How many songs is it practical to be able to perform from memory

[20yearbreak]

I know the answer is really it depends on the person and the type of pieces.

How many songs can you maintain in memory?  Maintained well enough that you could sit down at a public piano without sheet music and make it though the song without any major stoppages.

I'm just kind of curious.  I've always thought I have a pretty good memory but I'm up to 11 intermediate level pieces now and I've noticed if I don't play a piece for a few weeks it starts to fade a little.  Like I may need to review the notes for a section.  Then I'll have it all back again.

I only practice for about 1 hour a day.  For my routine, I try to work on a new piece for 30 minutes then work on an old memorized piece for 20 minutes then do scales or compose for 10 minutes.  Some days I'll practice a little longer and some days a little shorter.  It varies.

Is there a point where you have to start letting songs go...  if so, how do you know when you're at that point?  Or is there any good rule of thumb here?

Right now, it feels like I can probably get up to 20 songs to memory...  it will be interesting to see what my muscle memory starts to do at that point.  I feel like I'm running some experiment on myself just to see what I'm capable of.



 

[shostglass]

I really don't want to be "THAT GUY" but it just kills me when someone says song instead of piece. A song is a sung piece, sung as in a vocalist sings it with there voice. A piece is played on a instrument and mimics a song but it is a piece not a song.

Anyways on to the real topic you could in theory memorize all the piano pieces ever composed because the brain is the ultimate super-computer, it is the ultimate processor the brain is amazing. Arthur Rubinstein had amazing memory, there's one story of how he was taking a long train ride to a concert and he (without a piano) memorized the entire Symphonic Variations by Cesar Frank by looking at the score, he even went as far as to remember a coffee stain on one of the pages of the score and described his memory as Photographic, and to top the frosting on the cake he was fluent in 8 languages, most of us cant even memorize more than one.

My Aunt came into town last year for the first time in many years, and she was a piano student and was very advanced, but she quit when she was 16, when I asked her if she could play for me she played perfectly and played pieces by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff that she hadn't even touched for over 4 decades.

Memorizing a great amount of repertoire only takes time and practice the only limit to how much is you, be positive and remember that.

-Shost

[xdjuicebox]

Having absolute pitch is a big part of it, I feel. Hand memory is probably the weakest link. I don't quite have the pitch skills [I remember pieces in their exact pitch though, but I cannot tell you what the notes are...yet. However, if you ask me to sing a note, I can sing it in tune at the correct pitch, but I cannot identify a pitch (yet LOL)], but I remember most of the music I've ever played, mainly because I analyzed the crap out of most of the pieces I play, or I'll remember the general framework of the piece.

I used to memorize only by hand memory and that didn't work very well, but once I started thinking about the pieces more...it became a lot easier. Also if you're a really fluent reader that helps too. Every little bit contributes to the puzzle.

I can only really perform like 2 pieces right now because I'm not that good, but there are about 25-30 pieces that I can play from memory [though I will make mistakes, but not memory mistakes; I'll make silly crap I hit the wrong note mistakes haha], simply because once upon a time, for each piece, I sat down and wrote down all the notes and thought about the voicings and was like "dang this composer is a genius."

By the way, absolute pitch is a developed skill. I find relative pitch to be more useful though, as well as chord recognition and general dictation stuff to be way more useful than absolute pitch

[indianajo]

