# Un-memorized score for concert soloist -- advantages?



## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

In my experience, for *major* live performances, virtuoso soloists usually have the score memorized. 
For example, most TV broadcasts of "superstar" concertos (superstar orch, superstar soloists, superstar composer), feature the soloists performing from memory. 
But are there any PERFORMANCE benefits to: (a) not memorizing the score; and/or (b) playing (reading) from the printed score.

For example, here is Yuja Wang playing while reading Bartók Piano Concerto No. 1.... 
Stockholm Baltic Sea Festival 8-28-2016
Berwaldhallen Concert Hall
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen

Yuja Wang: Bartók Piano Concerto No. 1


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

I can see some advantages in that concentrating on reading (looking at the actual score) can "ground" one, instead of allowing the soloists to drift away with their own interpretation. In the case of "Bartok vs. Wang" ... 

Age/maturity: Bartok was in his 40s with he composed PC1; Wang was about 29 in the concert above
Male vs. female interpretation
Cultural/geographic/ethnic interpretation
Etc.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2020)

Have a read of this short article by pianist Susan Tomes which covers your very point:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/apr/20/classicalmusicandopera1


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

I would also add that the mere 3-pound human brain has a finite amount of memory/resources. Filling it up with "too many notes" may be counterproductive in many aspects of "being"--not just music. So may ways one can go with this type of criticism  I do wonder how many superstar soloists limit themselves by playing _only_ what they can _memorize_ into their 3 pounds?


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I don't think 3 pounds has anything to do with it. You can cram more in there than imaginable. Playing a concerto from memory is practically necessary - the notes comes by so fast that no one can read it at tempo and then make the fingers go to the correct spot and play musically paying attention to dynamics, phrasing, etc. Those things have to be worked out long before so muscle-memory can take over. By shear repetition, the note pattern gets burned into the brain and the fingers. Ever notice you can tell when a politician is talking extemporaneously or reading from a teleprompter? One is free and expressive, the other dull and mechanical. Same with musicians. If the part is memorized you can be much more expressive and take risks. Not so much if you're reading from the page.

I know a concert pianist who, like all pros, learned the standard concerto repertoire and could play any of them from memory on a moments notice: several of Beethoven, Schumann, Grieg, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff. He confesses that when he's asked to play a modern concerto he uses an iPad in concert. Why spend hundreds of hours learning a concerto when you might only play it once? He played a Rubinstein concerto several years ago with the same attitude. Plus, the great, standard works fit in the hand - they are pianistic. Some modern works are not and add to it the bewildering tonal/atonal structures and memorization becomes impossible for a lot of people. 

Then there's a pianist who I play with at least once a year in a small orchestra with a pretty incompetent conductor. This player always has the piano part in front of him - he's terrified that this conductor will screw up (it happens a lot) and he needs the music to be able to get back on track with the orchestra. (He's paid well which is the only reason I can think of why he keeps coming back.)


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## level82rat (Jun 20, 2019)

If the goal is to impress, I find sight reading much more impressive than memorization


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

level82rat said:


> If the goal is to impress, I find sight reading much more impressive than memorization


They are not sight-reading, though. No one can sight read Bartok's piano concerto 1 or any major piano work, for that matter. What they are doing is simply referring to parts in the score not memorized but they have certainly played through the score many times before a performance.


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## level82rat (Jun 20, 2019)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> They are not sight-reading, though. No one can sight read Bartok's piano concerto 1 or any major piano work, for that matter. What they are doing is simply referring to parts in the score not memorized but they have certainly played through the score many times before a performance.


I did not have in mind sight reading from scratch. I am referring to the ability of seeing notes on a page and translating that to performance. Anybody can memorize, few can read that quickly


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

level82rat said:


> I did not have in mind sight reading from scratch. I am referring to the ability of seeing notes on a page and translating that to performance. Anybody can memorize, few can read


Gotcha. To me sight-reading is reading from scratch. It's actually not that difficult to refer to the score and play, if you've played through it before several times. The act is akin to referencing a long speech you've made but not memorized the details of and glancing up at the pages to remember what sections are coming up.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

If Yuja did not have that major PC (Bartok 1) memorized by this late in her career (2016), I'd be surprised. So she may very well be sight-reading out of "respect" or formality (????).
About my 3-lbs comment ... I don't think "You can cram more in there than imaginable. ". 
I don't know how much time it takes to memorize a whole piece. But if you've got a life outside the concert hall, then time is prioritized. Also: music notes vs. family memories vs. daily chores ... all competing for space in that noodle


