my repertoire, but I don't.

Do you have suggestions?

Perhaps have a larger repertoire of easier material that you can essentially sight read or at least play without needing much assistance from memory. Then you can have your current 1/2/3/however_many_you_can_manage of current harder material?

I cycle through a short list of rep pieces daily during the technical part of my practice. I do different ones each day, it doesn’t take me over 15 min. This results in me working each rep pieces about 3 times a week, which seems sufficient for me. Pick a bunch you love, then replace some with other pieces you love. You’ll find they get easier and easier to pick up over time as you cycle back on them.

There is no way for most people to maintain a large number of pieces in memory. OTOH I don't see any need to do this. Why do you feel it's necessary?

You might be able to somewhat increase the number of pieces you can keep in memory by examining how you memorize pieces. If it's mostly by muscle memory, adding other memory methods might help you retain them in memory longer.

I am not sure whether your problem is that you are not playing from the score and your memory is not reliable, or you are playing from the score and it is your muscle memory that is unreliable?

I am playing from memory, not from the score.

In all my years of piano playing I have never learned to play anything from memory - I am entirely reliant on the score. This makes it easier for me to play pieces I studied some time ago. It is still not straightforward though, if I don't try to maintain the pieces my muscle memory slowly leaks away. Just today I have been trying to play a Haydn sonata which I was studying for a year, but have hardly played for three months or so. And I found several passages where the fingers had "forgotten what to do". I can get this back, but it will need a little concentrated effort.

I cannot really comment on your situation of playing without a score - but it does not surprise me that you would find it difficult to maintain a repertoire.

Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad then!

Me too-- I'm horrible at memorizing, so I just don't even bother trying since I stopped doing exams and competitions (where memorization is required) after high school. It's honestly a little embarrassing to have played piano for over 30 years and not be able to play a single piece by memory when people ask me to

This.

I just laugh and say I can't play without sheet music. I wish I had a few pieces at my fingertips but it is what it is! Maybe just bring some music with you everywhere?

So, out of curiosity, how much music do professional pianists keep memorized?

It's very individual.

Unfortunately, unless you are a prodigy, there is no other way of keeping repertoire pieces fresh than to play them 1-2 times a week. But the longer a piece stays in your repertoire the faster it can then be recovered if you dismiss it from the repertoire for some reason.

But, can you play 'something', anything? It's a musical instrument, and not being able to play something, without a sheet would seem a travesty to me. I am learning to improvise, that is a partial solution, but not to your starting question. So back to your point, you must be able to retain let's say one piece? Then maybe two, then..., somewhere is your breaking/losing point from time, practice, memory, etc.

WOW - reading this and thought I was the only one who has retained nothing from memory.
Thanks Everyone, for making me feel better.

I'm 65 and have been playing since I was 7yo and only a few bits and pieces are retained to memory.

But put a piece in front of me, let me hear it played correctly once or twice and I can sight-read thru almost
intermediate-advantaged.

I'm jumping on the "I can't play without a score" bandwagon... I have maybe 3 or 4 songs committed to memory that I studied a decade or two ago, and those are it. Everything else I rely on scores... or I play pop songs by ear. I do believe that muscle memory really helps when you have the score in front of you, even if you haven't played the song in years. For example, I just got a piano after not having played for 5-7 years. I started with trying to learn a new song, it was hard. So I went back and played songs that I used to be able to play very, very well, and I quickly got them back up to scratch. Some I could hardly believe that I could play without making many mistakes, even though I hadn't looked at the scores nor played the songs in 7 years! I think it's a combination of the familiarity with the score and muscle memory.

I don't think it's possible to have a massive repertoire of pieces in your head that you can pull out and play perfectly every single time - unless of course, you are some sort of prodigy. I also don't find it super important to be able to; at least if your memory isn't 100% perfect and you're referring to a score while playing, you can be sure that you're playing it correctly, with all the nuances that the composer intended. That, IMO is better than playing from memory, but inaccurately.

I can sometimes get through June by Tchaikovsky without the music but that's only because my dad convinced my teacher to make me learn it way before I was ready, and it took two years to play it well. It really stuck!

