Instrumental repertoire

[KDepew]

Love this suggestion!

[Doug Young]

I've heard Michael Chapdelaine describe his approach to practicing in his head, quite tedious: "the first note is an A, quarter note, 3rd string 2nd fret, played with my middle finger, the 2nd note is...". He said it can take hours to get thru a tune, but you definitely remember it.

What I've found effective is to practice with a metronome at half-speed. It may work similarly to Michael's technique - gets rid of muscle memory and forces you to really think about each note. I should do it more often than I do.

[DukeX]

I probably have around 20 pieces. I used to try to play them all to keep them fresh, but I never mastered anything. Now I only practice/play a few. And yes, I have forgotten some and had to re-learn.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I've heard Michael Chapdelaine describe his approach to practicing in his head, quite tedious: "the first note is an A, quarter note, 3rd string 2nd fret, played with my middle finger, the 2nd note is...". He said it can take hours to get thru a tune, but you definitely remember it.

All that detail to remembering something means it won't be remembered for very long. Mainly you have to put in repetitively the daily hours of practice required, which virtually no one other than a musical careerist does.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

All that detail to remembering something means it won't be remembered for very long. Mainly you have to put in repetitively the daily hours of practice required, which virtually no one other than a musical careerist does.

Well, I suspect Michael practices, too :-). I imagine his technique is useful for him as a touring guitarist who has to spend long hours on a plane, etc, where he can't do actual practice. He described the rationale for this in some detail, more than my brief description. He's the head of the guitar department at University of New Mexico - or actually was until this summer - so he's pretty thoughtful and experienced with learning techniques and so on.

I have heard of other guitarists who rely even more heavily on mind-practice. I recall an interview with John Williams years ago, who said he was practicing for an upcoming tour, and said he normally doesn't play at all, and doesn't need to play to be able to perform the music, he said he could play pieces just fine based on practicing in his head, but he needed to practice before tours to build up physical stamina to be able to play a whole show. Everyone's different, I don't think that would work for me, I do need actual hands-on practice tunes to be able to play them in public.

[rick-slo]

Memory (cognitive, muscle, or otherwise) can be a somewhat mysterious thing as to triggers, props, etc..

For muscle memory with a guitar at hand and placing my fingers for a chord (say a bm7b5 or even a F) I can form in
the air the finger positions going from chord to chord.

Without a guitar and just holding my hand in the air it is hard to come even close to curling and moving my fingers to
the correct finger positions.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Memory (cognitive, muscle, or otherwise) can be a somewhat mysterious thing as to triggers, props, etc..
.

Right, if I recall, Michael's explanation had to do with having multiple forms of memory to fall back on. I've heard any number of pro performers say they've gotten on stage and can't even remember their names! Michael described his memorization approach as a way to fall back on a different memory tool when the muscle memory fails. You may not even be able to picture how the tune goes, but you can forcibly remember, "A, 3rd string, 2nd fret, etc" and charge ahead until other forms kick in. I've had it work the other way, too - you can't even mentally imagine how the melody goes, but the fingers take over and play it by themselves. Lucky when that happens :-)

There are so many mental phenomena that seem to happen when you're on a stage with people watching you, so different from playing at home, and playing solo to a listening audience is very different from playing background music, or playing in a band. I recall playing a piece, and all was going fine, when suddenly I looked at my hand, and went "wow, I never noticed what that fingering shape looked like before". At that point, it was all over - it only takes that split second where your mind goes somewhere weird, and you're lost. The idea of practicing very slowly and paying attention to what you're playing seems to help me with that - it's hard to have a fingering or movement you haven't noticed when you're watching yourself practice at 50 beats per minute.

[tbeltrans]

I have always had trouble remembering anything of an length or detail. When I was in grade school, we had to memorize and recite certain famous speeches and the like. I could never do it well. What I do seem to do well with, is learning and using vocabulary.

What would be ideal for me would be to have a strong enough musical vocabulary to be able to play in the moment (improvise) such that it comes out sounding like a finished piece, much as we can carry on conversation or type a post and have it begin, say what is needed, and finish gracefully.

Reading through this thread, music seems most unnatural, something we have to struggle with and force ourselves to be able to do against whatever comes natural. Isn't there a better way? Hasn't anybody somewhere along the history of performing found some means of making music that works WITH how we are built/wired, instead of AGAINST our natural ways, force-feeding ourselves to memorize and then hope like h3ll that we don't, even for that split second, forget even after all that sustained effort?

With all these issues about trying to memorize a repertoire and event then, risking forgetting at inappropriate moments, why does there seem to be a bias against simply having the music on stage with us when we perform?

I suppose the comforting thing is that I am not alone.

Tony

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

What would be ideal for me would be to have a strong enough musical vocabulary to be able to play in the moment (improvise) such that it comes out sounding like a finished piece, much as we can carry on conversation or type a post and have it begin, say what is needed, and finish gracefully.

