springgrass Dear Thao, thank you for listening and your feedback. I totally agree with you about recording. I've been obsessed with it my whole life, since the early days of cassettes.  Yes, the temptation with recordings  trying to achieve perfection (or in my case better described as a mistake-free recording). I may have played every measure of a piece correctly but never all of them during a single performance.  You can spend hours or days trying to make happen. After a certain number of Takes, it becomes counter productive. The ultimate test remains live performance, where you only get 1 Take!

I've learned to accept and save every Take that is "good enough for now, despite x,y,z" .  Often times I'll come back to a recording after ahwile and think 'this is not nearly as bad as I remember it to be'.  -- a distance and forgetting some of the details of a piece can help in that regard.  

Please extend our thanks again to Yihann for participating in our concert.  We are privileged that he will still share his talent with us, despite what is undoubtedly a very busy teenage life!

Tom Pascale Thank you very much Tom..  I'd like to add that I'm glad you figured out how to post your two videos on YouTube Google Drive.  I would have hated to miss those two great performances and wonderful but unfamiliar-to-me pieces. 

Kerstin Thanks Kerstin, so glad you liked it.  I aspire to convey some of the nuance and refinement that I hear in your performances, but I have a way to go yet before I get there.

Michelle R Thanks for listening Michelle.  My playing truly does bring me much joy.  Except for those times when it brings me total aggravation.  My favorite musicians are those who bring an exuberant expressivity to their playing and it is something I aspire to emulate.  

Peter Golemme Peter, I am continually amazed and it's always a joy to listen to your playing.  I also would like to applaud how you seem to have zero problems playing from memory.  Playing from memory has always been a struggle for me but it may be more related to the lack of bench time I had to accept for most of my life.  As I have been able to finally spend more time at the piano over the last year I have notice that I can play a few short pieces from memory now but I have a long way to go to do anything like the WTC and the like.  Also, I can do this occasionally on a good day when I'm alone and in the zone.  It isn't going to happen if I had to perform live or try to record myself, I'm thinking?

Peter Golemme But what a beautiful execution Peter!😃Congratulations indeed! It was really coiling to follow you to the end👍😄…and all with heart 👏👏! Bravo! Well done boy😄🌟!

Peter Golemme Hi Peter! If you ever need help, let me know! 

Peter Golemme Do you know Dr. Molly Gebrian‘s practicing variations. I think this could be very helpful also for memorizing. 

Peter Golemme Thank you Peter ! for your words of encouragement. I had never seen a real piano until 19 ( I think ! ) until I visited my friend's house during my college days. His grandma had a rather electic and refined taste and had placed a Steinway upright in their front room. This was an extreme rarity. My friend proceeded to demonstrate what I later learn't to identify from him was - Chopin's etude in C Major 10 1. The speed of his movement was rather sensational to me and as you can imagine. It seemed bewildering to me that a human could move their hands and fingers with such precision and produce such a sound (lol!) . But since we were both Physics & Math majors he thought I may learn some formal music as well and proceeded to give me a lecture on the sound of the piano and structure of music. But my older brother ( a merchant marine Capt) had brought home  an extraordinary piece of musical equipment (circa 1980) - a record player ( Bang and Olufsen - also called B&O) - which had an automatic arm and a very precise stylus along with a Bose 301's and a Pioneer tape deck.  The clarity of the said equipment was like hearing real instruments!.  My friend's grandpa also had rather expensive musical equipment and was a great listener of Toscanini's conducting Beeethoven symp.. 3 ( Eroica). Pastorale, 7th and 9th... So I got my first introduction to beautiful sounds by pure chance I guess.  As I recall him telling me - "if they say you have no ear .. but there's a small chance they are wrong - you cannot go wrong - by playing along with a all time great". lo!. His ideal pianist was Horowitz. 

Now to my more recent adventures of the past 2.5 years. I think playing along is absolutely! one of the best ways possible to begin learning. This is amply clear to me from my own experiments. Since in the initial stages, playing the correct notes ! and more importantly playing the right rhythm are the 2 main factors in being musical.. The rest in my view - are higher level's where the playing has become advanced and there is a small space for 'interpretation'.  

For the concerto which I choose to try playing  -because I didn't know any better -except that I liked it a lot.  I listen to Murray Perahia, Ashkenazy and Christoph Eschenbach with the score at slow tempo.  This will remain my learning piece for another 2 years. The experiments are now going to get a bit more methodical.. ( 2 lines at a time etc.. ) .. I have also added  Beethoven's opus 10 3 (piano Sonata 7 ) and Chopin C# minor to the list of slow practise. But I really don't think that any of there are anywhere near close to playing with another soul present.. lol! I will continue to post on the diary - little attempts at improvements. 