I'm just not interested in putting in the time and effort to memorize. Sometimes it naturally happens in parts where it's too difficult not
to look down (like if there's big jumps, especially in both hands). But it already takes me way longer than I'd prefer to learn new repertoire and play it well, so that's where I focus my energy. I joke that it's why I love to play chamber music. Sheet music is expected

I also play entirely from the score and make no attempt at memorising anything. My wife however is the opposite and after running through a section from the score a couple of times she then continues learning it 'from memory' and won't go back to the score until starting a new section. In her exams she plays every piece from memory because the score is essentially redundant for her.

I don't think there is any "must" about it! When I sit down at the piano I cannot play a thing without a score. Or course, I would love to be able to do so - but I feel, and I have always felt, that time invested in memorising would be better spent in improving my playing.

You could have been speaking for me! My thoughts precisely.

Mark me down as one of those hobbyists who need the score to play. I'm not planning on playing at Carnegie Hall so what's the big deal? One thing that playing by the score has helped me to do is to sight read if there is a particular song or piece they want to hear and if I have it in any of my music books I just take it out and sight read the piece. In the near future I plan to scan all the pieces I have played in the past into my 12.5 inch Ipad pro and I have one of those foot page changers. That should solve the problem of looking all over the place for the pieces I want to play. Also if you are into trying out different pianos at the store it would be easier to carry an ipad a round then a bunch of heavy books. My life is too busy to worry whether or not I have memorized some piano pieces, I don't get any particular increased enjoyment whether I have memorized a piece or not. I wouldn't let it bother you.

Playing mostly by ear, there is a lot to remember. The sight reading is a good "reminder or memory booster". But I'll learn a song, piece, arraignment, or whatever you want to call it, and have a lot of fun with it, and maybe even record it. If I don't play it in a while, I'll need to brush up on my memory a bit to get back to where I left off with the piece. This is especially true with some of my own songs and arraignments. It's bad to be singing your own song for a small audience and completely forget the words to you own song (ouch!).

Some of my more favorite repertoire (not sure that is the right word for an unsophisticated hillbilly piano player wannabe ) it comes back to me naturally and as good as ever, I guess because I play it more.

Also, just an observation, playing by ear, if playing in public or under stress, my memory can completely evaporate, and I'm left with a big blank wondering where to start or what to do. Sometimes I "nail it good" and sometimes I "completely loose it".

My best suggestion, particularly if playing for an audience, (big or small) is some practice/rehearsal before hand. This is especially true if playing a different piano than your own. They (pianos) are all different to some degree.

All the best!

Rick

There was a lanlan interview, he's trained by memorizing 1 piece every day. I don't think everyone has the time to do this, since heck they don't pay any of us $75,000 to play a single concert.

If they did, I think alot of us would get closer to this transcendental memory.

That's just it, though. Some people are great readers, it comes more naturally to them. And some people are great memorizers, that also comes naturally. For me, it automatically happens that way, I invest no time in memorizing at all. My one caveat is Bach, LOL. I always play Bach from the score. No idea why he's the only exception, LOL.

I'd like to be a great reader, and that IS a big investment of time for me! Bottom line is that we should all be happy with whatever talents we have, whether it's reading or memorizing.

I posted the same topic under teacher's forum because I get frustrated that I can't play without a sheet music. What a shame I would think but reading more comments here now I would like to believe that I have strong sight reading skills than memorizing. I am dependent on my iPad Pro 12.9 and all my sheet music are scanned and uploaded using ForScore App. I have come to terms that I would bring my iPad Pro wherever I go so that just in case there is a piano around then I can play. I feel ashamed when people who knows that I'm a pianist request songs but I can't play anything from memory until I bring out my Ipad. I also envy those piano players just like my college choir master who can play any modern /pop tunes without score and perhaps with good memorization and ear skills combined with solid music foundation theory (not classical).

Some posted on the teacher's forum great tips on memorizing and I will apply those principles when I study my next piece.

