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Author: derf5585
Date: 2016-02-13 18:01
When doing solo work do you memorize the music or read off of sheet music?
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2016-02-13 18:48
I was never good at memorizing so I always read the music. I'm always impressed when I see performers play by memory, especially wind players, but it doesn't take anythng away from the performance if a player reads their music for me.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-02-13 19:31
Here is the funny thing with that. If you really practice just a short difficult moment so that you can "nail it," chances are that you can play that moment from memory, no problem. Now, as you do go through that moment that you know from memory, notice that it frees you to really "play" with what you do with it; where you get louder, where you get softer, whether you play the notes short or play long. I think it allows you to be hyper aware musically.
If you cannot apply that to a whole solo within the context of a performance, that's ok, as long as you have been able to apply the PRINCIPLE of it during your preparation.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2016-02-13 19:47
This question brought back some interesting memories. In the 1960s, when I participated in my state's solo and ensemble festival for the first time, solos had to be memorized. If a performer used printed music, the rating was automatically lowered. I memorized my two-page solo perfectly, and still received a II rating! The memorization rule was dropped in the late 60s or early 70s.
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2016-02-14 00:04
I'm with Eddie. I suffer from dyslexia, not a bad case of it, but enough. If you can memorize it go for it.
I think a few conductors could memorize complete scores. Frederic Fennel from Eastman I think was one of them. Pretty amazing.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2016-02-14 01:17
My principle is that every piece myself or my students perform SHOULD be by memory. However, that doesnt mean they need to perform from memory. Although that is nice. I feel if a piece isn't known by memory, then how can someone have all the details refined. But i know personally, i feel more comfortable with the safety of the book in front of me just to keep me on track (during an actual performance).
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Author: Filettofish
Date: 2016-02-14 05:31
I've always been of the opinion that the music stand is a barrier between the musician and their audience. Having recently attended a number of solo and chamber recitals, I've noticed that those who memorized entire pieces have a greater connection with the audience, and thus give more expressive and impressive performances. That being said, memorization is difficult; I know I haven't been able to do it with any consistency, but I have been able to compromise between having the music stand in my face and complete memorization. If you keep the stand low with the score open, it can serve as a helpful guide in the case the performer loses their place. I've seen this method work effectively for a number of professionals. However, its never quite as impressive as seeing a full solo played from memory.
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Author: marcia
Date: 2016-02-14 05:47
Having the music on a stand for a performance is prefferable to the soloist forgetting, and stopping play. That happened to a violin soloist at one of my orchestra concerts. The conductor saw that she had stopped, started singing the part to her and she resumed play.
And at another concert, involving another violinist, she had the music at the perfomance because she'd had a memory glitch while practising immediately prior.
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Author: fuzzystradjazz
Date: 2016-02-14 06:13
For me (admittedly on trad jazz tunes, and not full classical pieces) - there is a difference in "memorizing" a tune versus "knowing" a tune. I was never that great at memorization, and always learned by rote. It was painful, and rarely stuck with me past the required performance date. (This was all in school/college settings, not professional.)
However, when I switched over to trad jazz, I realized that I wasn't "memorizing" tunes - but learned to "know" the tunes. I could hum the melody (straight or embellished), and I could "hear" the chord changes in my head. I find that if I don't "know" a tune this way (if I can't hum the melody precisely from start to finish, or hear the chord changes in my head), then I do poorly trying to perform the tune.
I recently went back to some classical pieces in order to brush up on some technical skills, and I was surprised that this same concept of "knowing" the piece came into play and was very helpful - that I didn't need printed music for some pieces. At this point in my life, I don't "know" many classical pieces anymore, but I was still intrigued that the technique seemed to work for the little classical repertoire that I do still know.
The benefits I've noticed from "knowing" a piece, match with what Paul Aviles said up above.
I realize that we all learn differently and latch on to different words/methods to bring similar concepts to fruition, but for me - the difference is between memorizing and "knowing."
Fuzzy
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2016-02-14 07:53
As I approached 60 a couple years ago I decided to attempt to memorize music. I just tried the obvious method - start at the beginning, switch back and forth between music and no music, gradually add on. It was hard at first but got easier over time, until now it seems fairly natural.
