Have any of you thought of tricky passages in terms of patterns before?

I mention this because sometimes a piece is quite easy except for a certain rapid ascension of notes or such... Liszt's 3rd Liebestraume/many Chopin nocturnes, even the Tchaikovsky Concerto have these.

I find that if I understand the pattern, it's much easier than memorizing the notes.

Sometimes though, the pattern isn't easy to find.

Absolutely. When learning and memorizing, I always look for patterns. Indeed, sometimes they are hard to identify.

Even if you impose an imaginary pattern on something, that's better than not having any pattern to work with. But most things that make any sense do include a pattern or patterns, if you search hard enough.

I find if I can't find a pattern, then I'm pretty much lost learning something. Like when it took me a few hours just to learn 4 bars in a slow section in the Liszt sonata which really didn't deserve a few hours of technical practice.

Patterns are very important particularly in order to memorize (it would be really difficult to memorize a piece without any patterns whatsoever). I think to be effective they also have to personal somehow, patterns you really see.

Well, you can try rote memorizing chord progressions. Sometimes that helps.