Indrek Laul (from Estonia Pianos) had come to the local Classic Pianos and talked and played some music. One story that really stuck with me was that his conservatory teacher was Peter Serkin, who would demand a new piece every week, fully memorized. Honestly I don't know how one improves on music if you're only working on it for one week but it sounded very stressful and like being a memorizing machine.


That's happened to me at competitions when I was a kid! I'd zone out and suddenly be like "where am I? What am I doing?". Luckily no major fails (unless I totally blocked out traumatic memories).

I bet you could memorize a few songs if you worked at it. Most people can do ten minutes worth of music I imagine.

Clara Schumann had the same problem, as she got older. All-memory performances, and a heavy schedule of them in earlier life. In later years--- nothing we would call old--- she took to having the score handy when she performed. It was not usual at that time, so she broke some ground.

She had to keep working; lots of children, and a husband who was, in the end, hospitalized and confined for his own good. Not exactly the same situation as noamb, our OP; it was her primary job, and she hired help to take care of the kids while she did her touring schedule.

I don't know if her example helps. Maybe, taking the step of preparing your playlists in advance and reviewing the numbers you intend to perform, so that they're at the top of your memory, will be good and sufficient. I might also say, having read what some of our other members have written, about requiring the score to play anything at all, that thanking your lucky stars for the wonderful and retentive musical memory that you have, could be a good thing. In general, thankfulness helps our nerves relax, and allows more energy to flow through our awareness, whereas anxiety and blaming ourselves creates contraction in our energy flow, and point of view.

You have a generous gift that no one can buy with money. It could be that a little strategy will make the most of it. You seem to have a pretty realistic view of the important things: your family, your work. Add your talent to that picture and it seems that you have plenty of room for joy. Who knows, even that can get bigger. If you make more space for it, it will come on its own.

I also have more trouble memorizing now than when I was younger. Some pieces I simply remember after playing them enough times, but others stubbornly remain outside my memory. I prefer having pieces memorized for the freedom it gives while playing, but the risk of not making it through the whole song due to memory lapse while performing has becoming more and more of a problem as I age. I was truly hoping that performance anxiety would be something that decreases with age, but it seems to be the opposite

I’ve been playing for a wile and would love to be able to play something- anything- just one thing - from memory.

I’m entirely dependent on the score and pray no one ever asks me to play something if I don’t have my iPad & ForScore handy.

At home I conveniently leave a couple of pieces of sheet music on the piano, just in case.

My teacher says all her adult students complain of difficulty in memorizing. I wish I knew the solution.

noamb, your story has stayed with me through the day. I was thinking about something one of our members wrote, about his father. He said that his dad was a serious amateur, who would get up before the family (sleeping upstairs) rose, and played the piano (downstairs). He said that he would often wake to the sound of his dad playing Brahms, or the like (if there is any like), rising from the lower floors.

So, what do you know, I was thumbing through some anthologies, looking for something new to learn. And who should jump out but Brahms. The compiler's biographical notes mentioned his near-superhuman memory:

"...He had a marvelous memory, having memorized Bach and Beethoven completely, together with concert pieces by Liszt, Mendelssohn, etc. His compositions were dignified, noble, and in sombre colors, although his nature was ever optimistic. He was a very exacting, though encouraging, teacher...."

I'm sorry that I can't name the author: the anthology was published in 1933, and doesn't credit the writer. My mother used to have this book; highly tattered even back then. It's still on sale today; same green cover and everything. Hers is just crumbs of paper now, if that. Growing up, I remember hearing her play numbers out of it. Not to cast aspersions on the encouraging capsule bio, but I would very much like to see the proof of that allegation. Oh, well; the thirties are over; it's beyond reach now.

I can't name musicians to whom Bach looked up, and may have memorized, other than, maybe Buxtehude; Telemann. Wiki mentions Frescobaldi, Lully, Pachelbel, Marchand, Marais, and especially Johann Adam Reincken (whom I have not even heard of), but the resources I have state that his formal education was extensive and of very fine quality, especially for the time, and especially for an orphan. He studied with the sons of aristocrats and the well-to-do, and he was a very serious student. But I have read that Beethoven was given a copy of Bach's complete works for keyboard--- a very costly gift, back then--- and that it was one of few things that he treasured. Now we find out that Brahms memorized them both. There may be those among us who have memorized all three--- at least, their works for piano--- but this has got to stop somewhere. The limitation must be, either, the finite capacity of the brain, although it may be a lot greater than we appreciate... or the love. Who has the big love to memorize the Three B's? And never mind everyone since.

