Memorizing Songs
Question of Curiosity....
As you go through your study songs, are you working to commit the songs to memory, without tabs in front of you?
Or even some of your favorite examples from other parts of study?
I've been through LOA3 and admittedly could not go back and play material without song sheets in front of me. Right now I am focusing on BUFFET LINE and really working on memorizing as I learn the choruses.
I'd love to hear how you tackle your studies.
Thanks in advance, Peter
Peter:
Brian makes a great point: If you don't really like a song, memorization is a LOT harder. But if you really love a tune, you'll find that from time to time you sing the melody to yourself, which can really help with memorization. And once a song is memorized, re-memorizing it doesn't take all that long.
Memorization is its own kind of work when you practice, and everyone has his or her own method for doing it. But I think that everyone would agree that once you leave the sheet music or chart behind, you can then really start to concentrate on technique, tone, dynamics, and everything else that makes your interpretation of the tune stand out.
Hi Peter,
I try to memorize the song. I then start playing it while I’m driving, or wherever I can, but without the music, this is to help train my subconscious mind in playing licks (movement and breathing patterns.)
When I try to play to the backtrack, I have the music sheet in front of me, but I don’t see the individual notes. What I see are the licks and my subconscious plays it without me having to think much about it. While this approach has worked through the first 3 levels, I now find it difficult to learn the count on long-held notes in Gary’s Blues where the long (7 count) notes end in a quick descending set of notes. I’m finding getting the beat count correct to be difficult. Counting to 4 seems to be my limit.
I also downloaded all the study songs and play them regularly as I work or while driving. When I start working on learning a song, I already have a rhythm learned and my mind knows what to expect to hear next, so if I make a mistake, I know it right away because something doesn’t feel right. Since I know what the song is supposed to sound like, mostly I only have to learn the movement and breathing patterns.
Like you, I find it difficult to go back and play the songs from the first 3 levels. I think that is because I didn’t enjoy any of those songs. Starting with level 4, I really like these songs, so I plan to keep playing them regularly after I move on to more levels. However, I recently started learning to play Temperature again, but this time I’ve modified it to include some of the new techniques I learned. My hope, is to see how this song progresses over time as I incorporate new techniques learned in more advanced levels.
Sorry to be wordy, but maybe you can find something useful.
Brian in Tennessee