Memorizing Fingerstyle Songs

[Huskyman]

Thanks everyone. I want to add a new question here. Not sure if I should start a new thread or not but this fits in. I see myself as a middle of the scale intermediate fingerstyle player.

How many songs do you think it would be wise to tackle at one time? I know this could probably vary from person to person.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Huskyman

Thanks everyone. I want to add a new question here. Not sure if I should start a new thread or not but this fits in. I see myself as a middle of the scale intermediate fingerstyle player.

How many songs do you think it would be wise to tackle at one time? I know this could probably vary from person to person.

I try to keep the number of new "in progress" tunes to 1 to 2. Then as I get familiar with them I might add another. My problem with learning new ones is that I love working on them at first, but after beating up on a tune for 2 weeks straight I start to get bored with it. The only way I get around that is to try and record it, but many times 2 weeks isn't really enough to really get something polished up. So I will drop a tune for a while and then go back to it sometime later.

[tbeltrans]

I have always struggled to memorize fingerstyle tunes where you have an entire arrangement written out. Too many bits to remember.

That is one reason I prefer chord melody. All I need is a decent vocabulary of chord forms that I can modify at will because I know what and where the notes in each form are, and then memorize the melody. So in a way, it is more like "chunking" larger bits of data, besides which, you can always fake through a memory lapse. Of course, then we get into chord substitutions and all that stuff, but at its core, a chord melody arrangement is easy to memorize especially since we figure those out by ourselves instead of playing what somebody else arranged.

The advice David Sudnow gave for memorizing tunes in his piano course was to memorize the first vertical thing, then the next, then go back and forth between the two until smooth. Then memorize the third vertical thing and go back and forth between the second and third thing and then from the first thing through the third thing. Then the fourth thing, etc.

A Vertical thing" would be anything, whether a single note or group of notes that occur in a single vertical slice of time. In a fingerstyle arrangement, that may be just a melody note, a bass note, some filler, or all three occurring in one vertical slice.

It might be worthwhile to try "chunking" by memorizing an entire measure at a time and then the next, combining as above but measure at a time instead of one "vertical thing" of which there could be many in a fingerstyle measure.

I simply don't have the disciplined focus to do that, so my hat is off to those who can.

Tony

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Huskyman

Thanks everyone. I want to add a new question here. Not sure if I should start a new thread or not but this fits in. I see myself as a middle of the scale intermediate fingerstyle player.

How many songs do you think it would be wise to tackle at one time? I know this could probably vary from person to person.

As many as you can remember, and that is dependant on your memory and how frequently you practice them.
I find the filing card method very useful and keep a small stack of cards with songs that I know well and frequently practice like every two or three days , from that pile I draw the songs that I play in public but I have a much bigger pile of songs I learned but haven't played for a while so I just carry on till the smaller set gets boring for me and then I swap some of the cards in the piles.

[Arapaho G]

I memorize the song first then work on technique. I play fingerstyle exclusively. I can play from tab but for me memorizing works the best. Allows concentration on the hands.

I work on one song at a time until it is committed to memory. Then I'll start another and continue to work on my "tunes in process". When I feel overloaded I won't start anything new until that feeling goes away. Eventually a point is reached where something has to go. Then you pick and choose your favorites.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Huskyman

Thanks everyone. I want to add a new question here. Not sure if I should start a new thread or not but this fits in. I see myself as a middle of the scale intermediate fingerstyle player.

How many songs do you think it would be wise to tackle at one time? I know this could probably vary from person to person.

What is your goal - purely your enjoyment playing and hearing the sound of the guitar or is there some other goal such as a public
performance aspect and you need some size of repertoire?