how to get to the level of playing a full song

[contaminatedfolder]

Hi. I started practicing piano for about a year on and off. I know the basics but I have yet to play a "full song". Basically, I can play about a page of sheet music but I can't put whole composition together and play the whole thing. The learning courses I bought only has me learn 1 page of notes and that's pretty much my limit. I usually can't memorize longer than 1 page. Even if I do I would often stop repeatedly and forget where I'm at on the piece. How do I fix this?

[hfmadopter]

OK I'll go first ! You have thought to turn the page and continue learning past the first page?

Also, define what you consider to be learning the piece. You can learn a piece and never memorize it, whole orchestras work that way.

If I might ask, what kind of practice routine have you developed for yourself ? A year may seem a long time to you but if it's just a half hearted attempt at best, you will get no where. You generally need an active routine with some goals in mind. Many here, including myself have decades of practice under our belts and honestly, the answers to your situation seem obvious.

[the_fervid_pig]

Keep practicing. I haven't been learning long, but I find what helps is to close the music, play as far as you can into the piece then when you get stuck try your best to remember what comes next without the music, often you find your hands will automatically go to the right place. If that doesn't work open the score again and try to remember the next chord, or the bottom note of the chord, and try it again.

[pianoplunker]

Hi. I started practicing piano for about a year on and off. I know the basics but I have yet to play a "full song". Basically, I can play about a page of sheet music but I can't put whole composition together and play the whole thing. The learning courses I bought only has me learn 1 page of notes and that's pretty much my limit. I usually can't memorize longer than 1 page. Even if I do I would often stop repeatedly and forget where I'm at on the piece. How do I fix this?

By practicing. Not playing. Practice right hand, practice left hand. Break it down into sections. Practice the ending section first. Hands separate, slow. Practice a middle section, hands separate and slow. Before you are ready to perform, you should have practiced the ending just as much as the beginning and middle. Metronome is very helpful for keeping your mind on track while practicing.  Just realize that true practice does not resemble the performance. If you have ever seen a sports team practice you notice it does not resemble the actual game. They are doing drills to prepare but they are not actually playing. Same concept with music practice.

[crownrib]

Hi. I started practicing piano for about a year on and off. ...I usually can't memorize longer than 1 page. Even if I do I would often stop repeatedly and forget where I'm at on the piece. How do I fix this?

I'd assume "on and off" means more off than on.

You need to play, play a lot, and keep playing.  It won't NEVER come, but you need to keep doing it.  I learned and memorized about 20 pages of piano music in my first 6 months of playing.  One page was a simple piece by Beethoven for exercise... and I played it 500 times and still couldn't memorize it.  And then it was memorized.  The problem was that I was playing it about 250x every day for a couple days, then realized it wasn't going to just show up like that.  It took a couple more weeks of playing only 6x/day.

You can't force the mind to fast, especially in the beginning.  You need regular practice and you need to do about 5x a day on any piece or part of a piece.  Sooner or later you will be memorizing the piece.  I've played some pieces 3x per day for a year, thinking I will never memorize it.  8 months, 9 months, nothing, then suddenly it is memorized from repetition sans any real effort to memorize.  If you try hard to memorize, it can get there far faster, but it taxes a person.

[contaminatedfolder]

Thanks for the answers/suggestions. I guess I was just fooling myself the whole time. My haphazard practice gave me the bad results I deserved to get.

[hfmadopter]

Thanks for the answers/suggestions. I guess I was just fooling myself the whole time. My haphazard practice gave me the bad results I deserved to get.

I don't know that you deserved it but it's not a surprising outcome.