Optimal mental strategy for learning & memorising piano pieces

[wildetudor]

Hi everyone,

I have recently started to teach myself the piano, using mainly online resources and my own musical instincts. While the step-by-step learning process of a piece is easier nowadays, with MIDI files and digital pianos displaying sheet music on LCD screens, it is the process by which you "encode" the piece in your mind for later retrieval that I find more difficult to master - in the sense that I don't know what a good, optimal "encoding strategy" would be that leads to much faster retrieval from memory, and probably allows one to memorise many more pieces than with a random, suboptimal strategy (or no strategy whatsoever).

Even though I normally think about the structure of the music I'm playing (e.g. type of chords), I find that I tend most often to memorise music "superficially", i.e. relying mostly on visuals, so I find I am effectively remembering a series of pictures of where my fingers are located on the keyboard at succesive points in time. This seems to work fine so far for short(ish) pieces (e.g. first section of Fuer Elise and Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 4), but as the pieces get longer (and more pieces start to accumulate), I think that having a consistent, efficient "strategy" is needed to guide one's learning style. For example I am now working on Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C Major (WTC Book 1), and I find I'm remembering some of the arpeggios using the visual strategy, and others by imagining how they should sound, and then "recreating" the hand position that leads to those intervals. Should one of these be favoured over the other, or perhaps none of these is actually optimal in the long run?

I know that, as I progress, I will have to (sight) read fast enough, which will replace the need to memorise everything, but right now I am mostly concerned with how to effectively memorise pieces that I will probably be playing often.

Of course, analytically noticing any kind of pattern in the music (such as repetitions, chord type) effectively reduces the amount of information you have to process and store, and so your playing fluency improves a lot, and you are able to progress much faster than if you are just learning without noticing any patterns/particularities of the piece. To give an obvious example, you'll much faster take an Am chord if you know that all it has all white keys than if you apply the "general formula" of a minor scale and start on the note A, then work 3 semitones up, then 4 semitones up, then 5 semitones up. So, I guess, remembering chunks of pre-processed information like that avoids having to recreate everything from scratch and "reinvent the wheel" when you play, which would obviously slow you down.

I know probably most people don't ask themselves that many questions when learning/playing the piano, but I think that, at the start of the journey, it's good to be a bit analytical and realise a few things about how our minds most efficiently encode this type of information in such a way that its retrieval, when you need it, will be fast and accurate.

I would be very grateful if more experienced pianists could share their views on how they find it is most efficient to learn and memorise piano pieces - many thanks in advance!

PS: I've also posted this question on PianoWorld.com

[brogers70]

You are right that grouping things helps you memorize because you are memorizing fewer independent bits of information - thinking of 8 notes as a Db major scale means you just remember one item instead of 8. Thinking of 16 notes as a measure full of 6 4 inversion of the V of the key in an Alberti bass pattern means you remember one thing rather than 16.

So practicing scales and arpeggios in all the keys will help a lot. Also, learning music theory so that you can group whole progressions into single items to remember will help a lot, too.

The Bach prelude in C major you are playing is perfect for this. You know the rhythmic pattern already - it stays the same throughout. Then if you can think of the chords as progressions - C major to D minor 7th with C in the bass, G major 7th with B in the bass, then C major, you can remember them all as one thought, or only a couple of thoughts, rather than as 64 different notes. Then think about this progression a bit more. See how the basic idea is I-II-V7-I, with the C from I suspended through the II (d minor) and then resolving to the B in the inverted V7th. Then you can think about the inner voices in the chords and how they are moving. The more you think about these details, the sooner you'll start to remember this progression as just one thing rather than as a lot of individual notes; and there are only a handful of such things to remember in the whole prelude.

It sounds like you've already largely figured this out on your own. Just keep going.

[keyboardclass]

Prelude in C I tend to do by ear (with some muscle memory) though if I set out to memorize it I would do so by memorizing the chord progression.  I studied to become a piano teacher later in life and lately stated picking up the viola.  It's interesting - whereas in my youth I muscle memorized nearly exclusively I now go straight for the jugular and understand the music harmonically (mostly Bach).  I now know it's the only way to interpret the music.