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

People are different, and there are some who can just memorize easily and in huge volumes. Lorin Maazel had a prodigious memory - he knew minute details of hundreds of scores and could rehearse and of course conduct concerts and long operas without one. An exceptional mind to be sure. Bruno Walter distinguished between learning a score "by heart" and Maazel-like memorization. Most conductors do the former. Those people who can conduct Rite of Spring or The Ring without a score have my utmost respect.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> They are not sight-reading, though. *No one can sight read Bartok's piano concerto 1 or any major piano work, for that matter.* What they are doing is simply referring to parts in the score not memorized but they have certainly played through the score many times before a performance.


Apparently the late John Ogden had incredible sight reading ability and could do things like this. Musicians testified to it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

There is an opinion that Clara Schumann played from memory because as a woman she had to have something that gave her an advantage over the men. Whether that is true or not I don't now. Last year I heard Angela Hewitt play the WTC and used an iPad. What's the problem? Many years ago I heard Curzon play at the RFH a Mozart concerto and he had the score in from of him and a page turner. Even thought Beethoven improvised some of his piano concertos on their first performances he still had the score in front of him with markings. So playing without music is a modern fad. Richter later in life always had the music as he had a hearing problem which made pitch difficult and could lead to him hearing the wrong notes if he didn't have the music. 
Solti says in his biography that he himself didn't have the photographic memory of conductors like Karajan and Toscanini who could absorb whole scores and conduct without them. Klemperer urged young conductors to use a score as'a good friend.' The fact is of we are interested in the music it shouldn't matter whether a pianist uses the music or not, given that they have diligently studied and practiced. It's what we hear that is important.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

level82rat said:


> I did not have in mind sight reading from scratch. I am referring to the ability of seeing notes on a page and translating that to performance. Anybody can memorize, few can read that quickly


That's reading (as you correctly term it at the end of your post), not sight reading. The term "sight reading" means doing so for the first time. I'd take issue somewhat with the simple statement that "anybody can memorise" BTW - it may be true if one has unlimited time for doing so, but many find it too hard to do so quickly enough to make it a practical proposition.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> Un-memorized score for concert soloist -- advantages?


Not having memory lapses such as happened to Sviatoslav Richter and others. It can be sort of a safety net too if your faith in your memory is pretty weak, I guess.


DavidA said:


> There is an opinion that Clara Schumann played from memory because as a woman she had to have something that gave her an advantage over the men.


It wouldn't have been an advantage over Liszt, who I believe was among the first, if not *the* first to play recitals from memory.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Apparently the late John Ogden had incredible sight reading ability and could do things like this. Musicians testified to it.


Maybe he could sight read and make his way through it but not sight read and play at the high level required for a concert performance. It is not humanly possible to have never played the Bartok Piano Concerto 1 and then sit down at the piano, read the score for the first time and perform it to a standard associated with professional concert pianists.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

I'm not a musician, composer, instrument player. Academically, just the basic grade-school background. And then, in college, a few general classical-music Arts & Sciences electives for my Physics degree 
So I have no idea how memorization can hurt or help a musician.
But if, like most of us, musicians only have a certain no. of hours to devote to their skills, is it better to devote more time memorizing, say Chopin PC1, than practice _on_ both Chopin PC1 and 2 (w/o memorizing either) ? ... say this for a major live performance of PC1.

Also, are there certain types of classical music that are (by "nature"??) very difficult to memorize. Say, atonal or 12-tone?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Maybe he could sight read and make his way through it but not sight read and play at the high level required for a concert performance. It is not humanly possible to have never played the Bartok Piano Concerto 1 and then sit down at the piano, read the score for the first time and perform it to a standard associated with professional concert pianists.


Well Ogden was a professional concert pianist and professional concert pianist remarked on his amazing sight reading ability


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

It's silly to say it's all one way or the other.

I'm an excellent sight reader, and one does not simply sight read a Rach concerto. I can accompany a singer for auditions quite well, usually on a minute's notice. But that is different.

Using a score for a concerto is NOT sight reading it. It's a safety net.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

pianozach said:


> It's silly to say it's all one way or the other.
> 
> *I'm an excellent sight reader, and one does not simply sight read a Rach concerto. * I can accompany a singer for auditions quite well, usually on a minute's notice. But that is different.
> 
> Using a score for a concerto is NOT sight reading it. It's a safety net.


