How to Learn Songs?

[Ant_]

I'm still relatively new to playing and I've just been reading through the thread about learning whole songs from start to finish

As I become more practiced I'd like to play fingerstyle and instrumental pieces....but I've got a lot of learning to do before that

So, with my ultimate aim in mind, how should I learn songs?


I have a Beatles song book which has the chords/rhythm as well as the notes for the singing in it

I was thinking I should learn the rhythm part and then the notes-part as shown in the book.....but how do I then turn that into a fingerstyle instrumental piece?

Basically, I'd like to learn songs (rhythm style) for me and others to sing along to, but I'd also like to learn them as instrumental pieces too as I think songs sound beautiful when played like that

I'll obviously be looking at other performers besides the Beatles, but thought they were a nice starting point as their songs are known by everybody, and most of them are relatively simple to learn

Thanks everybody
Have a great weekend

[Ant_]

Double post

[nedray]

You're talking about a set of skills that take years to master, so it's best to take a step or two at a time. You're learning chords, so now learn some right-hand technique to make the chords more interesting than a simple strum. You Tube is your friend. If you search YT on the phrase 'guitar instruction fingerpicking,' you'll find a bunch of beginner vids that show how to move your right-hand fingers.

Start basic--learn Freight Train and similar easy pieces to get used to rolling (alternating) your thumb strokes while your fingers do something else. This will take time and practice, but once you get the basic movement down, you can apply it to other pieces and you'll learn more patterns and other ways to discipline your right hand. For chord melody, you'll find there's a lot you can play with just the simple cowboy chords as you learn how to modulate them (all the melody notes are in the chords, after all).

Ideally, you end up playing like Tommy Emmanuel, but it's a long and gradual process of listening, watching and practicing. Listen to fingerpickers and find their vids on YT to develop your own chops. Working with an instructor would be ideal, but you can learn a lot on your own for little or no monetary investment. Some of the members here, for example, have some really inspiring work on YT, and some offer more instruction for reasonable prices. With YouTube, there's no excuse to suck any more.

[billder99]

This has been an issue for me as my memory is not good, especially for lyrics. I have an excellent method now, very consistent and it works:

1) For songs you are memorizing, learn only ONE song at a time... don't start trying to memorize another song until you can pick up the guitar and play this one from beginning to end without much thought.
2) Learn the chords, changes and timing first. Remember, timing is everything! You can forget lyrics, or play a wrong chord or note, and no one will notice... make a mistake in timing and everyone will know it! Start slow, count beats and measures, learn the chords and changes.
3) Once you have the chords, changes, and timing, work on the rhythm of the song... listen to as many versions as you can find on YT and Soundcloud, find a rhythm you like and learn it.

Once you can play the guitar rhythm(s) in time and at full speed and you have it memorized, time to work on lyrics and singing:
4) Don't worry about singing well at the start of a new song... in fact, you don't need to sing... you can speak the words in time and in rhythm to learn the lyrics. You are going to learn only a part of the song, over and over until you have it, and then start adding more parts.
5) Memorize the verses one at a time... be able to sing a verse without looking at your cheat-sheet before starting the next verse.
6)Memorize the chorus, and play in the appropriate place after (or before) verses.... Same with Bridge, etc...
7) Play thru all the parts you know at least once every day from memory, and then add the next part of the lyrics, until you can sing and play the entire song without looking at a cheat-sheet. Play thru it 5 or 10 times completely before starting to work on your voice.
8) Start working on vocal pitch, breathing, dynamics, etc...
9) Start you next song!

The Final Step: Now you have the basic song memorized from beginning to end with simple rhythm... the last step is to start learning and adding embellishments... a beginning, an end, short fills or leads, baselines, etc.... this part NEVER ends... the song grows better as you grow in your musicianship over time..

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Ant_

…So, with my ultimate aim in mind, how should I learn songs?

Hi Ant…

I don't know how YOU will best learn songs. And the way I learn may not serve you well.

For me it starts with immersion without even looking at a chart, or sitting down with the guitar. I listen to a song over and over, and if it's available by other performers/artists, I'll listening to it by different artists.

Somewhere in this part of the process I'll begin to think about the key I want to learn it in. I have the ability to build the chord progression in my head without looking at charts, so I begin exploring keys in my mind.

I still often do this with a guitar in hand and play with different keys. And while I'm at it, I learn the melody in at least 2 places on the fingerboard.

