How Do You Memorize Marching Band Music?
• Listen during your rehearsals to see where your part fits in, and if any other instrument has a similar part. • Divide your music mentally into sections, or licks that you will remember. For example if you march across the field for 20 counts playing the same 4 beat melody, count that as one section. • Take note of where you are, and where you march when you play specific parts. This will help when you begin memorization. • Play through the music at home, once with music, to get warmed up and acclimated. Before you start memorizing, however, learn any parts you can’t play, because you can’t memorize something if you can’t even play it. • Next, play through the song without music slowly, and stop when you get to a section you can’t play. If you make a small mistake, keep going, because directors generally don’t go for perfection on memorization, they just want reason to suspect that you can actually play your part without music. • Using music, work through, and memorize the section yo
