Piano Muscle Memory or Sight Reading or Memorization
I cannot count how many times I've heard these two myths in my years of pianoforte teaching:
- "I am really good at memorizing music only my sight-reading is horrible." [well-nigh commonly from music students in commencement through advanced levels]
- "I am really proficient at sight-reading music but tin't memorize to save my life." [most commonly from advanced students, accompanists, church building pianists, chamber pianists and other professional musicians]
These myths are frequently spoken with the implication that we're all either built-in equally sight-readers or memorizers. The fact is, we're all both. Information technology's all a matter of what we train ourselves to do. What might come as a surprise, all the same, is that these two statements are non two myths. They are one myth.
So, suppose that anybody had equal potential to sight-read and memorize well (in addition to working equally difficult throughout their lives too as receiving equal nurturing of their discipline). Even in this imaginary world of equality in potential, we would even so take people who announced to be bad at sight-reading and good at memorizing, while we'd have others who would appear to be skillful at sight-reading and bad at memorizing. This is no coincidence: there is interaction between these two skills that causes one to naturally work confronting the other.
Here is a picture of what tends to happen with fast sight-readers vs. wearisome sight-readers, assuming that both fast and slow music readers are observing musical detail to an equal degree and that neither of them is sloppy in execution of this detail:
| Fast sight-reading lends itself to… | Boring sight-reading lends itself to… | ||
| Practice Efficiency | Quantity | …processing large amounts of music at a time since so little difficulty in physical execution is encountered and since information technology is so pleasurable to hear music played from beginning to cease. This does fiddling to advance memorizing skills. The good sight-reader becomes a better sight-reader. | …processing small amounts of music at a fourth dimension since each note is such a burden to read and it can take and then long to read fifty-fifty i folio of music. This does little to advance sight-reading skills. The skilful memorizer becomes a improve memorizer. |
| Repetition | …little (if any) repetition in practicing, since large sections of music are being played. If repetition does occur, a lot of time lapses between repetitions, making the repetitions minimally useful. | …a lot of repetition in practicing, since small quantities of music are existence played. Repetitions are productive since very little fourth dimension lapses betwixt the repetitions. | |
| Speed | …practice tempos that are fast, making it more difficult to notice mistakes and to set them in one case detected. | …practice tempos that are irksome, making information technology easier to detect mistakes and to fix them in one case detected. | |
| Retentiveness Development | Sound Memory | … development of what the piece sounds like on a macro level, developing a "big motion-picture show" for the music quickly. | …development of what the slice sounds similar on a micro level, developing a "big moving picture" for the piece afterwards. |
| Belittling Memory | …more assay of music (indirectly!). Fast sight-readers may have less time to remember about each annotation they play than dull sight-readers, but their experience causes them to analyze music equally they go, such equally seeing scales, intervals and chords instead of "just notes". | …less analysis of music (indirectly!). Ho-hum sight-readers have more time to think about each note they play than fast sight-readers, but they lack the experience/noesis to meet intervals, chords and scales in the music instead of "just notes". | |
| Kinesthetic Retentiveness | …slower evolution of "musculus memory" (considering of do inefficiency tendencies above) | …faster development of "muscle memory" (because of practice efficiency tendencies higher up) | |
| Visual Memory | …development of visual memory of the score since good sight-readers detest looking at their easily | …development of visual memory of their hands since good memorizers detest looking at the music |
Notes on this table:
- Audio memory: developing a "big motion-picture show" for the piece afterward could exist a good thing or a bad thing depending on the piece and the student.
- Analytical memory: fast sight-readers tend to develop belittling retentiveness before irksome sight-readers, but it's not because of the speed of reading; it is because fast sight-readers have typically read through more music than ho-hum sight-readers have in their lifetimes. It is the experience backside a pianist, not the speed of reading, that determines belittling ability.
The terminal item listed in the table, visual memory, is the big key to why years of good sight-reading creates the illusion that memorizing skills are deteriorating, and why years of quick memorizing creates the illusion that sight-reading skills are deteriorating. The difference lies in where the pianist is looking. If a poor sight-reader wishes to get better at sight-reading, all they have to do is spend 15 minutes each day reading through music without looking at their easily (best to take moderate tempos and music that isn't likewise difficult). If a good sight-reader wishes to tap back into their retention skills that they supposedly "lost", all they accept to do is strength themselves to await at their hands when playing a familiar piece until it becomes comfortable. It is tempting for sight-reading pianists to give up after experiencing the discomfort of looking at their hands, even after simply the beginning try. Depending on the complexity and length of the piece, it could take anywhere from a 24-hour interval to several weeks to become totally comfy looking at the hands. During this time, the piece will appear to get worse since the pianist must sometimes stop to remember what comes next. In reality, the piece is not getting worse: improvements are being made to ane'south visual memory. I call this transitional menstruation limbo.
Experiencing Music As It Was Intended
Once the condolement of looking at one'southward hands has been reached and the music is no longer in limbo, appropriately, information technology'south a lot like the piece of music has reached sky. Pianists experience greater connexion and flow with their music when information technology is played without the lark of the sheet music. Once a slice is in sky, pianists commonly study that trying to put the music back in front of them "messes them upwards." Of course information technology does! Once visual memory has fully transitioned to the hands moving on the keyboard, the printed music will and should give the pianist at least a modest jolt of discomfort. The pianist is no longer used to looking at all those black dots and lines on the page. Visual memory is the simply one of the four retentiveness types that changes when memorizing music, so it makes sense that pianists would experience disorientation when going from the score to the keyboard, or vice-versa.
