Best way to remember new pieces?

[Kevin G String]

Hi, I’ve decided to learn more pieces and play from memory. It takes me a long time to learn even a short fiddle tune.

Anyone one using memory enhancing techniques? I don’t read music, or at least not fast enough to play from initially. I have used it as an aide memoire before. I don’t perform live, so maybe I’m being over ambitious. It wouldn’t hurt to improve my reading skills.

What are your thoughts please?

[TimberII]

I play everything from memory as well. When I’m learning new songs I just practice more. Short and frequent sessions are more productive for me vs one long practice session.
Timber

[Kevin G String]

Originally Posted by TimberII

I play everything from memory as well. When I’m learning new songs I just practice more. Short and frequent sessions are more productive for me vs one long practice session.
Timber

Thanks Timber. I was wondering yesterday if that was the way to go. It's funny after a break I can play better from memory than I could if I'd kept slogging away. it often falls apart quite readily if I persist.

Funny old thing the mind.

[jmagill]

This kind of memory resides in both your brain and your hands. Your brain remembers a tune by constantly hearing it. Your hands remember a tune by constantly playing it.

I find that if I don't regularly practice my more complex fingerstyle pieces, my 'muscle memory' of how to play them starts to fade...
.

[Mandobart]

OP mentioned fiddle tunes. I've been playing these for a long time (since I was 13). What really reinforces these songs in my memory is frequent repetition. I took weekly lessons from a bluegrass fiddler for around 3 years as a teen. He didn't use sheet music, tabs or charts. He would play a tune through at a medium tempo while I watched and listened. Then I would play it with him until I got it. He taped the sessions and I took them home to practice with.

I didn't play fiddle or bluegrass much after high school (kept up with playing Americana on guitar though). In my mid-40's I started playing mandolin (which is tuned like a fiddle) and I swear all those old fiddle tunes just fell right out, from memory. The time I'd spent 30 years earlier learning them paid off.

I go to several bluegrass and old time jams each month now. Playing songs with other people on a regular basis is the mantra I've been advocating here for years. I've learned a bunch of new songs at these the same way - aurally.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Kevin G String

Thanks Timber. I was wondering yesterday if that was the way to go. It's funny after a break I can play better from memory than I could if I'd kept slogging away. it often falls apart quite readily if I persist.

Funny old thing the mind.

Exactly! That's how the brain works. You need the downtime for your subconscious brain to organise the information you've just been practising. That's why you get diminishing returns the longer you practice. It's like your subconscious is saying "hold on, gimme a chance to get all that sorted out!"

So you should practise until you feel that sensation kicking in - don't push beyond there. Then take a break - even a whole day - before going back to it. (Of course you can work on other stuff in the meantime.)

The memory for this kind of activity (and any similar task) is linear. In this respect, if nothing else, it's like computer memory, a one-dimensional string of events. You embed one measure, then add another to it, and so on. You can't picture the whole thing at once. Even when you have a tune fully memorized, if someone said to you "play me measure 10 in that tune", almost certainly you'd have no idea; you'd have to start from the beginning and work your way through to it. Every note you play sparks the memory of the next one in the chain. so it all spools out.

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by Kevin G String

Hi, I’ve decided to learn more pieces and play from memory. It takes me a long time to learn even a short fiddle tune.

Anyone one using memory enhancing techniques? I don’t read music, or at least not fast enough to play from initially. I have used it as an aide memoire before. I don’t perform live, so maybe I’m being over ambitious. It wouldn’t hurt to improve my reading skills.

What are your thoughts please?

Hi Kev, as I don't do notation or tab, I have no alternative BUT to play and play until my fingers do it automatically (however as they are 75 years old, they sometimes misbehave, or misremember).

Here's a serious hint. Play in a) the dark, and/or b) with your eyes closed. Seriously, it really helps.

[AX17609]

Originally Posted by Kevin G String

Hi, I’ve decided to learn more pieces and play from memory. It takes me a long time to learn even a short fiddle tune.

Anyone one using memory enhancing techniques? I don’t read music, or at least not fast enough to play from initially. I have used it as an aide memoire before. I don’t perform live, so maybe I’m being over ambitious. It wouldn’t hurt to improve my reading skills.

What are your thoughts please?

May I ask your age?

[Deliberate1]

https://www.amazon.com/Laws-Brainjo-...3100360&sr=8-1

I read this oft recommended book. It was really good.
I think....


David

[mr. beaumont]

Learn to sing it.

Even a complicated fingerstyle piece has a melody.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Deliberate1

https://www.amazon.com/Laws-Brainjo-...3100360&sr=8-1

I read this oft recommended book. It was really good.
I think....

David

Listening to Josh Turknett will provide great insight into how to unlock your potential:

[Methos1979]

I used to memorize everything way back when we were just trying to get up to around 50 songs to be able to play/gig. It was a chore and inevitably there would be a song or two that would end up being a train wreck because I'd forget something or worse just go blank mid-song. Once we started to gig frequently and needed to add more songs, I started using a tablet with guitar tab as a reference. It allowed me to add way more songs and be able to perform them way faster than if I needed to memorize them all. I don't stare at the tablet during performance but rather use it as a reference to glance at as needed. It's also great as I can use it to construct setlists, provide capo positioning, time counts via the metronome count-in, change keys and whatnot. Very powerful too. Over time playing them they eventually get committed to memory via muscle memory and ear to the point I don't even need to look at them on the tablet. But it's still nice to have it there.

[Mark Stone]

Originally Posted by Kevin G String

Hi, I’ve decided to learn more pieces and play from memory. It takes me a long time to learn even a short fiddle tune.

Anyone one using memory enhancing techniques? I don’t read music, or at least not fast enough to play from initially. I have used it as an aide memoire before. I don’t perform live, so maybe I’m being over ambitious. It wouldn’t hurt to improve my reading skills.

What are your thoughts please?

What I do is to either record the piece, or find a recording of the piece, and sit down with my guitar and play it with the recording over and over, day after day after day after day. I can learn even complicated songs in 10 days or less doing this, and I’m almost a billion years old.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Mark Stone

What I do is to either record the piece, or find a recording of the piece, and sit down with my guitar and play it with the recording over and over, day after day after day after day. I can learn even complicated songs in 10 days or less doing this, and I’m almost a billion years old.

My time frame usually is longer than 10 days with average stuff and I avoid really hard stuff, but this is how I learn things also. Repetition. The downside is getting bored before you finish the piece. I battle this by working on 3-4 things at once and take a day off now and then.

[rmp]

The problem with the more involved stuff is not playing a piece for a while.

All things considered nothing else but repetition works for me

If I can access a tab, I will keep it in a book so if I go too long without reviewing and the muscle memory has me all twisted around, I still have the tab handy.

I think a video recording of a complicated pieces would be a good idea too once you learn it, if there's no score or tab you can find

A video just for your own reference later would be just the thing to job your memory