I recently read that the brain contains about as many brain cells, as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. So, this question about what the memory is capable of, and good for, may be a lot bigger than I can even think about. The one little suggestion about prompting the memory for music, other than a list of titles, is something to prompt the memory of how it begins, maybe noting down the first measure or two. I have to try this. It would give me the key, the meter, the beginning of the theme. Could be that's trigger enough for a lot of things, maybe not all. Not a Milky Way's worth.

Fortunately for our brain, it has a lot more work to do than to just remember things - it has to help us with impulse control (which is why people with brain injuries to certain parts of the frontal lobe end up not being able to control their emotions and lash out constantly), how to learn new things, and not to mention, the primal areas have to keep us alive - breathing, chemical equilibrium, etc. Therefore, we can only remember so much because our brain has to "clear the cache" so to speak. If we remembered every single thing that we've experienced or learned in our lives, we'd probably need a brain a few times bigger than what it currently is.

I am so glad for this thread, and to know that I am not alone. I'm one of those 40-something folks that denies the fact that I am getting older, despite my receding hairline.
But when I sit down at the piano, I cannot deny that my memory is not what it used to be. Now, I did take a 10-15 year hiatus where I didn't play the piano much, much to my wife's disappointment. I've only recently started playing again, and I am having a great deal of difficulty relearning pieces that I perfected and memorized 20+ years ago. Even one of my favorite pieces... there is a particular spot where I seem to have developed a mental block, and I can't get past a particular measure without the score.

Everybody's brain works differently. I remember when I was younger and taking lessons, I used to work and work at a piece to get it perfect. And still the memory took me a while longer.

I asked my piano teacher about this recently (she's in her 80s, and retired. But we still keep in touch.). She said that she cannot help me because she was always able to memorize music very well, and doesn't know what to suggest other than more practice.

On the other end of the spectrum is my 11YO son... he has an incredible memory. In music it can be a great benefit. But with his arrogance of youth, it can also be a hindrance because he memorizes the notes long before he perfects the piece and all the nuances. That's one of the things that his teacher is working on with him.

Getting back to the original point... has anybody tried any vitamin supplements that allegedly help with memory? I'm willing to give it a shot...

It's funny, I took a 35 year hiatus from piano, and when I restarted, the pieces I had memorized in my jr. high and high school years stuck with me. It only took a couple weeks of playing them for them to come back, and they are my most reliable pieces. But new pieces I've memorized in the past 3 years? I keep blanking out in spots. Funny how memory works.

I had a funny memory/brain incident a few weeks ago. I decided to revisit Chopin Ballade No 1 after a 3-4 year break. It was the only piece I worked on for about a year and a half and I'd probably put over 500 hours into it. I was really close to getting it at performance level but gave up when I realized that I just wasn't going to be able to play the Presto cleanly at the tempo that I wanted to.

Anyway, I read through it a few weeks back and it was so painful, like I didn't know the piece at all! I was really upset and thinking that after all that practice, I should at least have some finger memory! But then the second time around my brain had gone and recovered the piece from long-term storage and I'd say I was 80% there! It was like night and day. The best part was that going back to it fresh after so many years, it seemed obvious that I should do a different fingering in the most difficult jump in the Presto. Before it was like trying to do my best at the impossible and now it still seems tough but achievable for me.

Emery, a handful of high school pieces have still stuck with me after all these years. Maybe our brains were building a lot of neural patterns back then

Oh, also I have to laugh at the thought of memorizing piano pieces because I'm starting perimenopause and I feel like my brain has taken a vacation. Sometimes I can't even remember things from 5 minutes ago. I have to make notes for myself and set alarms to make sure I don't miss appointments. Ageing isn't fun 🤣

I wish I had an answer to this. I never put in the time to memorize music once I wasn't required to. It just didn't seem worth the time. Now I'm no longer able to see the music from a normal distance and I'm trying to get back to memorizing even simple things so I can play them in public without needing the music. It's a lot of work and I don't know if it will get better with time or if there are better techniques I should be using. I don't remember having this much trouble in college (though I did have more time to practice) and that was with much more complex pieces. I'm not even ten years out of college and I've already lost those skills and things I memorize don't stick with me as well.

