[tpoacher]

As someone who, back when I used to play (semi-professionally) I preferred to memorise all my music, I would say that memorising pieces for me was "effortless", and thus needed no technique, provided that when I would first study a piece, the intent was specifically to memorise it, rather than, say, to sight read, or analyse it.

I always found it extremely odd that, if the memorisation intent was not there, no amount of exposure would lead to effective memorisation. E.g. I could sight read an accompaniment 50 times and I would not remember most of it; once I decided to study specifically with the intent of "memorising" the piece, typically a handful of passes would be enough.

Scott Adams recently said something similar in one of his coffee podcasts. He made an experiment with himself: he has a short "skit" he always starts his show with, and he made a bet with himself how long it would take, if ever, to memorise that skit, simply by reading it, with no intentional effort to memorise it.

So far it's been over a year afaik :)

[prestonbriggs]

Yes, memorizing everything (all the music) helped hugely in practicing. I used to believe it was because I didn't have to read the music, and could focus on fingers, etc. But maybe the memorization effort (and it wasn't hard, as you mentioned) was enough to establish a framework, and the bulk of my practicing was hanging new details onto the framework.