Piano HELP!!!

[Sirus]

in high school you need to memorize the music for solo contest as well in college
memorizing is good and i disagree with your piano teacher
my cello teacher used to keep telling me to memorize my music 
so yeah............

[NasiDe]

You were told not to memorize? My piano teacher always tried to get me to memorize... How very weird. If only there was an organ teacher I knew of. 

[KINGOFTH3CASTLE]

thank you guys SO much.

I get what you mean. I think. . .

I need to memorize the music but use the sheet music as a guide. to look every once and a while.

[Sir Awesomesauce]

When I was still taking piano lessons I ALWAYS memorized the music I was playing. I got really good at the songs I had learned but I was never one of those 'real' piano players who could just play the music for the first time off the page. I feel like memorization prevents you from really learning to read music and play 'correctly'. But that's just me.

And I suck at piano, so what do I know. 

[Gu4n]

I'm just practising until I memorized it and can play it blindly, then I start to add improvements (I mean: what's the point in using one finger if you have five on each hand?).

[fluidlife]

Well i'm planning to memorize songs, to go to the mall and show off my madz skills. (Well... first I have to learn a song XD)

[skywalker271]

The problem with memorizing is if you become to dependent on it, it's hard to go back to just plain reading.  If you're considering piano playing as a profession, being able to play from reading in your first couple tries is very important.

[razer84]

this is what i do:

1: read through it (with the music obviously because it's the first time)
2: don't look at hands
3: don't look at music
4: (once i can play it as best i can) look at both when i need to (hands for jumps/technical parts, sheets for long chords or when there are a lot of notes)

(sometimes i can skip #2 if it's really easy)

and i don't have a teacher so this just is what works for me, not anything i've been told to do.

[Magus Darkwind]

Another tip, although you probably got all the advice you want, one reason why you might not want to memorize is if you have made a mistake, hence, every time you play the piece you instill that mistake. And it is only natural to memorize, while you are beginning you will need to look, especially for those lifts, my teacher ALWAYS emphasizes those lifts, me I'd just practically drag my hand accrosss the keyboard, but I realize now, that it does need to be lifted for both emphasis and flow.

[mikona]

I think what your teacher means is not to try to play by ear so much. Playing by ear and memorizing are good, but you also need to be able to play from a sheet without concentrating so much on the keys. It does take a lot of practice to know where things are underneath your fingers, and like people have said, for bigger jumps pretty much everyone has to look at their hands. But I think the aim here is to be able to sightread better, and stumble a little less.

And I probably just repeated what a bunch of other people said -shrug- sorry about that.

[Jamaha]

Where did this topic come from?

[SirIngusBingus]

It's 14 months old....

[Magus Darkwind]

Haha, I totally restarted this topic

[Brassman388]

The person that started it isn't even here anymore. What's the point?