Hello

I am doing a University Project on Practicing and Memorising music. I have had a good response to another survey on a different forum mainly from adults. I am short of data for my project from younger musicians about their/their teachers' attitudes to memorising music.

I would be so grateful if any parents of younger children or teenagers reading this forum could pop along and complete my survey which should take around 5 minutes or less.

I am a pianist and my project will be angled towards pianists performing from memory, but all instruments are welcome to do the survey to help me analyse the current attitudes towards memorising.

Any comments about this would be useful here too.

Many many thanks.
Kamla

Please click the link
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=e4Rl...PRiY1NODw_3d_3d

I think that Japanese kids tend to start so young that it is assumed everybody can and does memorize. Not one of Viohazard's teachers has ever said "This is how to memorize a piece."

I've heard flatmates learn a new piece by ear phrase by phrase from a recording - but when learning by ear Viohazard hears the whole piece several times and then plays it through, sometimes singing things. He only uses the "spot" method for resolving rhythm/technical difficulties or stubborn "misremembered" things. Not to say that this is ideal！

Beth didn't really learn anything by heart until this year when I pointed out that pianists tended to learn by heart. She learned all her Grade 3 piano pieces by heart in a couple of weeks after that.
Dora

Is piano different do you think? My daughter tends not to play by memory with clarinet/cello/recorder - though if I take the dots away she can usually play quite a lot of whatever piece she is working on. By contrast, she often sits down at the piano as she happens to pass and plays something from memory. She only started piano a year ago, with lots of other music behind her. She's only playing relatively simple stuff. However, I've been struck from the very start by the fact that she seems to remember piano pieces to an extent, and with an ease, that she didn't/doesn't with her other instruments. She wouldn't be confident enough to take a piano exam, or play in a concert, without the written music though.

She sings too and is not a great sight singer so that is almost always done by memory, and has to be in exams.

I filled in the survey with my son and wasn't really surprised that he isn't really fussed about memorising when it comes to exam or 'concert' pieces, simply because it's never been suggested that he should. I suspect he has memorised more than he thinks for the piano, and I know that he can do it for the guitar, but he tends only to memorise songs and other contemporary pieces, simply because that's the example he's been set - he never sees Kaiser Chiefs or Coldplay playing from music!

Very interesting, this - Joel plays all his clarinet pieces with music, and finds it hard to play without, but all his piano pieces he learns by ear, and doesn't need the music at all!

Burl

My daughter seems to always memorize (Piano player),but not always a good thing,when she had her exam she went wrong on a piece and because she was'nt really following the sheet,she couldn't find her spot quickly enough and decided to start again.Luckily she ended up with a good mark anyway,but it does worry me sometimes that she could do with following the music more.Her teacher says that alot of children do this though.

Daughter will play Piano pieces from memory without actively trying to learn them. On her wind instruemtns she nearly always plays from the music, Jazz pieces are the occassional exception.

Interesting.

Daughter can play most violin pieces from memory after a few lessons. Her teacher, however, insists that she doesn't do that until she has got all the markings etc. accurate and perfect.

She has more problems memorising piano pieces (her 2nd instrument) and plays always from music.

Singing- she memorises quickly and can sing most songs heard once or twice from memory.

My Oboe teacher sometimes wants me to play from memory. I did the A and B pieces for grade 8 from memory. Also I did a couple of festival/competition pieces from memory Never did Piano from memory. but I was going to do grade 5 from memory.

I tried to do the survey - once for each child - but after doing it for the first I couldn't get back into it to do it for the younger one.

Both girls have the same piano teacher - he encourages them to play from memory. The older one (11) has had occasional memory lapses, but on the whole she's been fine. Memorising pieces is not a problem and once she knows the piece she usually practices without the music. The younger daughter (9) hasn't performed from memory yet, but no doubt the teacher will expect her to do so soon. She doesn't have any problem learning things from memory.

Elder daughter's violin teacher has never expressed a preference, and daughter has never performed from memory. Violin is very much her second instrument and she's never as happy performing on it.

Younger daughter's cello teacher is very keen on her playing from memory - so that she can watch what she's doing with her bow. I think she has played from memory in all her exams and in informal concerts. In her grade 4 exam she had a brief memory lapse in one piece, but it didn't seem to throw her (easier when you're being accompanied of course). The accompanist (her teacher) carried on playing and my daughter came back in after a bar. The examiner didn't mention it.

She recently performed a piece that she hadn't played for ages (other than a couple of quick run throughs). Although she didn't really need it, she had the music with her just in case.

Claudia finds it difficult to read the music on the piano (more than one note at a time) so memorises everything automatically. The teacher realises this and takes the music away before she goes into an exam/recital as she plays much better without the music, the music being a distraction as she is then always looking for her place and it puts her off.

With the violin, no-one has ever suggested taking the music away except when she played in a festival - she has no problem reading violin music as it is only one line - but if you take it away anyway or if she doesn't have it with her, it makes no difference, she has automatically memorised it anyway. In the festival it was strongly encouraged to play without music.

But, that's only as far as the notes are concerned - for some reason she can't remember the dynamics well on the violin so the music is needed as a reminder of these.

A) For violin - all pieces are memorised. The teacher encourages memorisation once all the fingerings etc are worked out, and generally all performances and exams are from memory.

The teacher also gets the children to play in groups - either in unison or for multipart pieces, split in two or three; again these are all memorised.

Orchestra music does not need to be memorised.

In general both children find this memorisation easy, and automatic - it has always been asked of them.


B) For piano - no pieces are memorised! Neither teacher asks for it. I assume that if the children can remember their violin music, they can also remember their piano music, but I haven't really ever had to put it to the test.

