I love all interviews with Seymour. He knows his craft and has such compassion for artists (I'm an actor, but I learn so much from him). He's like a warm hug, or deep sigh of relief. He teaches with a gentle kindness, and great enthusiasm. He's patient with the process. All of this comes through in the tone of his voice and his soft eyes. I guess this is all what love truly is.
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!
David Oistrakh used to insist on having music on the stand on stage . Joseph Hassid used to have memory lapses . I love the "Do you agree with what I am going to say ?"----"Yes".
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!
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!!!
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!
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 do believe that my children's Suzuki piano training overcame a lot of those memory lapses and worries. One child had perfect pitch, but I believe it was developed from early piano age 4. But my son did not and never had memory lapses in concert. Both memorized complete sonatas and concertos as teens....no memory lapse at any time in concert. They only did Suzuki through early middle school and used that as a leaping board for later study. It depends on how you practice and how you memorize and how much you listen. I would take the freedom of being scoreless and sure of my music over the tethers of using music. I think, pound for pound, there are fine techniques....one is to have the music in front of you, for security...but never using it. But we never did that. The lesson here for me is to treat each student like an individual...they are not all going to be concert pianists, but they need to reach their potential and excuses won't help them do that. It's a fine line.
Absolutely agree, entirely - and it’s such a comfort to hear a grand master say it. To me, what matters is the how well any performer communicates with the audience. My own memory used to be quite secure, so I found it not much of a problem to perform from memory - I now have an iPad. I use it for rehearsals, recitals, organ playing, weddings - everything. What a profoundly wise man, and a gift of a teacher. Many thanks for the post.
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 ❤❤❤.
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.
I've only recently found out about this guy but I already love his wisdom so much. What he's saying makes so much sense. When I was a kid learning piano I eventually stopped playing recitals altogether because my nerves were killing me. My memorization was perfect offstage, but onstage I couldn't do it. Later I started studying jazz, and performing jazz was so much easier because I wasn't so worried about forgetting, it got me to become friends with the stage again. Studying jazz (and later singing as well) all these years also did wonders to develop my relative pitch. Now I'm back to practicing the classics, and I find memorization to be so much easier. If I have a memory slip now, I've developed the habit of not looking at the score, but guessing the notes until I find the right ones and go back into the flow. It creates for me a much stronger connection with the music, and I feel like he's saying, that I'm "playing with my ear". Also he's so right, nobody in the audience cares about if the music is perfectly memorized or not - they came to listen to you play, so have the sheet music with you and be proud. What a wonderful piece of advice that any music pupil at any age should know.
I've never had an issue with memory. I had a great teacher though. He would make me play the right hand only if the first section until I could play it a tempo without making a mistake. Then the left. And so on. Then play both hands together. Pretty sure this is how most teachers do it. Maybe my memory is good. He would say "if you know the piece there's no reason to be nervous." Was never nervous after that.
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
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 picked up a harmonica after 40 years never using it . I had never learned it properly . I just played the Star Spangled Banner straight through and I had never played that in my life. It tapped into the singing part of my brain when I was much younger .
I love listening to all the musical knowledge Mr. Bernstein so generously gives us with his videos. I am learning even more than I did in my college music classes. I, too, am happy to hear pianists can use their music to read as opposed to memorizing! It can be frightening to be playing and have a memory glitch! Thank you, Mr. Bernstein. ♥️
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.
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.
I'm not a classical pianist. Played mostly jazz all my life, improvising and transcribing from records. I envy ( in a good way, if that's possible) the way in which really sensitive classical pianists perform with a lot of nuance. But I find that many classical players don't use their ears much to improvise on the spot, or to create their own harmonic textures.
Because they are not supposed to do that. Usually they have to respect the piece and the idea the composer tried to express (with the instrumentalist interpretation) . In the past, I think, soloist could or were supposed to improvised a little in certain parts of certain pieces, but imagine 30 musicians in an orchestra improvising. What a chaos
My violin teacher amazed me one day when she said she could not whistle. I can imitate "Expressive Whistling " like Billy Connelly the Glasgow maestro .
