Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Practicing with sheet music

I have been following one Youtube authority who says that learning a new piece should always involve taking a short phrase, first with HS, then together, then adding in dynamics until that phrase is memorized. Then proceed to the next phrase. Definitely not sight reading it over and over, hoping to eventually perfect it (this is what I tend to do). Yet another authority says you should always practice with the sheet music.

If I have memorized pieces of the music, is there any reason to use the sheet music every time I play it? I can see going back to the sheet music to check it periodically, but should I always look at the sheet music?

Along with that, I need to learn to read music faster. Is that something I should practice separately? If I do not use the sheet music but look at my hands, will I become dependant on seeing my hands?

Thanks for your patience with all the questions.

I do not agree with your on-line teacher: as a beginner, the goal should be to develop good reading skills. This means you will not memorize every piece of music that you learn. Play with the music and save memorizing for those few pieces that you want to retain in your memory in case you are asked to play and your music is not available.

Read a lot of music. Yes, you will sometimes need to glance at your hands— but the bulk of your time should have your eyes on the music. You won’t develop good reading skills unless you make reading the focus.

Learning every piece hands separately and then learning hands together is not efficient. Learn as much as you can hands together from the beginning, even at a snail’s pace. Yes, there will be places that have a tricky part— learn hands separately in those.

Here is the Bullet Proof Musician on effective practice

http://musicfpannhs.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/5/5/2655835/8_things_top_practicers_do_differently.pdf

my thinking is: don't memorize but understand. If you understand a piece/tune it will be easier to play and memorize.

"the goal should be to develop good reading skills."
and good ears as well. Aural skills are extremely important.

A beginner piece that has few notes I can read through it easily. After playing it for a while, some of the notes would be memorized (including muscle memory).

When I'm learning a difficult piece, I often do hand separate. A typical church hymn with 4 voices the beats line up so counting is less of an issue. When I'm playing 2 or more parts with slightly different beat patterns, it's easier to count doing 1 part first and fill in the bass a few lines at a time. A Bach fugue with 4 parts it's good to know what each part is doing so you can bring out each voice easily.

People who are in Suzuki are asked to learn the pieces in Book 1 by ear and imitate the teacher's hand positions before learning to read. This is supposed to teach students to focus on listening and play pieces in a more musical way.

After learning a piece, refer to the score periodically to remind yourself the little details. Sometimes you find things that you missed reading before.

Yes, developing aural skills is important. You need to take one step at a time: see a note, play it with no hesitation on the keyboard. Play simple rhythms snd increase your knowledge and skill with more complicated patterns. Listen to yourself: don’t mindlessly practice scales, but listen. Is every note snd sound even in tone snd rhythm? Vary the way you practice them: gif instance, start soft and gradually crescendo up, decrescendo going down.

Skill development is progressive and takes time.

Please consider changing the way you are learning

Do they include reading through the piece as well?

I include hands together before HS. I include playing through the section as a whole on the day and reading through the piece as a whole frequently to make sure the phrase being worked on is in its correct context not an isolated fragment.

Sight reading a piece "over and over" is definitely not a good way to learn.

I always practise with the sheet music and sometimes I refer to it. This is for repertoire or exam pieces only as I prefer to be free of the score when performing.

Not every time but occasionally.

No, not if you're memorising it or intending to play it without the sheet music but yes, if you're intending to use the score.

Yes, every day with other pieces.

Practise reading to get better at reading. Practise reading and playing at the same time to get better at reading and playing. Practise memorised etudes to develop mechanical and technical skills and independence of hands, fingers and sides of the brain. Practise reading new music to get better at reading new music. Practise reading with others to get faster at reading new music.

Better will come with regular and conscientious practise; faster will come with time once you get better.

No, not if you've memorised it cognisantly (explicit memory). Yes, if you've memorised it by using repetition only (procedural memory).

There are many, many skills that need developing to play the piano well. The point of the post you quoted was that those who memorize most of their pieces and stop using the music often do not develop good reading skill because they don't practice it enough. Every time one plays from the music one is practicing their reading skill. Aural skill and the many other skills is a separate issue.

are you saying that people who memorize music don't read music? I think I know what type you are: the one who is afraid of people not playing music from sheet music.
I have met people who think playing by ear is a bad thing as the only things that is ok is playing from sheet music. What you are reffering to is playing from sheet music but memorizing music so you don't have to rely on only using the sheet music. It's not like we are talking about not suing sheet music at all.
If you only focus on lead sheets you will never learn to read sheetmusic that well and that isn't very good I think. But you also need to play from leadsheets sometimes. Or play from memory.
I say: the more skills you have the better you will be at playing the piano.

