Memory!

TINMAN82

I wonder if anyone else feels similarly about their progression on guitar.

I’ve kind of reached an intermediate stage where given enough time  I can learn most of the songs I want to without major technical barriers. Super fast shredder stuff is probably the main area where there’s still a technical/physical barrier.

Im therefore finding that the main thing holding back my progression is plain memory. I’ll retain several songs, riffs, solos at once but with the time, repetition and dedication required to learn something new, there’s usually something squeezed out to make room for the new stuff. I also find that sitting down and learning something new is an exercise in memory more than a technical challenge and it’s the mental strain of memorisation that sometimes puts me off practicing!

Anyone got any sage advice?!

mbe

Sometimes thinking too hard is a barrier to memory recall. Try playing a song that you know well and concentrate on some other aspect of technique  like left hand finger pressure or picking stroke.

Focus on something else and let your mind play the song on auto-pilot. When I see players waggling the guitar neck I think it's sometimes a trait that puts the actual playing in the periphery of the mind. I used to play bass and sing so performing a number like White Room for example necessitates playing the bass on auto-pilot while one reels off the lyrics.

Funkfingers

TINMAN82 said:

the main thing holding back my progression is plain memory. 

This is where sight readers have the upper hand. I write this as somebody who can not sight read.

TINMAN82 said:

... there’s usually something squeezed out to make room for the new stuff ...

stickyfiddle

Funkfingers said:

TINMAN82 said:

the main thing holding back my progression is plain memory. 

This is where sight readers have the upper hand. I write this as somebody who can not sight read.

I'm not sure that's the case - if I'm reading I'm far less likely to learn something by heart.

The best thing I do to memorise parts I can't do automatically is to make long-hand structural notes, then condense those into a summary, then a flashcard memory trigger, then take that away. It's as much the process of making the notes in the first place that actually helps, rather than reading them afterwards. I assume it engages a different bit of your brain than just the "ears/hands" bit. 

Musicwolf

The more you play the better you get at memorising (you learn quicker and you can carry more in your head).  Deconstructing the piece also helps.  I always practice to backing tracks, preferably recordings of the rest of the band made using my Zoom LiveTrak, however, when we're introducing something new, I'll usually download a MIDI backing track from the t'internet and arrange it to suit us (proper intro and ending, our key etc) then I'll record a 'sketch' with two guitar parts, sequenced bass and drums to share so that we're all working to the same structure.  Putting that track together usually means that I 'know' the song by the end of it.

Of course, if we're not gigging or practicing regularly, I still need to run through stuff on my own,  I have the whole set list set up in Cubase and I'll play my parts, start to finish, for the whole show (not necessarily in one sitting).  It's amazing how quickly you can forget but equally it comes back after one play through.

HAL9000

I kind of agree with you. I spend time on something new, and something old gets pushed off the end. However, because I've already done it the 'something old' can be relearned pretty quickly. Also, as @Musicwolf has pointed out - don’t just work on the new stuff -  also revisit the old stuff on a regular basis.

Danny1969

I play in a lot of covers bands so have to remember a lot of songs, a few hundred basically. The trick is to learn to instantly recognize intervals ... like the sound of an E chord or E note changing to an A for example then you can play the song without remember the chords or the specific notes of a riff. It also means you don't have to worry about only knowing the song in one key as knowing your intervals means you can transpose on the fly. Now this can be tricky if the riff uses open strings as pedal tones or ringing tones ... like Muse's Hysteria or Killers Mr Brightside but the majority of songs can be key shifted without sounding too different
I learn the above by endlessly playing along to music, not just my music but the radio, TV, wife's disco playlist and the kids Tot's TV and Postman Pat

BahHumbug

My belief is that, in this context, memory isn’t just something that you have....it is something that you develop.  Committing a piece music to memory and retaining it there is a skill in itself.  Like all the other myriad skills that make up playing a musical instrument, it gets better with practice.  Neural pathways are being formed in your brain while you learn a piece of music.  They don’t just store the music, they make it easier to store the next piece and the one after that.  But you have to practice.
if it takes a large amount of dedication to learn the music that you aspire to, then try working on bits of music which are way below your technical ability.  Take a really simple melody and concentrate on just learning it.  If it seems trivial to do this then the upside is that it shouldn’t take much dedication.  While you’re learning one trivial tune you might have capacity to crack on and start learning another trivial tune.  This isn’t much different to what @Danny1969 said.  Don’t be fussy about what you’re playing, just keep doing it.
Oh, and get good sleep too, it’s very important for transferring the memory of things you did today into long term safe storage.

