Do I Have to Memorise?

 For pianists, the task of memorising is overwhelmingly greater than for other musicians. And in any case, pianists before Liszt played with the score in front of them. So why bother? Isn’t it just a stunt, or at least a needless convention? Isn’t it just for pianists who’ve never mastered the art of sight reading? And doesn't the Diploma syllabus allow you to use the score anyway?

 To clear the historical objection out of the way first, Liszt was one of the pioneers of the public piano recital, so memorising has been an element of the piano recital ever since it became firmly established as a musical institution.

 Very well, so it’s a recital tradition, but is it really necessary?

 Before answering this, I'll remind readers that I'm addressing advanced students here, students who are moving beyond Grade 8 to Diploma level, and perhaps considering entrance to a conservatoire. What I have to say would have to be qualified for intermediate students (around Grades 6 or 7), and pianists at lower levels can read on simply as a glimpse into the future (if they continue with their piano studies).

 Having made this clear, let’s answer the fundamental question. I’ve found that pianists who’ve reached this level (and well done for coming this far!) generally think of memorising as something that’s grudgingly pasted onto the learning process as a final step. The better sight-readers among them are especially resistant, since they feel comfortable with the score and don’t see it as an obstacle to good performance. But all this, as you'll see a little later, is to miss the point of memorising entirely.

 To some extent the objections are quite understandable – memorising really isn't so important for the less technically demanding music these pianists have been playing so far. The crucial difference at Diploma level and above is that the makeshift techniques that suffice for easier pieces will no longer do. At advanced levels, the pianist has to acquire and apply professional technique because the music now demands it.

 Professional technique requires careful thought about the flow of movements that a given passage requires in the hands, wrists, arms or even the entire upper body. You can’t study these movements in the abstract – they have to be worked out concretely with particular pieces. Chopin’s C-major Etude, Op. 10 No. 7 will quickly force the unwary student to face up to these new tasks. Try playing the right hand part at a moderate speed or faster – whatever your sight-reading skills allow. Caution! Only try this once.

 What’s the result? Much frustration, I would expect, and the first warning signs of pain in the wrist. This étude, aside from being a wonderful composition, is a perfect exercise in helping the pianist master different hand, wrist and arm movements. Particularly in the passages that are littered with accidentals, the position has to shift with every new triad (i.e. on every quaver beat). But these ever-changing positions can’t possibly be worked out in the process of sightreading, where mere playing of the correct notes soaks up all the pianist’s powers of concentration. Only very slow practice in the initial stages of learning the étude will enable you to discover and then assimilate these movements. In addition to playing slowly, you’ll need to break the music into very small units – bars, or half bars – and repeat these units many times. If discomfort or pain sets in again, it’s a sure sign that you’ve speeded up too early, and you’ll have to return to the very slow tempo to retrieve the comfortable positions you’ll need if you’re ever to master the piece.

 This is precisely where memorisation emerges – not as an afterthought once a piece has already been prepared, but as an essential part of the learning process from the outset. To discover and assimilate the necessary movements, you’ll need to take note of how the movements feel, but you’ll also need to look at what you’re doing. This – obviously – means looking away from the score. Fortunately, the slow tempo, the very small units of music and the repetition will all lead you to memorise automatically, not as a separate act, but as a natural consequence of the other elements of the learning process.

 If this is all very alien to your practice routines so far, it’s time to rethink these routines. You can no longer expect to make progress by playing repeatedly through an advanced piece at speeds close to full tempo. That may be an exciting amateur musical pastime, but it won’t lead to progress – in fact, it will ensure that you’ll never be able to turn out a competent performance of the piece.

 Those who think that memorising is the last and least stage of preparing a piece for performance miss the point. They think that memorising is merely the act of committing the information on the score to memory – notes and (if they’re conscientious) dynamic markings. But memorising must also include all the shifting of positions that I’ve discussed above, together with the fingerings that accompany them (I deliberately chose a Chopin étude that uses the same fingering over and over while demanding constant changes of position, allowing the pianist to focus on the latter task).

 Good luck with your new approach to practice! If you carry it out thoroughly, you'll be memorising painlessly. Try this approach first on a new piece. By all means sight-read your way through it once or twice, but then begin the serious work of learning the piece that I’ve described above. Never give into the temptation to play faster from the score again – you can quickly undo your solid work for the sake of a quick thrill (better listen to a recording than do this). After mastering a new piece this way, you’ll need to apply  to pieces that you’ve already tried to learn. You’ll be surprised how this approach can rescue pieces that you’d shelved because of seemingly insuperable difficulties. Adapt the method to the context – clearly a Beethoven sonata won’t demand the same constant level of virtuosity as a Chopin étude, so at times you may find yourself working at larger units that are easily committed to memory.