My piano teacher did that to me a couple of times, just use the index finger, first only the right, then the left as well and then - as if I wasn't already sweating enough 🤣 - use both hands but switch the right with the left. That's when I had to tap out and practice until next week to halfway get that done 😅🙊
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!
You address a question I had. In what way is an actor suffering stage fright similar to a musician who doesn’t trust their grasp of tonal relationships?
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.
Professional play is done by automatisms and the ear. My body knows movements that I had forgotten but when I remember the tune and music by ear, the fingers, hands, and arms seem to follow and know what to do. A friend of mine once played a Rach 3 piano concert while thinking of a new female tenant in his apartment building who was chasing him.
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
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.
This is profound. I think it's very important to develop your ear by learning any music you like by ear first and to even improvize to it, I find that it gives me a better understanding of everything I learn by sightreading and from what I've learned it's what greats like Chopin or Liszt did as well. It's the way music has been passed on forever before sheets existed and it's the natural way. It also develops creative abilities, because now pathways are being created, that make it easier to listen to all the music inside ones being, and expressing it on the keys.
In a music shop I can read unfamiliar music and hear the melodies internally as long as the sales assistant does not whistle for himself . We had to read/sing Gregorian Chants at school so I had to use my internal scales like a crude slide rule measured from the single note played on the teacher`s piano .
OMG!!! SIr!! How were you able to get to that conclusion??? It is a subject that fascinates me but there are not good answers out there. Thanks soooo much!
I don't have perfect pitch but I memorize everything I play effortlessly. I've never understood how any performer could possibly perform a piece that they haven't memorized! My memory far outpaces my ability to sight read and it always has
Interesting. Is it possible that you have a photographic memory? Do you hear the notes that you're about to play, or do you "see" them in your mind? I'm a rank beginner, so I actually find it easier to memorize short, easy pieces than to read them, because my reading skills are still very undeveloped, but I'm looking forward to having to make the choices Seymour is discussing here...
@@SeaDrive300 I do not have a photographic memory at all. For me, learning a piece is synonymous with memorizing it; I just can't play a piece well at all unless I know every single note with my fingers and my brain.
@@constipatedlecher Yes, thank you! That's the way I described it to my piano teacher, the way I would imagine one day I should become: able to know instinctively what to play, because I can hear the notes in my mind. Like when I'm typing this reply, although I'm not a touch-typist, I don't think about where the keys are; I know the words I want to say, and my fingers "know" where those "notes" (i.e. letters) are on the keyboard. The word "you" is not a combination of three letters, but rather a motion I make with the index and ring fingers of my right hand. I hope to one day "see" that ability begin to develop on the piano...
@@SeaDrive300 I wonder if the stage fright Seymour is referring to is less about "memory" is the sense of "remembering," and more about your mind keeping up with your fingers when you're playing a very difficult piece. I think it's more about concentration than memory; if you are not focused, it doesn't matter how well you remember the piece, you will probably screw it up.
When you're attached to the score( notes) in this case not playing by heart it literaly means not playing from heart but from your fingers. Music comes from the heart and soul
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.
I have perfect pitch but have consistently had difficulty with memorization throughout the years. A friend of mine who has “piano perfect pitch” only (he doesn’t necessarily recognize pitches played on instruments other than the piano) told me he could play through any piece 3 or 4 times at most and have it memorized instantly. I think the difference may lie in a combination of the ability to hear the pitches accurately combined with a strong grounding in excellent technical fundamentals (which my friend had but I didn’t have). For example, when I have a memory slip it’s usually not because I can’t hear the pitch but because I can’t remember which finger to use to play it! I do, however, like Mr. Bernstein’s “one finger” idea as a means to better HEAR what you’re playing - because based upon my personal experience with fingerings, I think it would work! 😊
I played violin since ten years old and still cannot bear the Equal Temperament .I retuned my piano in a historical temperament . Pianos are all out of tune when they are in tune . His piano needs a good sorting out as well . He does not get clean notes . A wise musician though .Major respect .
