Laurie Niles is from Pasadena, California.

Biography

V.com weekend vote: memorized, or with the music?

I started thinking about this issue years ago, when faced with the question of whether or not to play the concerto by memory for an audition. Behind a screen, you are not generally required to play by memory. The biggest concern is simply whether or not you are comfortable. As much as using the music can seem like a good security measure, I realized that, as well as I knew the piece, I played it better without the music. In fact, having the music there was a bit of a hindrance, just one more distraction.

As a teacher, I've run across the occasional student who has never been asked to memorize anything, and the idea of doing so -- and especially of performing without the music -- is very uncomfortable. Then there's the complete opposite, the Suzuki student who has learned everything by rote, plays everything from memory, and has a very difficult time gleaning anything from a page. (By the way, these days, the good Suzuki teachers DO teach reading.)

Both extremes are problematic, and I would argue that true fluency on the instrument demands both the ability to play it freely, without music, and the ability to read very well.

If you had to perform your best piece (which is not necessarily your current piece) tomorrow, though, would you perform it with the music, or without? And what are your thoughts on the matter? Would you ever break the conventions, and play a sonata without the music? or a concerto with the music?

Personally, I'm a traditionalist, and prefer to see concertos from memory, and sonatas with the music because it's chamber music. But given the right occasion, I wouldn't mind seeing a sonata memorised (it's been done before), and possibly even a quartet memorised!

Neil