I think that most people try to memorize things the hard way: by starting at the beginning. When I need to memorize something, I start with the end, and work m

I think that most people try to memorize things the hard way: by starting at the beginning. When I need to memorize something, I start with the end, and work my way towards the beginning. For example, if I need to memorize a poem, I start with the last line or 2 lines. Then, I put a line (or complete thought) in front of it and memorize that as it flows into the already memorized part. Rinse and repeat. Caveat: It sounds like an n^2 algorithm. Yes and no. Larger works can be broken up into chunks so that once the last "chunk" is learned, then only focus on the penultimate chunk, with only occasionally reviewing the flow from chunk to chunk. I have not found any mentions of this technique specifically in the context of memorization, but rather first heard about it in the context of dog training. E.g., teach a dog the last action of a trick. Once the dog can perform the part of the trick, add one step in front of the learned part, and keep repeating that until the sequence is solid. Then add another step to the beginning of the sequence, etc. Evidently, in this way, animals can learn complex and long sequences of behaviors. Backward Chaining [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaining] is the closest description that I could find matching this technique, but even that isn't totally correct, as the description deals with performing the entire chain rather than ignoring the chain as a whole and only focusing on the end. I have personally applied this technique to memorization of poetry, scripture passages, and learning piano pieces. It's amazing! In fact, I teach all of my piano students this method to learn a piece of music. They never "start at the beginning and stumble through the entire piece" unless they are intentionally practicing sight reading. Rather, we focus on the last phrase, and they learn (memorize) it up to tempo. Then they add the previous musical phrase, tying into the part that they just learned. Usually, we go for a ratio of loosely 10:1 (i.e., 10 repetitions of the new section, then 1 of the new section tied to the old section, maintaining a constant tempo). It works very well! The end result: 1. It is usually easy to remember how something begins. 2. With this method, the performance gets stronger, as the more difficult passages (often towards the end) have more focused attention. 3. The "newest" part is always at the beginning of wherever you are in the learning process, so your brain is always fresh at the place where it needs to work the hardest. My students love this approach, because, from their own testimony, it makes learning a complicated piece of music a very straightforward and repeatable skill.