Both teachers are very good indeed, but they have different approaches to this.

It sounds like your daughter has a good ear and is using that in the early stages of memorising. It seems to be an advantage.......but her teacher knows better...the problem with this is that certain rhythms and subtle harmonies/notes get changed without realising and it takes for ever to relearn a piece once the initial memory is in place. I have to be so careful even now with this problem and there are some beautiful pieces that I ruined from memorising too fast. I have perfect pitch and it made me a little lazy in the memorising department, never having to try ....too hard to do it. Well, more truthfully, not having to try at all as my good ear would do all the work for me. Now, I appreciate my extraordinary memorising ability, but have to guard against thinking I know a piece far too early for it to be 100% accurate. I agree with your daughter's teacher here...she's being encouraging about memorising but cautious and thorough. It will pay off in the end.

Thanks for trying - perhaps the survey only allows one response per IP number.

Very interesting points raised here.

One of the main reasons cited in my surveys for not performing from memory is the fear of a memory lapse. Some performers have had previous lapses and some just fear one. But to have a lapse and to continue performing from memory deserves a lot of credit and encouragement.

When my project is finished, I'll try to put some findings on here.

Many thanks for this. I'm finding all these posts very useful. I totally agree with your last comment. I think it's becoming obvious that I'm very pro-memorising. However, it's all down to individual approach and many excellent teachers don't place a great deal of importance on memorising for various reasons. As you have said - orchestral instrumentalists rarely memorise whole works. I think as long as the capacity for memorising music is being used and improved, it's unnecessary to memorise absolutely everything. However, theres nothing stopping your children trying out playing the piano from memory at home. It's possible their teacher doesn't want to add any stress and think if they memorise as they learn, that's fine. If not, that's fine too. It just isn't a great issue. I might be wrong. I hope some teachers post their views too.

I think I've worked out one of the reasons why my son memorises more on the guitar and not on the piano. When he sits down at the piano, the book from which he's working is usually still there in front of him from last time. So he plays from the music. I'm the only other person that plays, and I tend to get my music out and put it away; if I haven't put mine away, then that's what he plays. When he plays the guitar he carries it around from room to room. If he wants to play from the music and not get told off by me from putting it on the floor and leaning over to read it, he has to find the stand and put the music on it. So he plays from memory. And there we are - his playing from memory depends on the fact that it's too much effort to a) move the music away on the piano and b) put the music up for the guitar. I should have realised

In my above post I didn't really say that the children's violin teacher has emphasised memorising because she is a Suzuki teacher. The children all start off the early stages from memory, and then rapidly move to reading music as well. This has worked well for us - they both read music well, and have a good facility for remembering.

It also often gives them an edge whilst performing - they can put their all into the performance - emotion/actions/engaging with the audience - whatever is needed. The other side of this is that this edge can be lost if they get bored of the piece - then they can play it slightly too automatically!

I do see her point. I'm sorry if it came across as if I was being critical of her teacher. She is a very experienced teacher and we do have complete confidence that she knows best.

This one gets first prize - had me howling with laughter and rolling on the floor!!!
although I'm not sure where I can put this in my project!

Another thought - try putting up a different piece of piano music everyday and pretend it's yours...all that sight reading practise!!!!!!

Excellent idea, thanks!

Oh thats Ok, don't worry. I just don't want to be seen as being critical of other teachers either. I'm aware that my memorising views are coming across throughout my postings on the forum and I know there are teachers who don't place much importance on it and some that do. It's just different approaches and a matter of opinion really. Like most things!

As a teacher (piano) I have some young pre grade 1 students who try to memorise too soon.
One in particular will often stop looking at the page after one playing but this leads to a few right notes and a lot of trial and error.
I praise their ability to memorise but do keep on reminding them that they need to read from the page for long enough to have memorised correctly. I think this is not necessarily easy to take in for a 7/8 year old and hope that constant encouragement and reinforcement will pay off in the end.
When they do try to play from memory too soon in a lesson I will use a book to cover their hands so that they can't see them.
I think that it's probably a matter of patience and waiting for all the bits to fall into place.

My 8yo memorises both violin and piano, often quite effortlessly, although she is doing less now that her pieces are getting longer (most recent piece, Burgmuller Barocelle 3 pages, too long to memorise, perhaps, or she is just taking her sweet time to remember it). I found that she needed more work on sight reading practice due to her tendency to memorise. Also because she doesn't look at the sheet, she pay less attention to her dynamics than she should; sometimes can be quite annoying, because she keep forgeting dynamics in a certain part of a piece despite weeks of (gentle) reminders.

My 5yo only just started piano; always read, rarely memorise. Unfortunately she looks at her fingers a lot, so every time she reaches a difficult bar, she stops for a few seconds , but she is so young and am sure she will improve as she gets older.

This is interesting!

Chickenfingers' comments ring very true to me - Viohazard also tended to "lose" the dynamics, and that made me wish he were given "easy" music as well as "hard" music from time to time, so that he would have time to think about dynamics and bowing as well as simply following the music along in his head.

Sbhoa, do you find that all your memorisers look at their hands if they are not looking at the music (I suppose with piano beginners' hands are right in front of them!)? I remember Viohazard's teacher showing me a picture of her tiny tots' string ensemble playing outdoors, and pointing out that while every other kid was either looking at the music or their fingers, Viohazard was gazing raptly in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION. Sure enough, this eye movement link suggests that looking to the right is what happens when auditory memory is being accessed.

...so now you know where my forum name comes from!

Yes, they do and I don't actively discourage this once they've learned a piece properly though sometimes I challenge them to play with their eyes closed.