What Is Your Approach to Song Proficiency?

[albert_d]

I use the quarterly goals to add new songs. On a new song I will first get the rhythm down and then add the chord progression and then add lyrics and then add special techniques such as word, transitions or bases fills or runs. I try to add different styles of songs so that I would have a flat picking fiddle tune, and a folk song, and perhaps a love song going at the same time so that it does not become monotonous. I also each quarter throw in a song that is very difficult for me so that I will be uncomfortable. I do not expect to master that song over any short time period. I find the songs on guitar Tabs & Chords or Laura Bateman or the stellar guitarist. I do not believe they compete with TAC because they are generally simple versions of songs I want to cover. I hope that helps.

[Aservire]

Wow this is a great approach! I’m adding this to my notes… Thanks Albert!

[Aservire]

One more question @Albertd. You mentioned working on the rhythm then the chord progression. What do you mean by rhythm without chords? Are you just strumming/picking with right-hand technique only while just resting left hand (assumes you strum right-handed)?

[albert_d]

Yes. And with a metronome. Last year I started working with my grandson to record some tracts and found that over time I had become very cavalier about timing since I usually play and practice alone. If you play with others it is better for all if you play in time. So I resolved to pay more attention to rhythm. And I found that with a new song, it was a good place to start and then layer the others on top.

[Aservire]

Excellent! Thank you!

[petelanger]

@albert_d has delveloped a great systematic approach to develop his playlist, and the results are evident! I very much enjoyed his Christmas songs this past year.

I personally have side-burnered my song wish list, to be more accurate the list is growing because I keep thinking of new ones that I would like to play, but I am not rehearsing songs for the most part. I’m only rotating through a handful of songs because my focus is more on learning the basic skills. I’m not actually trying to perfect those songs by learning them start to finish but rather just getting my chord transitions smoother. I’ll work on the nuances of the songs later (the intro, chorus, bridge, etc). TAC is very helpful in this area, the many techniques taught can be adopted to creating your own intros and add a personal touch to a song.

Every time I have devoted extended time to a new song I found it was going to rob me of too much time and become a distraction. I have to get to a proficiency level where learning an easy to intermediate song could be accomplished in a matter of hours. Currently I am in the days to weeks range and that’s without vocals.

[Aservire]

Thanks Pete! Some great food for thought there… certainly getting the basic techniques down are a big key.

[jorgemac]

My journey is a little different. I’ll be 80 a a few months and I have picked for a long time and learned more in the few months than is the past few years. I might not have picked well but do a have a list of songs I can play whenever I want. Because my level of playing is improving and changing so rapidly i am always learning new ways to pick my “standards” and do not approach any of them the same way I would have picked them a few years back. All of this has pretty much changed in the last few months as I have gained knowledge and confidence in my guitar talents.

Now i try to develop rhythm patterns that i find interesting and become proficient with a couple of new patterns a month and work on those every day and incorporate some of the TAC lessons we work on every day.

Along the way to picking these patterns I usually try to write some lyrics to fit into these patterns. Just like the developing chord patterns and strumming or finger picking these patterns. The lyrics are evolving constantly. Mostly I enjoy telling stories.

Some day if the guitar lords are willing, I’ll have a batch of my own creations to lean back on and call my own. It is a very slow and highly fun and entertaining and developing process with many more failures than successes. Buy i sure love it.

[jorgemac]

This is the one I am working on for about 4 days now so I am still in the 1st version of this new tune.

Am…………………………………F

If you were on a mountain

Am ………………………………………F

with a sky that was true….. blue

Am ………………………………………..C

And you found an enchanted fountain

Em…………………………………….Am

Would you take a sip or……two

I have developed a chorus and 3 verses in the last couple of days and am having a totally excellent adventure.’It is finger strumming and picking tune and is totally rough and raw, but it is keeping me off the streets and out of mischief.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by  jorgemac.
• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by  jorgemac. Reason: Posting entry correctly

[Aservire]

Nice! Thanks for sharing!

[jorgemac]

I think this will give you and idea of what i enjoy doing.

[the-old-coach]

My silly piece of advice isn’t about your question of “all at the same time– but slowly”…. versus…. “one at a time– mastering the one you’re working on”— (if I understood what you were asking)’

My opinion is more about one of the steps– regardless of which way you do it.

