Memorizing repertoire?

[caleigh-minshall]

Hi all!

I was wondering how folks get to the point of having a lot of memorized songs on the tip of their fingers when they sit down to play! I am pretty quick to memorize the few pieces I’m currently working on, but as soon as I put a song away for a few days, I find I’m back to relying on the sheet music again!

Maybe part of it is that I still need to memorize the left hand right now (as well as the right hand) since I haven’t figured out how to improvise with the left hand yet. It’s probably easier just to memorize the melody line for the right hand and then improvise the left, right?

Any ideas?

[andee-craig]

What kind of music are you playing? I play mostly Irish but I’m no expert on the process nor am I very good at explaining.

However, if you are playing Irish or folk music and you know what key apiece is in and you know what the chord changes are you can improvise with your bass hand around that.

For a lot of my tunes I just write what each chord is while I’m learning it and to start I just do octaves or fifths of the chord.

For the melody (right hand) I find that if I can hum the tune to myself I should be able to play it without the music. (Once I’ve worked out any tricky bits.)

[Sylvia]

I improvise left hand. It just goes wherever on the chord…I don’t think about it. My memorized rep is on my website, and the only two pieces that have a real left hand are the Ave Maria and the Jesu, Joy. I admire people who can play left hand because I can’t. I play real left hand only when I play orchestra or opera parts, etc.
One thing I do when I start learning a piece is write out the melody and chord symbols in a comfortable key…not too low, not too high.

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