Even though you don't aim at public performance, one reason I can see for memorizing is that reading the score is going to consume an important part of your attention which would be much better used in focuing on the musicality of your playing.
I am procrastinating memorization. So, here's a question: is it possible to truly memorize a piece I've learned or sighread a million times or memorized by finger memory? Chang said I'd best start with a piece never played before.
Somebody like Hamelin would never do this.
I do not perform at all but memorise everything I play. I guess it is personal opinion but I don't feel I really grasp something musically unless I have it all in my head. If it's all there I can also use it to influence my creative work on the spot, as it were.
no wonder I don't memorize!! All the point everyone has made are very good, but I still don't feel like my questions have been answered... Or maybe I should say, I'm still not convinced.Bernhard, are you going to join us?
I've never felt any increased freedom from memory. In fact it is exactly the opposite: all my freedom has been removed since I'm worried about remembering the notes.
But Richter, Myra Hess and Bela Bartok did it all the time!Ian
When I first started playing (6 years ago, as an adult) I occasionally played pieces from memory in recitals, but at some point my pieces got longer and my sight-reading got better, and I got out of the habit of memorizing. Or I should say, until then I had memorized without planning to, naturally, and as memorizing became more difficult because of the pieces, and less necessary because of my comfort with score, I stopped doing it.Now, reading Bernhard's advice, and Chang's, about how to memorize (and of course always hearing my teacher wonder when I'm going to memorize something) I am slowly trying to incorporate memorizing into my routine.But I can't help but wonder if I really need to memorize. After careful attention to what I'm doing when I play with the score, I have concluded that after the earliest stages of playing something, I am not sight-reading note-for-note, but looking at the score as a whole, as a memory guide sort of. There are parts that I look at specifically (kind of like how you might look at the keyboard for a big jump) but in generally I'm just sort of following the grand staff with my eyes (again, not the same as sight-reading or the way we read something for the first time)People say there are several types of memory, and one is visual. Well, looking at the keyboard is one way to use visual memory, why is it bad to look at the score as another way? Also, recently I've been trying to keep adding to my repertoire, and I also want to play a selection of Christmas songs every year, so being able to always go back to the score has really helped me. Being always comfortable following the score seems to make it much easier for me to have a playable repertoire as well as keep working on new pieces. (And of course, at the end of Nov every year, I don't have to re-memorize those carols, I just re-read them, which I find much easier)So my first question is: why memorize if I don't feel like I'm hindered by having to have the score open?The second question is: Is it possible to take a piece I've played for years, but only with the score, and memorize it now? It seems to me that that is more difficult than memorizing it in the earliest stage of playing it.Bernhard, I hope you have a minute to give your advice and comments, because I have been putting most of your other suggestions to use, with great results.
Bernhard, are you back? Please post if you have a minute and share your views. (a desparate plea!)