Forgetting learned music

[i_am_joey_jo]

Hello all!

Of course there are pieces that we memorize and can usually play them by heart but I am having a bit of trouble going back through pieces I have learned and could play a month ago when they were fresh in my mind.  It's usually a fingering mess-up, I forget which fingering to use.  I was practicing these songs perfectly and saying to myself I would not forget them but once I got caught on to a new piece these were gone and I'd have to practice them again to play them without mistakes again.

I am a Grade 4 student and I was wondering if this was normal for a pianist to forget compositions they had studied for hours and hours before.  For example, you go back to Anna Magdelena's notebook and have to study these all over again, simple songs.

[birba]

maybe so, but i bet it took a lot less time "re-learning" them then the first time!  to effectively "learn" a piece, you have to let it go and take it up again 3 or 4 times.

[Bob]

Sounds normal to me.

I always think whatever I've done as long as I'm improving something, that can never be changed once it's changed.  You can never return to the state you were in before. 

You'll be able to relearn the piece back faster, yes.

[peterjmathis]

That's normal enough. Not has some time passed, making the pieces fade naturally from your mind as you focus on other things, but you're probably also improving and changing your fingering a bit in other areas. So you might have improved your technique in a way that leaves you unable to play a piece in quite the same way as when you were less experienced.

[CC]

There are lots of things you can do to minimize that problem; they are discussed in my home page below.  It is nearly impossible to memorize a piece well AFTER you have learned to play it, so start the new system with new music you are learning.  You must know Mental Play (MP), the ability to play the piano in your mind; with good MP, fingering problems will mostly disappear and for easy pieces, you can actually change fingering on the fly.  But the most crucial factor is complete mental memory, not hand memory.  So you need to know all the types of memories, how to acquire them, and how to maintain them. You generally have to have it memorized HS, which is a great help if you flub or get stuck, etc; so start learning those tricks!  You will be glad you did. Another useful maintenance chore is playing cold.