Having spent 25+ years playing/learning the piano I have always had difficulty memorising pieces. I think it is the reliance on the music that I have always had. Just wondered if anyone had any tips or tricks they had picked-up that work for you that might help me?

Music seems to just dribble out my ears when I close the page...

Can't help, but will empathise - I can't remember piano music either, but I'm sure I don't look at it much when the page is in front of me.

Mad Tom has some useful things to say on this..
Where are you, MT?

Thanks boogiecat, I am also convinced that I don't look at the music. But take it away and...

...sounds of pain and angish from my wife when her hearing goes...

I'll dig out the references to the the three or four old threads on this topic and post them.

Meanwhile: Attack the music from many angles: aural, kinaesthetic, structural, harmonic, thematic. Think it through away from the instrument. Be prepared for the shock that however hard you may think you have worked at memorizing a piece, you might have to work ten times harder still.

Be despotic with your memory (Schopenhauer's phrase). Drag out whatever scraps you know are in there by whatever means necessary. It is not the stuffing of data in to your mind that is usually the problem - it is practice in recalling it that most of us lack - and to do it unhesitatingly in a variety of environments - and often under stress. [In quiz shows we all realize that we knew the answers - but often only after we have heard them. Recognition and recall are different skills]

Next don't be discouraged by those stories of musical prodigies that could hear any piece once and immediately play it perfectly. If they exist at all they are rare. Most of these stories are third hand exaggerated re-tellings. The reality, even for many top professionals, is that memorizing repertoire is just plain hard work, and they find it just as difficult as we amateurs.

Finally, bear in mind that a professional who learns a difficult piece quickly can do so because he/she already has all the dexterity and technique to play it, so their full attention is on learning the notes and interpretation. For you or I half or more of our time and attention might go on improving our playing skills to meet the demands of the piece.

Brilliant! (and possibly inspiring...)

Sounds like the pain and anguish I am going through is just normal after all. I can now look forward to a weekend with one aim...two pages of a sonata. If I can do that I will call the weekend a success..!

Two pages! I'd consider one line a resounding success in that time!

Just practise more and more.

I'd call one line WITH the music a success in one weekend for most things.

My music is my lifeline; take away the copy and I collapse.

That's the trouble with being quite a good sight reader. I rely all the time on being able to read quickly and accurately and I read it every single time I play it. Even if I did manage to memorise a line I think I'd have forgotten it by the next time I sat down at the piano.

I'm sure some lucky people can do both good sight reading and good memorizing.



I can't do either on piano...

As promised, here are the threads on this topic just in the last year - while I have been a member of the forum. It is a topic that keeps coming up. It has been done to death in fact.

http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=27678&hl
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=15529&hl
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=9823&hl
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=28644&hl
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=27971&hl
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=27669&hl
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=27313&hl

You'll also find an interesting quotation from Sandor here:

http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=31795&hl


Luck has nothing to do with it. Both skills grow from sustained hard work. (Though if you love music it doesn't feel like hard work).

Thanks all - it really appears that I am not alone.

Just to respond to Suepea - I only managed two lines ... nothing like hopeless optimism! Of course, I will only find out if I have remembered them when I make my way to the piano in a few minutes.

Thanks for all your posts, Mad Tom. I will be reading the others with interest.

A new technique I've just taken up is to photocopy the entire piece, then chop it up into small sections (physically, with scissors), with each section being between 8 and 16 bars long. I generally choose sections so that they pick out particularly difficult sections that I have trouble memorising. I then have only one of these on the music stand at a time, and play it whenever I sit down at the piano (which isn't often with two 2-year olds in the house)

It's working well for me so far, I managed to memorise in a weekend a particular 20-odd bar phrase that has been troubling me for longer than I'm willing to admit in public :-)

Interesting idea. I'll try that one.

Mel

Definitely going to try this! Sounds like it HAS to work...

Of course you could do one phrase at a time without using the photocopier & scissors: You just have to have the self-discipline to stop at the end of the phrase and not get distracted by all that other black stuff on the same page! One tip for this is to start with the last phrase and work forward rather than the other way around. Another time, start in the middle, or make a note of problem areas and start there. Just remember to stop!! Practice is not the same as playing!