What is your fastest technique to learning a fingerstyle tune?

[Tico]

Quit your job, family, and personal hygiene and practice 16 hours a day.

[Swamp Yankee]

Originally Posted by Pitar

Sort out the progression and then add dynamics by ear. That's it.

That's the way I do it. Figure out the basic song then swampify it gradually.

[Skip Ellis]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

1. Listen to it repeatedly.
2. Work out the chord progression and explore any strange inversions.
3. Work out the melody line(s) within the chords.
4. Practice to make your own version.
5. Play it.

Absolutely!! Work it out for yourself - don't rely on someone else's arrangement. I hate going on You Tube and see 20 versions of the same song attributed to "arrangement by (insert guitarist name here). I'd much rather play something the way I play it than just regurgitating someone else's stuff. If you really LEARN the song, you probably will never play it the same way twice which, to me, is a good thing.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Skip Ellis

Absolutely!! Work it out for yourself - don't rely on someone else's arrangement. I hate going on You Tube and see 20 versions of the same song attributed to "arrangement by (insert guitarist name here). I'd much rather play something the way I play it than just regurgitating someone else's stuff. If you really LEARN the song, you probably will never play it the same way twice which, to me, is a good thing.

Generally this doesn't work well for learning a finger style tune, for me anyway. The challenge is learning it exactly as performed, then doing your own thing later.

[jfq722]

Originally Posted by TBman

Do you sit and go over the whole notation and learn to play it as a whole, or do you take a section of measures, beat it into submission, then go on to the next section?.

I learn the individual sections first - you may find there are only 5 or so in a song, just repeated. These sections I see like patches in a quilt...Once I know them cold, then I set about "stitching them together".

[jfq722]

Originally Posted by jaymarsch

The reasoning behind this method is that the brain is going from the unknown to the known and doesn't get as stressed as it can if you start at the first measure and are going from the known to the unknown.

Interesting approach, I will try that!

[srick]

I have tried lots of ways: playing slowly, playing the tab accurately like a player piano, practicing one part over and over until mastered, and then playing the next one . . .

I get the most satisfaction when I first learn the chord progression and play that into the ground. Many times, I'll play it as an accomponiement while listening to the recording. Next, I begin to listen and/or watch very critically as I add the 'tinsel' - The hammer on, the pull off, the trill, the vibrato, the bass run, etc. I try to mimic the recording as closely as possible.

Having the basic chords in my pocket at least propels me forward and keeps me from getting stuck in a rut. I guess its sort of like faking the words when you don't really have the whole song down.

I have a long way to go, but each little run that is mastered, each little hammer-on, etc. has gradually snuck into my repertoire. And at this rate, I figure I'll hit the 10,000 hour mark at about age 90.

Best,

Rick

Originally Posted by TBman

The challenge is learning it exactly as performed, then doing your own thing later.

Oh, I don't think we're going to form a duo any time soon.

[MarkoMarkus]

One word will help you best, practice every second you think how you should practice you could've just practiced.

Secondly, bot practicing in small parts and the whole song has it's beneficials. At the start you always want to take small parts and practice until your finger get used to it etc so you don't have to think "what comes next?" when you practice the whole. Here you have one thing to stay focused on, 90% of us learn first part then whenever we go practice that song we play that first part mostly because we practiced it the most and it goes the best so when we are nervous we just play what we know hehe

Try this way, first when you start take one phrase (like one sentence ) and then measure by measure learn it for day-2-3 until your fingers know it then go to end. Once you know the whole song when you go practice, Just play the song and enjoy it then when you finish remember which parts you were having troubles on and then take just that measure and practice it , when you feel comfortable try playing the part again with a song or with few measurements before that one. Get it?

Main thing to remember is just learn slowly in the begining and in small fractions until your fingers learn the fingering and later play whole song (because in front of people you wont play in fractures) and the parts you are having troubles with , isolate them and practice them separately a few min a day until it feels comfortable.

