Playing songs by heart months/years after learning them

[N-lightMike]

Hello @Kristin1

One of the people who attends the VOMs regularly says he has something like over 400 songs on his play list. I was amazed and asked him how he stays up on them. He told me that he has a database containing all the songs he has learned, and he keeps it updated when each song is played on a VOM. He doesn’t actually record when he practices them, but he usually plays through them before the VOM. And he attends a lot of VOMs, not just the ones we guitar geeks run.

For myself, I don’t have that many songs, but I still have trouble keeping up with all of them. I am trying to play some songs everyday. It seems that a new song has to be played almost everyday for weeks before it becomes a “back pocket song”. Once it’s a back pocket song, I find I don’t have to play it more often than every other month or so. But, I don’t just play it once. I go through it several times, play it in a VOM, maybe record it. And then it can be set back for a while again.

Honestly, I’m still working on perfecting my song rotation and keeping them sharp. So far, I can only keep a handful sharp, maybe 20, though I know at least double that. I have, at least, made a list and have started trying to keep track of playing them once in a while.

I hope this helps. I hope others come by and share their system of keeping songs sharp. I could use more ideas.

MG 😀

[Kristin1]

Hello @mikeGaurnier,

you are hitting the mark. Even “back pocket songs” do need attention once in a while.

Otherwise they tend to slip silently and unnoticed out of the pocket.

I think your app. 20 songs are a great achievement. I myself have not reached that mark.

Greetings from Germany

[Cadgirl]

My goal this year is to memorize at least 10 songs. I’m up to 4 songs, almost 5. I play them everyday for at least 5 minutes (the ones I know that is). The ones on my ‘to learn list’ I play over and over and over. I also ramped up my playing time to 2 hours a day (sounds like a lot, but so far so good). I track all the songs that I do play. If someone were to say to me….. “Hey Denise, I hear you play the guitar, Can you play us a couple of songs”. I don’t want to say no, i can’t. I have to have sheet music to do that. As for memorizing I think it’s your ears and fingers. I can finger pick Alice’s Restaurant and Black Bird. I swear I couldn’t tell you how it’s played. I could show you thou. Good Luck and you’ll come up with a good system. I’d start with some type of tracking system.

[albert_d]

This is a legit discussion. I have tried lists by category but have really never found a suitable system that seems intuitive. I used categories like train songs, gospel songs, protest songs or by artist like Dylan, Lightfoot, etc. But a review practice schedule seems to slip away.

[Cadgirl]

Here is something you could try. @albert_d and @Kristin1

I save all my songs on my computer. I have a folder called Songs, in that folder I store all my individual songs. These individual folders are named with the Song Writer, The name of the song, what style of playing (is it strummed or finger picked), How hard is the song to play (Hard, Intermediate or Easy. You have 255 characters to name a folder or a file name. You could add in the name ‘practice’ or whatever you want to name it. Then just do a search. If you want to play Bob Dylan songs, search for Dylan. Do you want to practice some songs in D-Tuning, search for D-Tuning. I attached a photo where I had just search for EASY.

[albert_d]

Thanks. That is a helpful idea.

[the-old-coach]

Tried a few minutes ago to post in here- but it wouldn’t post for some reason- (so if it DOES post- there’ll be two similar ones🙃)

Anyway Kristin1– Thank you for posting/starting this discussion!

Like Albert says– “This is a legit discussion”!

One of the best things about our TAC Forum is the responses that turn up when a great thread– like this one– is started.

The responses help many, many, MANY folks beside the ones that chime in—- this is cool stuff— VERY helpful.

Thank you, again, for your original thoughts.

Mark J

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  the-old-coach.

[That_Guy]

I just watched a YouTube video of Tommy Emmanuel being interviewed by Rick Beato. For those that don’t know Tommy is probably the greatest living acoustic guitar player. He mentions that he has to refresh and review before a show if he hasnt played that one lately, even if it’s a song he’s been playing for 30 years because no one can remember that many songs.

https://youtu.be/PLIZZ9lIlwg

[albert_d]

Thanks for the link. I watched and it was quite interesting. Even Tommy E. Puts his pants on one leg at a time. I’ve seen him perform twice, once in Austin and again at the Chicago Fretboard Summit. He is so facile and entertaining.

[That_Guy]

Ps-

I use an app called ultimate guitar that has almost every song known to mankind of every genre.

It usually has multiple versions of every song in tab as well as chord/lyric form.

You just simply favorite which ones you like and it puts them in your folder for storage. You can also record a 30 second clip of yourself playing this song. It is interesting to watch other peoples 30 second clips to see what style or rhythm method they chose to play it in for ideas

The app is free but it’s worth paying extra to get the auto scroll feature.

[Cadgirl]

AWESOME SITE!! I use ‘ultimate-guitar’ all the time! Nice because you can also pull the site up on your IPhone. There are times I’m not by my computer, but you can bet your butt I do have my IPhone! Thanks @That_Guy

[Kristin1]

Thanks for all the feedback.