To be honest, I'm not sure why you would bother if you didn't have to. If you're not a professional performer no one is going to look askance at you for using the music. And if you have the choice why not use the music so you can be sure your playing is accurate and so you can put more time into all the other aspects of playing and into expanding your repertoire instead of wasting hours memorizing something you'll soon forget anyway (and who has that time as an adult anyhow?). I have to because of my visual impairment, but it's an enormous pain and a lot of work and I would give it up in a heartbeat if I had a choice.

I sense much more freedom in playing when the piece is memorized, and I can focus more on things like timing and expression.

To take the Haydn sonata I am studying as an example. There is so much information in the score, apart from the actual notes: the details of the dynamics; which notes are staccato, and which not; which notes have wedges, and which not; minute details of phrasing and articulation. Then, there are my own annotations: fingering, and notes of suggestions from my teacher regarding dynamics and phrasing. All this would have to be memorised, as well as the notes - which gives considerable scope for inaccuracy and errors if I were to try to play from memory. So, I am entirely happy playing from the score, where all this information is available at a glance if I need to be reminded of it.

The important thing is, to try to really listen to oneself while playing. I try very hard to train myself to do that. Hopefully, my muscle memory will do the bulk of guiding the fingers to the right notes, leaving enough of my brain available to listen to what I am playing, to absorb the reminders from the score, and to adjust and plan what I am playing accordingly. That is my ideal situation, anyway.

You make a very good point. I think some people who memorize quickly and then don't play much with the score have not memorized everything or even most of you mention.

I was about to say something similar! For me, it's not "playing from memory" but acquiring "finger muscle memory" that allows me the freedom to focus on playing the music as intended. I definitely notice a shift when learning when suddenly my fingers just know where they're supposed to go and I don't have to focus to play the right notes anymore.

It may make a difference that I'm a very visual person and pretty good at sight-reading. It's actually easier for me to not look at my hands than to look down most of the time. When I memorized, a lot of it was actually remembering the way my hands look when I play. So if I was transitioning to being very familiar with the score to suddenly trying to play without music, it was very alarming to look down and suddenly discover what my hands were doing

Yes - I can relate to that!

I think that is quite likely. I might have been working on a piece for months with the score, and then be horrified how often I will suddenly observe a dynamic mark, or a wedge, or some other detail, which I had never noticed before. It is so easy to not observe everything!

What is a wedge? Is that a British term?

I think that might be what I would call an accent. Like a "greater-than" sign?

I don't actually know if "wedge" is the right name for this. I may be confusing the name with something else... But what I am talking about are little marks, a bit like single quotes ' which appear above or below certain notes in my Urtext edition of Haydn. Sort of like a dot for staccato, but different. I am not sure that the meaning is entirely clear - but my teacher tells me that it is a mark of attention to the particular note. So very often, an accent - and perhaps, somewhat staccato.

You can see what I mean here. They make an enormous difference to an interpretation - particularly on my square piano!

I never knew what that notation was called, but I found it! It's a staccatissimo. It's definitely a mouthful to say 😂

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staccato#Staccatissimo

Interesting! I think "wedge" is an allowable term - see for example this paper on performing Haydn sonatas:

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1450-9814/2014/1450-98141416031I.pdf

At the top of page 33 we find:

"Rather, the scale is altogether more intimate, concentrating on the moment-to-moment rhetoric: for instance, emphasising slurred pairs of notes – always with a slight decrescendo from first to second; or maximising the contrast between ‘plain’ notes and those marked with a staccato dot or wedge; or subtly extending the length of a dotted note-value here and there; or profiling the colour contrast between different registers of the keyboard that are so prominent a feature of Viennese fortepianos at this time"

I would definitely not be surprised if there are less complicated terms for that notation!

