Tips for memorization of pieces? (mainly piano but all advice is good!)?

Do any of you have tips on how to make memorization of pieces more easy or at least more efficient? I'm having trouble with memorizing this piece and want to improve my ability to memorize music..thanksTips for memorization of pieces? (mainly piano but all advice is good!)?
What my teacher tells me to do is to visualize the score. You can do it whenever, just try and remember all the notes in order, the fingering (for piano) everything. If you do this often enough and remember where everything is, essentially what you get is a copy of the score clearly printed in your mind. I regularly preform and I have never forgotten a piece or had a mind blank. It is a very effective method.Tips for memorization of pieces? (mainly piano but all advice is good!)?
Here's how I do it.


You need a black marker, a pair of scissors, a notebook with plastic sleeves, and access to a copy machine.





First, run all the pages through the copy machine.


Take the black marker, and on each page, black out one note which you think you can do without.


Put the copies in the notebook and play the piece through once.


Take the pages out of the plastic sleeves, black out a second note on each page, and play the piece through again.


Keep repeating the process until you have play the piece through as many times as there are notes on the page with the most notes.


When you have blacked out all the notes in a large portion of a page, cut that portion out with a pair of scissors.
I have a shocking musical memory, but once I had to memorise a Vivaldi bassoon concerto, which I performed in a concert. I was absolutely terrified I'd have mental blocks, but my method was simply to brainwash myself with the concerto by playing recordings of it over and over, for many weeks beforehand, until it was tattooed on my brain.





Just load the pieces onto your iPod or MP3 player, and just play them until you know the pieces inside-out.





Hope this helps!





Hafwen x



I've written an ehow article on this because it gets asked many times a day.





http://www.ehow.com/how_4537458_practice鈥?/a>
dunno i enjoy playing my pieces over and over so memorizing is pretty easy...if u like remove the sheet music and play without it u'd be surprised...