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Hello @reachcast ;
Lots of good suggestions I’ve read here… for remembering songs.
You see, a song has a chord progression, melody, and lyrics that are fixed. You can “learn” that song. Yeah, but what’s it mean to “learn” it? Turns out, there are at least 3 levels of “learning” a song.
So you can learn to “play” a song, but you haven’t memorized the chord progression, melody or lyrics. This level of learning an accomplished musician no longer has to do. They look at a chord sheet and play the song. Done.
Then, there is playing the song so much that it really starts sounding polished with wonderful nuances. But the “bonus” is, you now can remember the chord progression, melody, and lyrics. This is where it’s easy to “learn” a second time if you don’t play this song for months. In fact, eventually in your guitar journey, you will be able to pull up that song you have “learned” and play it like a pro months later.
And then there is the professional performer, who plays the same songs over and over and over. I’m talking about someone who plays several times a week and plays a whole song list each time. If they have 10 albums of original songs, they still end up feeling like they only have a handful of songs. Yeah, they know those songs like you know the route to your job.
So, obviously, this process is simple to understand and it’s equally simple to figure out what we need to do if we want to “learn” a song, if we want to have that song “polished”, and if we want to “memorize” that song.
But what about the lessons? And what about Howard’s music teacher who said he remembered songs because he’d played them “thousands of times” AND because he “understood the chord structure”?
See, that last little phrase has a world of understanding behind it. You want to remember the lessons? You want to learn and remember songs easier? Learn music theory. Learn the keys, the major scale, and the modes. I mean, learn them till you finally see the patterns that tie all of it together and makes it all so easy to remember because you see those patterns over and over.
MG 😀