Fingerstyle players - how do u remember…?

[EZYPIKINS]

My brain cramps exist on many levels.

If I can remember the title, I can usually play the song.

Sometimes I can get the words screwed up.

But, the average listener will never know, as long as you don't let on anything is wrong.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by EZYPIKINS

My brain cramps exist on many levels.

If I can remember the title, I can usually play the song.

Sometimes I can get the words screwed up.

But, the average listener will never know, as long as you don't let on anything is wrong.

So true

[lppier]

Yup I mean memorising how to play the pieces, thanks for all the suggestions so far!

[Joe Beamish]

Personally, I just play the songs so many times that I no longer like them.

[Bluenose]

I've forgotten what key I'm in halfway through a song and that kind of stress turns my fingers into breakfast sausages. I really don't know how some people can do this for a living.

[ewalling]

Brute repetition. I have six or seven classic rags memorized which have four parts, and some sections are quite complex. I've played them so many times that my mind does not really know what my fingers are doing.

What can be infuriating is when one small section just 'goes'! It's happened from my thirties, so it's not connected with age, I think - more a kind of brain zephyr. I'll be playing a piece, and suddenly my fretting or picking fingers don't quite know what they should be doing. On these unhappy occasions, I have to dig out the tutor book and check the notation.

[tbeltrans]

It just might be that medleys were invented for those who can remember pieces of, but not the whole, tune.

Tony

[Taylor814]

As said before, practice. however, I find that if the tune has a pleasant melody that I can sing or hum without playing, then that makes memorization much easier. Where I have trouble are situations where the melody is repeated several times with slight rhythmic changes and it's harmonized differently each time. An example is 'Home' by Andrew York. I can play while reading from the score but I have great difficulty memorizing it in its entirety.