We recently had a piano teacher write to us with a problem involving piano students she labelled, “instant memorizers”. After reading that first sentence you may be thinking, “Hmmmm… doesn’t sound like much of a problem at all… I mean there are worse things than instant memorization… right?!”
However, she went on to explain, as I thought she might, that many of her “instant memorizers” were also “rapid forgetters”.
As piano teachers, we spend weeks helping some students memorize a piece, so the idea of delaying memorization for other students at first seems down right odd. But there are very real and important reasons that you may want to help your students avoid the trap of immediate memorization.
The Immediate Memorization Trap
So what’s the trouble with immediate memorization? For some students there may be no issue at all – their brain just remembers music well. But others tend to head into a cycle of rushing to learn and memorize a piece, only to then forget it shortly down the road. These students are not gaining the benefits of spending time studying a score, and are not building the needed memorization skills that come as a result of truly understanding a piece.
So why does this happen and what can we do to help?
When memorization comes easy, piano students quickly abandon their music and let their ears guide them to the instant gratification they crave. Their score is simply an annoyance to get through. But after several weeks have passed (and other pieces have been added to their “brain bank”) they have no strategies to call upon when their piece is no longer in their “easily-accessible” memory.
The key to helping instant memorizers is in finding a way to bring relevance to their score; giving them the tools they need to actually understand what they are playing (and the desire to do so). If you have a student who struggles with this problem, try the following:
1) Try putting the “teacher preview” aside. Instead, let your piano students be the first to play through a piece. Their aural memory of the piece should come from their own learning.
2) Teach on the page – help your students find patterns, sequencing, common chord tones, primary chords, and repeating intervals directly on their piece. Discover the “math behind the music” to give your piano students the knowledge they need to actually understand their piece. (If you’d like to read more about this idea, check out this post.)
3) Use visual cues on their page to either bring attention back to the score or to assist with trouble spots. If your students have a visual “helper” they will be less likely to avoid their music in favour of relying on their ears and memory simply because it seems easier to do so. (If you’d like to read more about this idea, check out this post.)
4) Once the piece is ready to be memorized, help your students create mental landmarks based on what they have learned in #2 above. For example, instead of always beginning from… the beginning, ask for the piece to be played “From the section where the main theme is repeated up a third.” etc. If your piano students stumble while memorizing, use theory cues to get them back on track (“That note was a 5th higher than the one before it and you’re heading into a V7 chord with your left hand”).
5) Once a piece is fully and successfully memorized, be sure to spend time avoiding it’s decay. Memorization lapses should bring you directly back to the score and back to those mental “theory landmarks”. Review what should happen both with and without the score and from varying starting points within the piece.
The Good News!
The great, wonderful and fabulous news is that piano students who have an aptitude for memorizing have already cleared a significant hurdle that causes many others to struggle. Once they’ve learned to pair score understanding with memory, they’re likely to become your most successful students!
If you need help learning how to teach theory “on the page” then our resource “Pssst….Your Piano Teacher Thinks This is Theory” is your answer. Designed to be used with any method book or sheet music, these 88 activities will have your students connecting with their score and having an absolute blast with theory that is absolutely, positively, most definitely NOT BORING!
Lauren Averill says
May 19, 2015 at 7:22 amI am a living example of why it’s a good reason not to allow your students to memorize quickly! Beginning when I was 5, I used to sit in the corner of our living room and listen to my two older sisters’ piano lessons. My parents, at that time, didn’t think I was old enough to start lessons, you see. Well, as soon as the teacher left the house I would run over to the piano and play all the music my sisters had just learned…not because I was reading the music, but because I had a good ear. To make a very long story short, my parents let me begin lessons, and for 13 years, until I went to college, I would ALWAYS ask my teachers to play the new repertoire for me…..and because they did, I was able to pretend to read the music, and play the pieces from ear memory……UNTIL I got to college….and my first lesson with my piano professor, when I so innocently asked him to play the piece for me…..He looked at me as if I had two heads, and it was at that point (18 years old) that I finally learned how to read music! I tell many of my students this story when they try oh, so hard to get me to play a piece for them!!
At any rate, I thought you’d enjoy hearing this!
Andrea says
May 19, 2015 at 10:14 amGreat story Lauren!
Caren says
June 18, 2015 at 5:37 pmOMG!! That’s me. So I knew I couldn’t count and felt like such a fraud!
I finally learned how to count when I started teaching. Who knows what I would have done if someone had discovered my secret earlier.
Jane says
May 19, 2015 at 8:53 amMy youngest daughter did this, too, after my students would leave the house, even playing both hands to classical pieces. She has since gone on to play the bagpipes, learned how to read music, and her good ear has helped her to memorize tunes easily. Somes kids really have a gift, when directed properly!
Andrea says
May 19, 2015 at 10:15 amHi Jane – it truly is a gift that some kids have! Certainly don’t want to discourage their aptitude for memorizing – just carefully find a balance that allows them to be life-long musicians like your daughter is now!
Paula says
May 19, 2015 at 9:50 amMy pedagogy teacher taught us never to play the piece for a student before they read and played through it first. My own daughter had such an ear she would imitate my playing and taught herself to improvise at a young age. These weren’t bad things but did cause her reading to lag behind her playing level. Eventually her reading caught up.
Bonnie says
May 19, 2015 at 2:18 pmI have a current student age 7 that memorizes … and never watches the music. We’re using all those games to help us find notes so that his reading improves. He still phonetically spells words, so I think it is a reading problem in general not just music, but it is frustrating to hear him repeat mistakes because he’s watching his fingers and not the music.
Debbie Federer says
May 20, 2015 at 4:31 amMy teacher used to put a book between my eyes and the music. It forced me to look up at the music. I use it today with my students.
Lisa Little says
May 27, 2015 at 10:06 amYes, I do that too. I also ask them to practice technique with their eyes closed. They think its kind of fun, and it teaches their fingers to learn the shapes, without their eyes having to tell their fingers where the keys are.
Rochelle says
May 23, 2015 at 10:36 amI have a student who wants me to play her songs so she can do exactly what you are talking about. If I don’t play the piece she really struggles. She can read the music note by note, she knows the names of the keys on the piano but something happens in her little brain when she has to put them together to actually play a new song. Everything seems to be lost in translation Somewhere from the music to the keyboard. Any ideas of what may be going on and how I can help her before she quits piano all together?
Caren says
June 18, 2015 at 5:39 pmThis may actually be learning/vision problem. A special ed teacher, or a really smart eye doctor may be able to help.
Julie says
August 31, 2015 at 6:03 pmI had a student exactly like this. I never played things for her initially and then only to demonstrate an effect with dynamics or technique. If she liked a piece, she would have it memorized in a week or two. We would go back to pieces just a few weeks later and she would forget them and not want to put the effort into reading them again. I tried all your suggestions. Supposedly, the family is moving south, so I will not have her again. I wish her next teacher lots of luck.