Learning pieces vs learning how to play

[levitation29]

My first post here. I am a beginner, started from scratch a little less than a year ago. What is the benefit of learning (memorizing) pieces? It might seem like a dumb question but here is the background. I can "play" Fur Elise (the whole thing) and Can You Feel the Love Tonight. I say "play" because I still hit a few wrong keys every now and then and music can always use some refinement to make the sound more beautiful, plus I play the Fur Elise hard 32nd note sections a little slow etc etc. But I have the songs memorized. I played bar by bar piecing the songs together until they were memorized. I can't sight read anything anywhere comparable to the difficulty level of those songs. I still have issues sight reading level 1 basic stuff.

As a side bar conversation - what is your sight reading level compared to your memorization level? Mine appears to be around 4 for memorization, 1 for sight reading.

So beyond the simple personal satisfaction of knowing you can play a song, what's the point? Is it to develop dexterity for certain patterns and techniques? Or to boast on the internet that you can plunk out the notes for xx and yy? For now my goal is to actually learn how to play and to be able to sight read songs of comparable difficulty to the ones I can now memorize. Would I be better served just practicing sight reading of easy songs and slowly building up to harder songs, or will memorizing pieces actually benefit somehow?

Leads to my last general question - what is a good well rounded practice regimen. It's probably been posted about a million times. But considering my goal of being able to sight read, any suggestions? When people say "scales" what exactly are they practicing and for how long?

Thanks.

[hfmadopter]

First welcome to PS !

Memorized playing can be liberating, sometimes it's at that point where you can really let loose with the piece. It has the advantage of carrying a repertoire with you everywhere you go. If you were to do a recital often it's expected that your work be memorized.

Sight reading can be interpreted in a couple of ways. One is that you read your practiced material vs playing it memorized. The one advantage to that obviously is the score is at hand. Sometimes we play half memorized but with the score up in front of us as reference.

The more common way to interpret the term sight reading is that you play a piece cold. Never having seen or not having played it in a long time or as part of your memorized repertoire, you sit down and play it off the score first shot. I.E., a person brings a piece in to his teacher, or her teacher, shows it to them and the teacher sits down and plays it for them off the score they brought in.

What I can do actually is irreverent to what you do. It doesn't matter what I do, what I play or how I play it.

[plyte]

Hello! I'm very new to Pianostreet as well.

I've been playing piano for quite a few years and like you, I do have a similar problem as you regarding sight reading level versus playing level, though I am working on it.

Regarding your first question, memorizing a piece plays a part in playing a piece. Part of the reason behind memorizing a piece for me is that competitions require you to memorize pieces. But by playing by memory, you have much more freedom of expression. Also, memorizing pieces will help build your mental music capability. You will start developing skills that will allow you to start "seeing" the music just looking at the music.

In regard to learning pieces, by learning pieces, you do build dexterity and technique as you go. Not only do you get the satisfaction of being able to play a piece, which in it self is very pleasing, but what your learn in that piece will help for any future pieces. Your fingers become stronger and you slowly build your understanding of music. Also, learning pieces directly help your sight reading, as you slowly begin to associate sounds and keys with the notes you see.

One of the best ways to learn how to play piano is to mix learning technique through scales and exercises with slowly building up your repertoire of pieces. You will be able to mix learning music to play for others and build your ability to play in general.

Scales are the basic fundamentals to piano music, though the problem is, you often do not see full parts or none at in in music. What they are good for is strengthening fingers and building your understanding of the keyboard. You could start out by learning how to play the different keys at two octave intervals. Exercises such as Hanon target playing different combinations of notes such that you see in normal music while still building strength and dexterity.

As I said above, learning pieces help you just as playing scales and exercises. You also build your ability as a musician and it will can provide an inspiration to continue learning. For your sight reading, I suggest going through your books a pieces and just try to sight read cold. The only way to get better is practice!

Good luck on your goals and hope that this helped!

[bronnestam]

First welcome to PS !


Sight reading can be interpreted in a couple of ways. One is that you read your practiced material vs playing it memorized. The one advantage to that obviously is the score is at hand. Sometimes we play half memorized but with the score up in front of us as reference.

The more common way to interpret the term sight reading is that you play a piece cold. Never having seen or not having played it in a long time or as part of your memorized repertoire, you sit down and play it off the score first shot. I.E., a person brings a piece in to his teacher, or her teacher, shows it to them and the teacher sits down and plays it for them off the score they brought in.