Doug Hi Doug thank you for those very kind words.  I'm very glad to hear that it may SEEM LIKE I have "zero problems playing from memory" which is the exact opposite of the reality. I struggle with it enormously, and that's one reason I make myself try to play from memory in our concerts whenever it's possible.

I've heard many ToneBase colleagues speak of difficulties with memorization as though they believe it is a particular shortcoming of theirs, but I think the reality is that it is really difficult for virtually all of us.  For me it can mean another month or more of work on piece after I think I've learned to play it, which can be very discouraging if like me you're in a hurry to get through as much repertoire as possible. 

In our last community concert I was not pleased with my performance, as my memory failed me, and I couldn't gracefully jump to any of the memory spots that I had been practicing for two solid days.  As much as I had already worked on it, it was still not secure enough to prevail in the crucible of live performance. But given the opportunity to do multiple takes, & identify & clean up a few more hitches and trouble spots, I was very pleased that I could at least come up with a recording where, whatever else its imperfections might be, I could get through the whole piece from start to finish wihout collapsing!  I'll be getting back on the horse at the very next opportunity and giving it another try.  It's great to have such a welcoming and supportive community at Tonebase where one can safely try out one's readiness, even at the risk of occasionally dropping the ball right there on stage..

Kerstin No I am not aware of this method at all.  I'd like to check it out; can you point me towards a book or other resource for that/?.  And thanks for the offer to help me out! I will undoubtedly take you up on that offer , much like I just did one sentence ago!

Peter Golemme https://www.mollygebrian.com/bio

https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/book/211392920/learn-faster-perform-better/molly-gebrian/

She has amazing resources, and when I have the patience to use her practice methods I learn much more quickly and securely. The problem is, they aren't as much fun as playing the piece that I'm learning!

Peter Golemme Peter, this recording is very nicely done! I just wanted to weigh in on the discussion about memorization. For me, memorizing Bach - the polyphony - is more difficult than most other composers.  I get to the stage where it's "all but memorized", meaning that I can play it by memory - usually - in my living room, but still wouldn't dare to do it by memory playing for others.  But I guess I have to ask: Is playing Bach (or maybe anyone else for that matter) by memory something to aspire to?  I've seen concerts by Richter on YouTube where he played from the score; I think he did so regularly in his later years.  And I've seen Yuja play from score in recital quite a bit.  I don't think there's the same stigma today as there may have been in times of yore.  For the Glenn Gould's among us who can memorize anything overnight, playing by memory would be preferable. But I've come to the conclusion that, for myself, I'd rather "all but play by memory" and still use the score because this literally saves me scores (pun intended) of extra practise hours that can instead be more productive working on additional repertoire.  My two cents.  Again, though, VERY nice recording. --

chuck levin I'm totally with you every step of the way here Chuck. I agree that these fugues are by far the most difficult things to memorize, and that there is a significant cost involved in insisting on being able to play them from memory, in terms of time taken away from other things you could be working on.

Notwithstanding that, I've made myself memorize several of these now for various reasons:  (1) to see whether I can actually do it; (2) to put my brain/mind through its paces as a means of promoting the health of those neurons; (3) because I never understand a piece so well as when I memorize it -- the process of focusing on every single note and trying to identify something noteworthy or memorable about it, to assist in memorizing it, inevitably causes me to learn and understand things about a piece that I never realized, even after playing it for months.  

But on the other hand, I'm trying to get through as much of the WTC as possible, and I'm realizing that I won't get too far in my remaining years if I insist on memorizing every single one as I go along. So hypothetically, I'm willing to give myself a pass on the memorization, but so far it has seemed to be necessary in order to learn and understand these pieces adequately.

Michelle R Thanks a lot Michelle, and Kerstin , for pointing me towards this material. I can't wait to check it out.  I think I could benefit greatly from structuring and planning my practice sessions in a mor disciplined manner, and I expect that some of these tools might really help in that regard.

Peter Golemme Thank you for your humble response.  Yes, I have no doubt that you and many others on TB struggle and have to work hard at memorization.  I make comments when I truly admire something in others that I know I couldn't do (at least yet).  By noticing these skills, I am in fact trying to tell myself I wish I could do that too.  So I am marvelling at your competence and trying to learn something from it at the same time.