iPad with a foot pedal I don't know how this would work but this is a revelation it seems like every time I memorized a piece for a recital it was really autopilot or muscle memory and the danger of getting lost which happened to me with the fantasy impromptu one time I choked but then I had to get back on the horse playing Khachataurian Tocatta please pardon the spelling which is much easier anyhow.
Yes, it is difficult to learn that much music and text; I have memory difficulties on the piano, but I find memorizing louder, arias, or choral music so much easier. Of course, I haven't had to manage a whole opera as a singer, only as an instrumentalist.
There are different levels of "perfect pitch" some people can identify one note, some can many notes at once, I can only a few notes at once. I've never had a memory slip, and I prefer playing everythig from memory, even chamber music, but think mostly due to practicing mental play a lot. Perfect pitch wil not save you if you forget chords or complext fast passagest, there is no way, also because then you will rely on your "muslce memory" to be able to play it.
Metacognition is sometimes essential. I don't agree what this man says. Playing by memory can be done and in several ways. Motorical, cognitive, auditive, separatef or integral. On the Conservatories they should integrate solfege as the spil. When I play a Bach fugue I can sing all the lines by notename, know where to play them and all things fluid together. There is so much to be said about this, there are no magic ways. But the point is relative pitch hearing/knowing/feeling is essential. Furthermore Motorical fear of failure is the hardest to beat.
I agree, it’s time to relieve pianists of the memorization requirement. I saw Richard Goode in concert a few years ago, and he played a TON of music. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been able to play that much from memory.
How about playing blind folded. I realized when my student play blind folded a piece for a month they can play by memory with out problem. What do you think?
Hard to agree, I have a perfect pitch, during my performances had panic nervousness , forgetting next turn in my head, but never ever making a mistake because my muscle remembered all music, even in extremely challenging compositions in tempo presto. I believe in muscle memory and of course in perfect knowledge of musical texture. Playing by score is a limitation for performer, even from the view of audience it takes away part of inspiration.
You don't really need perfect pitch. Just learn fixed-do solfege. I can literally memorise any piece with just reading the sheet music and listening to the recording simultaneously for a few times without actually playing a single note of the piece on the piano.
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!
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.
If perfect pitch is so great, why do pianists that have it practice? It’s because no amount of perfect pitch is going to prevent the myriad of glitches that can occur between the brain and the physique.
I've only recently found out about this guy but I already love his wisdom so much. What he's saying makes so much sense. When I was a kid learning piano I eventually stopped playing recitals altogether because my nerves were killing me. My memorization was perfect offstage, but onstage I couldn't do it. Later I started studying jazz, and performing jazz was so much easier because I wasn't so worried about forgetting, it got me to become friends with the stage again. Studying jazz (and later singing as well) all these years also did wonders to develop my relative pitch. Now I'm back to practicing the classics, and I find memorization to be so much easier. If I have a memory slip now, I've developed the habit of not looking at the score, but guessing the notes until I find the right ones and go back into the flow. It creates for me a much stronger connection with the music, and I feel like he's saying, that I'm "playing with my ear". Also he's so right, nobody in the audience cares about if the music is perfectly memorized or not - they came to listen to you play, so have the sheet music with you and be proud. What a wonderful piece of advice that any music pupil at any age should know.
I often hear timing errors if the performer plays from the score, so better without I think. The visual cortex is profoundly slow (300 ms?) compared with what's happening in the music. Yes, you can read ahead but the fact remains that music sounds much more wholesome and timely to me if it's played without the score. I used to play only from the score. Now I play mostly without it. Regarding guessing the notes: my way of memorizing essentially comes down to improvising exactly what the composer wrote - so I'm with you there! It means that memory slips are merely slight deviations rather than show stoppers!