There are players in bars who play every song they are requested by the patrons. If they can't do every one, they don't get booked again.
I'm sorry, pop tunes, it is quite appropriate to call them songs.  The fact that we pianists don't sing them with words has been part of popular entertainments for 300 years.  PIano can cut through party/bar chatter, which is part of why they became popular IMHO.  Before amps, lute and voice required the patrons to pay attention to be heard, which most will not do.
My brain can play back in my sleep or when I'm distracted, riffs from 100000 songs probably.  This is full audio, with some approximation of the sounds of the words, though not the actual words themselves.  Who knows how many connections that is using up?  I'm trying now to learn to harness this memory system to my hands & fingers.  It is getting easier, only 2/3 of the notes I play the first time are wrong, down from all of them.  
As far as absolute pitch being a learned skill, it hasn't happened to me yet.  After trying this playing by ear trick the last 5 years, it is getting to where the first note I play is within a couple of notes now about half the time, whereas previously the first note was nearly always way wrong.  
I was in Goodwill resale yesterday, looking through bins of records somebody had donated.  I probably played back in my head riffs from 200 songs, flipping through familiar repretoire in about 20 minutes.  Some people never forget a face or a name. I can forget those easily, but I grew up in a mining camp at the end of the road and never saw any new people much outside the family and a few friends.  We did have a record player and Mother bought me mail order classical records for it, which I found fascinating.   So, I think early training matters as to which skill our brain puts its energies to.  0 to 3 years is an important time.  it's a shame I was too small to climb up and play with the real piano in the house those years. I didn't start piano until age 8. 

[dcstudio]

I only practice for about 1 hour a day.


 

then maintaining 11 intermediate songs by memory is pretty impressive.

[siveron]

I can do a maximum of 10 at a time.

[pianotv]

I really don't want to be "THAT GUY" but it just kills me when someone says song instead of piece. A song is a sung piece, sung as in a vocalist sings it with there voice. A piece is played on a instrument and mimics a song but it is a piece not a song.

I do this all the time by accident, ha ha. Old habits die hard!

Also I knew Rubenstein was awesome, but I had no idea he was that awesome. I wonder to what degree a person can train/develop a photographic memory - that seems like a very useful skill!

[dcstudio]

 in my defense...In addition to my formal training. I am a jazz pianist and "songs" make up a large part of my repertoire, but I stand corrected...   

[20yearbreak]

I really don't want to be "THAT GUY" but it just kills me when someone says song instead of piece. A song is a sung piece, sung as in a vocalist sings it with there voice. A piece is played on a instrument and mimics a song but it is a piece not a song.

Anyways on to the real topic you could in theory memorize all the piano pieces ever composed because the brain is the ultimate super-computer, it is the ultimate processor the brain is amazing. Arthur Rubinstein had amazing memory, there's one story of how he was taking a long train ride to a concert and he (without a piano) memorized the entire Symphonic Variations by Cesar Frank by looking at the score, he even went as far as to remember a coffee stain on one of the pages of the score and described his memory as Photographic, and to top the frosting on the cake he was fluent in 8 languages, most of us cant even memorize more than one.

My Aunt came into town last year for the first time in many years, and she was a piano student and was very advanced, but she quit when she was 16, when I asked her if she could play for me she played perfectly and played pieces by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff that she hadn't even touched for over 4 decades.

Memorizing a great amount of repertoire only takes time and practice the only limit to how much is you, be positive and remember that.

-Shost

I know for sure if I don't play a piece for 15-20 years I will have to relearn a lot of it.  I proved that as when I started playing again I had to relearn The Entertainer which I played a lot as a child.

[20yearbreak]

There are players in bars who play every song they are requested by the patrons. If they can't do every one, they don't get booked again.
I'm sorry, pop tunes, it is quite appropriate to call them songs.  The fact that we pianists don't sing them with words has been part of popular entertainments for 300 years.  PIano can cut through party/bar chatter, which is part of why they became popular IMHO.  Before amps, lute and voice required the patrons to pay attention to be heard, which most will not do.
My brain can play back in my sleep or when I'm distracted, riffs from 100000 songs probably.  This is full audio, with some approximation of the sounds of the words, though not the actual words themselves.  Who knows how many connections that is using up?  I'm trying now to learn to harness this memory system to my hands & fingers.  It is getting easier, only 2/3 of the notes I play the first time are wrong, down from all of them.  
As far as absolute pitch being a learned skill, it hasn't happened to me yet.  After trying this playing by ear trick the last 5 years, it is getting to where the first note I play is within a couple of notes now about half the time, whereas previously the first note was nearly always way wrong.  
I was in Goodwill resale yesterday, looking through bins of records somebody had donated.  I probably played back in my head riffs from 200 songs, flipping through familiar repretoire in about 20 minutes.  Some people never forget a face or a name. I can forget those easily, but I grew up in a mining camp at the end of the road and never saw any new people much outside the family and a few friends.  We did have a record player and Mother bought me mail order classical records for it, which I found fascinating.   So, I think early training matters as to which skill our brain puts its energies to.  0 to 3 years is an important time.  it's a shame I was too small to climb up and play with the real piano in the house those years. I didn't start piano until age 8. 

