Memorising
Andrew has asked if we need to memorise pieces to play them (see comments to yesterday's post).
Thanks for asking!
It's not necessary in itself, but it depends what results you want. It's actually quite difficult to play with the music! This is because you then have one more thing to concentrate on. When I play from the music I find it is harder to listen to what I am doing. Looking at the music gives me the impression that I am hearing what it says on the page - because I can hear it in my mind. Then it is easy to let mistakes go by without realising, since my mind thinks it can hear the right notes!
I think memorising is important for freedom, however the other side of the argument says that it inhibits freedom, because you learn a fixed interpretation of the work and are no longer truly interpreting the notations on the page. This was Sviatoslav Richter's view. He memorised in his youth and used the music later in life. Some people seem to think he did this because he couldn't play it without the music, but they are probably jealous. I think he did it because he wanted to! And his interpretations are free in a way that is possible when you don't have to concentrate on what is coming next. It's really quite complicated because once you remove one thing (concentrating on remembering) you introduce another (concentrating on the score).
I hope to be able to have the same kind of freedom as I see the pages in my mind.
There is one reason why I want to memorise: page turners. Some are good but normally only people who should be somewhere else doing their own concert. There are other kinds and they are a bit of a problem. It is very distracting to have to baby-sit a nervous page-turner who is going to make a mistake soon but you don't know when! I have seen this in footage of Richter playing - he ignores them but he has to take action when they get it wrong, oh dear oh dear!
The idea that we have to memorise to give a proper performance is silly. Especially when it makes a lot of people nervous who could otherwise be enjoying music. It wasn't so long ago that the first people started playing without music (remember even the solo piano recital is not that old), and when they did audiences thought they were showing off rather!
Without the freedom to play with music, we would probably never have had performances like Charles Hallé's Beethoven Sonatas cycle (the first time this had ever been done) - I don't know what it sounded like, but I'm sure it was worth being there! Equally, we would never have had any of my own performances of Xenakis's Evryali - I don't know that without the music, though I know some of it (surprisingly!)
I would like to learn Evryali without the music but I'm not sure if it's a good idea; sometimes there are more notes than you have fingers and a choice has to be made, and I feel the choice is more lively when it is live, rather than just learning a sort of cut-down version that one can play accurately every time. Xenakis wanted some kind of struggle or he wouldn't have written a twelve note chord and a note that's off the end of the piano! (Actually that note, top "C sharp" was removed from the score a few years later).
What made me want to learn things is the fact that unless I do it, I can't play anything! I would have to carry around a library with me. So yes, it is to get freedom that I am memorising.
But your question has made me think (people should ask more questions) and I feel it could well be a bad idea to play without music - unless one does it right. And even with the music, I'd like some idea of what is coming next around the page. Just in case the page turner misses a few. And anyway, I would feel well prepared.
Somebody used to practise while reading the Bible. How could he concentrate, you ask? You might well ask the same thing of someone who reads the music while he plays. Yet there may be performance instructions that we haven't remembered, things that we notice again by looking at the score. There will always be a new argument for or against either view, but the main thing is we have to do it somehow. There has to be a performance, and the way we do it is the way we do it. As Mozart said: Use your nose if you have to. As Rachmaninoff said: Sit high or low? Just sit comfortably.
I don't know what my conclusion is, but I know I like to know what I'm playing!
Thanks for asking!
It's not necessary in itself, but it depends what results you want. It's actually quite difficult to play with the music! This is because you then have one more thing to concentrate on. When I play from the music I find it is harder to listen to what I am doing. Looking at the music gives me the impression that I am hearing what it says on the page - because I can hear it in my mind. Then it is easy to let mistakes go by without realising, since my mind thinks it can hear the right notes!
I think memorising is important for freedom, however the other side of the argument says that it inhibits freedom, because you learn a fixed interpretation of the work and are no longer truly interpreting the notations on the page. This was Sviatoslav Richter's view. He memorised in his youth and used the music later in life. Some people seem to think he did this because he couldn't play it without the music, but they are probably jealous. I think he did it because he wanted to! And his interpretations are free in a way that is possible when you don't have to concentrate on what is coming next. It's really quite complicated because once you remove one thing (concentrating on remembering) you introduce another (concentrating on the score).
I hope to be able to have the same kind of freedom as I see the pages in my mind.
There is one reason why I want to memorise: page turners. Some are good but normally only people who should be somewhere else doing their own concert. There are other kinds and they are a bit of a problem. It is very distracting to have to baby-sit a nervous page-turner who is going to make a mistake soon but you don't know when! I have seen this in footage of Richter playing - he ignores them but he has to take action when they get it wrong, oh dear oh dear!
The idea that we have to memorise to give a proper performance is silly. Especially when it makes a lot of people nervous who could otherwise be enjoying music. It wasn't so long ago that the first people started playing without music (remember even the solo piano recital is not that old), and when they did audiences thought they were showing off rather!
Without the freedom to play with music, we would probably never have had performances like Charles Hallé's Beethoven Sonatas cycle (the first time this had ever been done) - I don't know what it sounded like, but I'm sure it was worth being there! Equally, we would never have had any of my own performances of Xenakis's Evryali - I don't know that without the music, though I know some of it (surprisingly!)
I would like to learn Evryali without the music but I'm not sure if it's a good idea; sometimes there are more notes than you have fingers and a choice has to be made, and I feel the choice is more lively when it is live, rather than just learning a sort of cut-down version that one can play accurately every time. Xenakis wanted some kind of struggle or he wouldn't have written a twelve note chord and a note that's off the end of the piano! (Actually that note, top "C sharp" was removed from the score a few years later).
What made me want to learn things is the fact that unless I do it, I can't play anything! I would have to carry around a library with me. So yes, it is to get freedom that I am memorising.
But your question has made me think (people should ask more questions) and I feel it could well be a bad idea to play without music - unless one does it right. And even with the music, I'd like some idea of what is coming next around the page. Just in case the page turner misses a few. And anyway, I would feel well prepared.
Somebody used to practise while reading the Bible. How could he concentrate, you ask? You might well ask the same thing of someone who reads the music while he plays. Yet there may be performance instructions that we haven't remembered, things that we notice again by looking at the score. There will always be a new argument for or against either view, but the main thing is we have to do it somehow. There has to be a performance, and the way we do it is the way we do it. As Mozart said: Use your nose if you have to. As Rachmaninoff said: Sit high or low? Just sit comfortably.
I don't know what my conclusion is, but I know I like to know what I'm playing!
Labels: piano, reader questions
1 Comments:
Thank you, that's very interesting and I liked the balanced way you approached the question. I asked because recently, in the context of my job, I have come up against a strong view that it is *always* better and more impressive if a pianist plays from memory rather than from music. I can't get my head round this at all - surely it's the quality of the performance which really matters, and whether or not you choose to use music is secondary? I think partly this view comes from the established convention that pianists should never use music. But it's interesting that there are equally established conventions that other performers (eg. organists, and vocal soloists in oratorios) do always perform from the score.
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