How many pieces/pages of music can you store?

[outin]

In your memory that is?
 
I have no idea what is the ability of an average student (if there is such thing) to keep music directly playable from memory.

I find it odd that I have worked on a one page piece since May, played it regularly all summer and after that too. Yesterday at my lesson we suddenly had time left so I thought I would play some of my other pieces for the teacher. And I had completely forgotten parts of this simple piece? A few weeks ago I could have played it without any trouble.

It feels like every time I learn something new, something else disappears from my meomory. Almost like there a limit of 2-3 pages or so that I can store there

It's a bit frustrating to use months to make a piece sound good and then when you would actually like to play it, you can't remember it anymore. I wonder if it is possible to keep more of them and keep them longer by regular playing? It's impossible to play everything everyday, but maybe at least twice a week? Relearning pieces must be helpful too, but how many times do you need to do it?

I SO envy people who can sight read properly. And don't say it's all about practice...It's not when your eyes and your brain are not in sync...

[j_menz]

In your memory that is?

0

I SO envy people who can sight read properly. And don't say it's all about practice...It's not when your eyes and your brain are not in sync...

Synching them is what the practice is for.  Like anything else, sightreading is a learned (and learnable) skill.

[outin]

Synching them is what the practice is for.  Like anything else, sightreading is a learned (and learnable) skill.

Now that is like telling a person with one hand that typing with two is just something you learn with practice

I don't say I cannot get better, but I simply misread simple notes and intervals too often to be really fluent. What is on the page and what I see in my brain just isn't the same. It's a cognitive issue, not simply lack of practice. It's like dyslexia: You can get better in compensating, but it's quite difficult to get rid of it completely (if not impossible). At least in my age....

[j_menz]

Now that is like telling a person with one hand that typing with two is just something you learn with practice

I don't say I cannot get better, but I simply misread simple notes and intervals too often to be really fluent. What is on the page and what I see in my brain just isn't the same. It's a cognitive issue, not simply lack of practice. It's like dyslexia: You can get better in compensating, but it's quite difficult to get rid of it completely (if not impossible). At least in my age....

I would like you to conduct an experiment for me.  When you have time, take up the music for something you learned early on, at least 3 years ago.  Try and sightread through that and see what the result is after 3 times doing it.

[outin]

I would like you to conduct an experiment for me.  When you have time, take up the music for something you learned early on, at least 3 years ago.  Try and sightread through that and see what the result is after 3 times doing it.

I have only played a little over a year...unless you want me to try something I learned 30 years ago

If I do it 3 times, then of course it is easier because I have already been able to notice and correct the mistakes I make the first time I read. If I wanted to play something from the scratch (like for other people) it wouldn't help much.

I do not deny that I find reading a lot easier than a year ago (I did try some older pieces at the summer). But I still always make the same silly mistakes when reading certain notes or combinations.

Actually I did consider the fact that I'm just lazy. So I took some tests this summer (we have psychos at work that do this type of testing). The tests showed that I have problems with spatial recognition (I guess it explains why I sometimes try to walk through walls). Not so severe that it would effect my daily life very much, but clear enough to make me unsuitable for certain professions. I did not show any signs of dementia (yet), but my results were below average on some of the working memory tests. So I will not be able to become a pilot

I would think that I will be able to overcome these limitations to some level, but never become as good as someone like you in reading. Also until I retire I won't have enough time to practice reading as much as would probably be needed...

[j_menz]

I have only played a little over a year...

Then the sort of problems you are having are in fact pretty normal, especially in "grown up" learners.

When I say you improve your sightreading by practice, I do not mean that it's something you can sit down and work at for a week, month or year and get to be an Olssen or a Liszt. It takes time, and pretty much no-one's sightreading is too flash on works less than say 2 levels below where their study pieces are. 

What I mean is that it improves.

It will never be as good as you would like it to be, but, with the possible exception of the two I have named, no-one's is. It will get better, though. (Unfortunately, so will the problems it has to deal with).

[outin]

It will get better, though. (Unfortunately, so will the problems it has to deal with).

You think?  

I don't expect to sight read anything complex, but it is really annoying to get stuck on a simple note because my brain tells me it's a C for example and yet it sounds all wrong...and it always takes a while before I understand that my eyes are lying to me...

[hfmadopter]

You think?  

I don't expect to sight read anything complex, but it is really annoying to get stuck on a simple note because my brain tells me it's a C for example and yet it sounds all wrong...and it always takes a while before I understand that my eyes are lying to me...

In this case you name in this post ( the c and eyes getting it wrong), when that happens I go to or lean towards memorizing just that passage so I can skip reading it. I'm doing just that now on David Nevues, Silent Night ( which is a very pretty rendition i might add). For one thing, I don't really need to read the intro which repeats twice, so I memorized it. I have two trouble spots in this piece where I'm reading and play the wrong note regularly. One I have memorized that passage and the other I am going to memorize the passage ( decided on the second one last night while practicing it, it's my goal for this evening actually). Memorizing passages is way different than trying to memorize and entire work. The problem with memorizing a passage is you tend to look at the keys, very liberating but then look up at the page to find yourself lost. So that becomes the next goal, where to pick back up reading at.