I am really happy that I saw this thread. Here is my story or situation:

I also cannot reliably play from memory. I have a few pieces that I play regularly when I practice, but here I still have a say 10-20% chance of getting stuck. When I play whenever anybody listens (e.g. when my parents come and want to hear me play something), then this increases to say 30-40%, even though the pressure is very low.
My parents have endured my practicing for 15 years and know that I am no Horowitz, but still. Actually, the inability to play reliably from memory is what made me give up on playing the piano. I simply thought that I am not good enough to actually do anything useful with it. I stopped for about 10 years. Actually I started playing the ukulele in that period of time. I thought that a pianist is expected to play a solo piece with no mistakes to be taken seriously, but a ukulele player is just fine if he can strum three chors. Which is actually not completely wrong :-)
Actually before I stopped I had another strategy for compensating my lack of reliability when playing from memory. I learned how to improvise. That worked fairly well. Of course here I cannot get stuck. But still - I could improvise for maybe one minute over a chord progression or so but after that it would also start to get boring for any listener. Or at least I could not guarantee that I would be creative or in the mood for a good improv when anybody would be listening. Also of course you do mistakes when improvising, and those mistakes are also audible.

Anyway I am now back to playing the piano. I do it just for myself. In the rare case that I need to prepare something to play for others (e.g. my parents) I take those three pieces that I usually play from memory (and get stuck in 10-20% of the cases) and take the score. I actually need to practice playing them from the score again a bit, because I need to remind myself to really look at the score and not again just play them from memory. Once I got used to playing these things from the score again I am relatively good at playing these also for others, with only a low probability of failure. I am only talking about three or four relatively easy pieces here, but that's just fine for me.

Actually it was really good to hear from others here that their situation is not so different from mine, and that they still enjoy playing the piano - just like me :-)

Without a good ability to play while reading the score, I have chosen to memorize everything. Like ebonyk, I cycle frequently through my repertoire. Each piece is played at least twice per week (sometimes I leave out repeats, but mostly I play the whole thing through, because I like to immerse myself in the work). What I recollect depends on how accurately I have listened to the pros playing the work; my eyes will happily glance over dynamic markings, but what I hear, stays with me.

Until I caught on to what what going on, I would loose a lot of memorized works because having learned them, I would leave them well alone for a few weeks out of sheer fatigue. This was a mistake, and during those few weeks the works would come undone for me. Now I maintain a table (on a piece of paper) with each work listed on a row, and a column for every week (13 weeks in total), and I make a mark for every time I have worked on a piece. Since I began that, I have not lost any works.

Maybe there will be a limit to how much I can retain that way, but I have not reached it yet.

I'm glad to hear others struggle with memory during performance. I read that a person only has so much working memory, sort of like RAM on a computer. This is why we can usually keep a 10 digit phone number in our heads while dialing, but often can't do it if it's an international number with many more digits, or if we try to have a conversation while we're dialing. Perhaps successful performers are somehow able to keep the distractions of stage fright and anxiety out of their working memories while performing.

Because of the inevitable memory lapses while performing from memory, I have been limiting my memorized performances only to recording and posting on YouTube. That way no one knows it took 25 takes before I got it right. For live performances, I plan to only play pieces with sheet music, and choose simpler pieces. This way it's less frustrating.

How many pieces could you play from memory right now and, more importantly. how much time would all those pieces last if played in a row? I'm guessing it's no more than a half hour. Professional pianists often only play a couple of recital programs each year, and those are usually no more than 1.5 hours and sometimes closer to one hour.

Eventually, no one can keep all the pieces they've studied memorized. IMO it makes more sense to choose a small number you want to keep in permanent memory of a small number you want to keep memorized during say a six month period and then another small group to keep memorized during the next six month period.

For most amateurs, I think memorization takes away from valuable time that could be spent learning other music.

Memory is such a problem when it gets in the way. Normally I just play from the score but after becoming familiar with a piece sections do inadvertently get played from memory and then when I look back at the score I find I've lost my place again.

