tune brain capacity

[Retired1]

I've about 100 tunes I've learned that I play regularly on a 4 day cycle about 25 a day playing about 2 hours a day - I'll play each one about 3 times, maybe more. On some days I feel as if I'm loosing some of the tunes but I get them back. I add more tunes as I find something new that interests me and maybe let go of one that I've lost interest in.
So I'm wondering how others approach their playing, how many tunes are you able to remember, how often do you need to rehearse them to hold onto them etc. Great stuff !!

[Mandobart]

I started keeping a list (on Excel) of my frequently-played-at-gigs songs. It helps me organize them by key, genre, tempo, etc. Its up over 300 songs, all of them committed to memory.

But there are likely a few 100 more that I've been playing since I was 13 that I haven't added to the list since I don't perform them in public. And there are times (like right now, when I started diving into Eric Taylor's songs) where I'll learn and add 2 - 3 new songs a week.

The biggest challenge for me is committing the lyrics to memory. The second biggest is remembering that I know a particular song. A friend will ask "do you know....." and I think "I don't think so" then they start to play and it comes rushing back to me. A less challenging issue is keeping all the very similar sounding songs (I'm looking at you bluegrass, old time, Irish trad, blues and CW) separate.

[Jamolay]

The brain is amazing! Think of all the stuff it has in there, raw memory and even more muscle memory. It remembers how to run, walk, skip, ride a bike, drive a car, play a guitar, talk, hold a screwdriver, and so, so much more.

There are (roughly ) somewhere around 86,000,000,000 neurons, the largest portion of which are in the cerebellum, and perhaps 100,000,000,000,000 connections. We don’t even understand how this all works and personally, I think some brain functions may be at the quantum level (why not, everything is, after all), leading to even more capacity and capability.

The cerebellum is likely where much motor memory resides, which is where major aspects of guitar playing live after enough practice (probably).

We likely have the capacity to play and memorize most music already produced, ever, if there was enough time to learn it and more importantly enough time to practice it.

The hardest part is, as Mandobart mentions, is accessing it in a reasonable and reliable way. The second hardest is efficiently getting it committed to memory in the first place. But I would argue that the space and ability is there if we figure out how to use it.

Shame we don’t use our brains better, when you think about it.

[Mr. Jelly]

Everyone is different. I can remember guitar parts pretty well but words excape me. I do about seventy five songs. I rotate them as I do a short set every week. I have a book/music stand I set to the side that I glance at as I play to kick start my brain for a verse now and again.

[DebbieE]

I'm just wondering when you know all these songs is it the chord structure and the melody that is in your head and you would do some improvisation with the chords or do you play it the same way every time? I'm just really curious how you can remember 100 songs or more and what is your method to be able to do that?

thanks,

Debbie

[Retired1]

Debbie - Mandobart is up to 300 - wow - mine are tunes only - so no words to deal with. The real question for me is how often others have to rehearse tunes so they don't loose them - as I learn more tunes it takes me longer to get back to each one and some were very difficult to learn and I don't want to go through that again.

[AugustWest72]

I go through phases with songs. I probably know about a hundred or so core songs but some I don't play for ages and forget. They always come back once I focus though through muscle memory or just looking up the chords on-line.

I'm in a real Grateful Dead phase right now. I'm trying to learn as much of their catalogue as possible just because it is helping me so much on rhythm and lead. So working on that, I let other songs drift away.

I tend to mix bits and pieces of songs into my playing. What works, I stick with and the bits that don't I let drop.

I like to lead with a blues intro in E that I learned way back as a kid and I can go into any number of directions from there from Clapton to Canned Heat or the Dead or one of my own.

Alternately, sometimes I like to enter softly with a Whoish pattern way back from the Tommy era - the chord intro pattern from Amazing Journey or the Dsus to C arpeggio thing from Acid Queen which are both really dramatic. And then I just see where it leads me from there. I can get right into more Tommy or Who's Next or go off in a completely different direction. I like patterns that get peoples attention or grab them or maybe just get my attention and grab me, I don't know.

Sometimes I will just drift into songs I hadn't played for years from an opening strum pattern.

I have guilty pleasures I work into songs too. Embarrassing but I fit in bit's of Dido's White Flag or Linda Perry's Beautiful into songs. I've been playing those bits for years even though I forget where the riffs come from. I still play some of the Prog I learned as a kid and that sticks with me but I'll forget newer stuff that I cover like Green Day or The Hip.

So it is pretty fluid. Songs and bits of songs come and go but the good stuff seems to stick with me.

Good topic. I hadn't really thought about it before.

[stokes1971]

As I've gotten older I have more of a problem remembering what songs I know how to play as opposed to knowing the chords to play them.I pick up my guitar and nothing comes to me, I have about a dozen different lists that I've written down that I have to refer to.

[The Bard Rocks]

I have many hundreds in my repertoire and no longer make any attempt memorize them. No one complains to me when I use an iPad. You can get away with this sort of them when you 're older than dirt.

