I know there are other threads about memorization, but I was hoping for new help.
I've been playing for about a year and been constantly improving in almost all areas of playing. But the one thing I am not improving on is memorizing pieces. I can play a piece like Moonlight Sonata first movement fairly well just by reading it (after some practice of course) but when it comes to memorizing it, I only learn about 1 measure per day. I have memorized a few pieces now, and once I've learned them, they stay learned, but initially learning them is very hard for me. Has anyone else had this problem and been able to overcome it? If so, how?
Everybody memorizes through a combination of "senses". You will need to first find out more about how you memorize (keyboard memory, hand memory, score memory, ear memory, etc.), then stress those aspects that you are really good at. I found for myself that I am fairly good at hand memory (my fingers know where to go) and keyboard memory (my eyes can steer the fingers well) and particularly ear memory (I can catch every wrong note). But everything got a lot better once I involved my BRAIN in playing the piano (who would have thought?). Since then, I try to understand the music first. Typical thoughts are:
"Played together, these notes make up a diminished 7th chord" (this also suggests the correct fingering right away)
"Here we are modulating from Bb major to F major" (know your scales)
"This is a sequence, one note higher than the previous one" (no something about the structure of music)
"This is the same as measure 14, but inverted" (again, structure of music)
etc.
I found it helps me a lot. I am lazy, so I constantly try to reduce everything to these bare principles. Agreed, there are additional steps to get this information from the brain to the fingers (from muscles to fingers is shorter), so I can't play at speed for a while, but in the end, when the more automatic memorization mechanisms kick in (muscle and keyboard memory), it all comes together nicely.
Topic: Memorization help