Memorization techniques

Georgy Sandor, in the book: "How to Play the Piano", dedicates a chapter to memorization. Many insights

ttw wrote:

Georgy Sandor, in the book: "How to Play the Piano", dedicates a chapter to memorization. Many insights

Thank you very much for the text

Memory must be trained like any other ability; one can practice starting from Sandor's classifications.

Certainly. Frank, as a composer, would insist on a harmonic analysis.....and he would be right. A conscious memory, I believe, is made of a good feeling of how one moves, "floating", through the modulations, until arriving at descending into the details. In very fast passages, as Sandor says, one also relies on a certain kineticism, trying to establish points, hinges, mnemonic "blocks". The recipe, I believe, is something very personal. However, I think that a work is deepened precisely by committing it to memory. This is the opinion of many musicians. Let's not forget the beautiful French expression: a memoria="par coeur"....in the heart!!!!! And also the famous phrase by Mozart: "3 things are indispensable to the pianist-musician: the mind, the heart, the fingers" (note the order!!!)

...and in English "by heart"

Indeed... The mind as creator, the heart as humble and loving singer and... the fingers... those that execute but in the end everything else is needed.

My teacher one day said: "Piano technique is the 1%, but without it, it is not possible to build anything"

Understanding a piece before playing it is perhaps the most important thing and... if we pay attention, perhaps we choose it precisely because we have already understood it a little bit.

Thanks for the text, I was forgetting.

I agree, Fabio, ......right ...and poetic words!

THANK YOU ttw YOU ARE A GREAT ONE!!!

Thank you all.

I never play from memory. This is a major limitation/decision of mine. At the end of the day, I learn almost all pieces by heart, but during a performance in front of an audience, I do not trust my memory enough to play without sheet music. I might look at it very little, but I must have it in front of me. As far as I am concerned, playing with sheet music in front of you is not a slight or a sacrilege. Not having the need to memorize has given me the opportunity to greatly increase my piano repertoire. I have played a lot and everything. If I had to learn everything by memory for a concert, perhaps I would have played half of my repertoire.

As for me, it worked the opposite way....if I have the sheet music, I never fully concentrate, so I tend to read and memorize immediately. The downside is obviously greater study slowness and therefore a reduction in repertoire... there is also the risk of reading the sheet music too little and memorizing details poorly.

Aside from the precious experiences of Forum friends, I share in this space a thought by the such Sviatoslav Richter:

"I decided, alas too late, to keep the score in front of me during concerts, despite having intuited for a long time that it had to be done.
It is paradoxical but... in an era when the repertoire was narrower and less complex, one habitually played with the score, and this wise custom was interrupted by Liszt.
Today the head – rather than being well-supplied with music – is overloaded by a superfluous abundance, and risks becoming dangerously fatigued. What infantilism and what vanity, a source of useless toil, this kind of feat of memory competition, when above all one should make good music that touches the listener! A mediocre routine in which a mendacious glory basks, which my dear professor Heinrich Neuhaus so criticized.
The incessant call to the order of the score would give less license to this "freedom," to this "individuality" of the performer with which the audience is tyrannized and music is infested, and which is nothing more than a lack of humility and respect for the music itself.
Of course, it is not so easy to be absolutely free when one has the score in front, and it takes much time, work, and habit; therefore, it is better to begin as early as possible.
Here is a piece of advice I would gladly give to young pianists: finally adopt this healthy and natural method that will allow them not to bore us throughout their lives with the same programs, and to create for themselves a richer and more varied musical life."

In general, it is a personal matter; there are pieces where it makes more sense to memorize and pieces where it makes less sense...

....beautiful considerations that effectively summarize what, in my opinion, one should be capable of doing. playing free from the sheet music is extremely rewarding (one plays with an open heart) and remarkable interpretive levels can be reached, but being able to give just as much with the sheet music could be equally great in terms of both mental and emotional resources... and it actually "saves" one from many liberties that one inevitably takes precisely when one is convinced that the memory is solid and reliable.

...quote for quote

https://www.rodoni.ch/busoni/saggi/suonarememoria.html

FERRUCCIO BUSONI - ON PLAYING FROM MEMORY

Vom Auswendigspielen.
B.81, 11.118 (partial), LM.8, R.16. In «Die Musik», VI (1906.07), n. 15, May, for an inquiry promoted there in March by Wilhelm Altmann (the famous musicologist, 1861-1952; the intervention appeared there preceded by that of the widow and biographer of Hans von Bulow, Marie, and followed by the conclusions of Altmann.

Rilancio Chopin

ANTHONY TOMMASINI

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/arts/music/memorizations-loosening-hold-on-concert-tradition.html

Playing by Heart, With or Without a Score

This one by Richter is beautiful... maybe I read something but... was it him by any chance who had the score hidden inside his tailcoat??

I'm with you Simone and I hope that in my case it isn't a limitation; I am truly dependent on sheet music. When I play a piece from memory I feel better without a doubt but... little by little I start forgetting, habituating, omitting etc. etc.

In agreement with Frank regarding the sense of memorizing based on the functionality of the piece.