Are you saying you can tell if someone is playing without a score in front of them just by listening? I don’t think so. What Seymour is doing is exploding this macho bullshit.
I could literally listen to him the whole day. Everything he says is so insightful.
All year, all of my life
You poor soul.
Some people just have that gift and he does. I feel the same way. I can't get enough of these interviewsl
I love all interviews with Seymour. He knows his craft and has such compassion for artists (I'm an actor, but I learn so much from him). He's like a warm hug, or deep sigh of relief. He teaches with a gentle kindness, and great enthusiasm. He's patient with the process. All of this comes through in the tone of his voice and his soft eyes. I guess this is all what love truly is.
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!
David Oistrakh used to insist on having music on the stand on stage . Joseph Hassid used to have memory lapses . I love the "Do you agree with what I am going to say ?"----"Yes".
That made me laugh too
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!
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!!!
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!
Great teacher and big observer. His hints are absolutely right. Hes able to learn the rookies as well as maestros. Such a talent!
What you discovered is what caused me to end my career as a virtuoso before it had even begun. My nervous system burned out.
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 do believe that my children's Suzuki piano training overcame a lot of those memory lapses and worries. One child had perfect pitch, but I believe it was developed from early piano age 4. But my son did not and never had memory lapses in concert. Both memorized complete sonatas and concertos as teens....no memory lapse at any time in concert. They only did Suzuki through early middle school and used that as a leaping board for later study.
It depends on how you practice and how you memorize and how much you listen. I would take the freedom of being scoreless and sure of my music over the tethers of using music. I think, pound for pound, there are fine techniques....one is to have the music in front of you, for security...but never using it. But we never did that.
The lesson here for me is to treat each student like an individual...they are not all going to be concert pianists, but they need to reach their potential and excuses won't help them do that. It's a fine line.
'Do you agree with what I'm about to say?'
'YES!'
Absolutely agree, entirely - and it’s such a comfort to hear a grand master say it. To me, what matters is the how well any performer communicates with the audience. My own memory used to be quite secure, so I found it not much of a problem to perform from memory - I now have an iPad. I use it for rehearsals, recitals, organ playing, weddings - everything. What a profoundly wise man, and a gift of a teacher. Many thanks for the post.
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 ❤❤❤.
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.
It is truly teaching of the knowledge and wisdom to the next generation. Thank you.
I think he’s saying that pieces we really know thoroughly we are actually singing through an instrument.
I've only recently found out about this guy but I already love his wisdom so much. What he's saying makes so much sense.
When I was a kid learning piano I eventually stopped playing recitals altogether because my nerves were killing me. My memorization was perfect offstage, but onstage I couldn't do it. Later I started studying jazz, and performing jazz was so much easier because I wasn't so worried about forgetting, it got me to become friends with the stage again. Studying jazz (and later singing as well) all these years also did wonders to develop my relative pitch.
Now I'm back to practicing the classics, and I find memorization to be so much easier. If I have a memory slip now, I've developed the habit of not looking at the score, but guessing the notes until I find the right ones and go back into the flow. It creates for me a much stronger connection with the music, and I feel like he's saying, that I'm "playing with my ear". Also he's so right, nobody in the audience cares about if the music is perfectly memorized or not - they came to listen to you play, so have the sheet music with you and be proud. What a wonderful piece of advice that any music pupil at any age should know.
I've never had an issue with memory. I had a great teacher though. He would make me play the right hand only if the first section until I could play it a tempo without making a mistake. Then the left. And so on. Then play both hands together. Pretty sure this is how most teachers do it. Maybe my memory is good.
He would say "if you know the piece there's no reason to be nervous." Was never nervous after that.
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
Yuja Wang has been using the music for some concerto performances in recent times. She uses a tablet without a pedal.
