Why is it that violinsts can memorize so much music?

Question:

Why is it that violinsts can memorize so much music?

I've tried so hard to memorize music on my flute, but it just doesn't happen. Can someone explain?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: First, you have to be able to play by ear. If you can do that, then memorizing music should come naturally.
If you can't, here is my explanation for why it is easier to play violin by ear, than flute, and hopefully the thoughts will lead you somewhere!

For stringed instruments like guitar, piano and violin, your hands makes logical physical movements to adjust the pitch. An octave leap in the bass clef is a proportional physical movement in the treble clef, and because of that your body can respond easily to what you are hearing in your head. Playing the intervals easily by ear leads naturally to playing the harmonies by ear.

On wind instruments like flute the fingerings to play intervals don't make any physical sense to your body. To play a wind instrument by ear your brain learns to associate the different potential fingerings with exact pitches. Even more than learning solfege, the wind player who plays by ear can likely associate a note on a page with an exact pitch and a range of fingerings! Likely any musician such as this has a good ear for harmonics. Whatever exact fingering gives you the tone with its overtones that you associate with the pitch you hear -- once you have a feel for this, you can play by ear and memorize music easily. You will begin playing all the intervals to and from that pitch and your harmonic sense will be refined making you follow the entire piece more easily. Interesting, the more you play flute by ear the more you arrive at alternate and true fingerings on your particular instruments. It is just a matter of getting more advanced as a musician, that's all. For violinists, they have a role in the orchestra and in the works written for the instrument by composers that inspires their musicianship in the ways I described. You have to work harder to find that music, for flute.