Memorize your music

One of the most important steps in mastering a piece of music is memorizing it. Why? You can then look at what you're doing while playing, rather than looking up at your music.

This is especially important when you're trying to improve your technique on your instrument. While it's certainly possible to become a great player without looking much at your hands, sometimes you just don't know what the problem might be. That's when looking at your hands is important.

"But memorizing is hard!", I hear some of you saying...

Not at all! The key to memorizing your music is, as with many things in life, taking it one step at a time. Try the first note of the piece you're working on from memory. Usually one note is very easy to memorize. Try two. Then three, then four, and so on. Here is what I have found to be the easiest way to memorize:

How to memorize any piece of music

1) Play through what you're working on while allowing yourself to look at the music
2) Try playing the first note from memory (easy!)
3) Add a note and try playing two notes from memory
4) Repeat step #2, but only when the notes you are already playing are really easy to play from memory. In other words, don't add any new notes to your memory work unless you can easily play what you're already doing.

I go through this same process with many of my students, and almost every time they commit what they're learning to memory quickly. Sometimes they forget some of it the next time they go to play, in which case I just recommend they go through the same four steps again. Each time you do it it gets a lot easier.

When or whether to look at the music after memorizing

You should probably look at your music at the beginning and at the end of each practice session, just to be really sure you're not missing anything. I used to go back to lessons every week confident in my memory work, only to find I'd played one note wrong the entire week!

Look at the music at the beginning and end of practice until it is effortless to play from memory, and you'll memorize your work in no time, while minimizing mistakes.

Get memorizing!