Mostly I use muscle and aural memory, not so much visual (some people are strong at visual memory.) There seems to be a kind of spatial thing too - pieces are arranged in chunks, and often chunks are made of chunks, and the arrangement is easy to remember, so it comes down to memorizing details of chunks.
Anyway, I've accumulated working memory of around 70 pages of solo and etude music - notes, tempi, dynamics, expression - plus bits of this and that. Not perfect images but close; I can practice them without music, and could probably clean up missing details in any piece fairly quickly. Not that I'm good enough to perform many of them; most are somewhat difficult pieces I'm still studying.
Again, the more you memorize the easier it gets. Caveat: you have to keep going back over things, or the memory of them frays away. Another caveat: you have to check the music once in a while, or little differences creep in without you noticing.
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Author: locke9342
Date: 2016-02-14 08:30
I have a bad habit of memorizing the music just by practicing it a lot then never using the music again and usually missing a few details... But yea I agree with Paul music should't have to be preformed for memory, but you should have it "memorized" by the time you have to preform it.
I'm pretty sure it was Lizt who started this craze about memorizing music or at least with piano.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2016-02-14 09:54
I think memory works more or less the same as hearing or even tonguing. Some people can pretty much repeat a few minutes of music after hearing it a few times, some people can barely repeat a few notes. Some can naturally tongue extremely fast, some practice a lot to tongue reasonably fast. Memory can be tricky, it's also possible that e.g. a violinist can remember a whole concerto, but forget where they just put their violin.
I have pretty terrible memory for music, so here is a tip that helps me a lot. Trying to remember without the sheet music. Either learning it from listening only, or after being able to read it trying to remember without the music. I do the former when "writing" my own parts, or when we make them up together in a group, I just never write anything down. I do the latter when there are notes and dynamics already written. I use MIDI or a recording (if, for example, our group already recorded it). With "classical" pieces if the only recording you have is someone else who doesn't play it like you want to, then you can record the part yourself and memorize from that.
This method won't necessarily help everyone. Some people can be good at memorizing by looking at the music too.
Post Edited (2016-02-14 14:27)
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Author: GeorgeL ★2017
Date: 2016-02-14 19:19
Some people can memorize, others cannot.
My first recollection of trying to memorize something was "Under the spreading chestnut tree .... in 7th grade. Two or three lines was as far as I got. When I now see high school bands put on shows on the football field with all music memorized, I realize that if that was the requirement when I was in school, I would not have been in band.
I have been a participant in an aging study for over 40 years, and every visit (every two or three years) includes a memory test. Science and time will will tell if my memory problems were just a precursor of Alzheimers, which definitely runs in my family.
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2016-02-14 23:16
i agree with the comment the more you memorise the easier it gets. I had a similar experience to the one described above. However, i think it is a different thing to play by memory versus to play by memory when people are watching. Not so much for young children who have no sense of nerves. (my two sons would n't consider playing with the book ... ever... ). One of the many things nerves do to me is make me doubt my memory of something.
It also depends how much stress there is in the rest of my life, how well my memory functions.
Definitely performing without music is ideal. But for those of us who do performances on a more hobby (unpaid) basis, i see no reason to stress myself with trying to play by memory.
(As an interesting fact, i was playing in the opera house with a group of my students, an easy level 2 piece... and my memory really struggled, i don't think i played half of it. Thankfully playing in a big group meant that (i hope) no one realised, as i just pretended)
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2016-02-15 04:20
SarahC, you are right about nerves. It takes longer to memorize a piece solidly enough to feel confident playing it in front of listeners. The past two summers with my local town band, I was asked to play a solo piece with the band, and those were simple enough to memorize in a week, meaning, I could then practice them without the music. It took another week or two in each case before they were automatic enough to play for an audience. Probably the latter condition should be what is meant by "it's memorized", a propos the top post of the thread.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-02-15 05:42
Around ten years ago, I played in a performance of Cosi fan Tutte at Glyndebourne. The conductor, Ivan Fischer, demanded that no-one bring a pencil into the pit in his production.
