Do you memorize all your exam pieces? I don't intend to memorize them. However, as I practice the pieces every day, my fingers will move as routine (even my mind may sometimes be away ) (oh, I'm playing the piano but I think this may also apply to other musical instruments).

There are a few times when my fingers moved to the wrong notes and I needed to stop suddenly. My teacher is very against the idea of memorizing the notes, as it will be very hard for me to pick up immediately when I play a note wrongly. He recommends me to really read (quickly) each note every time when I play.

I'm wondering if you also read each note or memorize the whole piece?

i memorize piano piece but not for other instrument.
i think is because i can look at my hands while playing the piano.

I don't memorize the exam pieces, but I admit I sort of memorized them after so many rounds of playing. It is so natural to me. But I never go into the exam room without the pieces in front of me. I will look very quickly at the piece from time to time to tell myself the place I am now, in case I get too nervous and forgotten everything altogether. The same goes with piano and violin for me.



I thought you shouldn't do that while playing piano?

I don't intend to memorise them, but since I practice them nearly every day they stick anyway. Funny though, I can play it mostly from memory when the music is in front of me, but when you take away the music completely I can't play it anymore. I guess I do look up a little occasionaly.

I end up knowing the pieces by heart by the time that the exam comes, only through practicing it so much though . But I would never purposely learn it, then go into the exam and not play from the music.

Of course you can look at your hands while playing the piano. Yes, it is important to develop keyboard geography when sightreading, but for some pieces with large jumps it would be silly not to look. I disagree with avoiding memorising so that you can 'read' the notes quickly. For many more complex, fast pieces this simply isn't possible - the piece must be memorised in order to play it to speed. You wouldn't try to 'read' most of the Chopin Etudes, though you may have the book in front of you to remember where each section/pattern comes, you wouldn't have time to actually read every single note as you might when sightreading.

I memorised the pieces for my grade 8 and diploma exams, though I don't usually memorise on viola (yet).

I actually don't intend to memorize them , but due to daily practice , i naturally memorize them. But i don't really undrestand...What's better: memorizing or not ????

It depends on the piece. For the exam I'm preparing for at the moment, I've memorised one of the three pieces - but I can still play it from the music as well. The other two I play mainly from the music. I think it's easy to acquire finger memory for a piece simply by repeated playing, but that's not the same as actually knowing which notes you are playing - if you come unstuck while relying on finger memory, it will be harder to pick up unless you know exactly what your fingers should be doing next. When I learn a piece by heart I actually learn to look at where my fingers are going, not just rely on their automatic placing, if that makes sense .

I think it's a good idea to memorise all the pieces if you can but play from the written music in the exam.

I can play pieces without music pretty quickly when I'm practicing for piano exams, but I can't for clarinet. So I make sure I could play clarinet pieces without music, because it makes me feel a lot more confident going into exams. It doesn't feel like I'm seeing the music for the first time if I do that

If you can play confidently from memory and know them well enough to be able to recover from any slips then playing this way is ok.
Playing from memory doesn't have to (shouldn't) mean that you can't pick up if you have a slip.

Yeah, I agree that when there are large jumps, it's difficult not taking a look at the keyboard.

Well, I haven't learnt complex, fast pieces yet (still studying grade 4)... only starting to learn Czerny's 299 but playing at a much slower speed.... I agree that it's really hard not to memorize some of the notes especially fast notes. But everytime when I saw my teacher playing very quickly (he hasn't memorized it before my lesson, of course), I start to wonder if I can get to this sometime....




This is exactly the problem I'm facing: I have acquired finger memory very well by repeated playing, but whenever I was suddenly stuck at a note, I couldn't go on right at that note but needed to start from the beginning of that bar instead (This happens to 2 of the 3 exam pieces). Thanks for your advice. I'll try to look at where my fingers are going next time

I have exactly the same thing! As I practice I can't help but memorise the songs. My teacher (piano) always encourages me to memorise the songs but not with my fingers, with my head. I think I know what she means because sometimes I'm playing and ive "finger memorised" it and when I come to a mistake I stop. but when I "mind memorise" it, i can easily pick it up. I think it's because I'm not conciously practicing but I'm not sure!!! I always find it good to memorise exam pieces so that you down always have to keep looking at my music feeling unsure whether I shall lose my place. So YES I would recommend to read each note carefully.

Good Luck!

I find that by practising a lot, the piece just gets stuck in your head. Helps even more if you hear a recording of the piece a lot as well. I've found it useful with Piano, Clarinet, Flute and Recorder!

By the time an exam comes, I usually know my pieces from memory, but always have the music just in case

I always use the music in exams and have it front of me in case i get stuck but I have a freaky memory for music-I can play every piece i've ever played for exams on the violin.

I always memorize for everything, usually within a couple of weeks. If I can't practice from memory, I know that I'm not ready to perform the piece at all. If you memorize without realizing it, that's bad, because it's muscle memory, so basically if you make a slip then you will find it very difficult to carry on. Even if I accidentally start memorizing a piece, I still learn it in a systematic way too.