Then I start to break out the sections of the song - intro, verse, chorus, bridge. And I begin to build the arrangement and assemble it.

But still, the most important step for me is listening to the song extensively.

[SFCRetired]

I never found Beatles songs easy to learn. But then again I am not a huge Beatles fan although I have their anthology book, a rom card for my Kawai session trainer, and a play along CD. So I do like "some" of their songs.

Learn how to rhythm the songs you like to the point it's mastered. Then learn the melodies. Then comes the style you want to play. That will keep you busy for a few years. Sorry to say but It won't be a year long journey. Depending on how fast you learn, you could be fairly efficient in 5 years maybe.

Learning guitar is a marathon, it's not a sprint.

[rick-slo]

If I were in your position and being a do it yourselfer I would get a book or two on how to learn fingerstyle guitar (hopefully including audio of the pieces in the book(s)). Chord sheet books will get you nowhere.

There is also a lot of fingerstyle tabs available free on the internet (including Beatles tunes). Probably most productive would be tab written with tab software (free stuff available) that can play the tab back to you via midi (eg PowerTab, TablEdit, TuxGuitar, GuitarPro).

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Ant_

I'm still relatively new to playing and I've just been reading through the thread about learning whole songs from start to finish

As I become more practiced I'd like to play fingerstyle and instrumental pieces....but I've got a lot of learning to do before that

So, with my ultimate aim in mind, how should I learn songs?


I have a Beatles song book which has the chords/rhythm as well as the notes for the singing in it

I was thinking I should learn the rhythm part and then the notes-part as shown in the book.....but how do I then turn that into a fingerstyle instrumental piece?

As rick says, there are plenty of fingerstyle arrangements of Beatles tunes around - some in published books:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0793570514/

There should be good tips there (in terms of what you need to do) if you compare those arrangements with both the original recordings and the transcriptions in your book.

The first essential, of course (for a non-vocal arrangement), is to get the melody down. You might need to change the original key to find an easy key for a solo arrangement - or maybe a different tuning. (Some Beatles tunes, eg Norwegian Wood, were in drop D originally anyway.)
Then it's a matter of fitting in what you can beneath the melody - probably chord roots first, and any other chord tones you can get. Often melody and bass is enough.

Naturally, you will need some fingerstyle technique to start with! Classical technique (as opposed to Travis picking or alternating bass) is probably best for Beatles songs, with thumb on bass, and 2 or 3 fingers playing melody on the top strings. (Thumb picks down, fingers pick up.)
But it is also possible, sometimes, to play a simplified instrumental style, picking out the melody (with thumb, finger(s) or pick) and adding bass or partial chords in the gaps between melodic phrases. Even as a relative beginner, you should be able to play tunes in this way, although your chord fills may be limited. Remember - melody first and foremost! (So if you don't read notation, you'll be reliant on your ear to learn vocal parts.)

[Mr Fixit eh]

Originally Posted by Ant_

Basically, I'd like to learn songs (rhythm style) for me and others to sing along to, but I'd also like to learn them as instrumental pieces too as I think songs sound beautiful when played like that

I'll obviously be looking at other performers besides the Beatles, but thought they were a nice starting point as their songs are known by everybody, and most of them are relatively simple to learn

Thanks everybody
Have a great weekend

Hi Ant, and welcome to the AGF. You might want to start with non-Beatle songs. Some of them can be pretty complicated.

A good option would be to start with fingerstyle repeating arpeggio patterns. These are relatively easy to play (once you get the hang of it) and you can play pretty easy accompaniment. Once you have this technique down pat, you could look at expanding to more intricate fingerstyle arrangements.

Originally Posted by billder99

This has been an issue for me as my memory is not good, especially for lyrics. I have an excellent method now, very consistent and it works:

1) For songs you are memorizing, learn only ONE song at a time... don't start trying to memorize another song until you can pick up the guitar and play this one from beginning to end without much thought.
2) Learn the chords, changes and timing first. Remember, timing is everything! You can forget lyrics, or play a wrong chord or note, and no one will notice... make a mistake in timing and everyone will know it! Start slow, count beats and measures, learn the chords and changes.
3) Once you have the chords, changes, and timing, work on the rhythm of the song... listen to as many versions as you can find on YT and Soundcloud, find a rhythm you like and learn it.