Now that I'm aging I find I have more trouble with praticing a piece in say D maj and going to a piece in F major or what ever other key. I want to add sharps as if still playing in the other key or flats etc. till I get into the piece again. This say after a week away and I've now come back to the first piece. This one is new to me, my latest quirk. My other latest quirk is mind wonder and this may be one in the same problem really. Last night for instance my son stopped in to pick up his kids after work. We had a fairly lengthy conversation. I sat down to practicce after supper and I found my mind on that conversation now and then and messing up left and right. I used to stay focused better than this ! it does mostly happen after a new piece starts to get easier to play, my mind can relax and wander. I don't like that it's doing this freely though.

[outin]

Now that I'm aging I find I have more trouble with praticing a piece in say D maj and going to a piece in F major or what ever other key. I want to add sharps as if still playing in the other key or flats etc.

I have exactly the same problem! I get too used to the key...

Also when I started to play last year most of my pieces had sharps and now I find it very difficult to play pieces with flats. The funny thing is that I clearly remember when I was young I found the keys with sharps more difficult than those with flats. Does that mean that I am now sharper? 

[lloyd_cdb]

It depends on how repetitive the piece is.  If there are some repeats on a 2 page piece that really makes it 4 pages... sometimes you just gotta cheat

But yeah, along what most people have said, it's a couple pieces at a time for me.  Coming back to them and going over a piece I did several years ago, it takes me an hour to at least know the notes again and maybe a day or two to be musical with it again.  Not sure if it's completely relevant, but I played a ton of sports growing up and I've found my physical memory to be significantly better than most people I meet (i.e. I was a pitcher in baseball, haven't played in 6 years but could still throw a strike if I went outside right now).  I couldn't write a score down from memory, but I know where to go after each note.  So it depends on what type of memory you use in playing as well.

In regards to you, 2-3 pages is a bit low given how many performance pieces are longer than that.  But you really shouldn't expect more since you've been playing for a year.  Would you expect to be able to recite pages and pages of poetry by memory after a year of reading them?  High expectations = great disappointment (call me a pessimist /shrug).  Reasonable expectations = sustainable motivation.

[outin]

In regards to you, 2-3 pages is a bit low given how many performance pieces are longer than that.  But you really shouldn't expect more since you've been playing for a year.  Would you expect to be able to recite pages and pages of poetry by memory after a year of reading them?  High expectations = great disappointment (call me a pessimist /shrug).  Reasonable expectations = sustainable motivation.

I don't think I have ever really read or learned a single poem in my life (unless you count words to a song, but even those I can only remember in the context of the song) so how would I know? Poetry is for sissies

Thanks for you input. It's a bit difficult to know what to expect, since even though I know some other adults who play piano none of them seem to have any goals really. And we never have time to discuss anything else than music with my teacher.

Even though I may complain a lot, I am also stubborn as hell when I want something, so I won't loose my motivation... the harder it gets the more stubborn I become

[hfmadopter]

I have exactly the same problem! I get too used to the key...

Also when I started to play last year most of my pieces had sharps and now I find it very difficult to play pieces with flats. The funny thing is that I clearly remember when I was young I found the keys with sharps more difficult than those with flats. Does that mean that I am now sharper? 

I will say it's really mostly when I'm tired but this is a new event for me none the less.

[lloyd_cdb]

Poetry is for sissies

I fully agree.  Those sissies that learn poetry need to grow a pair and learn some hardcore romantic piano

[searchingfordistance]

In your memory that is?
 
I have no idea what is the ability of an average student (if there is such thing) to keep music directly playable from memory.

In my memory I can store countles pieces I have heard to remember how it sounds like but I can't play them myself. From memory I can play about 6 easy pieces each around 1-3 minutes and two longer pieces Für Elise (L.V.Beethoven) and Prelude in C-Major (J.S.Bach). that makes about 20 pages.

It's a bit frustrating to use months to make a piece sound good and then when you would actually like to play it, you can't remember it anymore. I wonder if it is possible to keep more of them and keep them longer by regular playing? It's impossible to play everything everyday, but maybe at least twice a week? Relearning pieces must be helpful too, but how many times do you need to do it?

In memory you can store how much information you want but the more you learn the harder it is to hold track on every single thing. Maybe you can remember to play a piece but have no idea what the name of the piece is. Muscle memory helps probably the most with remembering the motion of the piece and you should after much practise almost be able close your eyes and get most of it right.

So after you have learned a piece play it as warmup before starting learning new pieces so it will attack the muscle memory so you will remember it better.