Not only that, just what is printed music anyway? It is a very limited way for composers to write downwards their intentions for how people should play their music. Subtleties of voicing, residue, pedaling, dynamic phrasing, rubato, etc. are almost never notated in the score. Music isn't music until it is realized in its audio form. Playing music from secure retentivity represents a pure functioning of the true musical paradigm. Putting canvas music in front end of a pianist who has the music memorized is a lot like taking a beautifully-recited poem and reducing it to Morse Code. Audible dashes and dots may convey the intentions of the author, but it does non convey the poem itself. This Morse Code is as much a distraction from the poem it represents as sheet music is from the music information technology represents.
Having said that, once a piece is securely memorized, it is important for a pianist to still refer back to the score to check memory accuracy, whether it is once a month or twice a year. The pianist should have realistic expectations while doing this. They should not attempt operation tempos, just should instead selection autonomously sections, annotation-by-note if necessary, in order to reaffirm memory. Problem reading notes should exist expected, and if it'southward expected, and so it's not "problem!" (Frustration only occurs when reality does not live upwards to expectations.) When mistakes are caught, they should exist corrected with the score until the corrections are finally translated into visual movements of the hands across the keyboard and re-memorized that manner.
Sight-Reading: Is It Actually The Most Important Skill?
Looking at the table above, it becomes credible that while sight-reading is a tremendously marketable skill to accept, it isn't actually necessary for concert-level playing. I've heard very good performances of Rachmaninov and Chopin played by pianists who are so bad at sight-reading that they resemble typists who are learning to "hunt and peck" for the commencement fourth dimension (I can recall of a few transfer students I've received in my years of instruction). I've also heard very bromidic performances of the same composers played by pianists who could practically sight-read the music perfectly upon first attempt. I could name a few well-known pianists, just I volition refrain out of respect.
Another example would be i of the ii 2009 Van Cliburn Gold Medalists, Nobuyuki Tsujii, who is blind. Tell me: how well do you suppose he reads music? Everything in his repertoire he has learned by listening to others play. He doesn't read music, at all. And he made it to the very acme of the acme. This is proof that while the skill of sight-reading is certainly useful, it is not disquisitional to the performer. In fact, given the tendencies listed in the table above (notably in the "Exercise Efficiency" categories), one has to wonder if good sight-readers are actually at a disadvantage when it comes to going down the functioning path? Possibly!
Achieving Residue
Equally a teacher, I think both skills are important to develop in students, because in that location is no mode for me to know which students will grow up to exist church pianists, accompanists or teachers in need of good sight-reading skill, vs. which students will grow up to only continue performing memorized pieces for themselves, friends, family, on the concert stage in higher, or even as a career. Consequently, I like to accept students e'er working on both polishing/memorizing besides as reading. When my beginning students are playing in method books, I require that everything from the Lesson/Recital/Solo books exist memorized. If it's not memorized, there is no possibility of getting a sticker. I besides require that everything from the Technique book not exist memorized. If a educatee plays an exercise and looks at their hands even once (with exception to spots that require hands to jump), there is no possibility of getting a sticker. Consequently, students are adequately well-counterbalanced when it comes to reading and memorizing. While but looking at music while playing isn't "sight-reading" if it's the 30th time information technology's been played, I all the same consider this practice of keeping the eyes post-obit the score something that enhances reading skills as long as the student is doing so mindfully.
Also speaking equally a teacher, I watch for a certain crimson flag for those who have an aversion to memorizing (which is quite mutual amongst beginners): staring at the wall (or the music rack) while playing from memory. While there are some rare pianists who look away from their hands for purely expressive purposes (i.eastward. helping them to listen to the music by not "distracting" themselves with visual sensations), most students only look away from their hands equally a consequence of trying to hold on to their precious retention of the black dots and lines on the score. And they wonder why information technology's and then hard to memorize the music! (I also think information technology would exist pretty difficult to memorize the audio patterns of a poem in Morse Code, don't you??) I help them to let get of this cherished merely wasteful memory by replacing information technology with hands moving around on the keyboard – a visual sensation that is much easier to remember. I tell them to wait at their hands all week long and to wait to go through the limbo menstruation, and they always come up back with a new realization that they tin memorize more than easily than they thought.
Great Sight-Readers And The Pain Of Memorizing
I believe that when i becomes really skillful at sight-reading, they often perceive an illusion that they are getting worse at memorizing. The table above already discusses one of the main reasons for this, namely that the pianist spends less fourth dimension tasting, chewing and digesting each note they play (as opposed to the dull reader who has to put and so much thought into every annotation). There is another reason: Those who can sight-read well go their pieces upwardly to "performance tempo" so rapidly that the normal time it takes them to memorize a slice of music hasn't been reached by the time the piece is performance quality. As a result, time must be spent consciously memorizing the slice. Virtually people will say that this is a pretty painful chore. I would be i of those people! In that location have been times when I've had to memorize pieces that I could literally play perfectly upon sight. Fortunately, the process of phrasing, rubato and other musical experimentation, careful harmonic assay of the score, etc. has a fashion of causing focused repetitive practicing that also happens to be extremely helpful for the memorizing procedure. Only without that, the good sight-reader is doomed to torture of repeating a piece of music solely for the purpose of memory. Not fun. And that is why various professional pianists hate memorizing music and so much.
Slow sight-readers are unremarkably the ones proverb, "I never have to try to memorize my music – it only happens." In reality, they aren't meliorate at memorizing than their musical neighbor – more likely, they are just worse at reading music than their neighbor! Their ain inexperience (or fault) becomes a virtue in their operation-oriented musical journeying.
(c) 2009 Cerebroom
Source: https://blog.twedt.com/archives/904
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