Відео

I like Art Tatum's take: “ Play the tune in every key and it will come to you.“ note that he said that tune/the melody not the piece. Split up the piece in percentages and transpose a small percentage of the piece that is causing you memory grief, after about 6 transpositions around the circle of fifths, then five more in the other direction on the circle of fifths, many memory problems go away as one becomes more familiar with every aspect of the competition. It's rhythm. It's functional Harmony and the fingerings as they adapt to the various Keys. This also helps with the great handicap of perfect pitch by shifting memory to functional Harmony rather than to bird-like imitation of the pi tches, and finger wiggling like a mime.

Who's Alice btw? Might this be the same Alice Smokie sang about?

It's taken Seymour 90 years to realise that he can't play by ear.! Better late than never, to be sure.

Beautiful words… being at peace … piano brings me joy … oh.. he’s so special… Mr. Bernstein

I don't understand how perfect pitch is relevant to any of this. I understand how relative pitch is completely relevant. Can anyone clue me in?

Sir Seymour B is so great thanks so much !!!! I am no professional pianist at all just studied it when i was 6 or 7 for 2 years and started playing again just 5 years ago... when i turned 65 ... i thought i could never play a single (even simple) again.. words and thoughts of Sir seymour b are so valuable helpful and inspiring !!! yes memory slips etc causes anxiety and frustration it could be scary. even just playing at home.. or in streets or malls. .

I was fascinated to hear about Angela Hewitt. I have heard her in concert many times including two successive nights in which she played all 48 of the Well Tempered Clavier preludes and fugues from memory. Then a few years ago I heard her play the 2 and 3 Part Inventions, which she has played since the age of 10, using an iPad. Since then she has used one at every concert I have attended. Now I know why. Thanks Seymour!

He is incredible ... everything he says is a nugget of inspiration. Have been playing all my life, except for the 30 or so years of parenting. Picked it back up at retirement. Finally learned theory. Took the challenge of picking out the Star Spangled Banner. I have no music for that. Did it with right hand within a few tries. Got it with both hands. That was in C. The did it with 3 flats. Then took that left index finger ... popped out the melody with no mistakes. How many things does it take for me to believe in myself? This is a great video!!! Bought his book; With Your Own Two Hands ... love it!

Respectfully, learn to play everything in all twelve keys.

Chopin because of the difficult nuance. I went to a different conservatory but had a friend at Curtis and always kept my eye on it. And I love to cook! Thanks for the conversation.

Seymour is the best. 5 minutes listening to his wise tips help me tremendously. What a wonderful teacher and kind to pass on his knowledge. Great channel thanks!!!

The romantic tradition of the delayed high note. So illuminating.

what was that legato sound at 2:34:53?

Belated Happy Birthday Sir Seymour🎉 God bless you.

Mr. Bernstein is truly a REAL teacher. We need more teachers like him! 👍🏻❤️

He makes a good point but his explanation is not correct. A musician must develop ear/hand coordination. They must learn how to sing internally and then they must learn how to get to the place on their instrument where those pitches reside. This was traditionally done through the study and practice of partimento. It's a skill that all musicians had in the 18th century because of the way they were trained. It starts with sight-singing and hexachordal solfeggio. Then when they started practicing instruments, improvisation was the name of the game through realizing figured bass and unfigured bass. Thankfully there is now a movement to train music students, adopting similar practices. Check out the work of John Mortensen and Robert Gjerdigan.

So grateful for these two masters sharing their heartful wisdom and music guidance, I am totally addicted to your videos. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for helping to spread this wisdom, I can't tell you how grateful I am.❤

And its so much easier to play with the music with your ipad and foot pedal

I agree 100%

Happy belated birthday Seymour!

It is truly teaching of the knowledge and wisdom to the next generation. Thank you.

“A big black box with white teeth” ❤😂

I had to laugh out loud, Seymour, when you said, “don’t ever buy anything from Amazon, they’ll sell you my book for a thousand dollars.” When the documentary came out - everyone walk don’t run to watch it - I went right to the theatre when it opened and wept, (I bought the DVD and loan it out to my piano students to watch) - I waited months and months for the price of your book to go down, checking constantly (everyone get the book!) on Amazon and finally scored a copy for around $25, I was so happy that day, if only I’d googled and found your website! You are indeed so wise, I’m always inspired by you. And Ching-Yun, I love these interviews.

I love this man so much! It was a common practice for years for all pianists to have the sheet music in front of them as a sign of respect. It seems the era of Liszt sadly ended that practice. BRING BACK SHEET MUSIC IN CONCERTS!

His argument is a bit wonky to me. He’s using the term “memorize” just to refer to hand movements. That’s memorizing hand movements not music. Ching-Yun Hu describes a process whereby she has the music throughly memorized and allows her body to play it. So really one could argue someone with perfect pitch has the music memorized much more deeply than someone that just relies on memorizing hand motions.

That’s how most non-classically trained pianists learn, trial and error by ear. We need more wisdom-sharing between classicals and jazzists for mutual benefit.