1. Monkey around with the song- (I mean REALLY mess with it!)- AS you are practicing it. Change a chord/ change the key/ changes the strumming pattern…… etc, etc. You will really learn a song IF you mess with it some. Your brain is gathering ALL that info as you go– even if you don’t use anything you changed or messed with.

2. Learning and Practice. They are two different things. Recognize the difference between the two.

3. One trick I use: Most people start practicing/playing a song at the beginning– but then get hung up somewhere; they then go back and start again…. back at the start. (so…. the end of the song gets waaaay less reps than the beginning). Practice the song from the back to the front— this way the end-part of the song gets the same amount of— and you are just as confident about the END of the song– as the beginning.

Anyway– just my two cents

[Aservire]

Man, I can relate to #3 totally!

[Skyman911]

Most will have different perspectives. For me, I think I have ADHD, and have a hard time working on something for a long time. I just get bored. I always have a new song I’m trying, and most I don’t get down before my boredom kicks in. I’ve forgotten more songs than I currently know I think. I usually have two or three new songs I’m trying at a time. This works for me, however I still get discouraged that I don’t have the patience to really get a song down perfectly. I’m all over the place it seems. But I’m fingerpicking, flatpicking, strumming and playing. None of them perfect per se.

[jorgemac]

Coach your are profound…

The difference in learning and practicing makes complete sense. You can practice tune but , for me to learn it i have to do what you suggested and mess with it. Tear is apart, change chords, change the strum pattern, finger style it, add 7th’s and minors and 9ths , hammer ons pull offs and slides.. I have to be able to make my own version to care about learning a tune.

Skyman, you might try that and see if it cures your boredom. Make that tune “your” tune.

[Skyman911]

@jorgemac, interesting you mentioned this. That’s kind of what my boredom does. It makes me try different things. Chord voicings, different strumming patterns, capo in different positions. I noodle a lot and try different Travis picking patterns with different chord progressions. I should probably start writing some of them down since I’ll work on some real cool sounding progressions, and the next day completely forget what I was playing. Similar to TAC, I’ll come back many times and play old songs I hadn’t played for a while and see how things have progressed. I think sometimes stuff just needs to “simmer” for a while in order to develop. I can kind of tell when a song still needs to simmer for a while, and when a song is ready for the heat to be turned up and rock. I always have numbers songs in the hopper. Last week for example I worked on some of the following songs.

New songs
Bad Luck – Zach Top
Broken Wing Bird – Kashus Culpepper

Old Songs
A Day in the Life – Beatles
Across the Great Divide – Nancy Griffith
That’s the way the world goes round – John Prine
Rocky Raccoon – Beatles
In Spite of Ourselves – John Prine

Seems like I’m always working on Dust in the Wind, Landsline

[Braden]

This is a great converstion, thnks for posting @Aservire ! Cool to hear about everyone’s approach and thoughts. Making music is so personal and everyone does it their own way. But its also communal and we’re inspired and can learn so much from others.

Tons of great advice here but just to add my two cents…be careful of ‘perfect’ or ‘mastering a song’. I can play and sing an hours worth of songs from beginning to end but i wouldnt say that Ive really mastered any of them. Dont get me wrong i can play them pretty good but perfect is still a ways off.

I love Coach’s point about learning vs practicing. Even though I have learned a song, its imperative that I continue to practice it, especially if my goal is to get closer to mastering it. You can learn a song fairly quickly depending upon difficulty, but practicing it is a much longer process. A few times Ive left a song on the shelf for too long that has a specific fingerstyle and its like “damn i forget how to play this”. Can always figure it out again, but the longer I leave it the harder it is to get it back. So I spend half my time learning new songs (usually 3-5 on the go, alternating between them) and half my time practicing those Ive already got under the belt. And its always a long game…Ive got songs that I learned years ago that Im still working on to improve.

Also agree its important to learn the whole song. That doesnt mean you have to have the lead solo, or any other tricky parts, but if you can, learn it from beginning to end. Start with a version thats at your current level or just above. And then once youve learned the song you can add stuff as you practice and get better. If you only learn the beginning of a song or the main lick/riff, it gets boring after awhile and you miss out on the sense of accomplishment of learning the whole thing.

If a song has distinct parts eg intro, chorus, solo, finish, base runs, etc etc., I’ll always break it up into chunks and work exclusively on each part. Once Ive drilled each part in then I’ll put them all together. For me this is especially important when I’m at the very beginning of learning any particular tune. I do the same thing when its time to bring the singing in.

