Music Video Lesson: Playing From the Score Versus Playing from Memory

You're watching livingpianos.com and I'm Robert Estrin with a great question today from a viewer, which is how do you approach playing from the score compared to playing from memory? This is a great question. They're two completely different skill sets. Let me tell you a little story. Years and years ago I would go to competitions, accompany people and some people would show up and at the last minute their accompanist wouldn't show up and maybe it was like a beginner piece. A little kid with some very simple, simple accompaniment. And they would ask some of the other accompanists and some of them just, oh, I can't do it unless they practice. They couldn't sight read at all. They would have to really learn their score. And then of course I've seen people who could memorize like crazy and couldn't read at all. And they're two completely different skill sets. And why do you need both of them anyway?

Well that's the first question I'm going to answer for you. There's some types of music where reading the score is intrinsically important and there's other times where playing from memory is really of tremendous benefit. Now let's start with why would you ever have to memorize music? You've got a music rack right here. You notice I play solo music from memory all the time. You'd wonder why? Am I just trying to show off. Well, why would I go to all that trouble? The secret is that once you have something up here, it's so much easier to play it. Not having to look up here and look down here and it's so hard. And with solo music, there's no reason not to have it all memorized. Your life is easier. You put that work into the front end.

So the question is why wouldn't you do that with all your music? Well, first of all, it's time consuming, but secondly, there's even a more important reason. When you play with other musicians, chamber music or accompanying, you absolutely must get a grasp of the entire score. You have to know what everybody is playing and the score has got not just your part, but it's got the solo parts or the other musicians parts and that's really important to be able to play with other musicians to have the score so you're aware of everything that's going on.

Now in terms of practicing pieces that you memorize compared to practicing pieces that you're playing from the score. I know that I do it completely differently. When approaching a piece of music you want to memorize, you want to read through it really just two or three times and then get to work little section at a time, right hand alone, learning absolutely everything. The notes, rhythm, fingering, phrasing and expression. Just have a small phrase you can master in just a couple of minutes. You do the same thing with the same left hand part. I have described this process. Get the left hand memorized, just a small phrase. Then put them together. As each phrase is learned, you connect from the beginning and eventually you have the whole piece learned and you continue solidifying the memory with the score, without the score. And you get to a point where that music is part of you and it's a great feeling. It's a liberation as a matter of fact.

Now when I'm accompanying pieces of music, I don't practice that way. Now there might be certain key sections I might work that way, but generally speaking, what I do is I go through the pieces slowly reading. And any part that I can't play satisfactorily, I use kind of the bandaid approach. I focus my attention to the parts that I can't play up to speed and I work on those until I can, past that point to the next point and here's what I do. I try to make it so that I don't have to look down at my hands at all. I try to make it so that I can just keep my eyes on the score and play totally by feel.

Now it's all but impossible. And eventually, yes, there will be quick glances for leaps and things like that. But in my practice I try to make it so I don't have to look down at my hands at all. I strive to get to that point of total comfort, being completely absorbed, looking at the score. And that's a great feeling when you can do that because then if you need a quick glance here or there, you're okay. And you never, by the way, never move your head like this. If you move your head while you're looking at your hands, you will get off, you won't know where you are at the score. Instead you simply move your eyes. You have a quick glance and that's about it. Practice not looking at your music at all. Get to the point where you have that comfort level even with leaps. And you might wonder how is that possible?

Well, I can tell you there've been some of the great pianists in history who are completely blind and they could play anything, with leaps and everything. So it is possible. And think about what violinists and cellists have to do with, there's no frets and they have to do these crazy leaps without being able to look necessarily. So you can learn to play without looking at the score. So these are two completely different ways of practicing. With solo music, the liberation is worth memorizing, and when you're playing with other musicians, having their part is really important. So it's two completely different approaches to practicing. I'm interested in any of you who have different ideas or support this idea, have found the same thing. Love to hear from you again. I'm Robert Estrin here at livingpianos.com, your online piano store. Thanks for joining me.

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