Learning Repetoire Away From The Piano

Hi I'm about to embark on a 3-month contract in Denmark so I won't have a piano for a while but proabably plenty of spare time not watching Danish TV! What are the best techniques in learning repetoire away from the piano? I've tried reading and imagining in my head that I'm playing the notes but not with any great success. Is there a particular tried and tested way to do this? I understand Horrowitz used to learn stuff while travelling and Glen Gould also learned away from the piano. In addition is it possible to keep going the strength and coordination I've just built up in the hands over the past few months by practising specific things from the books (away from the piano)? thanks Sharon

I posted a link to an unpublished clip from the last romantic video because i thought it sheds some light on how expert memory works. I think that pianists and conductors can memorize instantly just by reading the score because they have in their long term memory a vast store of familiar musical and technical patterns (harmonic progressions, melodic contours, rhythmic groups, accompaniments, phrase structures). So when they look at any new piece of music, they are recognizing what they already know, which reduces the cognitive load significantly. I suspect that the same idea applies to sight reading and playing by ear. In this video, Horowitz shows how a passage from Chopin is almost exactly the same as a passage from Beethoven.

I posted a link to an unpublished clip from the last romantic video because i thought it sheds some light on how expert memory works. I think that pianists and conductors can memorize instantly just by reading the score because they have in their long term memory a vast store of familiar musical and technical patterns (harmonic progressions, melodic contours, rhythmic groups, accompaniments, phrase structures). So when they look at any new piece of music, they are recognizing what they already know, which reduces the cognitive load significantly. I suspect that the same idea applies to sight reading and playing by ear. In this video, Horowitz shows how a passage from Chopin is almost exactly the same as a passage from Beethoven. You should edit the URL for that video so that you can click it, the way you're representing it now the link is ending before the # sign (The same thing is happening in the other thread you posted it in too). Replace it with this: Next to your post it should have an "edit" button right below "quote", after clicking that you'll be able to fix it.

Hi Thanks for your replies. When I learn a piece I quickly memorise through a combination of photographic memory, aural and physical practice. I'm not good at sight reading though. I'm not sure I learn through recognising patterns from other pieces because my aural/visual/physical memory is so good. However, I forget things in time if I don't play physically for long periods of time. thanks

Do you think you might be able to find places that rent digital pianos in Denmark? Or maybe buy a used one and sell it before you leave? It's so hard to stop playing for 3 months

Hi zack I do have a plan. I have an electric portable stage piano that can go in my car. If I can get over by boat one day to take then all well and good. The problem I have is that I don't have an apartment and will be staying in a hotel for a while if not 3 months. Aparently finding furnished apartments is not easy. And Copenhagen is expensive too.

Another thing that might be very important for inner hearing is subvocalization. There are certain movements that you make with your vocal chords that you associate with the musical content. They don't need to be audible, but they are still there. Even when you think verbally and when you read, you make these subtle movements. Also it is interesting to note that the two pianists most famous for learning their music away from the piano, Glenn Gould and Walter Gieseking, also made lots of extraneous noises.

Hi Kannan So would you say that the Gieseking book in your earlier post would teach the art of learning in the ways you describe or are there other books which help. I'm really interested in learning away from the piano anyway. thanks

The Gieseking book is affordable and useful, but I don't think that it gives enough on learning music away from the piano. Its basic premise is that one should form a note-picture of the piece away from the piano by analyzing its structure, its motivic content, etc. It starts with a very short lebert stark etude and then moves to some shorter bach pieces. However I didn't find anything about associative learning, which seems the most natural and easy way to memorize. Otherwise, the sheer cognitive load involved in memorizing away from a piano is overwhelming. I think that chess psychology might be a better avenue to explore if you want to understand how prodigious memory works. Chess masters have a vast number of patterns stored in memory that they have accumulated from practice and previous games. So when you show them a board position, they see it either as a combination of familiar patterns. But if you show them a position on the board that wouldn't occur in chess, they would have as much trouble reproducing it from memory as an amateur. If you take a composer like Beethoven, Chopin or Mozart, you will find that they work within a language of their own, a way of writing for the piano etc. Have you noticed for example how the 48 note run in the D flat major nocturne uses the exact same technique as you find in the C sharp minor etude? Or how the ending of the nocturne uses the same device (diminished chords over a tonic pedal) as the ending of the op 17 minor mazurka? Or take Mozart. The closing theme of the G major concerto K 453 sounds like the first theme of the Don Giovanni overture. The 2nd theme of the 13th piano concerto begins with the exact same idea as the 4th theme of the 25th. Also notice how similar the coda of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto is to the climax of the waldstein (with all 16th note triplet arpeggios) These are just a few connections I can think of off the top of my head, but I have found my overall experience of music to be greatly enhanced by this sort of thinking.

Hi Sharon! A friend of mine was a dba-contractor so I think I know your situation you might find something outside Copenhagen commuting is pretty ok there are nice villages along the cost (with beaches) to Helsingor with railwaystations.Great place to be in the summertime. I think Geiseking is a very good start in order to develop your own method later on I began with that method early and I would never play anything in public if I'm not able to "play" it in my head. It's like a safetynet when nerves comes into play. It's boring and slow in the beginning (like practising a new peice on the piano right?) but when you get used to it you can practise whenever you want like while travelling or while listening to boring persons talking and talking.Even while reading this maybe! I'm no master of this technique it is still boring and slow for me-but I use it. However we all memorize differently using all sorts of methods and patterns as kaanan suggest is a good advice. Personally I have a weak visual memory a fairly good "muscle"-memory which is unreliable and an ok earmemory. I use what I call a "patternmemory" I memorize my hands moving and playing everything and at the same time I "hear" the music.That's what works best for me.So the fingering is also important in "my" homecooked procedure. This how I do: First thing is to play the piece slowly with all focus on fingering and hearing the intervals (very important).I look for patterns and differences in patterns.Then I learn phrase buy phrase away from the piano repeating and repeating over and over again my hand moving and playing-all in my head.This sounds complicated but it is not it doesn't take more time than it would if you played it over and over again. I'd say any kind of associative activity will help.If you're good at theory fine but it's not necessary. Geiseking is very good because if you try to memorize the first easy piece in that book completely away from the piano you'll discover how effecient it is. Sometimes you'll memorize an (harmonically) easy pieces almost faster than it would take you to play it. Probably you have to do some trial and error to establish what kind of memorization that suits you best if you have a very strong visual memory and at the same time are a good sightreader-lucky you.Rubinstein had just that. One approach is to start memorizing on your digital with the switch off. and then try away from the piano. This is the way all conductors work.The pianoscores are not even close to these scores when it comes to complexity.But I also know that a lot of people have a very reliable muscle-memory/earmemory and doesn't need these methods at all. One danger with this (in my experiance) is that you really have to let it all go when performing at least I have to. Gieseking and his alikes mastered this technique to a degree that they could play a new peice directly.But for me thats just a way to disaster so an important procedure for me is to cut of the brain completely while performing. But instead of having a 1Mb primary memory I have some GB:s and thats comforting. and hopefully I've saved maybe hundreds of really boring hours at the piano killing spontaniety and awareness. Sorry for this unstructured mess just want to encourage you to try this approach. One more thing.Be careful with digital pianos and headphones it is easy to injure your ears getting tinnitus so keep the vloume LOW.