memorizing

I would like to know if it's important that a kid memorizes all of his pieces by heart. My son's wants him to play by heart only when he has a recital. For the rest of the time ( that is 9 pices out of 10 or so ) she does not seem to think it's necessary.

Don't you think it's OTOH necessary to try and memorize as many pieces as possible ?

Hi Regine, I dont know the answer. However I cant keep memorized pieces in my head without rehearsing them more than once a week. The result has been that I ended up using a lot of practise time rehearsing my 'repertoire' of memorized pieces. I have never been able to decide which way to jump...keeping my pieces going or practicing new material. Of course I am an old senior and maybe a younger person can keep his memorized work in mind longer without the rehearsals. TS

No, I don't think so. It's a skill worth learning, to be sure, but no more so than any other skill. For the beginner, there is so much to learn that the extra time spent memorizing a piece just takes time away from what can be spent learning new concepts. By the time you reach what I'd consider an intermediate stage, where there are fewer new concepts to learn but it is more a matter of refinement, then the time spent memorizing is time that could be spent broadening your repertoire, which I think is probably undervalued by most. As long as you memorize often enough to learn and maintain this skill, that seems sufficient. By the time you are at an 'advanced' stage, the music is often complex enough that memorizing it is a signifant undertaking, and given that you've already learned by then how to memorize when you need to, I'm not sure what is to be gained. On the other hand, this is also where memorization ceases to be as much of an issue - by the time you've spent as much time with these more difficult pieces as you need to just to be able to play them, and with all you've learned up until that point, memorization often comes almost automatically.

Hi, Regine,

it seems that kids tend to memorize the pieces. Not only he learned the F maj Bach Invention faster than me, but my older son memorized it and he tells me the notes while I play it. (Well I paid him 10$ when he managed to play it hands together - less than three weeks and another 10$ when he played it by heart). And yes, his teacher requests him to memorize each piece. Another poster talks about the time it takes to memorize a piece. I don't think that for kids it is a separate process so there is not 'overtime' involved.

Best regards,

Are you talking about your guitar repertoire or the 'new ' piano repertoire

I am talking especially about the piano repertoire. I haven't been playing the guitar at all lately and I guess my repertoire on that instrument is really fragmented. TS

You have little choice but to follow the teacher's system. Generally, memorization and a teacher's system are so intimately intertwined that you can't change the memorization amount without upsetting the teacher's system. The good news is that you should stop worrying about that and leave it to the teacher. The bad news is that better teachers generally teach much more memorization, simply because memorization is useful, and good teachers know how to teach it. C. C. Chang; more on piano practice at

Since the teacher is holding recitals, I guess she is a good one who knows what she is doing. It isn't easy to decide from afar. It depends on what these 9 pieces not to be memorized are. Are they rather etudes that will never get performed, even on a family's birthday party?

If they are pieces you will be playing 'all your life' then it is good to memorize as much of them as possible when you are young because it is much easier then. It also has some good effects on brain developement, intelligence, etc.