From what age does the technical ability of an average pianist start declining?

[ade16]

 100 years? Your point is???

[timothy42b]

One of the more famous brass teachers was asked how long it would take to become accomplished if one followed his system, and the answer was "six months to never."  Hee, hee. 

We should remember that technical ability can start declining at ANY age.  All it takes is to feel we are "good enough."  We're either improving or declining. 

[ade16]

Spot on, I absolutely agree!

[lloyd_cdb]

From personal experience, approximately age 14.

[bronnestam]

I just wonder why it is so bad to bring the sheet music with you if your memory is weak or has started to decline. I think it is a good thing to memorize music; to me it seems that you cannot play the piece good until you have it totally memorized. However, I have always been terribly bad at it. But when you have HAD good knowledge of a piece and then, in your older days, find that you sometimes go blank - why is it so degrading to use the sheet music as support?

I mean, is the audience interested in the music, or in a performance of memory capabilities? Personally I cannot care less whether the musician plays by heart or not - nobody demands that the members in a symphony orchestra play without their notes!

Yes, I can only play a few pieces totally by heart. I have often wondered why it is so difficult to learn - after all, I am known to have an excellent memory otherwise, but not when it comes to playing the piano. Obviously is something about the memorizing process that does not work for me in this case. On the other hand, it has always been like that, so it is not about my age (47) - I think. 

[ade16]

I just wonder why it is so bad to bring the sheet music with you if your memory is weak or has started to decline. I think it is a good thing to memorize music; to me it seems that you cannot play the piece good until you have it totally memorized. However, I have always been terribly bad at it. But when you have HAD good knowledge of a piece and then, in your older days, find that you sometimes go blank - why is it so degrading to use the sheet music as support?

I mean, is the audience interested in the music, or in a performance of memory capabilities? Personally I cannot care less whether the musician plays by heart or not - nobody demands that the members in a symphony orchestra play without their notes!

Yes, I can only play a few pieces totally by heart. I have often wondered why it is so difficult to learn - after all, I am known to have an excellent memory otherwise, but not when it comes to playing the piano. Obviously is something about the memorizing process that does not work for me in this case. On the other hand, it has always been like that, so it is not about my age (47) - I think. 

Some interesting points here. Many years ago, I saw Clifford Curzon in his last years playing a Mozart piano concerto at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, London. I was sufficiently close to the front to see that not only was he using the sheet music, but the music was very old and a bit tatty round the edges, and had his original fingerings and other annotations in pencil. His performance was outstanding.

There are advantages to playing from memory, like being able to fully concentrate on playing rather than glancing at the page, even if only occasionally; rather like glancing in your mirrors now and again when driving.

It is interesting that there are two ARCM Diploma exams at the Royal College of Music, London.
For the teachers Diploma you are allowed to have the music in front of you, just like the Grade exams (1 to . However, the Performance Diploma requires that you play from memory. I never did the Diploma, however the piano recital I had to give as part of the London B.Mus. degree was equivalent to the Diploma and equally well required performing from memory. This was tough at the age of 21! An hour playing from memory in front of six examiners with your whole degree hanging on it. Fail the performance recital and you fail the whole degree, certainly in 1980 when I did it! I got a 2:1 but stressful in the extreme. Not sure I would have felt much better with the music in front of me actually. Anybody got any thoughts about controlling nerves in concerts and exams?
I think that lapses of memory in performance are largely to do with nerves, just like an actor's stagefright arising from fear of forgetting lines.

[gvans]

For myself, the key in performance is to concentrate on the music, e.g., creating subtle, unmarked crescendoes and decrescendoes when appropriate (something Pablo Casals suggested once in an interview, yes, I know, a cellist), shaping phrases, pedaling, and getting to know the quirks of whatever strange piano you're playing (a little Strange can be fun). The key is to occupy one's mind with all that, so that letting yourself wander down the negative, paranoid path of worrying about memory vanishes.

The enemy of performance, of course, is being forced to play when you are not yet fully prepared.

The joy of performance is achieving that Zen state where you are totally in the here and now, ignoring past errors, focused on the moment or a measure ahead.

One of the benefits of aging is that as one gives more and more concerts one finds performing just a bit easier with each one.

 

[indianajo]

There are advantages to playing from memory, like being able to fully concentrate on playing rather than glancing at the page, even if only occasionally; rather like glancing in your mirrors now and again when driving.
 Anybody got any thoughts about controlling nerves in concerts and exams?
I think that lapses of memory in performance are largely to do with nerves, just like an actor's stagefright arising from fear of forgetting lines.

I've seen several posts on here about the benefit of "actual practice" which seems to involve repeating the bad part of a piece over and over from slow to fast until you get it right. 
My teacher never taught me to do this. She would have me mark up the bad parts and play right hand alone, left hand alone, together slowly, faster etc. She never had me repeat a difficult passage over and over.  As a result, the music just flowed out of me by memory.  One part always followed the next.  Training oneself to stop at a certain point over and over seems to me to be a good way to stop yourself in concert.  On the other hand, I might have learned technique faster had I just worked on the difficult parts, instead of  also playing all the fun parts each time through. 

[outin]

I've seen several posts on here about the benefit of "actual practice" which seems to involve repeating the bad part of a piece over and over from slow to fast until you get it right. 
My teacher never taught me to do this. She would have me mark up the bad parts and play right hand alone, left hand alone, together slowly, faster etc. She never had me repeat a difficult passage over and over.  As a result, the music just flowed out of me by memory.  One part always followed the next.  Training oneself to stop at a certain point over and over seems to me to be a good way to stop yourself in concert.  On the other hand, I might have learned technique faster had I just worked on the difficult parts, instead of  also playing all the fun parts each time through. 

I think you are right, practicing in a certain way will affect the mind quite a lot...I am a hopeless perfectionist and was getting to a point when I could not play anything through because I was only able to think about the little things I need to improve, worked to perfect those parts and forgot about the músic constantly. So last week I changed my practice and started concentrating on the music again forcing myself to also play through ignoring all those little technical imperfections that often are caused by me not really being in good physical shape. I can get back to them later but I feel much better now that I can again concentrate on playing the pieces and actually see my memory working a little better.