Losing Memory of Pieces Over Time?

[aspiringpianist]

Does anyone else get really frustrated when you try to play a piece for fun that you've completed after working on it for months, let's say, a couple weeks after the big performance only to realize that you have memory lapses and it's sloppy? I know it's really trivial, but I just get this feeling like all the hard work has gone to waste.    Has anyone felt this way before? Sorry, I feel I needed to vent a little...

[j_menz]

That's why I keep mine written down somewhere.

[slobone]

I agree it's frustrating, but I usually find that after I've played it through a couple of times, it comes back to me. The other day I dug out a piece that I hadn't played in literally 50 years, and I was surprised by how much I remembered.

[hfmadopter]

I agree it's frustrating, but I usually find that after I've played it through a couple of times, it comes back to me. The other day I dug out a piece that I hadn't played in literally 50 years, and I was surprised by how much I remembered.

30 years for me and not a really complicated piece but after a few passes through reading it I got the fingering down to the point it felt familiar and also the accents. That, after about 10 minutes of workng on it. I know it will come right back but I've chosen not to do it because I have other work I want to get to. When I picked back up with piano 10 months ago now I kind of wanted to work on new material to me not my old repertoire.

To the OP, always after a performance or recital in a few weeks pieces fall aprt to some degree for me. You had them up to performance level, you have to keep practicing them if you want them to stay that way !

[forte88]

It's like my hands have a better memory than my brain coz it's subconscious. It's like walking, so much is subconscious, if you really had to remember how to walk you'd be falling all over the place

[doryanne]

I understand perfectly what you mean. It happens to me, too, especially because I memorize the pieces so don't need to look at the music sheet anymore when I play. If I don't practice "older" pieces for a while, I cannot play them anymore.
I have also accepted the fact that my brain seems to have a limited capacity: in order to learn new pieces I need to make "room" by forgetting the ones I don't practice anymore. It is frustrating but it is the reality!   

[ted]

About three months without playing something at least once I have found to be my limit in this regard. After that I need a few minutes fiddling to make sure of things again before being able to play it right through. I have no idea if this is better or worse than average.

[slobone]

About three months without playing something at least once I have found to be my limit in this regard. After that I need a few minutes fiddling to make sure of things again before being able to play it right through. I have no idea if this is better or worse than average.

No, that's completely OK. Nobody said you should be able to play it as well as the last time you did it. But don't you find you can get back there fairly quickly? At least within one practice session?

Incidentally, I have a slightly different situation. I've been playing piano since I was 8 -- 57 years, and I still have a lot of my old music. Some of these pieces I haven't looked at since I first learned them, and when I go back to them, I'm appalled when I remember how badly I played them. I recently went through Schumann's Kinderszenen, and it was just frightful. If I wanted to take the time, I know I could do them much better with a month or two of practice -- not performing level, but at least good enough to enjoy them for myself. They're not that hard technically, but they require a very sensitive approach, which I wasn't capable of at the age of 12 or whenever it was.

[ted]

No, that's completely OK. Nobody said you should be able to play it as well as the last time you did it. But don't you find you can get back there fairly quickly? At least within one practice session?

Yes, one session is usually enough, two or three for a long piece perhaps. I find my old recordings quite good. I play much better now technically, of course, but some of the early stuff has a certain spirit I appear to have lost with age.

[danhuyle]

In my own experience, I find the pieces that mean the most to me are the ones that are hardest to forget.

I discovered that if I didn't like what I was playing, then I'd forget to the point, where I'd be surprised how I learned it the 1st place.

When I lose memory of a piece, it's one of the following
- I don't like it
- People say I play it badly
- It's low standard
- I'm not worthy of having the piece in my repertoire
- I make a mistakes despite playing that same piece for years
- I have trouble playing in strict time

Those self-sabotaging beliefs are ultimately what cause pianists to forget what they learned.

[pianoplunker]

Does anyone else get really frustrated when you try to play a piece for fun that you've completed after working on it for months, let's say, a couple weeks after the big performance only to realize that you have memory lapses and it's sloppy? I know it's really trivial, but I just get this feeling like all the hard work has gone to waste.    Has anyone felt this way before? Sorry, I feel I needed to vent a little...

It looks like you might have a disease. Dont feel bad. Many of us silently suffer. So far they havent made a pill for it. It is called CRS. It does not hurt so dont be afraid my friend. CRS is a disease with no pre-symptoms, only when you are ready to perform you C annot  R emember S***
It usually occurs with older folks or young folks being distracted by arousing thoughts.

[faa2010]

In my own experience, I find the pieces that mean the most to me are the ones that are hardest to forget.

I discovered that if I didn't like what I was playing, then I'd forget to the point, where I'd be surprised how I learned it the 1st place.

When I lose memory of a piece, it's one of the following
- I don't like it
- People say I play it badly
- It's low standard
- I'm not worthy of having the piece in my repertoire
- I make a mistakes despite playing that same piece for years
- I have trouble playing in strict time

Those self-sabotaging beliefs are ultimately what cause pianists to forget what they learned.

I know those feelings: the self-sabotaging beliefs.

The cure for those is, in an ironical way, to forget the pieces, going on and enhance your technique and skills for a time, like improving in sight-reading, play other pieces which are know for exercising your memory, your arms, hands and fingers, etc.

Someone has told me that it is part of our work as pianinsts to forget some pieces so we can progress, and if we return to play again the pieces we left in the oblivion, we will see our improvement in technique, skills and memory.

[louispodesta]

The real pros, that is those pianists who were also composers in the 19th century, were required to have two teachers.  One was for piano, and the other was for theory and composition.

When they were very young, they copied scores for their teachers of all of the great composers.  Then, when they got older, they composed their own pieces.

The bottom line is that these "musicians" knew their pieces inside and out.   If you have written out the harmony to your music above the staff, and you have it reflexively in your mind, even if you temporarily slip up, you will know where you are and be able to go on just fine.

Most peple have major memory slips because they really do not know their music.  Accordinlgly, I have to share a personal story on this which has to do with my high school trigonometry class.

One day we showed up for class and Mrs. Collenback announced they she was going to give us a pop quiz.

We immediately freaked because we were the geeks in school.  We did our homework, and we were good kids. Therefore, we did not have to be punished wih a pop quiz.

So, sweating bullets, we took the short test, which was graded immediately thereafter.

The highest grade was a 76 which was made by the school valedictorian.  I thought the guy was going to die right there on the spot.

Next, Mrs. Collenback announced that this was not going to count aginst our grade average.  She then said that she had done this to make a point about actual learning.

The test she had just given us was the same exact one she had regularly given us two weeks earlier, and that is how much we had retained since then.

Understand!!