What he was primarily getting at, of course, was the habit that string players have of writing in bowings that obliterate the slurs that Mozart himself wrote.
They asked, "but how will we organise that we bow together?"
"You won't," he replied.
"I think it's more important that you have in front of you what MOZART wrote rather than what YOU wrote."
Many string players found this a great liberation.
But, it applies to wind players as well. We too are overkeen to alter the text, writing in our crescendi, diminuendi and dynamics.
What playing from the unedited score does, at least in this sort of music, is to bring you up once more against the composer's notation. It doesn't mean that you can't bring that score to life in different ways. But it DOES mean that all those ways have a common referent.
So, I think there is an analogy between this situation and the question posed.
It's often said that playing from memory 'gives you freedom'. But that freedom may lead you astray:
"Every task involves constraint,
Solve it now without complaint.
There are magic links and chains
Forged to loose our rigid brains.
Structures, strictures, though they bind,
Strangely liberate the mind."
See, I don't trust the 'freedom' that some people here celebrate. What it may mean is that they follow what they have arbitrarily decided over the past few iterations of their performance.
For myself, I WANT to be reminded of the text. It may mean something different to me the next time around, but it will always be related to that fixed something.
Why should we play Chinese Whispers with ourselves?
I do play the Mozart concerto from memory. But that's because I REALLY know Mozart's score – or at least, our best reconstruction of it. For other pieces, I have the music in front of me.
Tony
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Author: qualitycontrol
Date: 2016-02-15 06:23
Memorising for me does not come from muscle memory, an aural memory of the tune, or a visual memory of the notes I'm supposed to play, but from a deeper harmonic/analytic understanding of the piece. This is the only way I've found to approach memorisation that really connects me to the music, makes me more confident, and connects me to the score while liberating me from the constraints of reading.
Tonal pieces (especially classical forms) are the easiest to approach from this perspective because they are the most formally and harmonically square. I find memorisation works best by successively memorising the tonal functions of the clarinet melody (if it is a tonal piece), understanding the formal layout of the piece, and then understanding the harmonic functions of the clarinet part, which all naturally deepen the player's connection to the music. I can't keep track of all of these things while I'm reading the text, but if I integrate them into my memorisation, I'm entering a kind of symbiosis with the text, not forgetting it completely.
This approach gets harder as the music becomes formally or harmonically more complex, but a musician's understanding of form and harmony should always be advancing so it can inform performance, and this approach also helps us on that front.
Since so much music most of us encounter is motivic, or thematically related but circulates around different keys, being able to understand and grasp phrases analytically makes memorisation a lot easier, for example, you don't have to memorise a whole different string of notes in the reexposition of a concerto or sonata where thematic material from earlier on (that was played in a different key but is often otherwise almost identical) is restated in the tonic key; it will be a similar melody tonally, just transposed to a different key.
Post Edited (2016-02-15 06:29)
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Author: derf5585
Date: 2016-02-15 06:29
I wonder if one can use Google Glasses to show the sheet music?
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2016-02-15 08:48
It has always been curious to me that typical performance practice for piano is so strongly "memory!" but for winds not so much. I started on piano, so I started out memorizing. I agree that no music or stand between performer and audience is better.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2016-02-15 17:35
When I was in the military I was required to be able to remember my way round huge swathes of wiring and logic diagrams from memory, because in the field the diagrams may not be where you and the problem are. As a result, I learned how to commit large quantities of material to memory and to be able to recall it instantly. This skill has stayed with me, and I'm able to bring the sheet music back whenever I need it. Unlike a muscle or aural memory, I "see" the music as though I were actually looking at it. When I play something I tend to use what my mind is seeing rather than what my eyes are seeing, however I still refer to the printed music to get the dynamics.
Tony F.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-02-15 18:08
As a jazz musician, my goal is to get to the point where I never bring charts with me, and never read off one again. The ear, intellect, and control of the horn should be so well developed that sheet music becomes a bother (which it generally is anyway, though it can also be a very helpful reference--especially for practicing).
