Reading the Score or Memorising?

[thereallyniceman]

Bad news everyone, Gloria is away for a few weeks, so I am back! She is a sweet thing and very friendly, but quite a handful, as you can see. Please keep leaving messages for her ;-)

 

So back to the serious stuff:

I have always chosen to memorise pieces after learning by working through the score.

I have noticed that my memory is not what it used to be, so memorised scores seem to slip from under my fingers after a few weeks of not playing them. Also my sight reading is not as good as it should be as I have always memorised!

 

What do others do and how long does it take you to get a piece up to a suitable standard?

What should I do?????

[Steve Harrison]

I use the 'dip in'process where I have several pieces on the go at any one time and flit from one to another, learning bits of each until I arrive at my desired destination. This prevents boredom caused by hours of practising just one tune.

[Jody Stecher]

 If I'm Classic banjo-izing daily and playing the same pieces using the score day after day there comes a point where the entire solo has become memorized without my having apparently made any effort to do the memorization. If I don't play a piece for a year or two I will seem to remember it all but if I consult the score I find I have made changes. These are changes to the fingering or small changes to the timing. If I have inadvertently changed some of the notes it is more often a viable alternative. If I don't play a piece for 2 or 3 years though I will entirely forget whole passages. 

How do I get a piece up to a suitable standard? Well, it seems to take a very long time. I don't think I've ever got a piece up to the standard I'd like it to be.  But to get it up to B plus  I focus on the parts that give me trouble. Often it is transitions that trip me up. These can be transitions in fingering or in rhythm.

But my main "tool" for remembering and for execution is the pleasant state of mind I get from playing and hearing the banjo. It carries me along and makes work seem like play. 

 

[Mike Moss]

I tend to use Steve's method -- I work on a large amount of pieces at the same time, and move from one to the other. The good thing about this approach is that it reduces boredom, the bad thing is that it seems to increase the amount of time it takes to learn solos well. I usually tend to drift towards one or two that  I like best, and perfect those before I finish the others.

 

As for memorizing, what I notice is that I tend to memorize involuntarily, which makes me ignore the score even if I have it in front of me. I usually end up using the score only to fill in the blanks when I forget something or when muscle memory fails me.

 

As for how long it takes me to get a piece up to a suitable standard, I think the quality of my performance tends to follow a parabola-shaped progression -- it starts out clumsy, "peaks" several months after learning it, and goes "stale" after a long time, after which I often have to re-learn the solo from scratch.

[Trapdoor2]

I tend to memorize conditionally. If I am going to perform the piece, I try to have it memorized. It sure is nice to have that bit of paper sitting in front of me to 'jog' that memory if I need it though!

If there is no intention to perfom, I play from the TAB. Like others, if I play it often enough it gets memorized via default.

I have performed "Cupid's Victory" whilst sight reading the TAB. It is one of those tunes I've played a lot...but cannot seem to memorize it. However, it is so simple and so easy (and played at a walk) that I can do it.

I also tend to play 2nds from the TAB rather than memory. Again, if I were to be on stage, I would memorize it to where the sheet would be simply a reference.

Like Mike, I envision it as a parabolic or perhaps a bell-curve process. I learnt Morley's "A Joy Ride" several years ago and had it memorized...but never performed or recorded it. I dragged out the TAB the other day and could only remember bits and pieces. Some of the parts were completely lost...totally foreign again.

[Steve Harrison]

As well as banjo, I also play piano accordion and I have a quite different approach to both instruments. With the banjo, I tend to memorize and then forget about sight reading. With the accordion, just the opposite. The mechanics of  a piano accordion are such that right from the outset you have to learn to play by touch as looking at the fingerboard and bass side as well as the music is impossible. I can only play therefore by sight reading. If I try to look at my fingers whilst playing, the whole thing turns to rat manure.

Mike Moss said:

I tend to use Steve's method -- I work on a large amount of pieces at the same time, and move from one to the other. The good thing about this approach is that it reduces boredom, the bad thing is that it seems to increase the amount of time it takes to learn solos well. I usually tend to drift towards one or two that  I like best, and perfect those before I finish the others.

 

As for memorizing, what I notice is that I tend to memorize involuntarily, which makes me ignore the score even if I have it in front of me. I usually end up using the score only to fill in the blanks when I forget something or when muscle memory fails me.

 

As for how long it takes me to get a piece up to a suitable standard, I think the quality of my performance tends to follow a parabola-shaped progression -- it starts out clumsy, "peaks" several months after learning it, and goes "stale" after a long time, after which I often have to re-learn the solo from scratch.

[marc dalmasso]

i think the banjo isn ' t a piano ; when you play the piano & read the sheet music , you have only one choice , the choice of playing the good notes and you can only play each one by only one way, the good white or black note ( keytop ? ) ; so some pianists ( like my father ) can play  just at 1st sight

For the banjo ; you have several ways to play a note on the neck and sometimes and i  can change my fingerings some months or years after i  ''ve see the piece the 1st time ( éric told me the same thing ) ........ so for me , when i learn the piece : reading the score and then , memorizing