Memorizing music is HARD!
No doubt about it, no matter how old/young/experienced/whatever, memorization takes some work, and being shaky on memory is one of the biggest contributors toward performance anxiety.
But I have one thing that has helped me and many other people feel more secure about their memory work: memorizing "backwards."
Now even though I did have one young piano student take this literally in my early years of teaching (!), I mean it loosely!
The technique: Start with the last phrase. Study, then sing/play, study some more, sing/play again until you can't possibly get it wrong. Then move one phrase back and study, then sing/play all the way to the end of the piece/song/aria/whatever... until you can't possibly get it wrong. Repeat this process, going all the way to the end each time, until you have memorized the first phrase.
Why this way? When people start their memory with the beginning of the song, the beginning is the strongest memory work. But with the "backwards" technique, the weakest phrase is the very first one. You can go through the work with the confidence that your memorization just gets better and better as you proceed through!
Good luck with your next memorization work!
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