Are you a concert pianist though? Ogden is spoken of as something phenomenal by his contemporaries.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Are you a concert pianist though? Ogden is spoken of as something phenomenal by his contemporaries.


You don't have to be a concert pianist to know what are the limits of human ability. Have you ever read the score of Bartok's 1st? Do you have any idea of how much complexity there is in it? Not likely, given your comments here.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

DavidA said:


> Are you a concert pianist though? Ogden is spoken of as something phenomenal by his contemporaries.





TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> You don't have to be a concert pianist to know what are the limits of human ability. Have you ever read the score of Bartok's 1st? Do you have any idea of how much complexity there is in it? Not likely, given your comments here.


Excellent answer.

Frankly, I don't really understand the motivation for the question. Why does it matter if I'm a concert pianist? Nope, never played a concerto for money, although I played a few in my college days. I am a professional pianist though.

You seem pretty hung up on John Ogden though.

Legend has it that Ogden could sight read "most" concertos, but yet he practiced hours every day. I'm sure his sightreading skills were excellent, but one does not simply show up for a concert and have a score handed to you that you read for the first time if it's a post-Beethoven concerto. I'm not concert-hall calibre personally, but I might be able to bluff my way through a Mozart or Haydn score.

Mozart and Haydn have a lot of predictable elements in them, and practically no real harmonic "surprises".

But I doubt that any "excellent" sight reader would legitimately want to tackle, say, Luca Francesconi's 2013 Piano Concerto No. 2. Too much tone clustery stuff.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> You don't have to be a concert pianist to know what are the limits of human ability. Have you ever read the score of Bartok's 1st? Do you have any idea of how much complexity there is in it? Not likely, given your comments here.


I am fully aware of the complexities of Barton's first piano Concerto. I have also read about Ogden's legendary sight reading ability, the way he sight read sorabji's Opus clavicembalisticum right the way through to the amazement of those present. I think your problem is that you don't appear to have realised Ogden's phenomenal sight reading ability. I wasn't there another way you can so we have to allow for the witnesses. I can't conceive of how Karajan could look at the music of a score and absorb it into his memory but he did. There are people who can apparently do things which the normal humans cannot do.
Of course being an excellent sight reader does not mean that the man does not practice. I am also not saying that it was perfect as for a performance. It's just that some people have this phenomenal ability. People who were contemporary with Ogden were astonished by it


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

DavidA said:


> I am fully aware of the complexities of Barton's first piano Concerto. I have also read about Ogden's legendary sight reading ability, the way he sight read sorabji's Opus clavicembalisticum right the way through to the amazement of those present. I think your problem is that you don't appear to have realised Ogden's phenomenal sight reading ability. I wasn't there another way you can so we have to allow for the witnesses. *I can't conceive of how Karajan could look at the music of a score and absorb it into his memory but he did*. There are people who can apparently do things which the normal humans cannot do.
> Of course being an excellent sight reader does not mean that the man does not practice. I am also not saying that it was perfect as for a performance. It's just that some people have this phenomenal ability. People who were contemporary with Ogden were astonished by it


Yes, amazing sight reading skills are present in some people. Those people cannot sight read (as in looking at the score for the first time) a complex musical score, such as Bartok's 1st, and play at the standard we expect from a concert pianist.

Also, what exactly does the bolded statement mean? Karajan just looked at the score and absorbed it into his memory? How long did he look for? The time period of looking is important. Also, how big a chunk of the score did he look at? Surely you don't think he looked at The Rite of Spring for a minute, or even an hour, or even a day, and walked away having memorized it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Yes, amazing sight reading skills are present in some people. Those people cannot sight read (as in looking at the score for the first time) a complex musical score, such as Bartok's 1st, and play at the standard we expect from a concert pianist.
> 
> Also, what exactly does the bolded statement mean? Karajan just looked at the score and absorbed it into his memory? How long did he look for? The time period of looking is important. Also, how big a chunk of the score did he look at? Surely you don't think he looked at The Rite of Spring for a minute, or even an hour, or even a day, and walked away having memorized it.


