Tips to Memorize Piano Music

Although there are a lot of sources that claim to have the secret to memory, most people would agree that a good way to memorize something is to associate it with as many of your five senses as possible. Music is a great opportunity to practice your memorizing skills in this way. When most people learn a musical piece, they are only taught to read the music and play it, nothing else. This is the wrong way to learn about music, because if you can only visually read music, you never get to experience the true value of music. Music is an aural medium. It’s sound. It’s made up of vibrations of air, which in turn vibrate your eardrum, alerting the parts of your inner ear, signalling to your brain that you’ve heard a sound. Am I making myself clear? Music is meant to be heard, not just seen.

The best way to memorize music is to use all three of the senses you use for music. Apart from visually memorizing sheet music, listen to several recordings of the piano piece you’re trying to learn. I say you should listen to several recordings so that you don’t have a biased “view” of the piece. Try to find an efficient fingering to play the piece, and use that same fingering every time you play the piece so that you can develop a good muscular memory in your hands. Once you’ve memorized the muscular movements of the piece, you can play it blindfolded fairly easily.

This will give you a way to memorize a piano piece using three if your five senses. If you have a fairly good sense of smell or taste, and you’re able to associate certain smells or tastes with music, do that if it works for you.