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 picked up a harmonica after 40 years never using it . I had never learned it properly . I just played the Star Spangled Banner straight through and I had never played that in my life. It tapped into the singing part of my brain when I was much younger .
Thank you for shining light on all the ridiculous‘standards’ that have ZERO to do with music, and thr joy of it!
Hallelujah 🙂🙏🏼❤
Absolute gold!
I love listening to all the musical knowledge Mr. Bernstein so generously gives us with his videos. I am learning even more than I did in my college music classes. I, too, am happy to hear pianists can use their music to read as opposed to memorizing! It can be frightening to be playing and have a memory glitch! Thank you, Mr. Bernstein. ♥️
This is just a wonderful peek into the minds of creative artists. Seymour, you are a baby face.
Best thing I ever did for my ear was to teach elementary music. Teaching tonal patterns, and having to sing them unaccompanied forces the issue
Thankyou for sharing in a way that enhances our playing - the importance of our human input at its best. Wise beyond words. You make me feel joy.
Outstanding interview. Amazing insights.
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.
This is so interesting, I struggle with memorising score. I find his thoughts on the matter very comforting.
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.
I'm not a classical pianist. Played mostly jazz all my life, improvising and transcribing from records. I envy ( in a good way, if that's possible) the way in which really sensitive classical pianists perform with a lot of nuance. But I find that many classical players don't use their ears much to improvise on the spot, or to create their own harmonic textures.
Because they are not supposed to do that. Usually they have to respect the piece and the idea the composer tried to express (with the instrumentalist interpretation) . In the past, I think, soloist could or were supposed to improvised a little in certain parts of certain pieces, but imagine 30 musicians in an orchestra improvising. What a chaos
You can feel envy with kindness but jealousy is always bitter. The words are not interchangeable. So you are right.👍
My violin teacher amazed me one day when she said she could not whistle. I can imitate "Expressive Whistling " like Billy Connelly the Glasgow maestro .
Thank you, both 👍‼️❤️
My piano teacher did that to me a couple of times, just use the index finger, first only the right, then the left as well and then - as if I wasn't already sweating enough 🤣 - use both hands but switch the right with the left. That's when I had to tap out and practice until next week to halfway get that done 😅🙊
Spot on!
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!
This is 12:39 12:39 great - fantastic - a gift. Thank you both!
It's taken Seymour 90 years to realise that he can't play by ear.! Better late than never, to be sure.
This applies many others thing in life too! ❤. For example, when i have to give a speech in public, i often forget what i am supposed to say
You address a question I had. In what way is an actor suffering stage fright similar to a musician who doesn’t trust their grasp of tonal relationships?
what a delight
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.
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.
Professional play is done by automatisms and the ear. My body knows movements that I had forgotten but when I remember the tune and music by ear, the fingers, hands, and arms seem to follow and know what to do. A friend of mine once played a Rach 3 piano concert while thinking of a new female tenant in his apartment building who was chasing him.
Was he dreaming?
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
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.
This is profound. I think it's very important to develop your ear by learning any music you like by ear first and to even improvize to it, I find that it gives me a better understanding of everything I learn by sightreading and from what I've learned it's what greats like Chopin or Liszt did as well. It's the way music has been passed on forever before sheets existed and it's the natural way. It also develops creative abilities, because now pathways are being created, that make it easier to listen to all the music inside ones being, and expressing it on the keys.
In a music shop I can read unfamiliar music and hear the melodies internally as long as the sales assistant does not whistle for himself . We had to read/sing Gregorian Chants at school so I had to use my internal scales like a crude slide rule measured from the single note played on the teacher`s piano .
Such an eye opener... I have learned piano for a year. And my K545, and Nocturne Op. 55 breaks down when doing hands separate with no sheet music...
OMG!!! SIr!! How were you able to get to that conclusion??? It is a subject that fascinates me but there are not good answers out there. Thanks soooo much!
