<p>Musica- love your D!!
Singersmom07- thank you for saving me a rant about the fact that it’s not all roses for singers, either.
For what it’s worth, I found out tonight that at CIM, woodwind players do NOT have to have their junior/senior recital rep memorized; cold comfort to my D who will be doing her recital in exactly 3 weeks and singing in 4 languages.</p>
<p>Some interesting responses and information. So I’m clear, I’m not saying that it’s easy for any particular instrumentalist, including singers, to memorize. I’m trying to make the case that particular forms of memorization may be too difficult for some otherwise very talented musicians, and I’m questioning the automatic requirement of memorization in cases where it may not be necessary. </p>
<p>I can understand singers needing to memorize lines in a musical or opera, because they are moving around, but why it is required in a recital?</p>
<p>No one seems to question orchestral players using music to perform symphonies. However, when my daughter is performing English horn solos, even long ones, she will memorize them in order to watch the conductor.</p>
<p>Thankfully trombone has always been easy for me to memorize. Similar to piano, I can watch where my arm is moving and such. I does get tricky when having to use alternate positions that I don’t normally use however.</p>
<p>At some point it becomes a matter of economics. By using printed music, as has become customary for orchestral players, you decrease the amount of rehearsal time required to achieve a given level of uniformity within sections and overall repeatability for the ensemble as a whole. As musical forms become longer and more complicated and as ensembles become larger, the difference in preparation time required to play at a given level with and without printed music can become quite large. When it only takes one person out of a hundred misplacing a few of the thousands of notes that he will play in a performance, getting everyone on the same page is easier when paper is involved. If an ensemble can play three concerts with printed music given the same amount of preparation required to play two without, that is a decided economic advantage.</p>
<p>It is a little different for solo performers in that only one person has to remember what is going on (unless an accompanist is also playing from memory). With soloists or small ensembles performing one on a part, a slight deviation from the score is less likely to be noticed and it may even be possible to turn a mistake into an ornament that sounds like it is what the performer intended all along. Not so when you are the only one of eight people in your section who flubbed the note.</p>
<p>The performance of music is not so much about what is necessary as it is about what is possible. If an audience senses a stronger connection with Artist A than with Artist B, and if they perceive Artist A to be more skillful than Artist B, which one do you think they would rather hear? Note that this perception depends not only on listening to a performance, but also observing the way that it is presented. As a performer myself, I definitely find it easier to establish and maintain a connection with an audience if I do not have to break eye contact with them periodically to look down at a piece of paper. Yes, it may be hard for the audience to read where my eyes are pointed from the back of a large hall, but that should not prevent the performer from trying to connect with those who are closer. I realize that some performers do close their eyes while performing. For some, that is part of their schtick. Others use it as a way to avoid visual distractions at moments when they really need to concentrate on the job at hand.</p>
<p>I feel that the ultimate compliment a musician can receive is not along the lines of “How can you possibly perform something that incredibly difficult?” but rather “You make that appear so incredibly easy.” As a soloist, part of making it look easy is being able to convince the audience (whether or not it is really true) that you are giving them your full attention while playing or singing for them. Occasionally directing your attention to an obvious piece of paper gets in the way of that.</p>
<p>Note that I am not saying that those who cannot memorize have no business trying to perform. I am just saying that there can be differences in the way that an artist is perceived by an audience when performing with or without printed music. Sometimes that matters and sometimes it doesn’t.</p>
<p>Bassdad, I always appreciate your posts. I agree with your comments on economics, which is why orchestras perform with music, as do most chamber groups.</p>
<p>Of course appearance is important when soloists perform. That is why they dress up, rehearse their appearance on stage and often memorize the music. Personally, I am bothered when a soloist closes his or her eyes on stage, but not when they use a music stand placed unobstrusively low somewhere in front of them. Also, I am not impressed by memorization at all–but this could be because I grew up with a brother who memorized without effort. I am far more impressed with musicality.</p>
<p>My point here is that it would be better to let the judges or audience decide for the themselves what the quality of a particular performance is (judging not only the sound, but the visual, including appearance, closed or open eyes, music stand or not, swaying while playing etc.) rather than deciding in advance that music stands are unacceptable, but closed eyes and strange movements are fine.</p>
<p>Woodwinds, I hear your frustration and maybe even anger over the situation for your talented D. I have zero experience with learning issues but it seems to me that Singersmom in post #2 made sense. If your D can memorize on piano then there must be a way for her to improve this on woodwinds. (Would a mirror help, or just confuse things more? If she watched videos of herself playing would this help?) Whether it is right or wrong for society to expect a musician to memorize is certainly up for debate but the fact remains that your D will have a lot to memorize at the college/conservatory level. Best of luck and keep us posted.</p>
<p>First, let’s separate an audition situation from a general performance situation. In an audition, you have one or more musical professionals observing for the purpose of evaluating very specific aspects of your performance. Like it or not, playing from memory is a tradition that is currently observed in some musical circumstances, and is therefore an ability that an audition panel has legitimate reason to evaluate. Institutional gatekeepers and potential employers are usually pretty specific about what they want done from memory. We can grouse about it and try to change it, but the reality is that we have to deal with it.</p>
