sight-reading vs memorizing

[melia]

Why is it that most people are good at either one but not both?  I am pretty good at sight-reading but I am a terribly slow memorizer. Is it true that good memorizers make better musicians, I read it somewhere so just wondering what you guys think. Honestly speaking, I am interested in teaching and not performing so I didn't bother to practice my memorizing skills, it seems like a waste of time. My teacher says memorizing is important for developing expression, a true pianist should memorize all his repertiore! However, expression seems to come easily to me when I sight-read, my fingers seem to be more sensitive to the composer's music this way. It's so weird. How important is memorizing and will it help me be a better pianist or should I just practice on being a very good sightreader and not worry about it?

[steinwayguy]

They're both psychological and not related to each other in the least I think. I know how to sight-read and I know how to memorize quickly. It differs from person to person.

[vera]

Too much pressure is put on people to memorise nowadays. I feel also that it is a very personal matter.  Many people may feel much happier when performing from music, but they may not want to do it because it just isn't the thing to do. I have been a performing pianist  as well as a teacher for many years, and in my student days and thereafter for a number of years I memorised everything. There was a lot of stage-fright and performances seem to "wash over" me,  the real enjoyment was not there. A change of circumstances forced me to learn an awful lot of music in a hurry. Memorising became a thing of the past and never have I enjoyed performing so much as since I made that decision no longer to play from memory. and it is reflected in the reactions by the audience, who never seem to mind, that the score is read, and that there is a pageturner.
I certainly play a lot more expressive now than before, the full attention can be devoted to the music, no more worry about which buttons to push.It is wonderful.
I believe Sviatoslav Richter played a lot from music in his later days, and there are other well-known pianists too, who do that, I believe.
There may be those, who can get into the music better, if they play by memory, well that is fine. But no pressure should be put on those, who are different. There is no harm in trying, what suits you best though.Good luck. Vera.

[whynot]

What a good question!  I do both things well, but if I had to pick only one to be good at, I'd absolutely take sightreading.  If you can read, you're free.  I completely understand your point about being expressive while reading music. That's certainly not the case with everyone-- I think you're in the minority there.  Playing expressively doesn't have to do with looking at music or not, it has to do with whether we're distracted by other goals or difficulties.  If you have a hard time memorizing, you'll be distracted by trying to remember your piece, and you'll be less expressive.  For other people, it's the opposite:  their attention is completely absorbed in trying to read the notes and they don't feel comfortable enough to make other things happen at the same time.  I think both ways are fine, as long as you're okay with it... or your teacher!  The only reasons I could see for you to explore memorizing are:   1. for your own confidence in overcoming an obstacle, and 2. as a teacher, to share some memorizing ideas with your students.  I like to memorize, I just enjoy the process-- it's like a puzzle, and I like being able to watch my hands when I play, and not deal with logistics of books and pages in a concert.  But with my students, I make it optional to memorize for recitals.  Interestingly, I've had many students tell me early on that they refuse to memorize (usually this only refers to recitals, they don't mind occasional memory assignments just to play for me).  But when I give them a choice, even encourage them to use their music, every single one has ended up choosing to play from memory in recitals!  So I think just having an out sometimes takes enough pressure off that people can memorize more easily.  But still, if you can sightread, that's the best.


   

[lostinidlewonder]

Well i have personally never seen any good concert pianists play with sheet music. I see accompanists with sheets yes, but never ever solo peformance with sheet. I think music has to be absorbed, then it literally becomes a part of you. It is stored somewhere inside the brain of ours. When it becomes organic then it develops freely through your creativity. When you have sheet music as ur security blanket, or guide even, you are neglecting full focus on sound production since there is that concerned about what the notes are actually doing on the page.

One of my piano teachers could read 8+ bars ahead of herself, turn pages before she even finished playing it, even if she never heard the piece before. I remember even writing music on a scrap peice of paper and asked her to play it and she could! And my writing is hell messy lol. That amount of sightreading skill is amazing and extremely useful. You cannot disregard the power that has. She was very much in demand for accompanying which in itself can earn you a good living.

For me, throw something i never seen and ill play it 20%or less tempo but when ive finished ill remember a lot what i played. Burn the sheet music and i still would have some idea what to do, but a sight reader? You always need your sheet music, you have to say to people who ask you to play, oh sorry I dont have the sheet music. I usually use that excuse if i cant play the piece !!!! But relying on sheet to play would would frustrate the hell out of me.

