1. Let's just say that you have four popular or standard type songs that you are working on. You can play them pretty well, using the "chord in left hand, and one note right handed melody" technique.

2. Your teacher makes the songs more complex by adding things like more notes on the right hand. You really stumble on those parts of the songs where more than one note is used.

3. The question: Do you memorize those complex parts one at a time until they are mastered (so you can play the song pretty well by reading some parts and playing the memorized parts), or do you go for playing all four songs verrrry slooooowly until they all four become better?

My teacher's instruction is not to memorize those complex parts, and I tend to agree.

Added in edit: One of my goals is to play from a fakebook.

Wondering what you think and why.

Thanks

Hi angelo, it seems to me that what's making this difficult for you is that you are trying to introduce changes to a song you've already learned once. That's harder, imo, than learning a more complex song from scratch. So I would not feel particularly discouraged if you're having trouble memorizing the new parts; you're having to compete with well-established muscle memory.

I don't ever deliberately set out to memorize anything, so I honestly don't have a good answer to give you. But I guess what I would suggest is just playing all four songs in their new arrangement, with sheet music if necessary, and over time you should find you have memorized them.

If your goal is to play from fake books, though, some of your practice/lesson time should be devoted to using only fake books and not playing off the more detailed sheets.

Hi Angeloif,

If I understand the question correctly, you normally play the pieces from sheets, but now that your teacher has added more notes, you're debating whether to memorize the harder parts or just continue playing off the sheets until you slowly get better at it.

If that's true, and your teacher wants you to keep reading off the sheets, then I would do as your teacher wants. It's my observation that regardless of whether you're using sheets, you are ALWAYS memorizing any piece that you have to "learn" as opposed to playing as you read "prima vista" (and even then you are, arguably, memorizing chunks in very short term). The difference is that when you use the sheets they become part of the memorization process and serve as triggers to help you from getting lost or playing wrong notes.

Of course, the disadvantage is when you learn totally off the sheets, you're dependent on them unless you go through a new memorization process that weans you off of them. But that's usually easier than learning from scratch.

I'm a little surprised that you're learning chord style entirely off sheets, since that often uses a lot of improv and ear play, but I'd be disinclined to go against your teacher, especially if it's been working so far. I would, though, at least make sure you understand what the teacher's objectives are in asking that you don't memorize. I presume it's to improve your reading ability but it would be interesting to know for sure.