Tricks to memorise Gymnopedie #1 ?
I’m trying to learn the 1st Gymnopedie from Eric Satie from this sheet music: hz.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/a/ac/IMSLP136037-WIMA.8862-Satie_Gymnopedie_1.pdf
While the first page is rather easy to read and remember, I’m really struggling with the left hand on the second page. I can’t read fast enough to keep up, even at a slow tempo, and I can’t see a pattern to make it easier to remember.
I tried finding a relation to the intervals, or anything related to the key (it’s in D major, right?), to no avail.
Is there anything I’m not seeing that could help me remember the chords?
EDIT: I get it that it’s important to learn how to read. But I’m just starting out, so please accept that I may have difficulties reading the piece at speed. Surely you also were a beginner at some point. Also, while reading is nice, eventually I’d like to be able to play pieces without sheet music with me. I believe remembering is as important as reading.
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A very simple (but hard solution) is, to learn the notes without piano. Sit down for half an hour and try to remember each little dot on the sheet and imagine how you play it on the piano.
Learn each voice independently from the others. You can also try to sing the different voices. For the voices in the chords: Most of them have three notes. Thus these chords can be seen as three voices, which in total gives you 5 voices.
Try to figure out how many different chords are there in total. A lot of the chords are the same. This means, the problem probably lies in the particular sequence of the chords, and not so much in the notes themselves.
Ultimately, just play it a lot. Your brain will remember 'how it goes', your fingers will get used to doing it. But if you can't read 'Gymnopedie', what CAN you read? This is what needs working on, not finding a complicated excuse to avoid reading the notes!
I had a similar problem wrapping my head around that portion of Gymnopedie #1 . The left-hand chords are quite complex if you think of them as single chords full of inversions and extensions. Instead, I recommend approaching the left hand as slash chords instead – analyze the bass note separately from the rest of the harmony. That helped me greatly in seeing the functional harmony and voice leading, which then makes it much easier to chunk the information and remember it.
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