If you’re a musician, you’ll be learning a lot of music (and blocking, for singers) on a regular basis.  Often, you will have to work something up at a moment’s notice.  It is critical that you develop a method for learning and memorizing music efficiently and effectively.  Here are some of my recommendations for ways to make the most of your time and show up to your lesson, coaching, audition, rehearsal or gig, completely prepared. 

1.  Don’t Listen First:  Most of us in this age of Youtube, Apple Music, Spotify, Naaxos, and a whole host of other platforms, listen exclusively when we try to learn a new piece of music.  Admittedly, it is helpful to give something a first listen before diving in. Especially if you are checking for standard tempi, orchestral forces, elements of performance practice etc.  However, on  the whole, I strongly discourage listening before you have learned the piece. Just because something has been recorded, doesn’t mean that the rhythms, pitches, diction or stylistic elements are correct.  In addition, if you are a good mimic, as so many singers are, you will inevitably start to mirror the technical elements and timbre of a particular singer’s voice which are not your own!  Don’t sing with someone else’s voice, it’s not a healthy scenario, and it will frustrate you and your teachers and coaches a great deal. 
2. Separate the Elements: Does this sound familiar? You walk in to a practice room with a new piece, sing it through as best you can 2 or 3 times as loudly as possible, then practice the high notes until your throat is  tired and go home.  Not effective.  Though maddening, separate the elements of the piece and focus on them until you can do them perfectly.  What are the elements?
   1. Rhythm:  Clap the rhythm or speak it on “ta ta ta” or “de de de”.  Don’t add text, even if the song is in English.  Until you can get through the piece perfectly while articulating the rhythm, don’t add anything else.
   2. Pitches:  Next, learn the notes in rhythm.  Again, sing them on a vowel or generic sound.  Still no text.  If you have learned the rhythm already, then adding the notes shouldn’t be too overwhelming.  Again, I suggest a sound such as “de de de”, as it helps to keep the sound forward, but replicates  some of what the lips and vocal folds will be doing as you sing text.  “Ah” is a decent choice as well, but the bottom line is to pick a sound or vowel that is easy to produce and doesn’t promote tension.  After you have worked out any major tension issues or registration concerns and can sing the notes perfectly, in rhythm, don’t move past this step. 
   3. Text:  Now speak the text in rhythm without notes.  Take time to articulate the correct vowel shapes and diphthongs.  Don’t gloss over anything.  If the song is in a foreign language,  make sure you have a literal and a poetic translation.  What do I mean?  You need to understand every single word, then you need to be able to make sense of it in your language.  After that, do your phonetic translation, IPA.  If you don’t know IPA, wait to do this step, but make sure you get the right pronunciation from your teacher or coach.  If you are not sure about something, don’t work in bad habits or guess at pronunciation, it will be extremely difficult to train out. 
   4. By this point, you will have gone over the song multiple times.  You will probably be ready to punch a hole in the wall out of frustration and boredom.  Good.  With multiple repetitions on these separate elements, you are finally ready to sing through the piece.  However, not at full speed.  Always do it slower, much slower, than you will ever sing it.  When you begin slower, it helps your brain to slowly synthesize those elements that you have worked on.  When you sing it fast, you’re inviting bad habits, even if you feel like you have it down.  When you can sing through the song perfectly at that snail’s pace, then slowly work up to the ideal tempo.
   5. Listen:  Lastly, when you can sing through the song perfectly, up to tempo, listen to all of the recordings you like.   You will be amazed at how many mistakes you notice,  how many elements you identify as artist’s choices and not things that are indicated in the score, and things that you want to do yourself that might not be in the recording.  Shop around and listen to many recordings, so that you get a wide range of ideas and interpretations to help you decide how you’d like to shape your performance.  
   6. Memorizing:  This could be a post by itself, and most likely will be in coming weeks.  You should notice at this point that you are pretty close to memorization already if you have separated the elements as suggested.  Repetition is almost always a reliable way to memorize for professional musicians. For singers specifically, if you don’t have your translation memorized, you won’t be able to memorize the song as easily, or it won’t stick for long.  Know your translation!  As a general rule, you should aim to have your piece memorized, off-book, 2 weeks before you want to perform it.  The more your brain and body have absorbed it, the more attention you will be able to focus on the performance, not remembering which verse you are on. 

As a quick preview of some of the memorization techniques we will explore in coming weeks, here’s a short list of ideas:

-Walk around while memorizing to add a kinesthetic element to your work.

-Keep your music in a different room so that you have to walk back in when you forget a line.

-Write down your text over and over on a sheet of paper.

-Establish a memory map for your song.  This involves picturing a place you know extremely well, and imagining the content of your text interacting with specific elements of that place. For example, if you are singing Die Forelle, you picture a book or stream running under the bed in your bedroom.  It sounds complex but is not difficult once you understand the concept.  Again, more detail to come in future posts. 

-Recite your text like a monologue, taking it back out of rhythm once you’ve learned it.  

-Dance through your song.  Use even more movement than you would just walking around the room and choreograph your song.  Many are amazed at how much easier it sticks.

-Stage your piece.  You may never use the blocking and you certainly don’t ever have to show anyone what you’ve come up with, but specific motions at specific times, often help singers to internalize the piece. Again, slightly different than just generic movement or dance that does’t have the same direct connection, but this uses the same idea, this time combined with even more targeted storytelling. 

-After your piece is completely learned and learned well, I do advise listening like crazy, but only if you have done the right work first. 

Bottom line, through this whole process, patience is the key. If you rush the process of learning your music, you’ll just end up paying for it later on down the road when you have to fix bad habits or mis-learned material.  Bad technical habits are so easily worked in to a new piece if you are not careful.  Take the time to do it right! 

Ok musicians.  What are your tips, tricks, and advice for effective ways to learn music?  What works for you? What doesn’t?