Fingerstyle players - how do u remember…?

[The Bard Rocks]

I find it is harder to remember the order in which the tune are played, so like so many others, I have a list I can glance at. Although we are talking instrumentals here, it's the words that give me the most trouble, which is not surprising since each piece has one set of music but several sets of words.

[musicman1951]

People memorize in different ways. Certainly repetition is your friend, but that's a necessary part of learning a song well enough for performance.

I play a lot "by ear." I'm not sure exactly how that works, but if you do it enough you can make educated guesses about the next interval. I like to warm up by playing songs in different keys than the original. Sometimes there will be an interval that I frequently "guess" incorrectly, then I memorize that interval. I tend to remember chord progressions more than actually "memorize" the melody. But I had the good fortune of many years of music theory and spending all day playing music, so if that doesn't work for you a little experimenting is in order.

For some memorizing chunks and then putting them together works. For some memorizing the melody and then adding the other notes helps. Being able to sing/hum the melody is good practice. For some listening to recordings repeatedly helps fix the notes in your ear. For some Playing as much of the song as you can remember and then repeating the missed measure repeatedly until you make it to the end works.

I would try and find the method that seems less like drudgery. There is a flow to music and memorizing each note as if you're trying to remember all the numbers of pi would qualify as drudgery for me. But that's me, find out what works for you.

I went to a Goat Rodeo concert (Yo-Yo Ma, et. al.) and they sometimes find a music stand works well.

[jklotz]

For me, if I play the melody and the bass line, the song is recognizable. I always have to memorize those. The rest I either memorize or play by feel once I get the structure down. But to play a gig, say 3 sets, I have to do quite a bit of sight reading simpler stuff. I think it'd be really difficult to get 3 sets of material all from memory.

[bmw2002]

I attend as many concerts of The Classical Guitar Society here in Philadelphia as I can (Ana Vidovic being the next one), and am consistently amazed at how anyone can memorize ninety minutes worth of complex music and perform it flawlessly without any aid. I’m totally dependent on sheet music most of the time.

[coopman]

OP, you have had all the (very good) answers you need ... I'd add perhaps one more tip: once you think you have a piece down - find one or two people that you can play the piece for. I have found that the "pressure" of playing a piece all the way through for someone who is focused on listening to a piece helps to cement the muscle memory in a way that closet practice doesn't (or you find that the piece just isn't ready for prime time yet). There is something about playing in front of people that can take things to the next level. Far better to do that with one or two "friendly's" than finding out in front of 50 people that it's not yet ready. The more you do it the easier it gets. That's the point of music ... to share (not show off). Of course there's still no guarantee that you wouldn't flub a piece that you really have down either. Once you've made those mistakes in front of others (which are inevitable even for the best of players) ... the sooner you can move on to really enjoying playing for others ... as a humble human ;-)

[jklotz]

Originally Posted by coopman

OP, you have had all the (very good) answers you need ... I'd add perhaps one more tip: once you think you have a piece down - find one or two people that you can play the piece for. I have found that the "pressure" of playing a piece all the way through for someone who is focused on listening to a piece helps to cement the muscle memory in a way that closet practice doesn't (or you find that the piece just isn't ready for prime time yet). There is something about playing in front of people that can take things to the next level. Far better to do that with one or two "friendly's" than finding out in front of 50 people that it's not yet ready. The more you do it the easier it gets. That's the point of music ... to share (not show off). Of course there's still no guarantee that you wouldn't flub a piece that you really have down either. Once you've made those mistakes in front of others (which are inevitable even for the best of players) ... the sooner you can move on to really enjoying playing for others ... as a humble human ;-)

Yea, funny how that goes; you get one down pat. I mean down cold, like you can play it in your sleep. Then you go to a gig the next day and it's like what the heck just happened?!? One thing that has helped me with that is to record it. Somehow the pressure of knowing the mics are hot, even if it's for nobody other than me, kind of puts me in a similar place as performing for others. If I can get a good take without having to stop, then I can play it at a gig. This I have learned.

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by lppier

For those who play solo fingerstyle , how do u manage to remember say, a set list of 15 songs? Any tips ?

I've done 5 CD's worth of original compositions & unique arrangement covers of a few tunes. They're all in different tunings, keys and capo locations.

If you can't walk down the street humming any particular piece you're working on then you're not ready to play it from memory.

You have to 'live, breathe and picture' the piece. If you are addicted to tablature then THAT is the first thing you need to break free from.

In its most basic form, it's no different than using GPS the first time to go somewhere you've not traveled to before.

You've got to be able to picture yourself playing it, and while doing that you need to be able to hear it in your head.

Simple.

Regards,
Howard Emerson

[zmf]

If you do it long enough, you start to "know" which chord comes next, even if the particular chord shape can take a while to sink in. This true particularly if you compose your own instrumentals -- you've got only so many choices for the next chord.

Soaking up a little music theory helps. Plus keeping a copy of the circle of fifths around.

Still -- practice, practice, practice.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Llewlyn

by knowing what i am doing, which chord i am playing, what is the key, is this a dominant etc. Then songs "make sense" and are easier to remember.

Ll.

This concept is quite alien to me. The last thing I want to do is to linguistically “think” about what I’m playing. I’m no great player, but I can play the tunes I know from the non-conscious and then use my conscious capacity for “musicality” such as shaping my singing phrasing or developing my guitar tone in the moment. I have no idea in the moment what chord or note I am playing.