It's always easier to remember the music than the lyrics. Think: each song has how many verses? And I only have to remember one tune to go with all those verses. And, going further, there are a fair number of songs that share different sets of verses for the same melody. Yet very few songs with different melodies for the same words.

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by DebbieE

I'm just wondering when you know all these songs is it the chord structure and the melody that is in your head?

When I learn a song these days I do it by ear. Its usually a song I really like, so I listen to it a lot. I've got to be able to play it all the way through in my head, then I can work it out. Its like the aural version of a photographic memory. Then I learn whatever lyrics I haven't already absorbed in the listening process, usually by writing them out by hand. So the whole song - chords, lead parts/licks and lyrics are in my head as one thing - the song.

Originally Posted by DebbieE

would do some improvisation with the chords or do you play it the same way every time?

I always say "I never play a song the same way once." Sometimes I'll transpose the key between performances. Sometimes I'll rearrange the verses or add new ones if I think its better. Sometimes I'll flatpick a tune then fingerpick it later. Sometimes I play it on guitar, sometimes mandola, sometimes mandocello, sometimes banjo. Sometimes I'll add a harmonica part. I frequently switch to different chord inversions.

Originally Posted by DebbieE

how you can remember 100 songs or more and what is your method to be able to do that?

I know part of it is due to early childhood classical music training. Playing music has been part of my life for over 45 years. I described above how I learn songs by ear. The songs I've learned off sheet music generally aren't stuck in my brain as well as the "by ear" songs.

I'm a tactile person - I learn by doing vs attending a lecture or solely by reading. The physical act of playing a song while learning it adds to the song in my head - now I have a movie in my head. The movements of my fingers and hands add tangible anchor points to moor the mental knowledge to.

And.....most all of the blues, bluegrass, folk, rock, Americana, old time, Irish trad, C&W, etc. genres are derivative. Every song has roots in another older song(s). John Prine, my biggest musical influence, only wrote about three different songs. You learn one, you've got them all. Now just get the lyrics down.

[Gdjjr]

I've marveled at Willie- he's in his 80's and has been singing and playing since he was just a little kid- can you imagine how many songs are floating around in his head?

[Mr. Jelly]

Originally Posted by DebbieE

I'm just wondering when you know all these songs is it the chord structure and the melody that is in your head and you would do some improvisation with the chords or do you play it the same way every time? I'm just really curious how you can remember 100 songs or more and what is your method to be able to do that?

I only play songs that attract me for some reason. They are all different from each other. Of the seventy five I do on a regular basis I have a word or two of instruction I put at the top of the page along with the key it's in. Like slow or with a lilt. I am working on a process that I use on stage where I conciously look at the words and think about how the song goes before I start playing it. Then I play a part of it, like the chorus, before I start actually singing the song. No one wants to listen to someone trying to refigue out how a song goes again. Normally.

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

Of the seventy five I do on a regular basis I have a word or two of instruction I put at the top of the page along with the key it's in.....I am working on a process that I use on stage where I conciously look at the words and think about how the song goes before I start playing it. Then I play a part of it, like the chorus, before I start actually singing the song. No one wants to listen to someone trying to refigue out how a song goes again. Normally.

To be fair I've seen plenty of performers with printed or electronic cheat sheets. Most all of the touring acts have a "monitor wedge" that is actually a teleprompter that scrolls the lyrics for them. No shame in that.

But when I say "I know a few hundred songs" that means yes, I perform them, live, from memory, with no such aids. I have a printed or electronic set list with the songs I'm going to do, the key each is in, in the order I plan to play them. That's all. I only look at it if I need to check which song I plan to play next.

You're right no one wants to hear a person figure out a song on stage. I also don't want to watch while a performer rifles through a paper or electronic book of songs or watch them stare at a tablet, page or monitor during their heartfelt delivery. Its part of the preparation for each gig - if I don't remember every line or chord I refresh my memory at home. Not on stage.

[Mr. Jelly]

Mandobart

I believe the order of a set list is as much a part of performing as anything else. I give it allot of thought and fine tune it often. When I get on stage I have complete confidence in the order of my songs and I don't second guess it.

[tbeltrans]

Since I don't sing (nor do I want to), I play instrumental solos. My memory for memorizing poems and speeches when I was in grade school was never very good, and neither is it for memorizing an arrangement whether my own or somebody else's.

What I do well is learn vocabulary and then use it. Through using it, I remember it just as in speaking, but in this case music vocabulary. So my focus has been developing the ability to take a lead sheet and come up with an instrumental version of the tune on the spot. With a pile of fakebooks, I have almost an endless supply of tunes. The music vocabulary turns the chords and melody of a lead sheet into an arrangement.

When my wife and I went on a cruise some years ago, there was a cocktail style piano player who played for a few hours every day. He had a pile of fakebooks and his music vocabulary. I took the opportunity to talk about this with him and found that such practice is perfectly normal.

So that is my "memory".

Tony