I am sure my struggle to memorize and play live is all in my head (it is) but this was somehow learned as a child and now it is pretty much a fully ingrained reality for me.  On memorization though, in particular, I think the first problem is related to how I learned to play piano.  I could read music quite well (was a great sight reader) but couldn't play be ear if my life depended on it.  For example, I remember that if I had another book on the desk placed to hold open the main score and if it was crooked and covered one note or chord that would be enough to crash the performance.  I'd have to stop and reveal that one note or chord in order to carry on.

Secondly, even the pieces I know well, I'm like Linus and my security blanket is just knowing the book is open.  At this point, I'm not reading notes anymore but somehow I can play from memory no problem only until someone takes the book away and then I'd crash almost immediately.

Thirdly, my other shortcoming is that I never really learned or was taught how to analyze the chords and structure progressions etc. I see many of you do this from the start stating that this helps you with memorization.

It is clear that you can find your way around the keyboard without the notes in front of you.  I rely on the notes.  Without them I'm lost.

Having said this, even though I'm essentially starting afresh again at this, after about one year only I can see marginal improvements already in my shortcomings.  I would attribute this mostly to the amount of seat time I am starting to be able to devote to this craft.  In one year alone I may have clocked as many hours as maybe everything before it but if not, that will probably be accomplished soon.  I'm determined anyway to keep working on this until I overcome my bad childhood poor education.  However, it is also something that I'm not going to lose sleep over.  It would be nice to have these skills but I don't think it could increase my enjoyment of playing anymore than I am experiencing now by ONLY playing with a score. 

chuck levin Chuck, I like your level headed approach to this.  A while back I read Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger's book on Chopin (at least I think it was this book?). I'd have to read the whole book again to find the quote but I seem to remember somewhere that Chopin was not encouraging his students to memorize things as he said there are a lot of details in his scores that are too many to remember.  Also, I think his focus was on musicality over spending your time and energy to just memorize, as you say.

Michelle R Molly is amazing! I've not only taken her classes but she has taught a class for my music festival to singers and pianists. And she will be doing it again on the topic of memorization on 6/10/26. If anyone wants to attend, please let me know. I am happy to share the Zoom link.

Blair Boone-Migura Awesome! I'd love the link if you don't mind. You can message me through tonebase. I bought her book, told my piano teacher about it, then he bought the book, too! Her work is amazing, and I appreciate the science behind the method. I hadn't really thought of using her techniques with singing. 

I see this is part of the Art Song Preservation Society of New York. Do you by any chance know my vocal coach, David Adam Moore? 

Michelle R I'll make sure that you receive the Zoom link. She really is amazing! And I think that Noa Kageyama and Graham Fitch also do wonderful work in this area. I'm afraid I don't know your vocal coach David Adam Moore. I'm not sure where you are located, but if you are local to NYC, you are definitely welcome to audit any events that might interest you. Unfortunately, Molly's class is the only one we are doing over Zoom this year. But, the schedule is on our website: https://www.artsongpreservationsocietyny.org/

Blair Boone-Migura Thanks so much. I have taken a course with Noa Kageyama, as well. As an athlete/coach, I have a deep interest in sports/performance psychology, and much of what is being taught by Molly and Noa is what I learned nearly 30 years ago from Alyson Arnold (headgamesworld.com) when the gymnastics world began teaching club-level coaches about the role of the mind in performance. It is a fascinating field.

I'm on the other side of the country from NYC, in a remote area with no solid voice teachers so I take lessons via Zoom.  My vocal coach is in New Jersey (he's a Met Opera Baritione and he co-founded GLMMR with his wife). He has an intriguing production of Winterreise that he and his wife designed. He probably runs in parallel circles to your circles!!

Michelle R Fantastic! And yes, Noa's courses have been wonderful. Do check out Graham Fitch's work in the area as well if you're interested in hearing the perspective of deep learning, memorization, and performance strategist from an actual pianist.  Also, it sounds like we have a lot of common themes between us. I was a competitive gymnast for many years growing up (teens and twenties) and have worked with a sports performance psychologist and I do remember being very taken with a book during those years by Lars-Eric Unestahl called The Mental Aspects of Gymnastics.  That's wonderful that you've found a great teacher in David. I'm sure he and I must also share a lot of people in common. 

Blair Boone-Migura Wow 🤩 interesting 🌸. Can I have the link too, please🙏🏻😀? Thank you for this information 👍🌟.