I recall an interview with someone who said they were talking to Chet, and Chet was shocked that they memorized every note of their tunes. Apparently Chet was more of a "know the chords and improvise" kind of player. He said something about it would be too hard to memorize all the specific notes and not make mistakes.

This is related to something I've observed about playing other people's pieces and the limitations of guitar notation practices. Watching Tommy Emmanuel, for example, it's pretty clear that he's playing out of chord shapes. He's a great player, of course, but I suspect he's not doing all that much as far as what he has to remember. I'd wager that he knows the chords to a tune, and the melody, and can play alternating bass on auto-pilot. He's great at playing by ear, so he probably doesn't even have to think about the melody. So he's just got to remember a chord progression, maybe half a dozen to a dozen chord shapes, and he's all set. But you or me, if we try to learn a Tommy piece, pick up the music, and we see 1000 notes, no real organization, no higher-level structure, not at all obvious from the music what chord shape he's holding down, and we try to memorize all those. It may include subtle melody variations that Tommy just happened to play (they may even be "mistakes", or at least only partially intended variations). We're working way harder to try to memorize those 1000 notes with every nuance, while Tommy's thinking of a few chords. A better way to teach/learn those tunes would probably be to learn the chord progression, then add the melody. But that's not the way tab books are usually done - often they don't even show you the chord shapes.

So another possible memorization aid is to break things down, even for a finger style piece, can we play the chord progression, the melody by itself, the bass line alone? I know a lot of fingerstyle players don't even know what the chords are in a tune, especially if they're in an alternate tuning, they've just memorized those 1000 notes. That might take you closer to the idea of improvising your way thru a spot during a brain freeze. Total improvisation of a piece would be a bigger deal - Roland Dyens used to always start his shows with an improv, which was impressive. Pierre Bensusan does this to some extent too. But it seems pretty rare in the fingerstyle world.

[Toby Walker]

I was teaching at a workshop along with Adrien Legg when this topic came up. We both wound up saying pretty much the same thing, that part of our practice routine was 'maintenance.'

I have about 35 instrumentals that I play through at least once a week, less when I'm on tour. I have found that for me, keeping them 'well oiled' is one thing... but playing them in a live setting really tempers them into a whole new level.

I also have another 120 or so songs - with vocals - that I also keep fresh fairly often. I'll do the same as Doug Young... make a list of the ones I plan on playing and have several more that I may use if time, inclination, and/or inspiration is a factor.

Practicing in my head has never worked for me. I need to involve my fingers, as well as my voice in order to keep things moving.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I recall an interview with someone who said they were talking to Chet, and Chet was shocked that they memorized every note of their tunes. Apparently Chet was more of a "know the chords and improvise" kind of player. He said something about it would be too hard to memorize all the specific notes and not make mistakes.

This is related to something I've observed about playing other people's pieces and the limitations of guitar notation practices. Watching Tommy Emmanuel, for example, it's pretty clear that he's playing out of chord shapes. He's a great player, of course, but I suspect he's not doing all that much as far as what he has to remember. I'd wager that he knows the chords to a tune, and the melody, and can play alternating bass on auto-pilot. He's great at playing by ear, so he probably doesn't even have to think about the melody. So he's just got to remember a chord progression, maybe half a dozen to a dozen chord shapes, and he's all set. But you or me, if we try to learn a Tommy piece, pick up the music, and we see 1000 notes, no real organization, no higher-level structure, not at all obvious from the music what chord shape he's holding down, and we try to memorize all those. It may include subtle melody variations that Tommy just happened to play (they may even be "mistakes", or at least only partially intended variations). We're working way harder to try to memorize those 1000 notes with every nuance, while Tommy's thinking of a few chords. A better way to teach/learn those tunes would probably be to learn the chord progression, then add the melody. But that's not the way tab books are usually done - often they don't even show you the chord shapes.

So another possible memorization aid is to break things down, even for a finger style piece, can we play the chord progression, the melody by itself, the bass line alone? I know a lot of fingerstyle players don't even know what the chords are in a tune, especially if they're in an alternate tuning, they've just memorized those 1000 notes. That might take you closer to the idea of improvising your way thru a spot during a brain freeze. Total improvisation of a piece would be a bigger deal - Roland Dyens used to always start his shows with an improv, which was impressive. Pierre Bensusan does this to some extent too. But it seems pretty rare in the fingerstyle world.

Thanks Doug for the very insightful comments. You have given me a different perspective to consider when working through this issue in my own playing.

Tony

[Rocky Dijohn]

I was thinking a similar question recently, wondering if there was a way to quantify in mega or giga bytes the amount of "data" on has to memorize/process for a batch of intermediate-level solo finger style tunes.

[3notes]

Do you write the titles down.??

I have 18 originals. I used to forget them all the time and I'd be playing and a reminder would hit. "Oh ya'' kind of a moment.

So now I've given each one a title and I have them written down with the approximate year that I "wrote" them. Now, I put that list in front of me when I play and it works real well for me. I'm at a point now that I play them all and my fingers are in good shape and so is my mind. lol.

Not sure if this pertains to your issue but it's close, I think.