How do you practice?

[lppier]

Anyone has problems with retaining songs in memory? I play fingerstyle but after like a year and a half of totally not playing I realised I’ve forgotten how to play those songs.
I was wondering whether not being able to remember the songs was due to only learning the “form” but not the function.
I mean, my muscle memory used to know what notes to press , etc, but maybe I wasn’t thinking about the theory enough while practicing ?

[tonyo]

Originally Posted by lppier

Anyone has problems with retaining songs in memory? I play fingerstyle but after like a year and a half of totally not playing I realised I’ve forgotten how to play those songs.
I was wondering whether not being able to remember the songs was due to only learning the “form” but not the function.
I mean, my muscle memory used to know what notes to press , etc, but maybe I wasn’t thinking about the theory enough while practicing ?

Been playing (mostly fingerstyle) for over 7 years now. One of the best tips I ever got was from a member of the music club we are in that I should try to memorize my songs instead of playing from song sheets.

I embraced that and soon learned to play about 30+ songs completely from memory.

As with most people, some of those songs have faded from my regular playing and when I go back to them, I struggle to remember how to play them. I grab the song sheet, play it a time or two or three and then I can play it completely from memory again.

So to answer your question, I don't think it's got anything to do with theory, it's just a refreshing of the memory that's needed from time to time.

[Gordon Currie]

I've been playing for over 50 years, so I have gone through different phases.

The first decade I did much more practice since I was trying to build muscle memory (and actual memory). Over time I found myself just playing music or improvising for my 'practice' time much more.

I still go through periods where I am trying to progress my skills, and often the best way for me is to devise some sort of exercise. My natural inclination is to just play, but I have found that can lead to 'coasting' rather than improving. So I will force myself to spend time on exercising the skill. Why? Because it has worked over and over for decades and I have every reason to believe it will work again.

As far as keeping things in memory, I have found some tunes disappear when I don't play them for a year or more - but as others have said, they come back fast. And then other tunes somehow seem to stick forever.

[Gordon Currie]

Originally Posted by lppier

I was wondering whether not being able to remember the songs was due to only learning the “form” but not the function.
I mean, my muscle memory used to know what notes to press , etc, but maybe I wasn’t thinking about the theory enough while practicing ?

There might be some truth to this for you. I've noticed that it is easier for me to retain certain pieces if I can understand and relate some aspects (like chord progression, rhythmic patterns, scales/arpeggios) to other pieces I know.

Many songs have similarities to other songs, and once you can recognize this, it can make it much easier to remember all of them.

[Gtrfinger]

I've used the methods suggested here for years, it pulled me off a plateau. The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...musician-s-way

Essentially, work out what you don't know, what is causing the issue, why the tune doesn't flow, why your finger keeps catching etc etc., And practice that. It's time effective. What's the point of practicing stuff you do know unless you've got a gig coming up, or a recording to do etc? Unless you're playing for pleasure, but if you keep playing a tune for pleasure and that particular bar keeps causing you problems, unless you pay attention to that bar alone...you'll only learn to play it incorrectly.

The issue of memorization of fingerstyle pieces had been a bugbear of mine for years. I keep researching to find solutions. I found some links which are on my twitter feed somewhere, if you can wade through all the non-music stuff. Memorization should be a book on itself.