I cannot play anything "cold". Well, maybe with one hand, it it is not too complicated. With two hands - sorry. Lately I have found out that I can learn quite a lot away from the piano, though. I sit down with the notes, I read them very carefully and meanwhile I imagine my hands moving over the keys, sometimes I even imagine the physical feeling, moving my hands in the air or over a table ...

Unfortunately I am just TOO good at the first version of sight reading instead. I memorize while I learn and then I play with the notes as a reference in front of me, although I often don't look at them at all. But take them away - boom. I hit the wall at once. I feel very stupid about this, because this means I can never play anything from memory, except "Twinkle twinkle little star" and most of Für Elise.
Still, I know that playing something fully memorized is very liberating. Compare this with singing a song by heart, instead of reading the lyrics from a paper. Of course you sing much better by heart.

I am working hard with this memorization thing now. Actually, my memory is often very good in most situations. It's just piano playing that is difficult, so I guess something is bad with my learning technique.
One trick is, of course, to learn the notes in a more intellectual way, with the help of music theory. If I KNOW that here comes a G chord, I will not fail or forget. Or I TELL myself: here is a chromatic scale starting at E flat and ending on B flat 1½ octaves down  (I give a lollipop to those of you who now can tell which piece I'm referring to!  ) and then of course I will not forget. Even if my muscle memory fails, I will intellectually know what to do.

I am a woman of words, because words are my profession, so literal descriptions like these help me a lot.

If I counted only pieces that I can play with NO mistakes whatsoever, I cannot say I can play even one. Even the best ones make mistakes from time to time. So I think I can play something even with a few mistakes here and there - what matters to me is that I understand the piece, that I can get the right expressions and musical ideas.

It is important to learn the scales in different keys, with correct fingering and so on, but when you know them, I see no point in spending one hour a day (sort of) drilling scales just for the sake of it. I practice them when I feel my playing is stiff and uneven or when I need to check other things out, for example how I move my wrist or my upper arm. Otherwise many classical pieces contain scales, although not very long, so they are incorporated in normaly study of the piece. I often use parts of a piece as a base for making up exercises. I simply think it is more fun to do it that way, than having separate exercises in another book. 

A way to be better at cold sight reading is to develop the habit of being a bit "ahead" in the scores while you play. You check out bar 4 and 5 while you are playing 2 and 3, etcetera. The more complicated the piece, the harder this will be, of course ... To be able to simplify is also an art! An experienced pianist can see the fundamentals and skips the rest if it is too complicated, hence making it sound pretty good anyway ...

[indianajo]

Memorization and playing by ear to a lead sheet (in your head) are two techniques that allow you to play spontaneously.  I realize in this digital world everybody has their own channel on their ear buds, but there are occasional opportunities to entertain. The members of my church have been completely protected from by efforts by the experts on the music committee.  The music committee expects me to sing my assigned part in the choir, from their selection of suitable arrangements, preferably in soprano voice now that "choruses" are the spiritual fashion. The other acceptable practice is singing a solo to a backup CD track sold at the "christian music" store,  using an oriental manufactured CD player or track on the imported computer, over a sound system imported from the orient.  However, when I washed dishes at a "loaves and fishes" event for feeding the community with my church family, there was a 40 minute period between when the food was cooked and the guests would be admitted. The rest of the volunteers were playing cards and talking at the tables. There was a nice 60's Baldwin Acrosonic spinet on the stage in the hall, and I played memorized pieces for 40 minutes. Several of the workers enjoyed my efforts, and a couple asked me if I could teach piano lessons in the fall. It will not be for money, but perhaps my spendid isolation will break down without taking my talents to "open mike" night at a bar somewhere, where I would be rewarded possibly with free beer (Yecch!)    

[bernadette60614]

I don't know if my comments will add value, but here goes:

My objective is to memorize the pieces I study with my teacher. Her goal seems to be to constantly stretch me beyond my current level chosing pieces which provide me with technical challenges (the pieces are, in themselves, like exercises...how to approach a crescendo, how to make the left hand light and legato.)  For me, there is so much going on in those pieces that I don't attempt to memorize them..my skills are at their limit and then some.

Both my teachers have told me that I'm an excellent sight reader.  I developed that skill by sight reading easy versions of classical pieces (i.e., easy Chopin) and then moving forward to more difficult versions of those pieces finally reaching the original score.  For  me, this is the fun part of practicing!