If the thought of performing in front of others without sheet music terrifies you, you’re not alone.
Throughout college, I had recurrent nightmares of being on stage, and my mind suddenly went blank.
The audience waits as I fumble awkwardly, sweating profusely and cursing my desire to pursue music in the first place.
Although it was a constant fear, it never actually happened because my college teacher taught me one basic tenet of performance.
Memory slips are inevitable, but you can prepare for and recover flawlessly from them.
Stay tuned so you can become a more confident memorizer, too!
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Don’t Panic: Pause and Breathe
When memory slips occur, the worst thing you can do is panic.
In panic mode, your brain enters a state where creativity is nearly impossible to access.
Instead, take a deep breath.
Deep breathing cues your parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) nervous system.
Relax your shoulders.
Give your brain a minute to figure out the notes.
Brief pauses help realign your entire nervous system, and if you time them well, the audience will have no idea what’s going on.
Go Back to Your Last Landmark
Excellent recovery skills start with setting musical landmarks.
This is a concept my college teacher introduced, and I have faithfully followed it ever since.
Landmarks are spots throughout the piece where you can start and play through to the end.
They can be any of the following:
- The beginning of a phrase
- A chord progression
- A cadence
- A change in dynamics
- A new section
- A distinctive melody
- A repeated pattern
The more landmarks you establish during your practice time, the more flawless your performance (and the less anxiety you’ll have) because you’ll know that you have a solid tactic to respond to any memory slip.
Learn to Restart From Different Places
Good recovery depends on being able to start and finish a piece from different places in the music.
Set musical landmarks and then force yourself to finish out the piece from each landmark.
For an extra challenge, choose a random bar to start from, then see if you can finish the whole piece.
Starting from different measures gives you more musical flexibility and a deeper understanding of the piece, which strengthens your performance skills when your anxiety level goes up in performance situations.
I’ve recently been doing a deep dive into deliberate practice and learning strategies that support more efficient learning.
In the book Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, the authors describe how important it is to practice recall.
Although it feels really hard, forcing yourself to remember the music from random starting places is exactly the kind of practice that results in flawless performances.
Practice the Danger Zones
Identify the spots that you know the least well.
Ask:
- Where do I regularly lose my place?
- Where do I rely heavily on muscle memory?
- Where does one section transition into another?
- Where do similar passages get confused?
Isolate those spots.
Really focus on learning them inside and out.
Although it’s really fun to play the parts you know well, the parts you don’t know need more attention through focused practice.
Pay attention to any “failed” areas and get curious about how to fix them.
Don’t Always Practice From the Beginning
It’s so common for people to sit down and practice by starting at the first page of the song and playing through until the end.
Continually starting at the beginning is fine if you’re playing for yourself and not preparing to perform a piece from memory.
But even if you are going to perform a piece with music in front of you, practice starting from all different places.
It forces you to concentrate and reduces the chance of completely wiping out in the middle of the performance.
Starting from all different places strengthens your mental map of the piece, which gives you more confidence under higher emotional pressure.
Use More Than One Kind of Memory
I’ve written a few different memory posts recently exploring different facets of memorization.
One theme they all share is the importance of using all sorts of different kinds of memory.
Visual: What does the score look like?
Aural: What does the passage sound like?
Analytical: What chords, patterns, or structure are present?
Kinesthetic: What does the movement feel like?
Mental: Can you imagine playing the passage away from the piano?
The biggest reason people have mental lapses they can’t recover from is that they haven’t fostered different types of memory.
But if you spend time on each type of memory and one system fails, you’ll have another as a back-up to help you get back on track.
Practice Recovering on Purpose
The most critical skill you can foster as a performing pianist is recovery.
It’s not a matter of “if” you’ll have a memory lapse at some point in your performing career but rather a question of when.
But you can prepare ahead of time for a bad lapse mid-performance with some of the following tactics:
- Intentionally stop in the middle of a passage.
- Put your hands in your lap.
- Wait a few seconds.
- Try to continue from memory.
- If you can’t, go back to your landmark.
- Practice recovering without looking at the music.
Simulate performance situations by recording yourself.
Or by asking friends or family to come over for a preview.
Again, the goal isn’t to avoid ever getting stuck.
The goal is to practice getting unstuck so you can do it under all sorts of different conditions.
What If You Forget During a Performance?
Most performances are more about sharing a musical experience with an audience than a note-perfect rendition of a piece.
And your goal is to transport your audience to a mesmerizing place and time.
So much so that they’ll be completely unaware of any lapses.
To recap, if your memory fails during a performance:
- Stay calm.
- Keep your body relaxed.
- Listen for where you are in the music.
- Look for your next musical landmark.
- If necessary, skip ahead to a place you know.
Focus on staying in the music and rely on all those practice techniques you’ve been using.
Remember that even world-class pianists have memory lapses and play wrong notes from time to time.
But their ability to recover quickly is what sets them apart from everyone else.
Final Thoughts
For years, my recurring nightmare was simple: I would walk onto a stage, sit down at the piano, and suddenly forget everything.
What my teacher helped me realize, though, is that confidence doesn’t come from knowing your memory will never fail.
It comes from knowing what to do when it does.
Memory slips are a normal part of performing from memory. You can’t guarantee you’ll never have one, but you can prepare to recover. By creating musical landmarks, practicing from different starting places, strengthening multiple types of memory, and intentionally practicing recovery, you’ll have a plan when things don’t go exactly as expected.
And that plan can make all the difference.
So the next time you have a memory lapse during practice, resist the urge to go back to the beginning and try again. Instead, get curious.
Why did you get stuck? What information was missing? Where could you restart? Which type of memory could help you recover?
Every memory slip gives you valuable feedback about where your preparation needs to be stronger.
The goal isn’t to become a pianist whose memory never fails.
The goal is to become a pianist who knows how to keep going when it does.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the topic of memorization, you may find the following helpful:
- Why Do I Forget Piano Music So Quickly? Tips to Improve
- Beyond the Notes: Why Memorization is More Than Muscle Memory
- Tips for How to Memorize Piano Music Effectively
- Learn How to Practice Piano in 15 Minutes a Day
- How to Dramatically Improve Your Mental Focus
Until next time, happy practicing!