I don't set out to memorise the piece but because i play them so often after a while i could probably play from memory anyway. However, i find with slow pieces (I'm doing G8 Allemande) i can never get through them by memory as i tend to 'think' more about the note i'm playing and then go wrong! I always take music into an exam...For page turns sometimes i memorise a bit after the page, so i can turn at an appropriate time and the piece wont sound interrupted.

I seldom memorize the pieces. Maybe I don't have a good memory...however, I don't encourage anyone to play their pieces without the manuscripts in front(unless that is the rule for the exam). You caan simply go wrong if you don't have the manuscript...and you won't be so confident too(unless you have practice for it very hardly and make us to it)!

Other than exam pieces, I don't think it is a good idea to play without manuscript. That is because we are couraged or teached to recognize the notes. It won't helps if we just memorize the fingering(or play by looking on the keyboard for piano).Or it will take long long time for us to recognize those notes.

Mozart played the piano with a cloth on the keyboard of piano,that is why we don't have to memorize the fingering or just the keyboard.
I think he didn't had the manuscript in front of him was just because that is a performance.

Nope. Though I can usually play my pieces off by heart, I don't dare play without music for the exam because I'd probably forget everything in the excitement and nervousness!

We had some top concert pianist do a masterclass at our school last month, and he kept telling everyone, don't look at the music, look at your hands! He tried to persuade us all to play without music, and said in your next exam try at least one piece without the music. He said if you go to a concert, and the pianist is reading form the music, you'll be dissappointed - it suggests that either he hasn't the ability to memorise it or he can't be bothered.
I sort of agree that I'd be dissappointed if a concert pianist was reading the music, but thats a completely different thing to us playing! Also I don't think I'd take his advice on doing a piece in an exam without music. However I have never memorised music naturally before, and found it hard, but I've started to work on it, and I've memorised a few long pieces completely now, including one exam piece, which I actually really enjoy because it means that I can just sit down and play, even if I'm at school or something with no music with me.

My teacher, who's also a concert pianist, said that attitudes towards performers playing from the music have changed somewhat and now it's becoming acceptable to read rather than perform from memory - she has the music when she performs, and might use it at certain points in a piece.

i always memorise, subconciously, but when i make a mistake, i find it quite hard to change

I always end up playing from memory whether I mean to or not on my oboe but I have trouble memerising cello pieces for some reason.

I had a lot of trouble with that on my last oboe grades because I would start playing from memory without relising then I would notice and panic because I wouldn't be able to find my place and would end up going really wrong. It drove my teacher mad! lol

I always aim to memorise the pieces. I've been learning the Grieg Piano COncerto - and it's not that hard if you're competent with romantic repertoire, but memorising it is HARD. It's important to watch your hand in these pieces. Runs and so on are easy, but loooooong arpeggios are hard to anticipate!

Just my opinion... I always aim to play from memory in concert, and I quite often play my exam pieces in a few concerts before the exam just to consolidate them with myself. It's hard if you've not got that platform though I gues...

I still look at the music when playing, but after doing the same pieces so many times I always end up having them memorised somehow. This isn't really good, however, because sometimes while playing I tend to shift to playing certain parts from memory, and then when I look back at the page I'm totally lost track of where I was supposed to be... and everything gets messed up. This actually happened at a performance a few weeks ago.

I don't memorize them. I inadvertently remember.

I don't memorise exam pieces, but if I have to do a solo in a concert i memorise it- i think it looks better.

I memorize them without wanting too.. I have an excellent natural memory with music. But when I go into exams I ALWAYS take music- no matter how well i know the piece I always need it there in front of me.. probably for psychological reasons

Oh... I've the same experience when practising one of the exam pieces: playing certain parts from memory and losing track if I suddenly played a note wrongly This has happened a few times when I played it to my teacher. The worst time was I couldn't continue to play it but skipped to another piece! It's really an awful experience and I didn't want this to happen in my exam when I could only perform once!!

I find I actually can play some pieces better frrm memory. Otherwise I look at the music and panic I'm not playing the notes that are there. It only happens with pieces I have played many times or for a long time, so when I go back to look at the music, I think "Aaaa does it really look like that?" or "That bit looks black!" and try to read every note when really I can play it! I think that makes sense...

Thankfully that has never happened to me so far... hopefully it never does.

I can't sight-read at all ( ) so I have to memorize all my exam pieces. It's worked so far, I've passed 21 grades on 5 different instruments! I really do wish I could sight-read though...

Matt

I don't actually do it on purpose. People I know usually find it quite amazing that I can memorise a three page piece perfectly. I think it's handy incase you loose where you are have to stop.

I think it is a good habit for taking the diploma examinations, but I never try to memorise all pieces, when you practice more the examined pieces, then it is not difficult to do so.

After playing pieces for a while the pattern on how to play them sticks i guess, and i sight-read my whole 1st year of cello (had no time to practice) so thats helped me to develop sight reading a little but i suffered the consiquences (falling back )

I memorise all my pieces. However, i think "memorise" isn't the best word to describe it because remembering them comes naturally, involuntarily, as you play them so much. I find that I don't need to look at my hands because they just know where to go. When I'm trying to remember how an old piece goes, I find its better to just let the hands to the walking; whenever I try and make a concious effort to remember my mind goes blank