Remembering Songs

SNAKEBITE

I feel a lot better now, I thought it was just me that couldn't remember songs!

All of my playing now is done at home and involves playing along to songs. (Although I have just started lessons as I was in a real rut and was fed up with strumming the same three songs over and over again!).

I cannot transcribe at the moment so I rely on tab and a copy of the original song.

hywelg

I find the best way is to write out the structure, based on the words with the chords where necessary (ie dont bother adding chords for Chorus 2 if they are the same as Chorus 1) , and any differences as they occur.  I then share with the rest of the band to make sure we all follow the same structure. We also make sure that we all are listening to the same original.

I then divide the song into pieces in Amazing Slow Downer and learn the parts in turn.

At rehearsals I try and dispense with the song sheet as soon as I can.

noisepolluter

GuyBoden said:

You'll remember the song if you transcribe the song by ear and avoid tabs.

You learn music by using your ears not your eyes.

koneguitarist said:

Always written whole song out lyrics wise, then wrote chords in where they should be. 

If you write it down, it tends to go in and stay there.

I've found this, actually. When I've taken the time to suss things out myself, they tend to stick much better. Even though working things out 'the hard way' seems to take longer from the outset, I guess it saves time in the long run from repeated attempts to absorb the tab/chord printout

 

Emp_Fab

The number one reason my band basically gave up was the ridiculous amount of time it was taking us to get gig-ready.  This was down to people being unable to remember the song formats correctly.  It's bad enough when one person is having trouble, but when everyone is facing the same difficulty it becomes impossible to be able to get practices to move on to the 'polishing the performance' stage - because each week some bugger will start the second verse too soon / forget the middle 8 / play the wrong chords in the outro / whatever, and the song gets stopped, the mistake highlighted, 'and again from the top'... until - eventually, we'd knock out a correct version of the song.  Hallelujah !  By now, we're all sick to death of playing it, so we move onto the next number - ad nauseum.

The following week it would be the same - just with different songs and different members fucking up.  We should have called ourselves "Absent Minded" or "Forgetful Freddy and the Alzheimers".

I put this down to the fact that we all had day jobs and couldn't dedicate hour upon hour at home, practising the set until it was embedded deep into our ageing brains, so more often than not, the only practice time any of us could (or would in some cases) put in was when we'd meet up to do the alzheimer's special.

So - we then decided to strip the set of anything we couldn't nail in three sessions from scratch - any mistakes after three goes and the song went in the bin and was replaced with a three-chord trick that nobody could fail to play correctly.  This sort of worked, but we didn't get many bookings as it's a bit hard to stretch out 2 x 45min sets playing only 'Postman Pat and his Black and White Cat'.

EricTheWeary

Postman Pat has a tricky change of time signature part way through IIRC.

PolarityMan

Emp_Fab said:

The number one reason my band basically gave up was the ridiculous amount of time it was taking us to get gig-ready.  This was down to people being unable to remember the song formats correctly.  It's bad enough when one person is having trouble, but when everyone is facing the same difficulty it becomes impossible to be able to get practices to move on to the 'polishing the performance' stage - because each week some bugger will start the second verse too soon / forget the middle 8 / play the wrong chords in the outro / whatever, and the song gets stopped, the mistake highlighted, 'and again from the top'... until - eventually, we'd knock out a correct version of the song.  Hallelujah !  By now, we're all sick to death of playing it, so we move onto the next number - ad nauseum.

The following week it would be the same - just with different songs and different members fucking up.  We should have called ourselves "Absent Minded" or "Forgetful Freddy and the Alzheimers".

I put this down to the fact that we all had day jobs and couldn't dedicate hour upon hour at home, practising the set until it was embedded deep into our ageing brains, so more often than not, the only practice time any of us could (or would in some cases) put in was when we'd meet up to do the alzheimer's special.

So - we then decided to strip the set of anything we couldn't nail in three sessions from scratch - any mistakes after three goes and the song went in the bin and was replaced with a three-chord trick that nobody could fail to play correctly.  This sort of worked, but we didn't get many bookings as it's a bit hard to stretch out 2 x 45min sets playing only 'Postman Pat and his Black and White Cat'.

They are probably poorly written songs, or you are not playing them to the level of detail required. Almost all good songs flow naturally from one part to the next, sometimes that's a case of the little fills and variations which kind of foreshadow what the next part is going to be. 

That's why for example I have no issue remembering the 10 mins or so of (the well written) Opeth's ghost of perdition but keep forgetting the order of parts of the collosal clusterfuck of jammed together riffs that is Black Sabbath's Iron Man...even though Iron man is much simpler and shorter.

mike_l

EricTheWeary said:

Postman Pat has a tricky change of time signature part way through IIRC.

Was that Emp's next-to-learn for his bands set list?

EricTheWeary

mike_l said:

EricTheWeary said:

Postman Pat has a tricky change of time signature part way through IIRC.

Was that Emp's next-to-learn for his bands set list?

he said his band played a 45 minute version of it. Only 5 minutes short of my record for Hey Joe.

mike_l

Only 50 mins for Hey Joe? you slacker......

EricTheWeary

mike_l;317734" said:

Only 50 mins for Hey Joe? you slacker......

Drum solo thrown in next time to get it past the hour.

mike_l

Don't forget the bass solo, get you out to 1hr 20