I have no idea. Legge who of course worked with him extensively in the early days says he leant him scores and Karajan sat of 5he floor 'like a cat' and studied them and absorbed them. The scores were returned without a mark on them. I don't know how long this process took and of course Karajan returned to the scores time and time again. But people who knew him like Jon Vickers told of how he could recall whole passages from memory of works he hadn't conducted for years. Toscanini at the same type of retentive memory. Richter did in his early days when he carried whole recitals in his head. Don't ask me how they did this or how Ogden sight read like he did. It's all quite beyond me. As is the story of how the 14-year-old Mozart wrote out Allegra's Misereri having heard it once.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

DavidA said:


> As is the story of how the 14-year-old Mozart wrote out Allegra's Misereri having heard it once.


As we established in one of the Mozart threads, this story is false.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> As we established in one of the Mozart threads, this story is false.


Whatever was 'established' the story appears to have a lot of currency

http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/allegri/miserere.php


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## Guest (Sep 20, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Whatever was 'established' the story appears to have a lot of currency
> http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/allegri/miserere.php


EdwardBast roundly demolished your "argument" some time ago and here you are again citing your amateur sources. Will you please stop?


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Whatever was 'established' the story appears to have a lot of currency
> 
> http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/allegri/miserere.php


Just because a story has currency, it doesn't make it true.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> EdwardBast roundly demolished your "argument" some time ago and here you are again citing your amateur sources. Will you please stop?


He did not demolish my argument and it is interesting that it is quoted in professional biographies that are on my shelf, some of which are reasonably contemporary. I assume that Mr best is a professional musician and a professional biographer and historian and is well qualified to make that judgement? So perhaps you better write to these people and tell them that they were wrong. I know deplatforming people is now a sport but please do not try it here at TC because somebody disagrees with you.

Now this guy who is a choral conductor with a DMin (so hardly an amateur) seems to have it too:

http://www.andrea-angelini.eu/mozart-miserere/

There is of course the question about Mozart hearing it or seeing it in London before he heard it in the Vatican. It is interesting that people are willing to place so much emphasis on something about which there is absolutely no proof whatsoever and on which there is no evidence at all apart from speculation


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

^To me, it doesn't really matter if the story is true or not. But I do like how he mimicked the Allegri piece in 18th century style: 





Likewise, I enjoy his stile antico, but I'm not emotionally moved by actual early music - it feels too much like "formless jelly" to me. I still think Gesualdo's madrigals are nice though.

*[ 14:18 ]* "laudate pueri dominum"





*[ 21:57 ]* "viaticum in domino morientum"


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I think some incredulity comes because we do not realise as lesson mortals what genius can do. I was listening to the fugue in Beethoven’s Hamnerklavier sonata and just wondering how it was possible for a deaf man to write it. Yet when I read Andre Previn’s book and read what he - a good musician but a far lesser genius - considered normal - One begins to understand


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2020)

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## Guest (Sep 21, 2020)

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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

DavidA said:


> I think some incredulity comes because we do not realise as lesson mortals what genius can do. I was listening to the fugue in Beethoven's Hamnerklavier sonata and just wondering how it was possible for a deaf man to write it. Yet when I read Andre Previn's book and read what he - a good musician but a far lesser genius - considered normal - One begins to understand


The "miracle" of Beethoven's ability to compose while deaf keeps cropping up. It's worth remembering that Beethoven was not born deaf, as I'm sure you know, and began to lose his hearing, gradually, in his early 30s. By the time he composed his late piano sonatas, he was almost completely deaf, yes, but he had not lost his life-long experience composing music. Beethoven heard the music in his head - where else but the composer's head does music originate?

It seems to me you are ascribing inhuman abilities to people just because they have been labelled "genius".


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Beethoven's ability to compose even once his hearing was so bad that it was all he could do to "hear" the loudest vibrations of an instrument is pretty remarkable. I am not sure that it would have been possible had he been born deaf, since he would have been unable to develop the skills and instincts while that avenue was available to him. (It is not clear that anyone has ever successfully explained the concept of color to someone who has been totally blind since birth. I am not sure what words you would use to get around the lack of some personal experience in that regard.)


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2020)

First of all, it's John Ogdon...

Secondly, by the time an artist learns a score as difficult as that Bartok, believe me, it's mostly memorized. As noted, the score is a safety net.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

JAS said:


> Beethoven's ability to compose even once his hearing was so bad that it was all he could do to "hear" the loudest vibrations of an instrument is pretty remarkable. I am not sure that it would have been possible had he been born deaf, since he would have been unable to develop the skills and instincts while that avenue was available to him. (It is not clear that anyone has ever successfully explained the concept of color to someone who has been totally blind since birth. I am not sure what words you would use to get around the lack of some personal experience in that regard.)