Once you can play the guitar rhythm(s) in time and at full speed and you have it memorized, time to work on lyrics and singing:
4) Don't worry about singing well at the start of a new song... in fact, you don't need to sing... you can speak the words in time and in rhythm to learn the lyrics. You are going to learn only a part of the song, over and over until you have it, and then start adding more parts.
5) Memorize the verses one at a time... be able to sing a verse without looking at your cheat-sheet before starting the next verse.
6)Memorize the chorus, and play in the appropriate place after (or before) verses.... Same with Bridge, etc...
7) Play thru all the parts you know at least once every day from memory, and then add the next part of the lyrics, until you can sing and play the entire song without looking at a cheat-sheet. Play thru it 5 or 10 times completely before starting to work on your voice.
8) Start working on vocal pitch, breathing, dynamics, etc...
9) Start you next song!

The Final Step: Now you have the basic song memorized from beginning to end with simple rhythm... the last step is to start learning and adding embellishments... a beginning, an end, short fills or leads, baselines, etc.... this part NEVER ends... the song grows better as you grow in your musicianship over time..

I find that what has worked best for me is to START by singing the song. After about a week of relentless singing to the sound track with NO guitar, I've got a pretty good feeling for the timing, pitches, and the general gist of the song. From there, I start adding in the guitar. In the early days, I made the mistake of thinking that the focus was my guitar; turns out the real focus is usually your voice when you're performing and/or leading a singalong and the guitar is really accompaniment. If you're doing an instrumental, that's completely different. Memorizing is not a bad thing, and it helps you be able to put more feeling into the performance, but it's not a requisite, in my opinion.

Most important, have fun with this journey,

Steve

[Ant_]

Thanks for all the replies so far everyone

I"ve been learning stuff on and off for the last year or two.
I've spent time learning music theory, and practicing my sight reading

But, since I've spent all my time doing this I haven't learnt any songs at all


What I wanted to double check is, as I want to eventually learn instrumental finger style pieces, how should I progress?

ie: Am I right in learning the rhythm of a song, and then the melody and building up a bank of songs I can play well without thinking before I try to move onto developing into an instrumental player? Or should I start with the finger style method from the beginning as that's what I'm eventually aiming for?

At present I've been strumming and playing melodies with picks, so I'm completely new to finger style




(just to add.... my inspiration is Mau Lao, I'd love to be able to play a similar style to him as I start to develop and improve)

[rick-slo]

Just start working on the style of music you want to play. There is little point in deviant behavior.

[creamburmese]

I started with fingerstyle after I knew a few chords - it's what I wanted to play so that's what I started on. I like Mark Hansen's books - there are a bunch of them and you don't need to read music to learn to play some nice tunes, they won't be the current hits of course... also Bruce Emery (Skeptical guitarist) too - all tabs - I worked my way through a number of those before there was that giant sucking sound of time spent learning classical guitar...

[dgonz]

A lot of advice here, and I haven't read it all so I may be repeating.

I started off playing tons of covers, and doing them just like the originals. I have a radio show and me and my host learn about ten new songs every week, for various themes and topics, and these are the things that work for me.

Keep in mind that learning songs involves a few different things...
- having the skill to play the parts
- knowing the music in your head
- remembering the arrangement of the song

1) I need to know the song very well in my head. If I can't hear all the parts in my head, from listening to the song repeatedly many times, I won't be able to "guess" what parts are supposed to be next. Improv is one thing, and I can do that, but to memorize the parts, you should already have the music you hear memorized in your head.

2) Being able to play the parts is one thing. Remembering the actual arrangement to play it alone, or with a band that already knows it, is a different thing. The memory comes from #1.

3) If it's a non-standard timing, have various quirky parts and key changes, I'll chart it out. Nothing fancy or technical, but I'll write notes about each part, number each part, and arrange then by the numbers. Example

Part 1: Cm9, Fmaj7
Part 2: Dm7b5, G7

Intro: 1 ////
Verse: 1 //, 2 //

Or something like that. Listening, thinking about it enough to write it down, and playing it a few times, all help your memory for the song.

4) Listen to it more, in the car, at work, headphones.

5) Once you kind of have it down, do not stop. Play the crap out of it until you can play it watching TV and not really think of it. You want it to be automatic and not have to give it much thought. Make your own version of it, play with the changes to see and learn WHY they sound good together, use parts of it as ideas for original music, change the key or capo it, use a pick or not pick or hybrid pick and every thing in between.

The more you're familiar with the song, in every aspect, the better you'll play it, and the faster you'll memorize it.