Music Practice Tips

Memorising music is a great, but often scary. Let’s say this from the start: Memorising music is not essential. As you’ll find out, many works, such as concertos, are often performed from memory. That is the standard, and while that must be recognised, you are allowed to break the standard. Other things, for example, Duo Sonatas, and chamber works, are performed with the sheet music. Before I launch into my 10 tips for memorising music, I’m just going to suggest why you might like to memorise all your music.

First of all, if you can memorise your music, it really does free you. If you’ve memorised your music, then first of all, you know it really well. Secondly, it frees your eyes to look at other things - your technique for example. But why would you want to memorise music that you know you’re going to play with the music anyway? Because it allows you to look away from the music, it allows you to communicate with your accompanist/other players, it allows you to check on your technique. You don’t have to look away all the time, but it will allow you the freedom to do that, which can be greatly settling.

10 tips for Music Memorisation

1. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Cement the passage in your technique, until you can’t play it wrong. Then try doing it without the music. Often, you’ll find that through the process of repeating it so often, you’ll have memorised it.
2. Start small. Try memorising one or two bars at a time. It’s a much smaller task and won’t seem so daunting.
3. Joins. Once you’ve memorised a few consecutive passages, try linking them together. Watch out for the joins, to see if they don’t quite sound right.
4. Practice away from the instrument. On the bus on the way to work/school, you can easily visualise the music. Run through it, and see where there’s blanks - that will help you figure out where you still need to work on. Carry the music with you, and you can work on it all the time.
5. Listen to recordings. Listen to plenty of recordings of the piece, as it will help internalise it and aid memorisation.
6. Use (almost) all your senses. Try an memorise where the instrument feels under your hand, where it is in your sight, how it sounds (not so much on the taste and smell).
7. Sing the music. This is another great technique to internalise the music.
8. Perform. Perform as often as you can. You can try performing in front of the mirror, in front of the window, in front of you teddy bears, your siblings, your parents, friends, anyone that you can find.
9. Record yourself. Record yourself playing from memory, and then critically go over your mistakes when listening with the score. Identify areas that need to be strengthened.
10. Randomise. Number the sections in the piece, and then draw them out of a hat. Look at the music just to remember where it is, and then play it from memory. Even better if you can remember the passage without looking at the music.

Bonus: Try memorising every aspect of the piece, including the accompaniment. You don’t need to be able to play it, but be aware of what it’s doing at all times. The best displays of memorisation I’ve seen are in masterclass situations where the student has been able to pick up where they’re asked to go from without the music, and also know what’s happening in the accompaniment at all times.

Have you got any strategies that you use for aiding memorisation?