One can learn music theory without personally experiencing sound. I don't know what kind of music such an individual would produce. Are they examples of people born deaf composing music?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> The "miracle" of Beethoven's ability to compose while deaf keeps cropping up. It's worth remembering that Beethoven was not born deaf, as I'm sure you know, and began to lose his hearing, gradually, in his early 30s. By the time he composed his late piano sonatas, he was almost completely deaf, yes, but he had not lost his life-long experience composing music. Beethoven heard the music in his head - where else but the composer's head does music originate?
> 
> It seems to me you are ascribing inhuman abilities to people just because they have been labelled "genius".


You are using the words miracle and inhuman. I'm not. I am just using the word genius. Of course the music originates in his head like Einsteins thought experiments on relativity. It's the level of the thought process that we apply the word 'genius' to. You appear to have a problem with people of exceptional ability.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> One can learn music theory without personally experiencing sound. I don't know what kind of music such an individual would produce. Are they examples of people born deaf composing music?


No there are not. Just as there are no examples of artists who are born blind


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KlavierKing said:


> First of all, it's John Ogdon...
> 
> Secondly, by the time an artist learns a score as difficult as that Bartok, believe me, it's mostly memorized. As noted, the score is a safety net.


Can you just get into your head that I did not say that Ogden memorised scores at sight but that he had incredible sight reading ability. Please will you go to the books written about him with testimonies by people who are professional musicians who verify the fact


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> One can learn music theory without personally experiencing sound. I don't know what kind of music such an individual would produce. Are they examples of people born deaf composing music?


One might be able to learn music theory without personally experience sound, in a sense, but I don't think I want to hear the results. It cannot possibly convey an understanding of sound if one cannot and has never experienced it.


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Can you just get into your head that I did not say that Ogden memorised scores at sight but that he had incredible sight reading ability. Please will you go to the books written about him with testimonies by people who are professional musicians who verify the fact


Please, will you learn to spell his name? And, my post wasn't aimed at you--it was just a general observation.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KlavierKing said:


> Please, will you learn to spell his name? And, my post wasn't aimed at you--it was just a general observation.


Sorry my post wasn't aimed specifically at you but people appear to think that I was implying Ogdon could learn stuff by heart by sight reading which I was not. About the spelling - blame my software. It continually spells his name wrong. I have to correct it every time!


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Sorry my post wasn't aimed specifically at you but people appear to think that I was implying Ogdon could learn stuff by heart by sight reading which I was not. About the spelling - blame my software. It continually spells his name wrong. I have to correct it every time!


No one here implied Ogdon could learn stuff by heart by sight reading - this statement doesn't even make any sense. Your posts, however, did imply you thought Ogdon could play a complex piano concerto by sight reading. Play by sight reading means you have never seen the score before and you play the music for the first time by reading the score without having practised it before.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Memorizing a score limits repertoire. Those performers who read the score while performing are able to play more pieces in a season, their repertoire is more varied. It's probably less boring for them.


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Sorry my post wasn't aimed specifically at you but people appear to think that I was implying Ogdon could learn stuff by heart by sight reading which I was not. About the spelling - blame my software. It continually spells his name wrong. I have to correct it every time!


Fair enough, but since you quoted me, how else was I supposed to take it?


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2020)

DavidA said:


> No there are not. *Just as there are no examples of artists who are born blind*


Really?
https://theconversation.com/how-a-blind-artist-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-colour-93872
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eşref_Armağan


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> Really?
> https://theconversation.com/how-a-blind-artist-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-colour-93872
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eşref_Armağan


You've obviously been through the Internet to find that. Well done!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KlavierKing said:


> Fair enough, but since you quoted me, how else was I supposed to take it?


Yes I realise that. Sometimes when you're writing something you don't quite realise how pointed it is. Apologies for any offence caused


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Yes I realise that. Sometimes when you're writing something you don't quite realise how pointed it is. Apologies for any offence caused


No worries...all is well.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

senza sordino said:


> *Memorizing a score limits repertoire.* Those performers who read the score while performing are able to play more pieces in a season, their repertoire is more varied. It's probably less boring for them.


Karajan and Toscanini?


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Karajan and Toscanini?


