Whould remembering the whole scores help?

[shuztt]

I haven't seriously practiced piano for a really long time. Now I just miss it so much...
I used to practic about one hour per day for about 6 years, but I can only spend no more than 4hours per week for practicing now. I wonder would spending a little time every day memorizing the whole score help me improve faster?
Expecting professional and non-professional help~~  

[gyzzzmo]

I dont think it will help, it will probably mainly cause you to make more learning mistakes = longer learning time since you have to unlearn.
Memorising a piece only improves performance because you concentrate on the playing more.

[optimistic08]

Personally, I really hate memorizing. I'd rather play whatever I like, or learn new things!

I just try to memorize the parts I have difficulty playing, or patterns. I've been reading some books on piano techniques and methods for practice, and I'm learning that when your time is limited, you should practice only the difficult portions. You should analyze the piece and see where the music repeats itself, so you don't have to play those portions twice or more often than necessary, especially if you can already play it. Sometimes, when I have a free 15 minutes (or more!), I just do 4 measures of a passage I find difficult. I find it really helpful!

Memorizing a whole piece is helpful though, if you want to play to impress your friends everywhere. I never could because I always need the score.

Let me know how it goes! We're in the same boat. I haven't played piano in a long time and am only now just taking it up again.

[guendola]

I think spending time on memorising is a waste of time with your tight schedule, except if you are really bad at sight-reading and need to decipher the scores before you can start to play.

What you should do instead, is try to "play" or rather hear the music in your head whenever you can. You can do that on the way to work, during boring TV-show, instead of falling asleep in endless business meetings etc. This will somehow materialize at your fingertips when you get to a piano again.

Unlike optimistic08, I don't think that practising the difficult parts only is a good idea. When doing that, you might forget the easy parts. Instead, you should play the complete piece once or better twice as good as you can - but slowly - before starting to work on the difficult parts. If you can't play the complete piece yet, play as much as you can. Of course there is no need to practise by playing the whole piece over and over again. You might have figured that already, but many people actually practise that way.

[optimistic08]

Guendola, you're absolutely right. I guess I wasn't very clear about playing only difficult parts. I took it for granted that someone who would attempt to memorize the whole piece would have played the easier parts already on a first run through, or a couple of times at least.

In the past, before I started to practice more efficiently, I would always practice the whole piece. It turned out that I would always stumble on the difficult portions, getting it at times, missing it at others. So I never learned too well, or am generally hit and miss. Now, if I don't have a lot of time (like the original poster said s/he didn't), if I had, say, only 15 minutes free to play piano, I would pick out about 4 measures of a difficult passage and just work on it over and over. Of course, when I have more time to play, I would play everything =)

[iroveashe]

You should make memorizing a side effect of practicing. Having to memorize as a process of its own is a huge waste of time, however, that doesn't mean you shouldn't memorize, just integrate it into your regular practice routine. In my case, I can't play something a few times without it being automatically memorized.

If you don't have time to practice at the piano, you could try taking the score with you on the bus or wherever you are, and memorize it there, away from the piano, figure out the fingerings, try to visualize in your mind the movements, phrasing, etc, and when you sit at the piano your practice will be more effective.