(That was intended as a joke, but there is some truth in it).

better get that checked out, could be early signs of dementia.

How many pieces could you play now from memory right now and how long would they last if played in a row? Would you feel confident playing all the pieces you memorized and not be concerned about memory lapses under the pressure of playing for your teacher? My guess is that pieces you studied several years ago are no longer in your memory and that the total amount of music you can play from memory right no is less than an hour. Am I correct?

Most people become good or great readers by playing music from the score. if you avoid that you will not become a good reader. You don't have to be a great reader to play from the score once you played a piece many times. It's much harder to read a score the first or second or tenth time than it is the 20th or 50th time. Everyone has to read the score the first few times.

16 pieces plus a few that are part-memorized. Most of these works are in the 2-3 minutes a piece category, with a few being a couple of minutes longer. I estimate the total length to about 40-45 minutes.

That's very impressive IMO. But obviously there is a limit to how many anyone can eventually keep in their memory.

What is your precise problem playing from the score? Difficulty looking back and forth from the score to the keyboard without losing you place, need to constantly look at the keyboard, or feeling you can't read well from the score or...? The last one should become much easier after the first five or ten times you play a piece with the score. How many times do you play a piece with the score before trying to commit it to memory? I think the first two can be greatly improved with practice.

I haven't memorized anything in the last 55 years. If I tried to memorize pieces well enough to perform them from memory, I would have studied maybe 1/10th of the music I have.

I do loose my place in the music a lot, when playing while reading, but I believe the fundamental issue for me is not "seeing" the notes instantly, instead I often "work out" what the notes are, which takes time. I am fairly convinced that more practice would help with that.

For me Bach and Satie gives me particular difficulties with memorization, because their "melodies" are either non-existant, or extremely weird. I am toying with the idea of not memorizing their stuff, but instead force myself to always play that while reading. Surely it would do my reading ability a lot of good.

As for when I normally start to commit to memory: at first sight. Memorization is step 1 for me. Fluency in playing comes later.

I suspected that you memorize instantly. By doing this you don't allow yourself enough practice to improve the difficulties you mention in the first paragraph. I am also fairly convinced that more practice playing from the score would help eliminate these difficulties. Do you have a teacher and have you discussed this with him?

Not necessarily. I have always been able to memorise pieces. It's partly muscle memory - I don't see notes but the fingers know where they have to go. Overlaid on that is also all the phrasing/slurs/staccatos and dynamics. It very much starts with muscle memory but once that's in place I play with the score that and then it's a question of playing without looking at the notes but looking at all the other detail that is in the score like dynamics/slurs/phrasing/staccatos and at the end I feel with my fingers what I need to do on each note. I still don't "see" a score (in my memory) but I can pick out when a staccato isn't there or a slur isn't played when I hear the piece being played by someone else and I can figure out where in the score it is that's different. E.g I can listen to Schubert's Impromptu 3 in G flat and pick out how Horowitz plays with a lot more personal interpretation whereas Zimmerman is much more faithful to the score's dynamics. As long as I am running through this once a week, most of it remains in memory.

To ask you a question I've posed to some others on this thread:How many pieces could you play from memory right now and, more importantly. how much time would all those pieces last if played in a row?

Well it depends on how you define a piece . If you're talking DipABRSM level pieces then there's only 3 that I've worked on in the past 2 months and two of those really were pieces I'd already committed to memory 20+ years ago. But these days I play for myself mostly. If you're talking just any old piece I have a dozen or more piano transcriptions of arias from operas that I can play without a score and add to that the last 2 years of ABRSM grade 1-5 pieces the kids have learnt for their piano exams :P and there's some improvisations of songs from musicals (Phantom, Les Mis, etc) where there's no need to memorise dynamics etc?

When I did my grade 8 exams 20+ years ago, I remember playing from memory a Bach Prelude and Fugue, a complete Mozart Sonata and a Chopin Nocturne. I memorised the scores well enough to get a distinction and even though I can't remember which pieces it was now (by piece title) I can still play the start of the pieces and I daresay it wouldn't be a stretch to get them back into memory as Lizst Liebestraume 3 and Clair De Lune were hammered into memory around the same time and they are back in memory after I decided I had to have some "proper" pieces now I had a grand to play!

