Memorizing

Be off book! You cannot learn while you are perpetually holding music. You learn quicker by finding out where your memory lapses are.

I have always noticed that those who cannot sight read well, learn fastest. They have to because they have to rely on memory. Many of the greatest voices were actually poor sight readers but excellent musicians. Musicianship is rather like oratory. It depends on fine instincts and much soul. The poorest reader is often the greatest orator. Churchill is a prime example. He was by his own accounts and by the accounts of his friends somewhat dislexic, but he absorbed words like a sponge. The man who must always look at notes and not rely upon his memory is the poorest speaker. So learn to build your memory by putting the manuscript down and taking a plunge. Just keep going with la-la-la if you make a mistake or have a memory lapse, or catch it up later in the piece. Do that and you'll find you start to depend less and less on your sheet music and start to see the piece or ensemble in its totality. You see it as a whole. Try putting you music down.