My resume: it takes more than one “task” to keep songs “alive”:

A) PLAYING

– learning the songt a first time very thoroughly

– playing the songs very reguarly until they are in the back pocket

– still play the songs – but not so frequently

B) ORGANIZATION

– keeping track of the songs you have learned

> saved on the computer “with search option” OR

> printed and filed in just one folder OR

> a sheet with the songs and an regularly checked assessment how goot you can play them ( I use a simple chart with all songs once learned listed and five emojis to mark (🤩 🙂 😏 🧐 ☹))

– planning which songs to play how often and when

– considering thoroughly which songs are worth learning

C) TIME

D) the insight abolut 100% all the time PERFECTION is not even possible for Tommy Emanuel

Right now C) is the most challenging aspect for me. Life ist busy. Therefore I booked a 4 day trip – just me and my guitar. I´ll be away at the end of the month. And hope to reactivate quite a few songs. I let you know it the plan worked out after the trip.

Thanks again!

[SoCal_Ian]

Such a fascinating discussion for me because (as I’ve said before) my memory isn’t a “locked safe” or a “sponge” but more of a “sieve” and as such I can’t remember songs when I’m halfway through and look away from the tab in front of me. Remembering songs isn’t an issue, it’s remembering how to PLAY them and that’s simply a skill I continue to work on….with little success to date but I still try.

[GuitarGeni]

There are some good suggestions here but I don’t think it’s realistic to expect to learn songs and not have to refresh them periodically. Our memories, even the muscle kind, simply aren’t that good. I’ve heard many interviews with professionals where they indicate that even though they may have played a song thousands of times, they too forget over time. I’m not sure what your motivation is in the first place. If you’re not planning to play for anyone, what’s the point? If you are, then simply review them ahead of time. If it’s just for bragging rights and saying “I know X number of songs by heart”, that’s just ego not musicianship.

[Kristin1]

Hello @GuitarGeni,

this discussion is definitly NOT about ego. It is about handling the “sieve” efect to get the most out of your practice time and time management.

Like so @soCal Ian mentioned it is quite often not so simple review songs. Regardless if you want to play them for others or just for yourself. Getting a bit older 1. the “sieve”-effect is getting bigger too and

– the aspect I was most interested in in the first place before the discussion took another direction: I guess I´m not the only person with 2. LIMITED TIME to play guitar. And although I play app. 45 to 60 minutes a day it´s just not enough time for everything:

5 min Warming Up fingers

5 – 13 min Daily Challange minutes video

15 min Daily Challange playing (I prefer to just 10 minutes)

15-30 min course / quarterly goal

Those minutes add up. And I was looking for suggestions to integrate reviewing songs on an regular basis. For example it was mentioned in another post to use one learnd song as a warm up everyday. I tried it but it wasn´t for me. Right now I´ve put paperslips with my song tittles in a jar and draw one every few days.

I guess there are many guitar players like me in the TAC family who don´t count the number of songs for their egos but still want to memrorize a few more songs and to keep them in their back pockets to play sponaniously sitting down at the beach or another nice spot and playing guitar mostly for themself or with family members they definitly don´t plan to impress.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  Kristin1.

[Moose408]

I break up my practice routine so each day is different. I do the daily challenge each weekday but then will do 2 additional skills and 2 songs 6 days a week.

For example here is my current routine

Mon – Daily Challenge, picking, arpeggios, 2 songs

Tue – Daily challenge, strumming, chord progression, 2 different songs

Wed – Daily Challenge, rhythm, aural, 2 more songs

Thur – Daily Challenge, notes, power chords, 2 songs

Etc……

Sun – I run through my entire set list of memorized song which only consists of 12 right now.

For me I see ear training as a very important skill, because I can typically play a song by ear once I recall one of the chords, or the first couple notes for a riff. That might be harder down the road with a lot finger picking songs, but maybe not.

[-Rick-]

Whatever it was that interested me to arrive here….(no matter) what I really like is what Tommy E is saying at the 28 to 29 minute mark in that interview posted. Watching that interview start to finish is time well used. 🙂

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Wow this is a great thread which deserves to be revived and brought to light!! I agree that Tommy is one of The Greatest Guitar Players ever!!! I think everyone has a finite capacity for memorizing songs and each of us has a different number of back pocket songs that we can carry. When we reach our capacity, something has to scroll off the list to make room.

My former guitar teacher advised me to put all my back pocket songs into one section of my notebook, and once or twice a month to use my practice time to play through all of them to keep them from rusting out. It’s really irritating and frustrating to go through all the effort to learn a song and then find out a few months later that the muscle memory just isn’t there anymore… I have had to “re-learn” songs many times because they rusted away. The good thing is that it’s usually alot quicker to learn a song the 2nd time (or 3rd or even 4th time). One trick I’ve learned is to write little chord diagrams right in the tab/music and indicate which fret/which fingers to use on which string. New diagram with each chord change or position change. This makes it much easier to polish up a rusty song 6 months later.

My back pocket only holds about 10 songs. My notebook holds about 100 songs, hehe and I can always get another one!!

Regards, Carol