Memorization?

[Elrend]

I'm having a hard time remembering pieces, I usually end up reading while playing.

Does anybody have any tips for improving my memory?

[Bruce Lindfield]

Put away the music and play from memory as much as you can - the more you do it - the easier it becomes!

[Jake of Bass]

Work a lot of stuff out by ear from the recording. You'll know the song that much better. Rely on having music in front of you as little as possible. You'll be surprised what you'll remember once you've played a song a lot. I once forgot all my jazz charts and kinda freaked but after two sets I only had to look over the guitarist's shoulder twice so after that I had them in front of me but rarely opened the book.

It can help a great deal to see patterns in music as much as you can. My mind thinks in strange ways sometimes and I can often see warped patterns in music. This can help the memory process greatly as you only need a bit to trigger the rest of it off.

[Vakmere]

stop smoking weed.....

[DocBop]

As Lee Sklar said when learning all the tunes for the Toto tour. Don't give me charts they are like heroin once you give them to me you will never get them back. You have to force yourself memorize the tunes, then the more tunes you learn the easier it gets because you start recognizing the common chord movements and melodic fragments. Also helps your ear when having to play songs you don't know, by being able to predict where things are going.