Bit by bit
By Philip Johnston

Page 1 of 1

		It doesn't feel like much, but four bars is actually a whole line of music. Seven days in the week, and you have seven lines memorised, which is usually more than a page...

Memorising a whole piece can feel like a daunting task.

So let's not memorise a whole piece. In fact, let's make things really easy.

All you need to do is memorise the first bar. It's only a few notes, and it doesn't take long. (In fact, I would be surprised if it took you more than five minutes to be able to play these notes without the music - time yourself and you'll see!)

So you can play the first bar from memory. Look, while you're there, you might as well add another bar. Heck, it's only one more - not much harder than what you've already done.

Done already? Surprised by how easy that was? If you do some more practice this afternoon, let's memorise one more bar. Then another one. That would make four for the day, and you can finish your practice tonight by playing through the four bars from memory.

It doesn't feel like much, but four bars is actually a whole line of music. Seven days in the week, and you have seven lines memorised, which is usually more than a page.

Keep that up, and you'll sneak up on memorising the whole piece. And when someone congratulates you at your performance for having "memorised all of that piece so well!", you can protest that you are incapable of memorising a piece. The most you ever memorised is one bar. You just happened to play these memorised single bars one after the other.

So be it.