[idreamofpiano]

i struggle with a memory problem. but it is easy for me to remember words. so naturally, i make up words to the classical pieces i play. it tends to help! i memorized a 7 page song in the manner of three month span....there are lead sheets that you can buy. just search on the internet. good luck with you journey!

[mussels_with_nutella]

I can see that you are as analytical as me jajaja I selftaught piano so i had to reinvent the wheel, as you say, discovering what's harmony, chords, how are used them... and also i have thought a lot about memorising. Me myself I learn the songs in order, i mean, I do not jump from the beginning to the middle of the song, no. Sometimes I have to skip a very difficult passage, but i try to solve it as soon as possible to have from the beginning until the end the entire song perfectly memorised and in order.

I analyse every chord to find some pattern to help me understand the music, so that I can recompose at least the rest of the passage by myself without having heard it. That capacity, only adquired by analysing the music, is essential for me. Although it costs the first time, the second and the third time you will do it unconsciously, so you will speed a lot memorising and undestanding the music (and learning harmony unconsciously xD these thoughts will help you to compose in a future in a very important way).

Another tip I find useful is practising all what you have learnt so far. It is too obvious, I know, but it will make you dive into the music and also polish what you have already memorised.

Sorry if my English gets wrong sometimes, but I am not a native speaker! I hope it helps you!
Here is an article I translated for a german (I think) composer, Alan Belkin. It is from him, and it is really good. It is about piano techniques, how to deal with long, difficult, strange or fast passages and an important thing in this topic: the best way (in his opinion) to memorise notes.
https://www.webdepot.umontreal.ca/Usagers/belkina/MonDepotPublic/Piano/PianoTechnique.html

[lostinidlewonder]

The absolute most effective way to learn/memorize your piece is through sight reading and application of past knowledge. Through multiple sight reading attempts you automatically memorize your music as you relate it to what you have done before. Efficient pianists with much experience will admit this process takes over the majority of their memory work and then they merely have to go over trouble sections, focusing on small parts until the whole score is done.

Yes at first you must observe shape, pattern etc, but all of this is to increase the rate at which you can read the music. The more time you spend trying to decipher what you read and looking at your hands, correcting fingering etc, the slower you go. Sight readers know what fingerings are implied by the pattern they see, they observed first this pattern in a slow way in the past but eventually it becomes merely a familiar "chunk" to read.

I use to be a terrible sight reader but forced myself to improve and over 15 years of constant efforts (which I choose not to elaborate upon since it is a vast topic) I can read things in these chunks, but before you where looking at the micro steps. I use to think I was a pure memorizer, once I read the notes I would commit it to memory, but this method is slow and inefficient especially when you need to make corrections. This prompted me to want to improve my sight reading and now after these years focusing on sight reading improvement I have found I am learning my music many many fold faster than before. Strong  sight reading skill is the key to fast memory. I find myself being able to sight read music under my ability at a masters level, that is the piece does not actually need to be memorized because I can sight it and put in the expression etc without being distracted by reading. It is almost like reciting poetry, you are reading words but you know how to give those words meaning and emotion, you know the timing, the art is a part of your language not a second language.

[wildetudor]

Many thanks for all your replies, I really appreciate it. It seems that remembering visually, which is what I use mostly right now, is not the optimal way, and that you really have to analyse the structure of the music. However, even if you do that, as a beginner you still need some "crutches" to be able to play fluently, meaning you still have to rely on purely visual/tactile encoding of information.

We'll see how this goes from now on. Once again, thank you very much for your very helpful contributions!

[cwagner]

Hi there!

I am mostly self taught, although I did take lessons for most of my childhood. My best tip for memorising long pieces would be to LISTEN to the structure of the piece as you progress through it - you'll soon hear if you hit the wrong note. I also practice the piece from the beginning in small sections that seem to naturally fit together, until I have thoroughly learned that section and can play it mostly without referring to the sheet music. I play it through until I get stuck, and only THEN refer to the sheet. I'll read the music around the error and play it very slowly and try and fix it into my memory..... Let's face it, it's only practice, practice, practice that eventually gets it right!

[wildetudor]

On this subject, I have found the following article, which discusses the different types of piano memorisation from a cognitive psychology perspective, hopefully it will be of use to anyone reading this thread: https://www.icmpc8.umn.edu/proceedings/ICMPC8/PDF/AUTHOR/MP040114.PDF