So what comes first?

[TBman]

Do you actually learn and record/perform a piece before you get sick of playing it over and over again or do you have to leave it and then come back to it later to record/play it for others?

I've found that if I start learning other things just as I get sick of playing something I tend to stick with it instead of dropping it.

[Mandobart]

For me, I learn songs fairly quickly. In the bluegrass/roots/Americana genres that I play the hardest part is learning (for me, that means memorizing) the lyrics. I'm nowhere near "sick" of a song by the time I've learned it.

Of the hundreds of songs I've learned, there's just a handful that I'm tired of playing. None of these are ones I've overplayed - I get sick of the songs I hear everyone else playing. I sort of specialize in "obscure" artists and their songs. I don't typically seek out the well worn chestnuts everyone else covers. Though I've learned some of those, I'm already tired of them the first time I play them.

[Dave Hicks]

I asked a friend to back me up on a tune I wrote. While practicing, I realized that after writing, rewriting and recording it, I was kind of tired of it.

Oh well, Monday is World Premiere Day.

D.H.

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by TBman

Do you actually learn and record/perform a piece before you get sick of playing it over and over again or do you have to leave it and then come back to it later to record/play it for others?

I've found that if I start learning other things just as I get sick of playing something I tend to stick with it instead of dropping it.

Someone told me once you don't really know a tune until you've forgotten it and relearned it at least twice.

And then there's Ezra Pound's parable about the fish...

A post-graduate student equipped with honors and diplomas went to Agassiz to receive the final and finishing touches. The great man offered him a small fish and told him to describe it.

Post-Graduate Student: "That's only a sunfish."

Agassiz: "I know that. Write a description of it."

After a few minutes the student returned with the description of the Ichthus Heliodiplodokus, or whatever term is used to conceal the common sunfish from vulgar knowledge, family of Heliichtherinkus, etc., as found in textbooks of the subject.

Agassiz again told the student to describe the fish.

The student produced a four-page essay. Agassiz then told him to look at the fish. At the end of three weeks the fish was in an advanced state of decomposition, but the student knew something about it.

[Italuke]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

Someone told me once you don't really know a tune until you've forgotten it and relearned it at least twice.

I'll buy that. Learning to the point of OWNING any work of performance, be it music, dance, even public speaking, is complex.

[islandguitar]

Hey Barry!
Well, with my stuff, I tend to languish a LONG time with developing what will be eventually recorded. I don't seem to tire of them and I enjoy auditioning on different guitars and capo positions.....and as time goes along (sometimes months), little things begin to change in how I play the tune and I might be adding a passing note or chord, phrasing, tempo, etc. My process seems to be waiting until things are more fully refined before I make a move to record. And, also there are parts of the year when my recording gear is not set up in our dining room. When listening back if I'm not satisfied I'll continue to explore and then record again. I'm usually working on 2 or 3 tunes together.

It's hard for me to move to my other material until I get whatever I'm working on finished and recorded. Right now I'm in that situation with two of my tunes.....getting them recorded will "release" me to get back to my older material to keep it fresh. This winter will allow me to complete that goal.

[rick-slo]

Never get bored playing tunes. Can get flummoxed composing things as there are so many ways to go, back and forth, back and forth, trying to decide.

[islandguitar]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Never get bored playing tunes. Can get flummoxed composing things as there are so many ways to go, back and forth, back and forth, trying to decide.

LOL!! So true!!!

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by TBman

Do you actually learn and record/perform a piece before you get sick of playing it over and over again or do you have to leave it and then come back to it later to record/play it for others?

I've found that if I start learning other things just as I get sick of playing something I tend to stick with it instead of dropping it.

Hi Barry…
I enjoy all facets of music from first exposure and listening to deciding to work up a piece and arrange & play/sing it for others. I can only think of a couple tunes over the 60 yrs I’ve played that I tired of. And later after a break i still play those happily.

At age 74 I do occasionally need to pullout a lyric to refresh words, or talk my gigging partner into a living room session to stir up the little fun-bits in our arrangements from the past.

[Doug Young]

I don't think I get "sick" of the ones that turned out well. I have lots of tunes, both arrangements and compositions, that never made it to the recording or performing stage, often in spite of lots of work, because I just wasn't happy with them. Not quite the same as "sick of", more "this one isn't working". I also have tunes that have fallen by the way side over the years that I rarely play, or have totally forgotten, you can't play them all. Again, not so much "sick of", just "I have better options".

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by TBman

Do you actually learn and record/perform a piece before you get sick of playing it over and over again or do you have to leave it and then come back to it later to record/play it for others?

I've found that if I start learning other things just as I get sick of playing something I tend to stick with it instead of dropping it.

I used to say that I didn't know a song/piece until I'd got bored with it.

I recently realised that my rather large repertoire has many songs that I've been doing for 20-25 years!

I was ill in 2017 and didn't play much for some months, and then in 2020 ... well you know.
Times and events (and age) have changed me, and whilst my hands still remember, my brain doesn't recall the lyrics like it used to.

When I prepare to record a video, the first attempt is pretty good, but now I find that I need up to ten takes before I feel it's good enough.

I played at my own club last night 15 minutes to start then again at the start of the second half, then a couple to end the evening. eleven acts and me.

Its too little but it comes back pretty quickly.

They say Repetition repetition etc., but the same applies over years.

[Glennwillow]

I read about this subject on the AGF a lot, that many players get sick of a piece by the time they figure out how to play it.

This has never happened to me. I can't think of any song or piece that I ever got sick of playing. If I like a song well enough to learn it, I like the song even better when I learn to play it.

There are a ton of songs that I have learned to play that I have forgotten or don't play anymore. That's not because I got sick of them; I just put them aside to play other things because I'm always working on new things.

- Glenn

[Robin, Wales]

Hi Barry,

I regularly get working on a song, and may put a couple of weeks into it, only to set it aside because it is simply not coming together and feeling "comfortable". I have just had a quick look at my song list and spotted 11 songs that I have set aside over the last two years. That's 2 to 3 months of "wasted" effort. Of course, the effort is not "wasted" because I'm learning and developing along the way.

One of my toughest challenges is simply to find songs that are a good "fit".

[RodB]

I still enjoy playing most of the tunes I've learned, arranged or composed, except a few that were discarded early - not because I was bored with them, but I didn't somehow connect with them. (Solo acoustic - not everything I have ever played!)

I record most of them and will then usually leave them aside for a while, but I enjoy revisiting them - over and over. All trad tunes / standards I play from memory so enjoy variations in how I play them, and my own compositions will change a bit over time. For me, even the well known tunes never get boring this way..

[TBman]

I did some "review" recordings of the one piece I'm working on over and over again (Ferando Sor OP 35. No 22). I didn't care for some parts of my playing so I got reinvigorated to beat this one up some more,

I have a couple/few other things that I'm working on too so I'm in a better place mentally than when I first started the thread.