Band help?

Question

For an upcoming concert we The awsome school band need to memorize LEAN ON ME. It is really fun. So for anyone who plays a flute or any other instruement how do u memorize music? I am having a hard time with it. The other night i sat for an hour and got to measure 21 or earlier. Need all the help in the world!!! Thanks.

PS it is hard to walk and play an instrument.

Answer 1

I've been playing flute for 12 years and my advice for memorizing is to memorize measure by measure. Once you have the first measure down try adding the second. Keep going until you can play that and then add the next and so on and so forth. I was in marching band for a number of years so I understand what you mean by its hard to walk and play an instrument. The only way to over come that is to know the piece well enough that your fingers are the only thing that has to be working on the piece and it is second nature to your brain. Only attempt the walking when you know the piece well enough, another trick is that when walking, walk in beat with the music. Four steps to the whole note, in other words take a step each quarter note and you'll be fine. Thats what got me through marching band. Another trick is learn the route you have to take so you don't have to consciously think about it when you are playing. Hope all of this helps you with your concert.

Answer 2

The only way i used to memorize music in my band was practice practice practice. After playing the same song over and over for three weeks, every single day, i was able to play it in my sleep. Otherwise you can get the tabs/notation for it and study that as if you were going to write a test. I used this method when we played cover songs. As soon as i could visualize the chord-structure in my head, i was able to remember the song (this only works with chords though, studying single notes would be a bit hard!).

Once you've got the song studied (or at least fairly studied) you can always listen to the actual song on repeat and tell yourself 'that's an E, thats G...theres a pull-off'.

These are the methods that worked for me.

If all else fails, print the chord structure and tape it to the floor the night of the concert.

Answer 3

One thing that seemed to help me when trying to memorize music is to play your part BACKWARDS a few times. I am not sure why that helps, but it does.

Also, take short sections of the song and memorize that section-- scramble them up a bit too so that you don't make the common mistake of memorizing the first few bars perfectly and crapping out on the rest of the song. Then when you have each section memorized, play them all together in order.

I hope this was helpful!

Answer 4

From my experience (although I play violin and piano) the key to memorization is your muscle memory. Trust your fingers. And practicing A LOT isn't going to hurt either. After you know it really well, I suppose it gets easier. It sometimes depends on how well you play by ear, as well.

Answer 5

play it over and over again cause i have to memorize satisfaction by The Stones and it is hard cause i hate doing the chords during the riff its hard well good luck