And once again, don't try to think to much as I do when writing, just practice if it's too hard, slow down even if you have to play 80bpm one quarter note per beat, just slow it down and practice that section then speed again =) and then repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat ......................

[Rosewood99]

I go one section at time, whether it be from tabs or youtube. Once I feel I have a section reasonably down I go to the next and keep building upon it. No magic bullet--it takes time and patience for me to get the whole song.

[KennyEC]

Some history first: Approximately 45 years ago I started out playing guitar fingerstyle (using a thumbpick). Times were really different then. There was no internet and while one could obtain sheet music or a transcription of a song, it would have to be ordered (if it was even available) from the local music store. So really all you had left was a record (talking about the round vinyl things of yesteryears) of what you wanted to learn. I started out my quest with a Chet Atkins album. Those albums spun at 33 1/3 rpm. I would sit there for hours at a time lifting the needle an putting it back at the beginning of the song – each time trying to capture both in my head and with my fingers what note(s) were being played. I would play a little bit of the song at a time till I had matched what was on the record. This was a pain in the beginning. When you came to a part that was really hard to decode and it just made a mess of your faculties, you had another tool available – slow the record down by switching the speed to 16 2/3 which was half of the 33 1/3. Then you could decode the note(s), all be it they were an octave below, which you had to compensate for.

So why did I mention my history in the above? Learning a song in this prescribed manner gave me a benefit that I didn't realize at the time but was very thankful for latter – Ear Training!

Ear training is a skill/tool that I've seen missing in a lot of players today. I've seen videos of fingerstlye guitar players on YouTube that played the song technically correct, but their guitar was out of tune, can't they hear that? If not, why? While TABs have their place, and yes I use TABs as a verification and reinforcement process (my hearing isn't what it use to be as I age), I feel that sometimes they slow the process of developing ear training. Can't tell you the number of people that have asked me how I just listened to a song for the first time and kind of instinctively knew how to play it or played along with it. Some have even asked how I knew what key the song was in. Side note: sometimes these same people have made comments like you are so talented or gifted. While I know they meant that as a compliment, inside I just cringe because I don't have talent. I want to yell to them “what I have is skill because I put in thousands of hours of practice to develop these skills, and it's not some magical talent that makes it seem like it is effortless.” But at last, I just kindly thank them.

Today when learning a new fingerstyle song I listen to the song (or watch a video if available) many times. One, it per-reinforces in your mind the flow/changes in the song and your mind is really adapt at learning how the song should go without even trying – well that is if you have ear training skills. After it is reinforced I will then look at the TAB for that song if it is available and start from there. Practice and repetition, as others have stated, will allow the brain to “know” the song.

Sorry for such a long post, but I felt that I needed to say what I said.

That's my opinion and it should be yours too! (Chet Atkins)

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by drplayer

Practice...

What he said x10...

[TBman]

Originally Posted by MarkoMarkus

.... if it's too hard, slow down even if you have to play 80bpm one quarter note per beat, just slow it down and practice that section then speed again =) and then repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat ......................

Yep. Story of my guitar life,

[MarkoMarkus]

Originally Posted by TBman

Yep. Story of my guitar life,

Well, if you fail to play something, there's nothing for you to do except to try again... Just, sometimes that "again" happens 999x but that's the beauty of it, you feel great when you finally do it right!

[dkstott]

I'm with you on that Barry.

Playing fingerstyle, I'd prefer to learn it as performed & then add my personal touches to it. After all, one of the reasons that I choose to learn a song is because I liked the arrangement.

Lately, I've found that my big hurdles are with the left hand and finding fingering that works for me. As I move through the various bars of the music, I'll find that previous fingering aren't efficient in transitioning to the next step in the song.

It's usually a case of changing what finger I need to use for the bass section.


]

Originally Posted by TBman

Generally this doesn't work well for learning a finger style tune, for me anyway. The challenge is learning it exactly as performed, then doing your own thing later.