<p>In a general performance, you are usually dealing with a much more diverse audience and are trying to entertain them. That means different things for different audience members. At the professional level, musicality should be a given. I know that is not always the case, but if the musicality is not there then the issue of whether or not printed music is being used is moot as far as I am concerned. Artists who can perform with musicality while not using printed music are able to please both the audience members who are not put off by the presence of a music stand as well as those who are. In this business, that represents a competitive advantage regardless of what we happen to prefer individually.</p>
<p>Memorization for soloists goes back several centuries though it hasn’t always been common, Beethoven for one thought soloists memorizing pieces was a cheap circus trick. Part of why soloists do so from memory is long held traditional and like clapping between movements (which is not that old a tradition) it has been around long enough to make it weird if someone doesn’t do it. </p>
<p>Conservatories and competitions require memorization because that is what generally is expected of soloists out there, and despite the fact that a tiny fraction of music students end up as soloists, it is what they do. It is like a lot of other things in the audition process IMO, where, for example, students with almost zero orchestral and chamber background can get into a top program, because everything is based on an audition that features solo playing or with piano accompaniment; likewise, students with incredible technical proficiency but the musicality and stage presence of a brick get admitted to top programs, because IMO they are often one dimensional, focusing on incredible technique (the irony being that stage presence and musicality are just as critical to being a top soloist)… but it is what it is, and it is not likely to change any time soon.</p>
<p>Does it filter out people with disabilities or problems with memorization? Yes, it does, much as it often can filter out students still a work in progress with technique but with incredible musicality and stage presence. And yes, there is a lot to be said that when most of what a musician will do isn’t solo this doesn’t make sense, that it would be better to have students who show commitment to chamber music and ensemble playing, can sight read and also can understand the music. Unfortunately, to compare apples and oranges, everyone is rated on the criteria for soloists (maybe that should change, where students audition as an ensemble player or soloist…).</p>
<p>This raises another question, when is memorization needed and not when in school? As far as I know, memorization is needed when the piece being played is the musician playing with everything else as support; thus a show piece, a concerto and so forth would be played from memory. Anything that is considered ‘chamber’ or ‘equal’ playing, like sonatas and chamber music/small group, is generally played with music. Interestingly, the one exception to the no music rule is modern compositions, a lot of the time when soloists are preparing modern pieces (I am talking strings here) they play with music. I don’t know a lot about wind players, but recitals I have been in with non strings at places like Juilliard seem to follow the same rules, if it is a form of solo piece then they play by memory, otherwise you can use music. </p>
<p>Okay, but are there advantages to memorizing? I think there are, both for soloists and ensemble players</p>
<p>-In an ensemble, if you memorize the music, you can spend time looking at the conductor and section leader/leader, rather then focusing on reading the notes. Especially in pieces like “The Rite of Spring” where there are incredible shifts in tempo, it makes playing a difficult piece easier IMO</p>
<p>-With any kind of playing, based on my own mediocre background, memorizing a piece allows more time, even when reading music, to concentrate on aspects like dynamics and shaping notes, whereas with reading notes I found that the other aspects took a back seat (then again, that could be because I was nothing you could call a musician…)</p>
<p>-As a soloist, I think that playing from a stand does break the connection between the soloist and the audience, it is a distraction. One of the arguments for keeping memorization is that classical musical performance already has the reputation for being cold and distanced from the audience, the wall, whatever you call it, and I think anything that could distract from that needs to be looked at. Yeah, there are soloists who close their eyes, but they also tend to put it through the instrument and interact with the audience, very few people would criticize Joshua Bell, who often closes his eyes, for not connecting or generating energy with the audience.</p>
<p>-Soloists need to interact with the conductor and the orchestra, look at them, it is part of how they keep in synch. In theory it is the conductors job to follow the soloist, but that isn’t always true. And when a soloist leads the orchestra, usually chamber orchestras, they need to keep distractions to a minimum.</p>
<p>I don’t think memorization or lack thereof is a sign of a good or great musician and it could be argued that demonstrating the ability to memorize pieces may mean little in terms of how good a musician is, but for what its worth it is what is used.</p>
<p>Oh I know that memorization is traditional, but there’s nothing wrong in challenging tradition sometimes.</p>
<p>CLRT8MOM, is there considerable memorization required for winds at your daughter’s school? I think this varies depending on the teacher. I know a number of professional oboe players who don’t memorize well at all, including her teacher, a principal oboe player in a major U.S. symphony.</p>
<p>Just because a soloist is using music doesn’t mean their eyes are glued to the music. He or she can still communicate well with the conductor and audience. The music is usually used as a safety and helps the soloist relax.</p>
<p>Anyway, my daughter is trying to memorize one concerto in order to compete in some symphony competitions. She says it’s not going well.</p>
<p>woodwinds, I should clarify my remarks. I was thinking more in terms of memorization skills which would be needed for other classes such as music theory, based on other comments you had made in a previous thread a while back. My D was always very good at music theory but at the college level is finding that it is a lot of work and requires a good deal of memorizing. Maybe this type of learning is not an issue for your D. Anyway it sounds like your D is not shy about challenging tradition and moving forward in her own way.</p>