Originally Posted by ismaelbelda

...Anyway, if you only play instrumental music, one thing that works for understanding what you're playing and for instant recall later on is to sing the different parts of the song in your head while you play. That goes for playing every instrument. You play the note with your fingers, but the note must come from inside, from your musical imagination. If not, it's easy to start wasting your time...

I have seen this go horribly wrong. We have a fiddler and a guitarist living in our village who “hear the tune in their heads” while they play – but fail to listen to the output from their instruments or voice. Personally, I believe that matching the output you hear to the kinaesthetic movement is, perhaps, more imperative. But I do "hear the tunes in my head" when I'm practicing away from the instrument (reading music or imagining the piece).

Originally Posted by Jim Comeaux

Wow! The short answer is that you don’t. You need to take the brain completely out of the equation. The Brain is your musical enemy and must be eliminated. You do this by playing the tune(s) over and over until you can do it without thinking. That is what “muscle memory” is. When that happens, you can relax, let the fingers do their thing and enjoy what’s going on around you.

When I was playing mountain dulcimer a lot I would set myself a challenge of an evening to learn a new fiddle tune, record it, and up load it to one of the mountain dulcimer forums in 3 hours or so. I would pick a tune and listen to a fiddler play it, and perhaps download the simple sheet music from the net. The “trick” I found was, as soon as I could almost play the tune through, to switch on my metronome and leave it running. I would then play the tune over and over, practicing the awkward bits etc, against a continuously running metronome. This meant that I had to listen to my playing output against the metronome, and it very quickly drove the physical movements linked to my playing output into my non-conscious. When I felt ready to record, as long as I didn’t think about the tune but simply listened to my playing, I could usually get a good take down pretty quickly.

Originally Posted by bmw2002

I attend as many concerts of The Classical Guitar Society here in Philadelphia as I can (Ana Vidovic being the next one), and am consistently amazed at how anyone can memorize ninety minutes worth of complex music and perform it flawlessly without any aid. I’m totally dependent on sheet music most of the time.

You may have built a very strong visual to kinaesthetic loop by playing off the music all the time. You will certainly go backward if you start to work on making a strong auditory to kinaesthetic loop needed for playing by heart. But it is just a skill - and just needs practice.

Originally Posted by jklotz

Yea, funny how that goes; you get one down pat. I mean down cold, like you can play it in your sleep. Then you go to a gig the next day and it's like what the heck just happened?!? One thing that has helped me with that is to record it. Somehow the pressure of knowing the mics are hot, even if it's for nobody other than me, kind of puts me in a similar place as performing for others. If I can get a good take without having to stop, then I can play it at a gig. This I have learned.

That's a great idea. Working through mic' "red light" syndrome should help with performances too. The issue I have with performance anxiety is that I have spent lots and lots of practice time driving my playing into my non-conscious and then expect to "remember" how to play a piece in front of others. If I'm relaxed and not "trying" to remember, then the music is there. It is a matter of trusting our non-conscious to produce. I used to coach fast jet military flying training instructors. They hated doing demonstrations for their students because they would think about a flying or airmanship skill that they had been doing automatically for years without thinking and then **** it up when they did think about it!

[tbeltrans]

This is an excellent thread subject and I hope that folks would not object if it comes up periodically and is discussed all over again from time to time. It is something that we all have to come to grips with at some point in our musical journey.

In my experience, it is difficult to maintain a sizeable repertoire. One can end up spending so much time going through the repertoire trying to keep it in memory that there is a point at which there is no longer time to explore new pieces of music.

I have had the opportunity to ask some of the more prolific youtube acoustic fingerstyle folks about this and to a person, they said that they learn a tune to record it and then forget it as they move on to the next.

Also, those touring concert classical guitarists typically learn a concert repertoire for that performance season and that is ALL they play during that performing season.

It seems to me that a hobbyist (such as myself) has a luxury that a full time performing solo acoustic fingerstyle player does not have - the "permission" to NOT have to memorize every tune and keep it in ready repertoire.

There is a lot to be gained from memorizing a tune and keeping it in repertoire for some finite period, say a few days or weeks, before dropping it. That advantage is being able to really get inside the tune so that you internalize what you need to know to really understand the tune and learn new ideas from it to make learning and/or arranging the next tune easier. In other words, using memorizing as a learning tool rather than feeling compelled to build a large repertoire that becomes less and less manageable over time seems to me to be a good balance. With that approach, you will always have some tunes at hand for that "play something" request, but will not be saddled with having to build a concert repertoire that eventually prevents you from exploring new music because it takes so long to play through what you are trying to hold onto.

Tony

[TRose]

This is a useful thread for me.
Thanks to all those who have contributed.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Llewlyn

by knowing what i am doing, which chord i am playing, what is the key, is this a dominant etc. Then songs "make sense" and are easier to remember.

Ll.

I think this is huge. Super important. Know the song as music, not just as a string of notes or as numbers and patterns.

It can also really save your butt if you DO get lost regarding exact licks or patterns.

[usb_chord]

Also, playing for other people will improve your recall for the piece. There's something about the higher stakes that improves memory in the long term.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by bmw2002

I attend as many concerts of The Classical Guitar Society here in Philadelphia as I can (Ana Vidovic being the next one), and am consistently amazed at how anyone can memorize ninety minutes worth of complex music and perform it flawlessly without any aid.

Dirty little secret: they probably *don't* perform it flawlessly! They just hide their mistakes well (and/or the mistakes are smaller than us mere mortals make) and most don't know the pieces well enough to say there was a mistake in the first place.

[Benjo]

I'm working on between 40-50 tunes. I practice between 8-12 of them a day, rotating. I make sure to practice each tune at least 2x a week.