OK, so it’s a bit click bait I admit. In fact, I’m not saying that we should not memorize piano music. Rather I’m saying that there is no absolute need to have to memorize everything. Often, people are almost bullied into thinking that they will perform less well with the score in front of them. Yet, clearly this is not true as there are fantastic artists who perform from the score!
Requirement or tradition?
The need to memorize piano music is a topic is frequently debated within the piano playing world and it certainly splits opinion. There are those that say ‘if you don’t play from memory then you don’t know the piece well enough to perform it’. There are many others that do not believe there is any such necessity. I recently read one respected concert pianist liken the expectation of great feats of memory to that of some kind of ‘circus act’.
There is as we know a great tradition in piano concerts that the soloist will play from memory. This apparently dates back to the days of Liszt who was perhaps the first to play entirely without the score. For a different historical context, Chopin did not like people playing from memory. He considered it arrogant. Therefore, I feel confident enough to say that this is more of a ‘tradition’ than a ‘requirement’.
Moreover, as I stated earlier there are numerous examples of concert pianists choosing to play from music. Yuja Wang and Sviatoslav Richter are too notable examples. Given the quality of their playing, who would dare to say that the performance was in any way diminished by the presence of the score.
Therefore, following this tradition as some kind of dogma is, I believe, limiting. There are definitely some very good reasons why we should not feel obliged to memorize every piece of piano music we learn.
Definitely a necessary skill to develop
Clearly, memorising music is a skill we should all develop (some thoughts on it in this article). After all, memorising a 4 minute piece (as we hobbyists regularly need to do) should prove to be significantly more attainable than memorising a 40 minute concerto (as would be expected of a Concert artist). Therefore, memorising a few choice pieces seems very sensible for that impromptu performance.
However, I think we should try to be equally comfortable playing from the score as we are playing from memory!
The downsides to systematic memorisation
One problem with relying on memory too much is that we end up in a position where we limit the material we can play from music to that which we can sight read (a topic I have discussed before).
When Sight Reading, naturally, the aim of the game is to play something on sight (so without having practised it). Many find this hard to do and, generally, we purposefully aim to sight read pieces that are well below our current level. However, playing from music and sight reading are not the same thing.
How sight reading differs
When sight reading, one golden rule we are taught is that we should try to avoid looking down at our hands. This, on the face of it, is good advice. It is so easy to lose our place on the score when looking up and down. If we have never seen the piece before, then losing our place may be a disaster.
This strategy is of course fine for easier music. However, with more advanced (and even intermediate level) music, the simple fact is that very few people can manage without looking at their hands. Aside those who might stare into space (for dramatic effect?), most pianists spend most of the time looking at their hands. Thus, we rarely practice the important skill of continually redirecting our eyes from our hands to the score.
Clearly, Sight Reading is a valuable skill to have. Yet, remarkably few pianists will be called upon to simply play from music something that they have never seen before. Even great pianists doing chamber music with colleagues will mostly have done some work in the practice room beforehand.
Therefore, I believe thinking that playing from music should be limited to sight reading has very limited utility.
Learning to look up and down
In my view, picking up the skill to be able to look between our hands and the music in front of us, even when sight reading, is just as valuable as that of not looking down! Otherwise, once a piece goes beyond something we can manage without looking down, then we will likely have problems playing it properly unless we have memorised it.
Another downside to always memorising is that often our memory can fail to take in the fine detail of the music.
Chopin’s E Flat Nocturne
Take the example of Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major. I have seen countless amateur recordings of this piece – many very respectably played from memory. However, when you listen to them, the phrasing is pretty homogenous all the way through. Yet, on closer examination of the score, Chopin requests different phrasing pretty much every time a melody fragment is repeated somewhere (take a look at my video on this for some examples).
The problem, though is that this piece has lots of jumps in both the left and right hands. We might then too easily lose our place in the score when glancing at our hands. This alone might prompt many to simply memorise it. Surely though, it would be better if we were able to glance up and down at will and be able to find our place? The only way we will become comfortable doing this is to ‘practice’ doing it. That means play from the music and not feel obliged to memorize.
Of course, if we decide that this Nocturne is to be one of our ‘party pieces’, then we might want to undertake the significant additional effort of engraving each tiny phrase mark into our memories. However, would this actually make us play it ‘better’? I’m not so sure!
Free up some precious time
Finally, by choosing to not always memorize piano music, we are able to get through a much greater variety of music. I say this because by purposefully choosing not to memorize something, then we will be able to learn it much faster. This will depend on the pianist, but it could cut down the effort by as much as 50% in terms of elapsed time. Then, the time saved on each individual piece can be enjoyably spent learning or simply playing additional repertoire.
As a final thought, I feel it important to debunk one popular myth. Once we have practiced something, our memory plays a very large role in playing it (even when the score is there). We have likely thought about fingering (perhaps even writing it down). Also, we have spent lots of time working on sections intently. We have developed our artistic vision for the piece. At this point, the score starts acting more like a set of signposts. We are no longer reading each individual note. This means that the mental effort of ‘reading’ is significantly reduced and we are able to devote ourselves to the music rather than ‘deciphering’ the dots!
This idea is something I discovered in Alan Rusbridger’s book ‘Play It Again: an Amateur Against the Impossible (reviewed here). You can pick up a copy on Amazon of course.
Therefore, my recommendation is don’t feel obliged to constantly try to memorize everything. Just because you read somewhere that it was ‘indispensable’ doesn’t make it true!.
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