Hello, my first post. Great forum, I learned a lot from reading your posts.I have a question, it takes me a long time to memorize a piece, hands together, speicifically. It's pretty easy for me to memorize HS, but once I put them together, I get lost, and have to stop and think about what the next note would be for each hand. I usually start HS by playing very slowly, even then, I still have to stop many times to think about what to do next. I will eventually get it, but it just takes too long! Could some kind soul please give me some pointers? Thank you.
What is the difficulty of the piece? Do you enjoy the piece you play? Is it boring to you, and are you playing it because your learning? Or playing it because you want to learn it? If a piece sounds generic, even if it is simple, it will be very hard to memorize, in my opinion.If a piece is in C major, do you still have a problem memorizing it? Would you say that C major is the only key you are decent at? If so, then perhaps this is evidence that the problem you have is simply because you are not familiar with the other key signatures.If thats the case....then maybe the stuff I wrote below may help...some may disagree, I am not a professional piano player, I have my fair share of weaknesses, and strengths. My hobby is completely dedicated to learning and writing music for the piano, and these are my experiences:Knowledge of the key signature that you are in, and knowing what the piano piece sounds like, I think can greatly help you. If you know what the chords and scales look like for that key, you can go "oh yeah" and apply that to the piano. This helps with sight reading, but more importantly for understanding a piece. If you don't understand the key signature, its equivalent to memorizing a speech that you dont know what its about. It's possible, but takes forever.Learning a key signature, you should learn the major, and relative minor for each. Also, you must understand the augmented chords, dimished (not major or minor) etc. It is important not only to know what the scales and chords look like on the score, but also to find them on the piano (and yes, this means eventually you shouldn't have to read each note in the key signature that you are expert with, you will be reading each chord instead). For example, if you see a triad in C# minor on the score, you should be able to instantly recognize it on the piano, and all of its inversions, without even reading the notes! I honestly think knowing things like that will help you read and memorize faster. Its easy to say "learn it" but I will admit that I have trouble with key signatures and progressions as well. Does anyone know of a good book or tutorial that can help with understanding key signatures, progressions, etc?
Thank you for your suggestions. I really enjoy the piece I am working on and the key of the piece is not a problem. It's just that I can get to the point of memorizing HS very well and doing it subconciously, but for HT, I hesitate alot and have to stop and think about what to do next, and to get to the point of doing HT subconciously, takes much longer than HS in an exponential order. Is that something that will improve through time as I get my hands more coordinated from learning more pieces?
So my suggestion, as a hardcore piano composer, and amateur piano player, do not memorize the right hand or left hand by heart anymore when learning a piece. There's no need to memorize the right hand, and especially the left hand by heart, its a waste of practice time. Get the basic idea of the right hand, and left hand....but spend your hours practicing the piece with both hands together. You cannot add the hands together at the end, if thats what you are doing. Its not that simple unfortuntely, otherwise I would be doing it your way as well. Obviously to practice your current piece, you need the music in front of you still, but it should be easier to read since you mastered both hands. Go through the piece a few times with the music in front of you. Then try to do it without looking. You will be surprised at how quickly you will be remembering the piece!
Well he talked about memory problems, and it's apparent HS isnt working for him....I would think that if someone concentrated only on HS would have a terrible time remembering HT. May I ask why HS is far superior?
You realize that you just opened a can of nasty worms, as most evidence would point to the fact that memorizing and learning a piece HS is far superior to HT. However, it's a fair suggestion, and if it works for you, then you are right.
Quote from: xvimbi on November 20, 2004, 07:43:37 PMYou realize that you just opened a can of nasty worms, as most evidence would point to the fact that memorizing and learning a piece HS is far superior to HT. However, it's a fair suggestion, and if it works for you, then you are right.The evidence is experience which varies. I think for myself I've had a lot of success memorizing hand together. I can memorizing a short piece HT in a day or two. I try to learn a new piece every month. Hands together I can see the larger chordal relationships and the horizontal movement on the piece. If you can sightread it near perfectly HT, then there's not really any need to even deal with HS. As has been said on this forum, if you are having problems, then you need to break it down further and this may eventually mean breaking it down to HS.
But, how do you go about memorizing HT? What´s the process?
What piece are you trying to learn? Are you trying to learn a really ridiculously hard piece?Yes, obviously break up the music in parts...maybe focus on one page at a time. Theory is great and all that, and key sig helps as well...but sometimes when all else fails, we need to try different things:Maybe what you need to do is to focus on associating the particular "sound" of a measure, section, or page to the particular "feel" on the piano. Instead of worrying too much what each note is, try relying some more on your feel, and knowledge of what the piece sounds like. For example, when you start the playing of "fantasie impromtu", you pretty much have to rely on feel because theres no way you would be able to remember note by note to that difficult piece.As a conclusion, see if practicing the "feel" of a piece hands together, instead of note by note helps.
The piece I am learning is invention#8, I can play HS very well in tempo or faster without looking at the score. I am at the point where I can do each part subconciously, just letting my fingers fly. I am trying to get to point of doing HT this way, but it's happening very slowly. I am progressing, but just too slowly, I wanted to find a way to speed up this process.