In my studio there are three types of students, the students who memorize easily, the ones who are frightened to do it, and the new ones who have never memorized music. My students are visual learners, aural learners and tactile learners. I have found that the earlier we begin to work on memorization, the more comfortable the student will be. When I ask the transfer or new student how they memorize, they invariably say, “I’ll play it a lot of times!” And that will work if the student has time to “play it a lot of times.” This might be more effective on an eight measure piece but it gets trickier when the pieces get longer.
(more…)