vonLayzonfon

I'm in pretty much the same position.  Not usually any issues learning something but if I don't keep repeating it I won't retain it.  And it seems to take more repetition these days until something's in permanently. I can still remember songs I leaned decades ago that I haven't played for years but if I've only learned something a couple of months ago, played less than a dozen times and then had a couple of weeks off it'll need relearning again.

p90fool

I have a hundred or so songs I can gig now this minute, with no notes or homework needed, and probably a couple of hundred more I could get through with a few seconds' of prep, but I find it increasingly difficult as I get older to memorise new ones. 

We add a song or two to our setlist every week, and one of the problems of being a quick learner is that I can pull apart most pop songs and figure them out after a couple of passes, often during the first time I hear them.

That means I can physically play songs which I have no hope whatever of remembering halfway through Saturday night's gig, because I would have only heard it once it twice. 

There is no substitute I'm afraid for listening to the damn thing over and over again after you've figured out how to play it. 

BahHumbug

I recognise what you say.  Thing is the songs that you learnt years ago, even though you haven’t played them in a while, they will have been repeated many times back in the day...which is one of the things that you need to get them established in long term memory.
On the other hand, the stuff that you’ve just learned...to get it into long term memory it needs lots of repetition and sleep.  If you’ve learnt something and then repeated it less than a dozen times since, then I think..
1.  What do you mean by ‘I learnt it’.  Did you really learn it, or just get vaguely familiar with it?
2.  You need to repeat it more.  If I’d learnt a piece and then only played it a few times after that, I wouldn’t expect to be very familiar with it after a couple of weeks break.  It needs more repetition and more nights of sleep to get something safely stored.

axisus

Memory is a major bummer for me. I struggle to remember anything that I learn by 2 days later. It's a battle to get anywhere, and I have a few things that I have played part or most of for 10 years but I can't learn the last bit!!! It drives me insane. 

Roland

Memory is more than one thing. We’ve heard the short term and long term differentiation. There’s also the indexing and retrieval, which often relies on contextual information. I know the entry phrase to many guitar solos. If you asked me how the rest of the solo goes I’d have to think it through, possibly with a guitar in my hand. Similarly, some people can recite sections from text books, but may not have the additional knowledge which allows them to do the job. I once heard Gino Washington stop a song to talk to the audience. He then said “Bar 46, two, three, four”. I certainly don't know songs down to the bar count.

So it depends on what you’ve memorised. If you can’t remember something then you might need more contextual information.

Gimlet

Funkfingers said:

TINMAN82 said:

the main thing holding back my progression is plain memory. 

This is where sight readers have the upper hand. I write this as somebody who can not sight read.

Sight-reading is mostly only possible because of some degree of intrinsic, reflexive recall, hence learning to read being tricky at first. There's a great many concert/orchestral musicians who struggle to offer a convincing performnance when playing at first-sight, but effectively then rely on memory with a score aiding.

I'm not sure that's the case - if I'm reading I'm far less likely to learn something by heart.

The best thing I do to memorise parts I can't do automatically is to make long-hand structural notes, then condense those into a summary, then a flashcard memory trigger, then take that away. It's as much the process of making the notes in the first place that actually helps, rather than reading them afterwards. I assume it engages a different bit of your brain than just the "ears/hands" bit. 

  I completely agree. Once it becomes normal practice, it works very well I find. The "hands" part is very important. The act of note taking quite naturally involves the motor cortex, which is thought to play a siginifcant role in bolstering Working Memory during the encoding phase, after it was demostrated via a functional MRI (fMRI) to be activated during recall.

TINMAN82

I guess it’s like anything- boils down to hard work and dedication but comes easier to some than others.