Even though im still young (23) i find that the connection between what you hear from within to what you produce at the piano gets stronger and stronger. I have only ever been a memoriser, my sight reading skills are average, but no way i could sightread Liszt, or crazy chords of Ravel, Scriabin etc at tempo like some can. But if i listen to Cd long enough, i can reproduce what i hear. This skill is so much more useful and faster than sightreading in my opinion.

When you have listened to a piece for a while you can probably hear it playing inside you without listening to the recording. But when it comes to playing it, that is a different story. You can hear from within what it should sound like, but the fingers play the wrong notes if they try. Your ear can tell that it is wrong, but your fingers do not know where to go to correct it. BUT what i am saying is that this process, of playing by the ear can develop and gets stronger. I can usually play peices i havent ever played before just by listening to it played a few times. The parts i miss have to be read but this reduces the amount of music i actually have to read. That makes my reading work not very hard at all, and I can skip over bars which i "guess" is right through the sound from within. Of course you go back and check if what you think is right is actually right.
I have only ever worked like this my whole life. Personally, sheet music becoming more and more useless because of it.
And if you really think about it, sheet music was only created a few hundred years ago. It isn't the best way to learn music, the best way to learn music is to play whatever you hear from within, how on earth do you develop that. I can only say do it, there are many courses which teach you how to play by ear but reckon the only way is to do it day in day out. i use to do it when i was a younger kid, i couldn't go uot and buy the sheet music for lots of music so i just listened to the Cassette tapes and pressed stop, play stop play, rewind, stop play rewind ahahah. thousands of times until i played what was being played back to me.

Music to me is about playing with just yourself and the instrument. Whatever lies inbetween that (sheetmusic) just limits the connection and enjoyment.

[pianonut]

interesting!  yes, i've found over time that if you practice something everyday - then you don't have to say 'i can't do that.'  you just do what you are able and hope that it is satisfactory.  for instance, in the church i am now attending, the main pianist/organist improvises little 'bits' inbetween each selection of praise hymns (different every week) and she doesn't know what keys are going to be the next ones.  but, she just changes anything that might sound like a mistake into a good note.  i want to learn how to do this.  so, i'm getting all the music out and randomly starting to 'pretend' at home that i am 'on the spot.'  whenever i don't feel pressure, i do much better.  i guess relaxing and going with your gut instinct is the thing. someday!

[Brian Healey]

I had a student recently who was playing a piece (pretty well I might add), and I noticed that he never once looked at the music that was sitting right in front of him. I figured, "Oh he must have it memorized," so I took the music from him and asked him to play it again. This was all a test, since I had a good idea what the outcome would be from my own personal experience. When playing it without the music in front of him, he suddenly started missing more notes and had a couple memory lapses. I guess it's a psychological thing that, even though it was clear he had memorized the piece, you get used to having the music there as a safety net, even if you don't look at it.

I'm not sure that this really fits in with the rest of the thread, but the original post reminded me of it.


Fun fact: Franz Liszt was the first pianist to perform concerts entirely from memory, and it's because of him that performing pieces from memory is standard practice today.


Knowledge is power!,
Bri

[lostinidlewonder]

Fun fact: Franz Liszt was the first pianist to perform concerts entirely from memory, and it's because of him that performing pieces from memory is standard practice today.

That to me sounds strange. Because he was the first to do it on the piano he made memorising the standard? Thats like saying, I make a new instrument called a Blahblerr and play music on that from memory, so everyone else who plays that instrument plays it from memory because I did it first. I think music peformances throughout history where often played by memory. So its just inevitable that it would also happen to piano.

I think looking at the hands is so important, so much more than playing without looking at the hands(staring at score). I encourage students not to look at the sheet music so much, if they look at their hands that is when they are playing piano! When they stare at music often their playing is just reading-hand playing work. They often don't know what they are playing, they are not listening to what they play and they just play the notes and hope they don't hit a clanger. So useless, they don't learn enough that way, they limit what they learn every time they take their eyes from the hands. That just pushes me to support memory over excessive sight reading skill work. Watching your hands develops your physical technique because your eyes watch what you do, and you can refine what you do, make it look/feel smoother through sight. Some people may throw their hands up and say, what about blind people? They never will develop amazing techinque? Well blind people have a much more refined sense of touch than we seeing people ever could develop, so they are in a different category and of course could play at the highest level. They would be forced to memorise because reading brail with the feet would be tough

Sight reading is so important to keep the rate of memorisation efficient, so they both go hand in hand. You need to be strong in both but much much much more so in your memory.

