Memorizing With Sage
Lately I've been working with Sage on memorizing her music. Memorizing your music has a lot of benefits to playing because it can help the player focus more on the artistic qualities of their sound. But I've discovered that for kids it is also a great motivator and can be fun! We memorize measure by measure: play a measure looking at the music, turn around and play it again. Then, we start connecting the measures, and slowly a few lines are memorized. After a few lines are memorized, then we can start working on phrasing to really make music. For Sage especially, I've never seen her light up as much as after successfully playing her music from memory. She goes, "I did it!" with a bright smile on her face and the look she gives me makes me even prouder of her. Little by little, measure by measure, we're transferring what's written on the sheet music to muscle memory, and from there it really takes off!
