How do you memorize music?

I memorize in these ways:

- single handed practice using the correct fingering

- patterns on the keyboard (am I progressing in 3rds,4ths, 5th, etc)

- interval recognition in the score (again3rds,4ths, 5th, etc) 

- repetition

- reading score away from the piano

- test yourself often with your score closed so you can not look up and see the score

- keeping positive attitude about memorization from the start of the piece

I sorely lack key signature consciousness and need to add that to my practice routine.

PS: I started these methods 3 years ago, I had been playing with poor memorization methods, and poor results for nearly 70 years. These methods have really helped me memorize even larger works.

My process is hard to explain because I started to memorize fairly complex classical material as a little kid and it evolved organically without much conscious thought.  The first thing I evaluate is whether memorizing a piece will really help me play it better... if not, I don't waste the effort unless it will be performed.  Typically I try to engrain an understanding of the overall structural layout as I'm working on the muscle memory and playing through the piece early on... then I will start to attempt playing sections from memory - not in any specific order - going back and forth between using the score and memory, until that segment is memorized.  There is no way of knowing when is a good time to start this,  you just have to follow your instincts.  There is a huge sense of accomplishment the first time you are able to play an entire piece without looking at the music... like solving a puzzle or any other mental challenge.  But, this milestone does not in any way signify that the process is done.... notes/chords/passages will drop out from memory and there is a continuing need to refer to the music over many more iterations before it is truly locked in. 

I remember through 3 modalities. 1.  Muscle memory is one term pianists use. It is really memory based upon kinesthetic and proprioceptic feedback 2. Memory of the melody so u can anticipate the next note and 3. Visualization of the written score. 

Thanks for this, Dominic! I am a Nashville based professional, multi-genre pianist of 40 years, performing,  touring and recording in a variety of genres, including Americana, Brazilian and world music, jazz, soul and R&B, singer-songwriter stuff (including my own), musical theatre and, yes , country (the classic stuff, not the new ).  I had some classical background (lessons age 10-17, some study in college), and have always played and studied some pieces. But 6 or 7 years ago, I really got the classical piano repertoire bug, and it has become nearly an obsession. I am working on adapting classic works in various ways-Ravel's Pavane makes a wonderful bossa nova, Satie's Gnossiene works great with a Cuban rhythm, Bach's C minor prelude has grerat chord changes for improvisation, etc. I am trying to expand my repertoire, but finding that even when I play a piece over and over again (i.e. the gorgeous Chopin Nocturne, Op. 48 in F#m), it takes a long time to learn, and if I leave it for awhile, much is forgotten. I am trying to become more methodical, and your tips should help with the process. I am also considering your comment that there is only so much space in one's brain for musical info, especially info as detailed as the classical repertoire. I know thousands of popular songs, but that's a far different degree of pure info. It seems like memory capacity is something that has a lot of individual variation. Oh, to have Martha (my fav) Argerich's memory! I look forward to learning more about your discourse on memory and applying these concepts. The right brain and left brain (often neglected in my case) can work together! Eureka! Musically yours, with gratitude,

Will Barrow, pianist, singer-songwriter, composer, educator, Sec-Treas of AFM Local 257

Thanks a lot. Dominic

Very helpful document and summary of your session on the topic. Thank you.

I’m happy to share the specific steps I follow to memorize. Like many here, I was a professional pianist, but took a four-decade hiatus, and when I returned to piano about five years ago in earnest, memorization was no longer effortless like it used to be. Here’s what I find most helpful. 
Firstly, consistent fingering is an absolute must to aid in memorization, especially in Bach. 
Secondly, rudimentary tonal and chordal analyses is also a must. Writing down what key you’re in and how you’re transitioning into another key is the minimum needed.

Analyzing the piece and breaking it down into sections, noticing what repeats where and why is the third step.

After that, it’s section-by-section and sometimes just a few bars at a time repetition with great attention to key and chord changes. 
Hope this is helpful for someone out there. 

Wow, that‘s really an interesting discussion. I had always trouble with memorizing. I don’t memorize many pieces, but if I want to I do it without the piano. After I have set up the fingerings and can play the piece, I take the score, look at the first bars of right hand. Than I close my eyes, imagine the keyboard and which finger has to play which key. So I go through the piece. Left hand too. If I know a part, I practice it on the piano. Needs some time, but works for me.

I usually start learning and memorising a few bars from the end and work backwards. I will replay every bars that I have learned until I am able to play it very slowly and correctly before I work on the speed.

I analyze it first. What chord progression, diatonic or not, any special functions like double dominants, secondary dominants, modulation points.

I search for pattens, repetitions, anything that is repetitive or has a structure. Sequences, a rhythmic pattern etc  And if left hand notes are forming a broken chord or a circle of fifth progression or repetitive pattern like "fifth down, step up, fifth down, step up", something like that.

When something is breaking out of that structure I pay extra attention. 

Then I go by a mixture of ear, visual, body feel. So my ear has usually the melody remembered,  but isn't good enough to really nail all intervals down, so my mind is more like: "now the big one up, scale down, same again on 5th degree but with melodic minor, thirds alternating, the weird thumb crisscrossthingy, and then the black key part with the wide body movements, all starting on the right edge black keys."

Left hand usually thinks in chords and "the first inverted, then the powerchords twice, then B7 first narrow then wide..."

And I think I also register some left hand notes, especially the first ones in a bar or the ones that go directly with the left hand chord as chord notes. Like I have that as a memory anchor, when notes are doubled or supplement the chord...  sometimes...not always.

Very weird system, now that I read it But it works far too well. So well, that I really am far behind with sightreading, because I can play my pieces memorized far too quickly and don't look at the sheet anymore.

Plus I realize how important a harmonic structure is for me, because I am way worse at memorizing counterpoint. I have to rely a lot more on muscle memory and ear then, and as I don't memorize so quickly I need to play from sheet a lot more, which makes me kearn these pieces a lot slower and with lots of diffuiculty bringing them up tempo - being restricted not physically but because I can't read fadt enough to fit the physical tempo I could already manage.

Kaja said:
but after 4-5 years life got in the way and the Sax was put in its box

 I detest how "life gets in the way" in so many ways. For me, as a musician, I find it equally annoying because when life gets in the way it prevents me from growing as a perons, because music informs my life more than anything else.