[Brian Healey]

Sorry, lostinidlewonder, I guess I didn't make it clear enough.

Liszt was the first performer (piano or otherwise) to play entirely from memory, thus creating today's standard.



Peace,
Bri

[whynot]

Sheet music is not a recent invention.  The ancient Greeks (before Christ) used a form of pitch notation.  By the 800's (not 1800's), people were using symbols on and around a line to show the shape of chants, and by the year 1000, there was a four-line staff in place.  The system of solfegge was developed over 1,000 years ago to train the ear and teach people to read music.  The reason musicians need a system of notation is so we can share music with each other.  It's not the only way to learn music, but it's one way that people have apparently found to be necessary, since they've been doing it for thousands of years.  If some people are so comfortable with that notation that they can understand it at sight and really make music with it, that's something to be proud of.  If an actor couldn't read very well, he could learn his lines by spending lots of time sounding out the words, or he could keep watching a movie of his play until he memorized it, and the performance would be fine.  But if he can read the lines easily for himself, well enough to speak espressively early on, then he is self-sufficient.  Being fluent in the written form of language is very useful.  Which brings me to something I wonder about a lot:  we think it's odd when an adult can't read his native language, but not when musicians can't read theirs. 

I sightread well, memorize well, and play by ear well.  I'm not bragging!  A lot of people can do all those things, and better than I do, I'm just coming to a point...  which is that people find the music wherever they find it.  Lostinidlewonder, if you find it listening to someone else play first, okay.  I don't necessarily find it there, but many wonderful musicians do.  But don't discount what some people see when they look at written music.  I don't see the notes as a lifeless obstacle to get past in order to find the real music inside.  I see the real music there, it jumps right off the page at me.  I can hear what it sounds like before I play it, I can tell what it will feel like in my hands, and I can put in fingerings for hard passages before ever playing them.  Yes, I do memorize solo music for performance, but not to find the real music.  I already found it.  Best wishes to Melia, on or off book.
 










   

[goose]

Hi Melia,

I grew up playing viola classically and never memorized pieces, even for higher grade recitals [feel free to insert your favourite viola player joke here]. I played piano by ear ‘for fun’. (Although, the viola turned out to be a lot of fun playing in university ensembles. But that’s a different story.)

With the piano, my main interest became jazz. At one time, I was proud of the fact that I’d ‘taught myself’ piano…until I realised what a poor teacher I was. After struggling for a while, I found a great teacher. A few years later, he encouraged me to take classical lessons. The reason I’m giving all this history is that I feel I have come from both worlds.

On viola, I never memorized a thing. On piano, I only played by ear and felt for years that I couldn’t sight read. Or even really read at all. I felt that two staves (I’m British, not affected) was beyond me [insert second viola player gag here].

My point here is that I’ve been studying classical piano a year or two now and find that I automatically want to memorise new pieces so that I feel the same freedom I get when I play jazz by ear.

In some senses, the music is just a blueprint that gets the notes into the brain and the fingers. But, I also noticed that over time I’ve become a much better reader. I used to say, ‘I don’t really read piano music.’. Now I can’t imagine saying that. For me, the two have gone hand in hand.

So I can understand the impulse to want to read all the time (as I did on the viola). But I’d encourage non-memorizers to give memorizing a go. For me, playing without music is when I feel that I have grasped a piece.

Chuan Chang gives some excellent tips on memorizing in his downloadable book: https://members.aol.com/chang8828/contents.htm

[lostinidlewonder]

When i was mentioning sheet music i sorta really meant for the piano and correct me please if I am wrong but hasn't the modern piano notation we see today only developed really in the last few centuries? To me I have never found sheet music very interesting, I often was very amazed with other peoples ability to read and play whatever is in front of them. I'll say it again, it is an extremely useful tool, it shouldn't be underestimated. But i feel that when a musician relies on sight reading and only develops that, it is such a waste, but not as much as someone who does the opposite (work on memory but neglect reading).