As a sideman, I routinely play without charts. As a leader, however, I tend to make historical notes and "band leader" decisions on the charts themselves (who has the head for that particular gig, if there's an intro, etc) --plus it helps if I'm asked by a band member about a chord change or key--oftentimes we'll have to resolve conflicts between different lead sheets. But in actual performance, even as a leader, I don't tend to look at the lead sheets...my eyes are closed most of the time while soloing.
When I played classical music, I don't ever remember performing from memory, but had I continued I would certainly have gone in that direction. Actors don't use scripts, and I don't think it's too much to memorize a handful pages of music you've played, in many cases, since your teenage years. To remove the stand is to remove one more barrier between yourself and the audience, and I think that's a good thing.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-02-15 18:11
Piano, of course involves a lot more page turning than a typical wind or even string concerto. Human page turners add a lot of both overhead and risk to the process. Also, after a certain point, piano pedagogy has historically focused on literature study rather than the regimen of etudes (not meant for performance) and orchestra studies that form most of an advancing clarinet (or other orchestral instrument) student's routine. So pianists tend by tradition to live more intimately with their future repertoire than most of us did as clarinet students.
For a professional pianist there are really only two avenues other than teaching to earn a living - solo performance or accompaniment. Many of the best pianists are at home in both areas. But there are those whose study has predisposed them to long hours, weeks and even months spent learning (and memorizing) individual pieces who are poor sight-readers because they never need to read fluently. And there are many pianists who decide at an early age that they don't enjoy the pressures of solo performance and spend a lot of time playing accompaniments - choral and vocal, instrumental, dance - that they play once and then go on to something else, forcing them to develop reading skills to a high level.
Wind players tend to live most completely with orchestral and chamber repertoire that they may not repeat for years if at all. So our needs tend to center more on reading skills and a good memory isn't a necessary part of our skill set.
Karl
Karl
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2016-02-15 19:31
i beg to differ with karl on the issue of etudes. as a younger musician who wasn't sure which avenue life would take me, studying music at university.. i was expected to do studies for an hour. (As per the instructions on the Hanon book, if you wish to become agile then you will study these exercises for an hour a day... paraphrased.. since i haven't practised hanon for over 20 years!) Czerny school of velocity, MaxCooke, they are the main ones i recall practising in those days.
i wonder if piano being an instrument often performed unaccompanied is a reason that pianists so often perform by memory. where as orchestra members aren't expected to.
i would say there are very few (if any) poor readers on the piano performance circuit. i think the poor readers don't quite make it. (at least the one that i know who is a very poor reader, while being an amazing performer, hasn't made that a profession. and is teaching instead. ) And people on the piano performance circuit still do a lot of note crunching, to keep an ever widening repertoire base at concert level to create interesting concerts etc.
if you are being paid $2000 a concert.. then i would expect only those who have the ability to play by memory with confidence (and not get nervous like i do...) should be in that position. And they probably should play by memory.
Dealing with slightly more amateur performances (the most i have ever been paid for a performance was $50!) i don't feel the need to perform without the music. (Although i would have given a different answer when i was 20...).. i think a good performance outweighs the need to play by memory. although it is always nice. But nerves do affect each of us differently.
As an interesting aside, i used to have a much better memory than now. I could perform with my students on stage, knew ALL the works i taught by memory up to grade 8... and i teach 4 instruments... but this last year has involved a lot of trauma. My memory barely works now... i can't recall what i had for dinner last night. When there is a lot of stress in life, i think the memory is less reliable. but of course, i haven't done a controlled study on this issue.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2016-02-15 20:04
Pianist Sviatoslav Richter had one of the great musical memories. He had around eighty solo recital programs memorized, without repeating works. That doesn't include many concerti he knew. He was a very fast study; he learned Prokofiev's 7th Sonata in four days. He continued to learn new works until the end of his life.