Do you think these pianists that can play any tune requested are using muscle memory for all of the songs?  Or do you think they wing it a bit if they know how a song goes in their head?

[dcstudio]

Do you think these pianists that can play any tune requested are using muscle memory for all of the songs?  Or do you think they wing it a bit if they know how a song goes in their head?

I am one of "these pianists."

yes I can play anything requested provided I have heard it -- if they play it for me on their IPhone I can tinker for a few seconds and establish the chord progression and rhythm--and wing the melody.  Actually I kind of think the chord names while also thinking the melody... might I add... this is an invaluable skill and it took me years to get it this point.  Unless you have

It's not muscle memory it's more like "auto-pilot" -- I can do it all while carrying on a casual conversation.   I steal a few more seconds of time to figure it out by chit chatting.   

the hardest, most impossible request for me is... "why don't you play something you want to play"   --often my mind will go completely blank for a few seconds and I will not remember the name of any tune I can play.   I have fail-safes in place for this problem... Maple Leaf Rag, Linus and Lucy, Bennie and the jets... and many others that strangely enough... I do use muscle memory (somewhat) to perform...

[20yearbreak]

I am one of "these pianists."

yes I can play anything requested provided I have heard it -- if they play it for me on their IPhone I can tinker for a few seconds and establish the chord progression and rhythm--and wing the melody.  Actually I kind of think the chord names while also thinking the melody... might I add... this is an invaluable skill and it took me years to get it this point.  Unless you have

It's not muscle memory it's more like "auto-pilot" -- I can do it all while carrying on a casual conversation.   I steal a few more seconds of time to figure it out by chit chatting.   

the hardest, most impossible request for me is... "why don't you play something you want to play"   --often my mind will go completely blank for a few seconds and I will not remember the name of any tune I can play.   I have fail-safes in place for this problem... Maple Leaf Rag, Linus and Lucy, Bennie and the jets... and many others that strangely enough... I do use muscle memory (somewhat) to perform...

Now that is pretty cool.  When you say years... like years as in 10+ years?  I've seen the youtube videos of people playing something saying I don't have the sheet music for this...  I'm playing it all by ear and always wondered if they were just born being able to do that or if it was a long process.

Right now, I definitely can't hear a song then just sit down and play it.  I'm at the trial and error phase where if I hear a song, I can sit down and maybe figure out a 1-key melody to what I heard.  That's about the extent of my play by ear right now. 

[dcstudio]

always wondered if they were just born being able to do that or if it was a long process.

Right now, I definitely can't hear a song then just sit down and play it.  I'm at the trial and error phase where if I hear a song, I can sit down and maybe figure out a 1-key melody to what I heard.  That's about the extent of my play by ear right now. 

first let me say I have been playing for 47 years and I went to music school--until the end of my junior year than quit.  I have been playing professionally for 20+ years. (that just means I get paid--not that I am Van Cliburn.) lol

It is both something I was born with and an incredibly long process.  When I was very young I played quite a bit by ear.  Of course after years of piano lessons my ear playing was a bit underdeveloped.  Taking ear training in college, a core requirement, really taught me to hear --but it still took years and years to get to where I could "play anything."

and btw... my sightreading is not as great as my ear/playing