Many of my students past and present who where full on sight readers are totally converted to memorisation, not all, some are very stubborn ahah. Maybe beacuse I always ask them to watch their hands more than the page because it is the hands we have to always refine and if we watch what we do we can really observe what we are doing.

[galonia]

I think music has to be absorbed, then it literally becomes a part of you. It is stored somewhere inside the brain of ours. When it becomes organic then it develops freely through your creativity. When you have sheet music as ur security blanket, or guide even, you are neglecting full focus on sound production since there is that concerned about what the notes are actually doing on the page.

I totally agree, and I think this is why memorisation is important.  It forces you to really know your music.  I'm very good at sight reading, but I will memorise the repertoire I'm going to perform.

When I truly know my music, I can perform with confidence, I understand the context of each note, each phrase, each section, I know what went before and what will come up, and how all this relates - and thus I know which direction the music is going to go.  If I didn't know all this, i.e. I haven't memorise my piece properly and I don't understand how it fits together, then I cannot play with expression.

[vera]

This topic always stirs up a lot of conflicting opinions, but it is good to air them occasionally.
What is definitely a big influence, is how our memory works. If you are one of those"lucky" people, where memory goes all by itself, you practise a piece for a while, and hey presto, it will go by memory without any effort. That is of course a big mistake, and one sees heaps of students come to grief in performance because they think, they know the music. In my case the "motor memory" as I call it, was so strong,that it would become very dangerous. I would never be 100% sure, that I knew the piece in my head, despite of all the tests and learning techniques to help secure it. The longer I knew the piece, the more dangerous. The continuous testing would become tedious. That is when one wonders"is it worth it". If the analytical memory does not last very long and the motor memory dominates , one is in for trouble. I had some bad experiences of course.

I see similar situations with my students too. Some are marvellous, they have all memory types in top order. You can throw any memory test at them, and they manage. Others, however, are more like me, and have shared similar scary experiences.
I will not let a student perform by memory, until they are absolutely secure, because a bad experience can be so negative. But of course they should all try, how it works for them.
In students concerts some will always play by memory, some occasionally, and some will refuse.
It is entirely up to them, and so it should be.

Regarding sight-reading.Fortunately there are compensations for the likes of me, as sight-reading is no effort at all. The experience is like reading a novel in which one is totally engrossed. It goes as natural and as fast. There is no barrier whatever with expression, with music it is like re-reading a favourite novel, as all the expression has been "lived"before, and can be further built on.
If you have not reached such a level with your sightreading, you cannot know, what it means.

It would be a pity, if potentially very good players give up solo performing, because of these pressures to do things, that they are not comfortable with. Many an accompanist may fit in this category, as they perceive that to be the only road open to them.

[kilini]

Well, I've always sight read, Vera. But I feel that I know the pieces, having a good memory since birth. Do you have any memory tests for me?

[BoliverAllmon]

I think both are important and should be worked on.

[thierry13]

I have an excellent memorizing skill, and poor sight read Well i've got an excellent sight read if i decide to take say one measure and play it, it'll be ok. I can play allmost any one-measure pattern , same if it's technically demanding, at sight read. But what i'm bad at is to taking a piece and play it to start from end without any errors. But I have an excellent memorizing capacity. I can say i memorized about all the sheet music i have, but i'm able to play from start to beggining allmost nothing of those pieces

[buddy]

To SteinwayGuy-you say memorizing is easy for you.  How do you go about it?  Any tips? 

[vera]

Kilini, here are some memory tests as I use them.
Play through a piece very, very slowly by memory. It must be an uncomfortable speed.
Get somebody to say "stop" at frequent irregular intervals, every time taking the hands off the keyboard, before progressing further. For children that can be like play, and they can also do it with one another. (Not a very musical test, but it does the trick)
Divide the piece into sections, say ABCDE, then play from D to E, from C to D, from Bto C, from A to B.Or mix them up any way you like.
 There is limited time in a lesson, so usually only parts can be done each time.
This way you can find most if not all of the trouble spots.It interferes with any automatic pilot.These are tests, mind you, not ways to memorise in the first place. I think there is plenty on this website concerning that.