It is safe to say those who don't rely on their reading skill as much, don't develop it is much. Similarly, those that don't practice memorizing don't develop it as much. But, as we've discussed many times, both are important. Aural skill is in fact highly important and is often not as developed when relying on just reading all the time.

They are both important though, and I do not believe there is any kind of authority that can make claim to what we all should do. It's individual and there are many different goals that can be pursued.

Richard suggests a nice balance of both reading development, aural and memorization development. This would seem to make the most sense overall, as you don't want to neglect any one of these entirely. Certainly not in the long term.

Well, playing by ear is often neglected I have to say. At least, in what we refer to as "classical" piano lessons.

Thanks for all the replies. I am an intermediate player trying to learn more advanced pieces. I am working on W.C. Handy and Scott Joplin and these are difficult enough for me that I have to take them slowly. I am also a student of the history of the music of that time so one of my goals is to be able to download music from the digital libraries available and play them quickly to study what was there.

In fairness though, learning and playing classical is not well suited to learning to play by ear. But, that doesn't mean you can't still develop your ear through playing classical. When you need to recall something, what it sounds like is a good reminder and develops your ear. So, this is where memorizing can really help strengthen that aspect of your playing.

But again, it shouldn't come down to, which is better or more important.

Reading should be the focus of classical, but not the only focus, of course.

No one would say your last sentence is not true but your comment about what type of person I am is 100% wrong.

The OP's post is about playing and practicing a piece that has a fully realized score and has nothing to do with playing from a lead sheet or playing pop music by ear. They asked if it was better to always memorize a piece a measure or phrase at a time or play with the score. My comment(and the comment of other posters before me who said the same thing) was that it's better to play mostly from the score because those who try to memorize every piece and stop using the score quickly often never learn to sight read or read music well. There have been many PW threads where the poster has this problem for that reason. It's pretty obvious that every time one plays with the score one is practicing reading or sight reading music, and the more one does that the better one gets at it.

I don't really think "classical" vs "non-classical". I might use more sheet music for some music more than others but I might still use playing by ear even if it is a "classical" piece. You are not forced to play a piece onky by using sheet music. You can make up your own arrangements or learn a melody by ear.

my point was that many people get stuck with only using sheet music. I hear people saying that they cannot play unless they have a sheet music in front of them. That's also problematic. We ned both skills. That was my point. Lead sheets are in fact something that has what to play written in it. It's just that it doesn't tell you everything. You would still have that question: should I memorize or or just play a prima vista?

@Dan
Since you are a Mozart fan, do you think you could play Mozart well from a lead sheet?

Why not?

Just don't try out for any Chopin competitions. You will be slaughtered.

If someone wants to play only classical or play non-classical music that has a complete score, not being able to play by ear is not a problem.Those people don't "get stuck" because they use the score unless they choose to memorize a piece. Classical music is not played by ear by 99+% of pianists since it is usually too complicated to play by ear, and it would take MUCH longer to learn even if one could play it by ear. Lead sheets have nothing to do with the OP's question which was about learning music that has a fully realized score. Finally, when playing classical or any kind of music that has a fully realized score, the choice is definitely not between memorizing and sight reading as you say.

You can certainly play Für Elise (and Rondo alla turca, and a lot else) by ear, or from a lead sheet . As long as you're not banking on actually playing all the right notes.

I did once play it by ear, on an Alaskan ferry ship's bar upright, but my audience were all inebriated (I wasn't, of course, and in full possession of all my faculties ), and I improvised quite a bit of the 'in-between Rondo theme' sections, because I couldn't quite remember how they sounded - well, I'd avoided listening to it ever since I was a kid, because our neighbor's son rattled through it presto con malizia e senza espressione daily for several months, by which time I couldn't stand it any more. Still, my deranged version was a resounding success with the drinking punters, judging by the applause .

However, I did hear a version by a professional jazz pianist (on a cruise ship) a few years ago, who played from the full score on his iPad, but using it as a lead sheet, swinging it as well as changing the rhythm. I asked to see his score, and saw that though the actual notes looked like unadulterated Beethoven, there were also chord symbols above the melody. He simply played the RH melody (but not in strict time) and improvised the rest based on the given chord symbols, ignoring the LH part in the score completely.

When you already have a piece memorized, playing without the score allows you to have undivided focus on the sound you are producing and you don't have to worry about page turns.

That said, there are times when it is customary to play from the score, for example when you are accompanying (and usually someone would do the page turning for you).