FWIW I think it is simply training at a young enough age. I liken it to chess players that can play 20 games of chess simultaneously blindfold. No one can learn to to that overnight but over time.. It's the same thing with music. You start from grade 1. You play a short piece and love playing enough that eventually you don't need the notes because anyone can learn two staves worth of music. And then you continue playing longer and more complex pieces and you build on what you have trained your brain to do. It's small increments over years. But if you don't ever train the brain incrementally then of course it is hard to memorise a complex piece that goes on for 10 pages.

All this sounds perfectly reasonable to me and it sounds like you have around an hour's worth of music or somewhat more memorized. The thing I don't understand is why some posters on this thread think they should keep all the pieces they've learned memorized and in their permanent rep. Of course, that's not possible once you've studied enough pieces.

I think your chess analogy is not fully correct because very few of even grandmasters have played more than ten simultaneous blindfold games as far as I know. Of course, it's possible they just didn't want to do it because of the mental or physical strain. But once the number reaches a certain amount I think even they find it very difficult. They can all play blindfold chess but even Carlsen's recent blindfold exhibition was only 10 games. The world record is 48 games by Timur Gareyev and discussed here:https://www.chess.com/news/view/timur-gareyev-plays-blindfold-on-48-boards-5729

It would be interesting to know how many times grandmasters have played 20 or more blindfold games with reasonable success. I was surprised to see in the article that one of the highest number of blindfold games was played by someone with only an FM rating.

This may not be as difficult as we think, at least for some people. Three of us used to study and play chess together and as one friend edged steadily ahead he started to play first blindfold and then the two games simultaneously blindfold without finding it seemingly much harder. At the time he had just reached IM and I reached CM that same year so he was clearly stronger but the games were no pushover.

I play both classical guitar and piano. I have found that it is easier to establish and retain a large repertoire (many hours) in memory with guitar. I think it is because of the interdependence of the hands with guitar and the additional effect that has on reinforcing memory. In the case of either instrument, however, for me, memory need to be reinforced by spaced repetition preferably every other day. An interesting and telling example is the Bach Chaconne played for piano as a one hand exercise. But that piece still seems easier to retain desired expressiveness as played on the guitar.

I am exactly the same as you. I play at home everyday and my repertoire covers classical, cocktail lounge, musicals and all three of the Great American Song books.

At 76, I cannot memorise anything, not even my two car's registration numbers. I can vamp without a score but using only basic left hand chords in a stride pattern. I can however fully play from scores in any of the twelve keys.

My preference is being able to play by sight thousands of pieces scanning those that I want to access vie wi-fi from my NAS.

A guitar playing musician friend once told me that real musicians are only those who play by ear. Anyone who reads music is trying to be a musician, but they never will be as they don't have " the gift".
I seem to need the music sheets up there even if I know the piece well. I only learn by reading the music. Ive tried ear learning but didnt get far with it. It's much easier just to read the music and get on with it.
It's a bit of a crutch I suppose.
I've long been envious of those who can play entirely by ear.
Naturally the comment made by my friend made me feel very bad about my playing.
Years later I realized that he and most other " ear" players tend to keep their music very simple. If it's just the same three chords over and over with a constant rhythm, no rubato, no dynamic changes and really not much in the way of expression, how hard is that to learn by ear and then memorize?
I would like to see one of these ear players try learning Chopin's Fantasy Impromptu by ear!
Mind you, there is probably a 7 year old prodigy out there somewhere that has done just that!
For most musicians playing modern music in bands, the individual bits they do are fairly simple. It all sounds good because there are several instruments adding to the overall effect.
With Classical piano we have to get it all done on the one instrument. With Classical music there is generally so much going on that it works.

I recently watched a Diana Krall Special. She had a lot of accompaniment by various string and horn players.
There was sheet music everywhere. By the end of her flawless show the piano was awash in discarded sheets.
I felt a lot better for seeing this.
I'm pretty sure she is a real musician!

Glen