I was thinking of soloists, not conductors. There are always exceptions, my statement wasn't supposed to be a scientific law. I stand by my statement as a generality, which applies to many, not everyone.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

senza sordino said:


> Memorizing a score limits repertoire. Those performers who read the score while performing are able to play more pieces in a season, their repertoire is more varied. It's probably less boring for them.


If musicians don't memorise pieces, how can they meaningfully be said to have a repertoire at all?


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2020)

DavidA said:


> *You've obviously been through the Internet to find that.* Well done!


Don't be silly. I simply typed "visual artists born blind" in Google and the links I provided were the first hits. Yet another of your vapid pronouncements debunked. Try and get a grip, will you?


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

senza sordino said:


> Memorizing a score limits repertoire. Those performers who read the score while performing are able to play more pieces in a season, their repertoire is more varied. It's probably less boring for them.


Less boring .... AND ... it may improve their performance of _any_ score because the performer has been exposed to more variety. Again, "YMMV"!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> Don't be silly. I simply typed "visual artists born blind" in Google and the links I provided were the first hits. Yet another of your vapid pronouncements debunked. Try and get a grip, will you?


Exactly. You go through the Internet by Google. I did know that. But it did give you a chance of one-upmanship which makes you feel good doesn't it? Glad I made your day for you! All the best!


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Exactly. You go through the Internet by Google. I did know that. But it did give you a chance of one-upmanship which makes you feel good doesn't it? Glad I made your day for you! All the best!


David, ignore TH; he's a deeply unhappy person who takes that out on anyone and everyone - all the time. You, on the other hand, are always pleasant. Have a good day!!


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Exactly. You go through the Internet by Google. I did know that. But it did give you a chance of one-upmanship which makes you feel good doesn't it? Glad I made your day for you! All the best!


Oh dear, oh dear. Let me give you a little bit of context. 
My wife is a TV journalist working for a European French-German culture channel. She was approached about 20 years ago by a freelance filmmaker who offered the channel a documentary on blind photograhers and their then-upcoming gallery exhibition. 
I really can't remember if it came to anything but it certainly struck me as a fascinating idea - imagine, blind photographers!
Then you come along "pronouncing" that there are no cases of visual artists being born blind. It took me about 30 seconds on the Internet to debunk this claim. 
Instead of manning up and saying something along the lines of "Oops! My bad" or "Oh, I've learnt something new!" you try and deflect the argument onto one of one-upmanship. I don't play that game.
As for making my day, you have never done so. And don't wish me "all the best" with a smiley icon if you're not being genuine about it. At least you didn't deploy your usual opening gambit: "Your problem, my friend, is...".
I note you have a poster who "liked" your post. I think you make a perfect match. 
Have a bad day.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> Oh dear, oh dear. Let me give you a little bit of context.
> My wife is a TV journalist working for a European French-German culture channel. She was approached about 20 years ago by a freelance filmmaker who offered the channel a documentary on blind photograhers and their then-upcoming gallery exhibition.
> I really can't remember if it came to anything but it certainly strruck me as a fascinating idea - imagine, blind photographers!
> Then you come along "pronouncing" that there are no cases of visual artists being born blind. It took me about 30 seconds on the Internet to debunk this claim.
> ...


I've noted some of your other pleasant comments to other people. You appear to make a habit of it. I'm glad to say it doesn't worry me at all! But I'm glad to have learned something. I wish you well. Have a great day! :tiphat:


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## sdtom (Jul 7, 2014)

good response David


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2020)

DavidA said:


> I've noted some of your other pleasant comments to other people. You appear to make a habit of it. I'm glad to say it doesn't worry me at all! *But I'm glad to have learned something.* I wish you well. Have a great day! :tiphat:


I am happy that you have learnt something. We have a long way to go. 
I wish you a grey, rainy day.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

sdtom said:


> good response David


I was actually quite intrigued with the idea. Seems quite amazing actually.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> I am happy that you have learnt something. We have a long way to go.
> I wish you a grey, rainy day.


Well some of us admit it.

And I'm glad it made you feel good!


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Well some of us admit it.


Oh good Lord Vishnu, it's your alter ego talking again: http://viz.co.uk/2015/03/01/major-misunderstanding-3/



DavidA said:


> And I'm glad it made you feel good!


Stop being insincere.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> Oh good Lord Vishnu, it's your alter ego talking again: http://viz.co.uk/2015/03/01/major-misunderstanding-3/
> 
> Stop being insincere.


I'm sincerely glad I made your day! Nice to make you happy!


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