I don't have perfect pitch but I memorize everything I play effortlessly. I've never understood how any performer could possibly perform a piece that they haven't memorized! My memory far outpaces my ability to sight read and it always has
Interesting. Is it possible that you have a photographic memory? Do you hear the notes that you're about to play, or do you "see" them in your mind? I'm a rank beginner, so I actually find it easier to memorize short, easy pieces than to read them, because my reading skills are still very undeveloped, but I'm looking forward to having to make the choices Seymour is discussing here...
@@SeaDrive300 I do not have a photographic memory at all. For me, learning a piece is synonymous with memorizing it; I just can't play a piece well at all unless I know every single note with my fingers and my brain.
@@SeaDrive300 I hear them and see them on the keyboard; it's like the keys are lighting up.
@@constipatedlecher Yes, thank you! That's the way I described it to my piano teacher, the way I would imagine one day I should become: able to know instinctively what to play, because I can hear the notes in my mind. Like when I'm typing this reply, although I'm not a touch-typist, I don't think about where the keys are; I know the words I want to say, and my fingers "know" where those "notes" (i.e. letters) are on the keyboard. The word "you" is not a combination of three letters, but rather a motion I make with the index and ring fingers of my right hand. I hope to one day "see" that ability begin to develop on the piano...
@@SeaDrive300 I wonder if the stage fright Seymour is referring to is less about "memory" is the sense of "remembering," and more about your mind keeping up with your fingers when you're playing a very difficult piece. I think it's more about concentration than memory; if you are not focused, it doesn't matter how well you remember the piece, you will probably screw it up.
Fantastic!
When you're attached to the score( notes) in this case not playing by heart it literaly means not playing from heart but from your fingers. Music comes from the heart and soul
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.
Amazing!
I agree 100%
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.
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?
I have perfect pitch but have consistently had difficulty with memorization throughout the years. A friend of mine who has “piano perfect pitch” only (he doesn’t necessarily recognize pitches played on instruments other than the piano) told me he could play through any piece 3 or 4 times at most and have it memorized instantly.
I think the difference may lie in a combination of the ability to hear the pitches accurately combined with a strong grounding in excellent technical fundamentals (which my friend had but I didn’t have).
For example, when I have a memory slip it’s usually not because I can’t hear the pitch but because I can’t remember which finger to use to play it!
I do, however, like Mr. Bernstein’s “one finger” idea as a means to better HEAR what you’re playing - because based upon my personal experience with fingerings, I think it would work! 😊
I played violin since ten years old and still cannot bear the Equal Temperament .I retuned my piano in a historical temperament . Pianos are all out of tune when they are in tune . His piano needs a good sorting out as well . He does not get clean notes . A wise musician though .Major respect .
iPad with a foot pedal I don't know how this would work but this is a revelation it seems like every time I memorized a piece for a recital it was really autopilot or muscle memory and the danger of getting lost which happened to me with the fantasy impromptu one time I choked but then I had to get back on the horse playing Khachataurian Tocatta please pardon the spelling which is much easier anyhow.
And its so much easier to play with the music with your ipad and foot pedal
Opera singers have to do it all from memory....
Yes, it is difficult to learn that much music and text; I have memory difficulties on the piano, but I find memorizing louder, arias, or choral music so much easier. Of course, I haven't had to manage a whole opera as a singer, only as an instrumentalist.
Who's Alice btw? Might this be the same Alice Smokie sang about?
There are different levels of "perfect pitch" some people can identify one note, some can many notes at once, I can only a few notes at once. I've never had a memory slip, and I prefer playing everythig from memory, even chamber music, but think mostly due to practicing mental play a lot. Perfect pitch wil not save you if you forget chords or complext fast passagest, there is no way, also because then you will rely on your "muslce memory" to be able to play it.
Your muscle memory let you down when you wrote Muslce .
