Posted by Paul Conrad on February 18, 2000 at 05:12:59:
In Reply to: Memorizing etudes posted by Jay Boyd on February 18, 2000 at 00:59:51:
Memorizing anything helps in understanding it better, not only because of the repetition involved; but also the jazz-like thought process of hearing the general harmonic shape/stucture. As a classical player I often envy the spontaneity of jazz improvisation, if you can bring that type of feel to a legit etude and make the piece sound fresh it will carry over into many other aspects of playing. The basic technique of flexibility (mental and physical),use of the air,articulation,pitch center and so on, required to really PLAY an etude and not just hack through it because we're "supposed" to do it, will educate/train the chops as well as the brain; very useful in other playing situations.