When should a piece be memorized?

[spenstar]

When I learn pieces, I often will play through a few lines a couple times to get the feel of it then memorize. I don't move on until I have it memorized. Is it a good thing to memorize a song right off the bat, or is it better to be able to play through it fluidly before memorizing?

[visitor]

ideally as quickly as able / that's usually preferable, committing to memory asap allows you to move from mechanics and note learning faster and actually to improving and polishing the piece with interpretive details, etc. less of your brains resources are dedicated to coordination and reading and you can listen more and better.

the main artist in residence at my music school required her students (at the advanced/conservatory level) have the piece memorized at the first piano lesson or she wouldn't hear it and just send them home to practice and come back when it was ready.

a piano mentor of mine, on this board, does that too, works on a piece in tiny chunks and only moves on to next section when it is completely memorized, and he is a fabulous pianist i can vouch based on his playing the coaching critiques he has given me int he past.

[xdjuicebox]

Because I suck at reading, I usually memorize it as I go. This can be very painful when the note count is very high or the piece is very atonal LOL.

Memorize to develop the skill, but don't neglect reading!

But if you want to spend more time actually working on stuff about the piece that matters (phrasing, details, etc), then memorize it as fast as possible so you can spend all of your energy on the piece.

[chopinlover01]

Immediately IMO, for the reasons Visitor outlined. It allows you the ability to get everything the way you want w/o having to constantly refer back to the score.

[keypeg]

Just on this part

....committing to memory asap allows you to move from mechanics and note learning faster and actually to improving and polishing the piece with interpretive details, etc. less of your brains resources are dedicated to coordination and reading and you can listen more and better.

Depending on how you've learned to read music, it is possible to polish and interpret a piece without ever memorizing it.  The idea that piano music must be memorized became popular and then the norm at a certain historical point, and there are some who dispute it.

[anamnesis]

Just on this partDepending on how you've learned to read music, it is possible to polish and interpret a piece without ever memorizing it.  The idea that piano music must be memorized became popular and then the norm at a certain historical point, and there are some who dispute it.

However, it is one of the most effective means to force one to use the aural image in the mind to be the primary coordinator for a performance rather than a secondary one.  

Even when reading from a score to perform, the aural image should be the primary guide for an effective performance; however, many struggling beginners taught classically use the the visual score as the primary coordinator.

Memorization is one of the means needed to break that habit.  

Also when polishing from a score, it is absolutely critical to work on areas where the score is most likely to distort due to the visual presentation. 

Roughly: barlines, beaming groups, ends of staff systems on a page, page turns, splitting of registers across the hands/grand staff, etc...

It's a minefield!  And strategic memorization of those specific areas is one of the best ways to combat the tyranny of the barline and its compatriots. 

[indianajo]

It is best to ensure the piece is note and rhythm totally correct before memorizing.  This usually requires getting another (a teacher?) to audit and point out your mis-perceptions. 
I don't "choose" to memorize.  I just at some point get bored with looking at the music and my eyes wander off. I find memorizing easier than page turns, so at some point I quit turning pages.  Repetitive mistakes are the reasons I turn pages.  The circles and arrows on the page help remember to not repeat the same old mistake I learned starting out.  Lacking access to any teacher that doesn't own a **** import piano, I find taking a break and coming back to the piece with the music in front of me, I see errors I have learned I hadn't noticed before.
I work emphasis, phrasing as I go.  I don't see that as a different process.  These days, it should sound like the record, or it should sound different than the record for some personal reason, not some limitation of my appreciation.  The newness of making up interpretations without hearing them first is a process that entirely faded away with the close of the nineteen-sixties. Even then recordings were available, but piano lessons were much cheaper than recordings back then.  I just went by the markings on the page, and the teacher mostly corrected my left hand dominence without much other interperative instruction. 

[keypeg]

However, it is one of the most effective means to force one to use the aural image in the mind to be the primary coordinator for a performance rather than a secondary one.  

The aural image always was the primary thing for me.

[bernadette60614]

For those who are proficient at memorizing, are you then practicing without a score?

Also, could you, if asked, write down the score?

I'm awful at memorizing.  My teacher has given me one line to memorize, and two weeks later, I'm still not proficient.

[outin]

For those who are proficient at memorizing, are you then practicing without a score?

Also, could you, if asked, write down the score?

I'm awful at memorizing.  My teacher has given me one line to memorize, and two weeks later, I'm still not proficient.

Not sure I am proficient, because I am awfully slow to get secure. It usually doesn't take long to be able to play a piece without the score, but I am always prone to memory lapses for a long time after the piece is already learned. But I am starting to think they are more due to my inability to keep focused and lack of automatization. Because one day I can, the other not

But I certainly could not write down the notes (without a piano at least) because I have never been able to memorize notes, I memorize the music with the visual keyboard patterns and movements. Even if i spend time analysing the score and writing down the chords and stuff, I could not memorize the chord patterns with any reasonable time so it does not aid in my memorization process, it only adds to my understanding of the piece.

I start practicing without the score as soon as I can, but i go back often to check for details that i might have forgotten and also I need the score to check my fingerings if i want to add new starting points or need to change something.

EDIT: Lately I have had trouble with a couple of pieces that I did not memorize as fast as I usually do, but instead kept working with the score (because they were easier for me to read than most pieces). Now I am stuck with the memorization process. It would have been better just to do it in the initial stage of learning. I find my motivation to be very low to memorize now, yet I cannot handle playing the whole piece with the score due my visual issues so these pieces are stuck in a non-playable state

[indianajo]

For those who are proficient at memorizing, are you then practicing without a score?
Also, could you, if asked, write down the score?

I can build a lot of speed, or change interpretation, without a score.  I just get lazy about turning the pages; it sits for some weeks at page 3.
I could not write down the score. Memorizing to me is a physical trick, not involving a mental visual image.  I feel the music in the part of the brain that controls the hands.  They are starting to see this kind of learning in MRI's of people- the part of the brain that controls a part of the body rehearses the learned movement in sleep and other times. 
I also hear music as an art form, and after the piece is memorized, enjoy and sometimes vary the interpretation in a total aural appreciation, not involving chord names or pictures of dots on the page.  Sometimes I do have pictures of scenery going in my head like a movie has a soundtrack.  Not necessarily the pictures the composer had in mind.  I have a very geographic appreciation of the world, starting from standing up in the car seat age two+ looking at everything going by.  I don't know how children these days in their little plastic seats facing backwards learn about the world.  Cellphones perhap? 
Where I have trouble memorizing is when pieces have subtle variations of the same theme on various repetitions. I'm still using the score 28 years after starting Pictures at an Exhibition.  Three of the movements are very similar with a few added notes each time. 

[ted]

I agree with most posters here and memorise as soon as possible in the learning process.