Late in his life Richter took to performing from the music. He said it was to devote more focus on the composer's intentions (similar to what Tony says above), but I suspect there was another reason as well. Richter had perfect pitch, but as he got older it changed so that he heard things higher than they were, and it threw him off - his ears didn't match his fingers. It contributed to his withdrawal from performing.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-02-16 00:40
SarahC wrote:
> i beg to differ with karl on the issue of etudes. as a younger
> musician who wasn't sure which avenue life would take me,
> studying music at university.. i was expected to do studies for
> an hour. (As per the instructions on the Hanon book, if you
> wish to become agile then you will study these exercises for an
> hour a day... paraphrased.. since i haven't practised hanon for
> over 20 years!) Czerny school of velocity, MaxCooke, they are
> the main ones i recall practising in those days.
>
Yes, even we as non-piano majors had to practice Hanon and a couple of others whose names I've forgotten. I had more in mind Rose studies, Stark studies, at earlier stages etudes edited by Cailliet and Lester and others. Melodic, mostly non-exercisey, all borrowed material from other instruments, mostly violin, edited (to an extent) to reflect clarinet needs, none meant for public performance. I even raised eyebrows when I included a Jean-Jean etude (from the 16) in my graduate recital (it was the closest I could come to one of my favorite unaccompanied pieces, Debussy's Syrinx, without doing a transcription of Syrinx). All but one of my specifically clarinet teachers (not counting the generalists in my school programs) were Curtis graduates, either students of Bonade or of Gigliotti (with whom I also later studied), so if there had been a tradition brought from Europe of memorizing that kind of study material, I would think at least some of them would have maintained it.
I think much piano and to an extent string teaching tend more than wind or percussion teaching to emphasize learning of a few Great Works to a memorized performance level along with the facility exercises you've mentioned. I'm sure the intent is to establish a study regimen that makes it possible for the mature student to go on learning other Great Works on his or her own. Memory is by tradition an integral part of this process. My own experience tells me the main process that's passed on through generations of clarinetists doesn't focus on solo careers, which are even more rare than they are among violinists and cellists, much less pianists. So clarinetists are less likely (major soloists, whose careers are more like those of concert pianists, excepted) to have developed a good comfort level with memory-based performance early and find it difficult if not intimidating to have to do it later.
Karl
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-02-16 19:30
I think some really good arguments have been made for performance with and without music. Clearly, personal attributes, the ability to memorize, the added stress for some that not (or having) the music in front of them puts on their play all play a role.
What I find interesting is that I tend to play a piece, that I've otherwise committed confidently to memory, better without music. I don't know if the printed music reminds me of passages I've had difficulty with in the past--and "psychs me out." Perhaps this is what prior posters refer to above, in part, as being more liberated without music in front of them. I do feel that some of the "CPU" that is my brain can focus on sound and interpretation more when not taxed with the process of "sending signals" to and from the eyes. Maybe it's me.
Do others find they play differently (like I do) when the music to a piece they've otherwise committed to memory, is, or isn't in front of them?
I'm not talking about the people whose play is compromised by the anxiety of forgetting notes or haven't truly memorized the piece.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-02-16 20:13
WhitePlainsDave wrote:
> Do others find they play differently (like I do) when the music
> to a piece they've otherwise committed to memory, is, or
> isn't in front of them?
>
> I'm not talking about the people whose play is compromised by
> the anxiety of forgetting notes or haven't truly memorized the
> piece.
>
I certainly find it easier to stay in communication with a conductor when I've memorized a solo passage in an orchestral piece. I don't know that I play differently. I'm generally too much of a nervous wreck about stand-up solo (concerto or sonata) playing to even consider playing without the lifeline of the printed part available.
But for me the issue about memorizing when playing from memory isn't part of a player's normal situation is the fear of having a memory block, not passages that I haven't learned well enough - a passage that I have memorized and can play in my sleep but which suddenly goes blank in my mind under the added pressure of performance. I played Sibelius's 1st Symphony a few weeks ago. I play the opening solo from memory all the time at home. I wasn't actually reading it during the performance, and I was able to keep a much better eye on the baton to make sure we were thinking together. But I would not have chosen to play it without music in front me and would not, I don't think, have played it any differently. As a reference, the print is for me a huge comfort even if I don't need it.
Karl
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