2:10

What is important of course is how well you play the piece, not whether you use the score or not. But with respect to memorisation, another way of memorising it seems is visual. Geiseking who was fantastic player and renown for his ability to quickly memorise scores said that for him it was a mental process. Literally he memorized the actual score and then played as if he had it in front of him. So it was not motor memory. He was also a fantastic interpreter - nothing like a lot of modern pianists. In my own view it is a combination of the visual and the aural. Ultimately it comes down to listening - in that sense I agree with the interviewee. But there is an analytic component which involves understanding the music - which means really knowing the written score. It is interesting how pianists are expected to memorise. For example it is perfectly acceptable for choirs, choir directors, organists and orchestral conductors to use the score.

I love this man. He speaks the truth

Richter used his sheets later in his life mainly because he was losing his perfect pitch due to aging.

Thank you Seymour, you have liberated us!!!! All of us should feel proud to be able to play well and not have to worry about memory which truly does affect our performances. I’ve recently fully accepted this reality in my own playing despite being trained to memorize which in younger years I used to almost automatically memorize. I have decent relative pitch. When I play in public now, yes, many passages are memorized, but I can always get back on track if the score is right in front of me and I know where and when to look, it’s a careful piece of choreography! I will always remember your advice that it’s fine to use the score. You have alleviated any feelings of inadequacy. Thank you so much. You are a treasure ❤❤❤.

Spot on!

'Do you agree with what I'm about to say?' 'YES!'

⚘👍🥳

I would have liked to hear her full thoughts. She wasn’t fast enough to speak them, and he wasn’t slow enough to hear them.

I have played from memory as a church musician. for two decades I don't have good relative or perfect pitch and I destroyed my nervous system I never knew this was the cause glad I do now

It’s interesting how most of the comment section posts that I’ve read have not had or have a problem with memorising during performances or memorising in general. I’ve actually had two memory slips during my last scoreless performance on stage and the main problem there was the chordal/harmonic changes that were slightly out of pattern that got me slightly confused

Just when I thought I couldn't envy people with perfect pitch more, here comes yet another reason to. To all you people with perfect pitch, go to hell and don't come back!

Thank you for shining light on all the ridiculous‘standards’ that have ZERO to do with music, and thr joy of it! Hallelujah 🙂🙏🏼❤

This reminded me of the film Madame Sousatzka (starring Shirley Maclaine) She plays an eccentric piano teacher whose performing career ended during a memory lapse in Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata which caused her to dramatically flee the stage. However, I'm not convinced that telling us it's impossible to play Chopin's G minor Ballade with the index finger of your left hand teaches us anything new!

pitch is a small part of it. ear doesn't mean just pitch. you hear the rhythm and that hearing guides you through the way the piece falls on the keyboard.

what also is a memory thing is if I make a mistake I cant start from a previous phrase or whatever. Id have to start over.

Wow so interesting ! I had no idea this is a problem with music performance student's memory. I had learned piano by "ear" but also by figuring out by trial and error the sound of different chord changes and patterns on the keyboard. So what I learn when I learn a piece is a three fold version. i can hold the entire piece in my head as a giant sound file, (kind of like a painting where i see (hear) everything at once (I know how it sounds)), then I remember what the structures look like as patterns of keys on the piano keyboard, and the names of those chords in figured bass, and I also have muscle memory, so the sequence of note changes, in my fingers, and arms. When I taught piano to children I always taught, from day one, not only looking at a score and playing the notes with fingers but also sight singing. i simply told my students if You want to take lessons practice every day. i don't care if it is for 5 seconds. After you are tired say after 5 minutes or 5 seconds, do anything on the piano that You would like to do, like figuring out a melody You heard on a computer game or the radio, or make up a song or something, for another 5 seconds, or if longer, fine. Most of my students under the age of 7 or so would fall in love with the whole process, and easily memorize pieces., and spend 1/2 hr- 3hrs each day. So I guess my intuition, in looking into my own process, having never studied piano formally was a good one. Even though i started working through the process of learning to read through piano scores at age 14-15 or so, I sight read every day, and write music everyday. Most of my students would easily surpass my playing by sight reading in a year or two (having begun at a young age. but very few or possibly none of them except my own son have surpassed my knowledge of the structure of music, and understand what is happening in a piece by listening to it, or even know what figured bass is ! I had pretty much come to the same conclusion that Seymour expresses here and in one of the interviews with Ethan Hawke, music should be taught from a creative point of view. Not as a business of recreating "masterpieces". It should be more focused on the creative side. That's more like what Jazz, Rock & Roll, and the Urban Music art scene are about, exploring the creative process. Too bad "serious" music doesn't take that CREATIVE PART,.seriously. Nahre Sol did an interesting video on why many classical musicians can't improvise,.. i left a long comment there, which is an interesting development of this whole idea.

Look here

I find that my mind remembers hand shapes, and relative note positions and pitch. But a bad relative pitch makes it harder to learn and remember anything. So I think I agree with him.

Asian...

All piano players who Cant Read music play by memory....no?

Seymour's discussion of Chopin's pedal markings and practice is worth a pot of gold! Thank you, Seymour.

Happiest of birthdays, Seymour. You are a treasure!