PS: I have very large hands if that's useful.
I was quoting what I think is the longest reasonable time someone should take to memorize it if they have been playing piano for as long as the poster indicates he has and is of perhaps average intelligence (I'm sure some people, due to being incredibly stupid, are probably incapable of memorizing even simpler pieces). I'm not saying that people in his shoes don't take longer, say a year and a half or more, to memorize Rach 3, simply that this is due most likely to inefficient and lazy memorization methods rather than their innate capacities.Frankly, given a time investment of 4 hours a day, talking strictly about the notes, I don't think memorizing Rach 3 in a single month is an all unreasonable. I'm certainly not saying it would be up to speed in all places, and playing it up to speed may take a few more months. Also, the musicality is of course extremely difficult to get right and could possibly take a year or more. What I'm talking about just the notes themselves.Just do the arithmetic: my edition has 128 pages for Rach 3 with about 14 measures per page, or approximately 1778 measures (not all of them even have notes, because sometimes the orchestra is playing, but let's assume they all have notes). Three months at 4 hours a day is 21600 minutes. 12600/1778 = 12 minutes. Take the hardest measure in the entire concerto. Could you memorize it in 12 minutes if you focused all your energy on that one single measure? Certainly (though of course not up to speed). Ergo, the whole work should be memorizable in around three months, 4 hours a day, even by an average person, provided the chunked it carefully and diligently in this manner. Some people who are naturally better at memorization may be able to memorize measures faster (say, 8 minutes per measure), and ergo would learn it much quicker.
I don't know if I'm responding inside the quote or not, but you can't apply a mathematical equation to this. Don't forget about the forgetting curve! The more time you spend to learn something, the longer you remember. The less amount of time, the less you remember. 12 minutes per measure is definitely not enough. (Psychology class!)And then you have to be able to play it up to speed get the dynamics right etc.
Nikolai Lugansky supposedly learned this concerto in 3 days.
In short, no you are not crazy - I too am studying this piece and I'm 13. But my philosophy is to get the technique done early and get the notes embedded into your soul. You will take all the pieces with you your entire life, so why do you have to rush the process: it is a very complex and mature piece and these things take time! The point of me having the notes by heart is so that it becomes a part of me when I finally decide that I am ready to play it and sounds as I am just organically expressing what I am feeling. Good luck with this monumental piece!P.S. I hope you have listened to many other (and better) recordings then that of David Helfgott...)
Not to say Rach3 is impossiblem, but read up on Thomas Yu on his own website. He is anything but a dentist that takes lessons on the side.https://thomasyu.ca/he was a pianist BEFORE he turned to dental school.
yeah, you're crazy.
Very impressive-- he is incredibly inspirational.I just love seeing amateur pianists on youtube who play very well-- just goes to show you can do it if you have the discipline and desire r1skarb (who also posts here) is another good pianist on youtube, although not at Thomas' level.... but I'm sure he could be if he wanted to!
Eb F G Ab Bb C Db Eb 3 1 2 3 1 2 3Right hand above 3=2 1 =
I remember Bernhard (on PianoStreet) once saying something about splitting your practice sessions up into 15-30 minute sessions. i.e 20 minutes practicing a few bars in a piece, 20 minutes sight-reading, then 20 minutes practicing a few bars in a different piece etc... He also said it's more effective to work on a piece 20 minutes a day for 2 weeks than to spend 5 hours on it in one day. He also said by splitting up into 15-30 minute sessions you can fit in around 3 sessions every hour, so in 3 hours a day, over a week or two, you could learn 9 fairly complex pieces.I'm not sure if it works, but you don't know until you try. I know for a fact it's not healthy to spend too much time on ONE thing.
I got through the first 2 pages easily, so you should have no problem.