Do you learn songs on guitar faster with experience?

[Dru Edwards]

Yes. Learning by ear becomes easier and being able to identify patterns becomes easier.

[caperrob]

Definitely yes.

If a chord falls on a fretboard but nobody else is in the room, does anyone hear it?

Is there a formula to derive how one song's relation to another influences the guitarists primal urge to continue learning?

Can you reach infinity with six strings?

I bumped my head earlier. Please disregard. 😁😁😁

[1neeto]

Originally Posted by caperrob

Definitely yes.

If a chord falls on a fretboard but nobody else is in the room, does anyone hear it?

Is there a formula to derive how one song's relation to another influences the guitarists primal urge to continue learning?

Can you reach infinity with six strings?

I bumped my head earlier. Please disregard. [emoji16][emoji16][emoji16]

It depends if the chord is major or minor.

[Oldguy64]

I would say a lot depends on how your mind works.
I play mostly easy stuff.
But my confidence soars when I have the Chordpro in front of me.
I’ve been playing for many years, and only in the last five years did I realize, that every song is pretty much a repeating pattern, or a series of them.
And with figuring out the Nashville number system, it’s made transposition a lot easier.
It’s humbling to find out that while you’re a decent player, that not everyone needs the music in front of them.
It helps me that the crew I play with use the “confidence monitor” to help them with the lyrics, I use the chordpro to keep up with the changes.
But as I get older, I’m not “afraid” of songs with lots of changes. And they get easier to play after one of two run-thrus.

[tonyo]

Absolutely much faster learning songs now. Been playing for 8 1/2 years and remember how painful the pace of learning new songs was for the first few years. Really challenging songs still take a while. The overall speed to learn new songs is so much better.

For me the most important change I made was learning to play all my songs completely from memory. It's not as hard as you think it is and more importantly your replay of those songs will sound a lot better. Play from song sheets tends to lead to a more staccato, less fluid style of singing / playing. Plus it's pretty cool to be able to show up to a campfire session and just be able to play without shuffling through song sheets / tablet.

[k_russell]

I think we also should define "learn a song".

Here is what I mean:
Mel Bay has "Red River Valley" on page 16 of his 1st book.

Ask someone who has been playing for a few weeks to learn that song over the next two weeks. That player will most likely have a worked out the melody and perhaps some basic harmony. Most likely, you will hear a coherent rendition of the song.

Ask someone who has been playing professionally for the past 10 years to learn that song. Two weeks later, you will hear the melody with complex harmony, some accompaniment, a few variations on the theme, an introduction, some lead ins to phrases, some endings to phrases, etc.

Both players would have "learned the song" applying, what was likely, the same effort.

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by dltw

In your time playing guitar, from when you're starting out till now, has your learning of a new song become faster as you gained more experience?

I understand that it can be a complicated question, since so many factors are involved, such as time, effort, skill level, equipment, professional/amateur roles, music education, type of music, etc.

So if all things were equal, ie same amount of time/effort/knowledge, an experienced guitarist must be able to learn any song quickly. What do you think?

Oh yeah, definately.

With some exceptions, like some instrumentals, I can hear the proression straight away, or with some noodling, then sometimes I'll search for the progression online to see if I've missed something ... often they have.

Generally for my style of music, Singer-songwriter, blues, bluegrass, hokum, '30s stuff, there are only so many progressions you can do.

I've never had any musical education, but I've learnt some basic theory as it became helpful, but I'm not a reader, nor a tab guy, I hear it,and if I want it, all I have to do is write down the words (all good songs are stories) then work out my own arrangement.

It did take time though.

Equipment? Well it has driven me down the GAS road, but it isn't a necessity.

[dltw]

Thanks everyone, especially to those who took the time to write out long, detailed replies. I do appreciate your insights.

[815C]

I have found the more you memorize, the faster you memorize.

The first fiddle tune I ever learned on guitar when I was 16 years old took me a couple weeks to memorize. Now at 61 years old, and having memorized probably at least a thousand songs in my lifetime, I can memorize a fiddle tune in about 15 minutes.