Metacognition is sometimes essential. I don't agree what this man says. Playing by memory can be done and in several ways. Motorical, cognitive, auditive, separatef or integral. On the Conservatories they should integrate solfege as the spil. When I play a Bach fugue I can sing all the lines by notename, know where to play them and all things fluid together. There is so much to be said about this, there are no magic ways. But the point is relative pitch hearing/knowing/feeling is essential. Furthermore Motorical fear of failure is the hardest to beat.
I think that harpsichordists and organists usually play with musical scores, so yes, why not pianists too.
Liszt is the answer to the why.
I agree, it’s time to relieve pianists of the memorization requirement. I saw Richard Goode in concert a few years ago, and he played a TON of music. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been able to play that much from memory.
Not using your ear? Here is the cure: play jazz for a year.
I can’t play the Piano 🎹 infront of anyone I just forget everything 🥺 and I never got past basic 🙄
⚘👍🥳
How about playing blind folded. I realized when my student play blind folded a piece for a month they can play by memory with out problem. What do you think?
Muscle memory
Hard to agree, I have a perfect pitch, during my performances had panic nervousness , forgetting next turn in my head, but never ever making a mistake because my muscle remembered all music, even in extremely challenging compositions in tempo presto. I believe in muscle memory and of course in perfect knowledge of musical texture. Playing by score is a limitation for performer, even from the view of audience it takes away part of inspiration.
Is this true you guys? Playing song with your left index every day you can develop relatively pitch????
I was never able to memorise music so performing was impossible. I have good relative pitch but not perfect pitch.
You don't really need perfect pitch. Just learn fixed-do solfege. I can literally memorise any piece with just reading the sheet music and listening to the recording simultaneously for a few times without actually playing a single note of the piece on the piano.
That’s really interesting 😮
I want to trim that long eyebrow hair so bad 😂
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!
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.
What was Seymour trying to play with the one finger example?
The Star Spangle Spanner.
.
Chopin's Ballad in g-minor
Richter used his sheets later in his life mainly because he was losing his perfect pitch due to aging.
Look here
If perfect pitch is so great, why do pianists that have it practice? It’s because no amount of perfect pitch is going to prevent the myriad of glitches that can occur between the brain and the physique.
Because you need both the muscle memory AND the mental memory.
2:10
All piano players who Cant
Read music play by memory....no?
Respectfully, learn to play everything in all twelve keys.
Perfect pitch but lousy memory.
I've only recently found out about this guy but I already love his wisdom so much. What he's saying makes so much sense.
When I was a kid learning piano I eventually stopped playing recitals altogether because my nerves were killing me. My memorization was perfect offstage, but onstage I couldn't do it. Later I started studying jazz, and performing jazz was so much easier because I wasn't so worried about forgetting, it got me to become friends with the stage again. Studying jazz (and later singing as well) all these years also did wonders to develop my relative pitch.
Now I'm back to practicing the classics, and I find memorization to be so much easier. If I have a memory slip now, I've developed the habit of not looking at the score, but guessing the notes until I find the right ones and go back into the flow. It creates for me a much stronger connection with the music, and I feel like he's saying, that I'm "playing with my ear". Also he's so right, nobody in the audience cares about if the music is perfectly memorized or not - they came to listen to you play, so have the sheet music with you and be proud. What a wonderful piece of advice that any music pupil at any age should know.
Snap Roni. He is a recent discovery for me also . Just a few weeks later than you .
I often hear timing errors if the performer plays from the score, so better without I think. The visual cortex is profoundly slow (300 ms?) compared with what's happening in the music. Yes, you can read ahead but the fact remains that music sounds much more wholesome and timely to me if it's played without the score. I used to play only from the score. Now I play mostly without it.
Regarding guessing the notes: my way of memorizing essentially comes down to improvising exactly what the composer wrote - so I'm with you there! It means that memory slips are merely slight deviations rather than show stoppers!
Are you saying you can tell if someone is playing without a score in front of them just by listening? I don’t think so. What Seymour is doing is exploding this macho bullshit.