I participate in a few online groups that bring amateur pianists together on places such as Facebook and Reddit. One question that is constantly raised is around whether or not it’s necessary to memorise your piano pieces. I quite often read the debates with a little smile on my face. You’ll see every opinion from ‘if you can’t play it from memory, you don’t know it well enough’ to ‘there is never a need to memorise anything’.
As with most polarising topics, I tend to think that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Memorising is a good skill to have, but it’s only one skill amongst many and nothing says it’s always vital.
Do Concert Pianists really memorise everything?
Let’s start by looking at those at the top of their game – our concert pianist idols. Do they play everything from memory?
Contemporary music
Whilst we’re all familiar with seeing them mainly playing from memory, this isn’t always the case. For example, I’ve noticed from concerts I’ve attended that where pianist play a piece of contemporary music that they rarely play from memory. Perhaps this is because the musical form provides far less reference points for the classically trained brain to make committing it to memory possible. Or maybe there is another reason. If you’re in doubt, check out this documentary on the great Maurizio Pollini. You’ll see (around 30 seconds into it) with contemporary music he very much relies on the score (and a page turner).
Chamber music
As I mentioned in my post on Sight Reading, when playing chamber music in an ensemble, even the best pianists (the likes of Arthur Rubinstein) will unashamedly play from music. I’m sure if they felt that having the score in front of them detracted from their performance, then they’d just memorise it.
Last minute replacements
There may be occasions where the performer needs to play from music simply because they haven’t had the time to memorise something properly. There is a video on YouTube where Yuja Wang plays Rhapsodie on a Theme of Paganini with the score in front of her – quite likely because she stepped in to replace a colleague at the last minute. Did it detract from her performance – I didn’t think so. I remember seeing Stephen Hough mention in an interview, there are parts of this particular piece that ‘you can almost sight read’ (his words). He says that as a result a memory slip is a real risk.
Memorising for exams
Now let’s take into consideration the view of the ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal schools of music). The ABRSM offers everything from the standard Grades 1 to 8 that many of us will undertake in our piano learning journey to three ‘diploma’ level qualifications (four, if you count the ARSM which bridges the gap between Grade 8 and the first diploma level – and is highlighted as a good stepping stone for people returning to music studies after a break).
Interestingly, regardless of the level, the ABRSM does not require you to play from memory – notwithstanding the fact that you will be performing pieces on which you have worked long and hard. They even go a step further by specifically stating that you will neither receive additional marks for playing from memory nor lose marks for playing from the music.
Remember that by the diploma levels of ABRSM, you are in the realms of playing piano to a ‘professional standard’ – and yet the Board doesn’t consider memorisation important enough to be a contributing factor in how you are assessed.
When should you memorise your piano pieces?
However, there are always occasions when memorising something is well worth the effort.
Go-to pieces
I believe that every pianist needs a few ‘go to’ pieces. We need things that we can sit and play anywhere, any time. We’ve all had those occasions when we unexpectedly get the opportunity to play a piano. Sometimes it’s by request but often just purely for our own amusement. It’s great to be able to sit down and play through a few of our favourite pieces off the cuff. If you don’t have anything in your memory, then you’d be reliant on having the music with you and the likelihood is that you won’t and it’s an opportunity to play that is lost.
Super complicated music
Some pieces of music are just too complicated to play without having memorised at least certain of the tricker sections. When your hands need to fly all over the keyboard, then unless you’re a top concert pianist you likely won’t be able to play and read at the same time.
Music at your limit
There is a school of thought (passionately upheld by those who consider memorisation vital) that you can’t really do a piece justice if you’re at all distracted from concentrating entirely on the sound you produce and your interpretation in the moment. I think there’s definitely some truth in this – especially for works at the outer limit of our technical ability.
The score is often just a memory aid
Interestingly you might think that if you are playing with the music in front of you, then it’s because you haven’t memorised the piece. However, I read a very interesting suggestion from a top neuro-psychiatrist (interviewed by Alan Rusbridger in his book Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible) that in fact you are largely playing from memory even with the music in front of you – it’s just that the music provides a set of ‘visual cues’ which trigger your memory.
When I first read this, I wasn’t too sure what it might mean. Surely, if the music is in front of you then you’re not playing from memory. However, I applied it to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (slow movement) as a case in point for me. I have played this since I was a teenager and absolutely love it. Nonetheless, I have never been able to play it without the music. However, when the music is in front of me, am I actually reading each note?
I noticed that this is absolutely not the case. When I thought about it whilst playing, I noticed that sometimes I’d just take a cue from the bass note and that was enough to trigger several bars to comfortably come from my memory (as I noticed I would be looking at my hands and not the music for the majority of the time). Other times, I might just read the first note of a phrase (such as the hauntingly beautiful ascending figurations in the right hand) and the rest will again flow happily from memory.
This means that my brain is free to ‘interpret’ the music rather than ‘play the notes’ – I’m simply using visual, rather than other types of cue (such as harmonic structure, chord patterns or fingerings) as I play.
Memorise your piano pieces selectively
So, on balance, why beat yourself up about having the music in front of you when you play. Some people are lucky in that things get into their memory fairly easily (that’s generally the case with me – especially for something I’m going to spend a month or more learning).
Other people have to work much harder to commit things to memory. If you fall into this category, then only push through the memory barrier when there’s a solid reason to do it. There are other solutions to having your music with you most of the time – such as using a Tablet and an app such as ForScore!