Bottom line…again depending on degree of difficulty, and how much time put in, I can learn a song pretty quickly. In other words I ‘know’ how to play it. Can I play it well? Not at all, that where the practice comes in. And like they say, practice makes perfect…or at least good enough.

And of course the most important thing is to have fun with it, pat yourself on the back regularly, keep your expectations realistic, and be patient and kind to yourself.

[Aservire]

Hi Braden! Thanks for the long and thoughtful response. I really like the idea of breaking the elements of a song apart and work on each section independently. It makes me think of one in particular that has some tricky rhythms where I can’t totally figure out where to put my chord changes and integrate them with the strumming pattern. I spent some time breaking a couple of the phrases out and working on them individually and this became the “learning” vs “practicing” object lesson.

[Aservire]

Thanks everyone for the great advice and encouraging words! Very nice community here which I greatly value and cherish!

[jorgemac]

Good discussion, thanks Aservire.

[the-old-coach]

In my post(s) about the difference between “learning” and “practicing”—- I must give credit where credit is due. I learned this whole concept from long-time TAC-cer, Mike Gaurnier—- (one of my guitar-heroes!)

[Aservire]

delete

• This reply was modified 5 days, 13 hours ago by  Aservire.

[jumpinjeff]

The way that works best is the one that brings you back tomorrow. All the songs fit forms. Play songs long enough and you will recognize the form and not think about what the chords are but how the form is being made to sound unique. What ever it takes to keep playing, do that, because recognition took me a long time to see. I would not have found it had I not learned here at TAC to making play my practice instead of practicing songs. I would not have lasted long enough to gain song form pattern recognition. The only wrong that can be done is having a bad time under the influence of expectations. Play, play with the sound, the string, the technique. Play without fear let go of expectations and you may find the fastest path to “proficiency” (okay, here is where I crack wise: is that your proficiency or my proficiency.)

[Aservire]

Some great zen there… how to think is as important as concentrated learning. Mental state is definitely an important aspect. Thanks!

[Moose408]

I spent several years here on TAC working diligently on the daily techniques and at the end of it all if someone asked me to play a song I couldn’t play a single one.

I have since changed my practice routine and each day will work one or two songs after working on techniques. I rotate through 3-4 songs throughout the week. 2 will be fairly easy songs, 1 will be intermediate and 1 will be a song that may take me months to get.

My goal in learning songs is to be able to play them from memory, while singing, as if I were performing them.

Every Sunday I play through every song I have “performance” ready. This keeps them fresh and makes sure I don’t forget them. Occasionally if I’m have difficulty with one of these songs it will go back into the weekly practice rotation for a week or two.

For the past year my struggle has been singing along with the songs so I started voice lessons in January and learned to change the key to match my voice which has significantly helped with my songs, although sometimes it is hard to forget and unlearn the original key and learn the song in the new key.

[petelanger]

My goodness, some great food for thought there. Need to learn singing along early to make sure you’re learning the song in “your” key! Thanks for your input Moose!

[the-old-coach]

Pete—- You and Moose have reached the pot of gold. To put it in football terms– TAC teaches you the “cone drills”— (which are really, just a means to an end)……… the REAL key is how and when to use those drills when you are in the game.

Let’s face it…….. this is most likely the “real” goal for many/most of us in here……….. to be able to play and sing a song from memory.

Being able to change the Key (to match your voice) is one of the foundations of Fretboard Wizard…….. being able to do THAT makes any and every song out there, now within your grasp—- to play and sing. You have kicked open the door!

• This reply was modified 2 days, 1 hour ago by  the-old-coach.

[Aservire]

My thoughts exactly!!! I really appreciate all of the insights and inspiration here from those of you a little further down the path…I’ve modified my overall goals to learning 2 or 3 songs. Part of that will be recording a performance and posting here if I feel confident enough. I’m definitely getting close on a song or two. The other part will be if I can figure out a way to do it technically with my current equipment so that it sounds halfway decent. No promises in the near term but it is a goal I’ll eventually achieve!

[petelanger]

Looking forward to your recording. Don’t worry about equipment, most of us use our phones which is convenient since you can upload to google (YT) directly, not a bunch of saving, copying, transferring required.

[Moose408]

Your phone will do a good job of recording you playing. That’s what I did for several years.

I’ve now gone down the rabbit hole of adding microphones, audio interfaces, etc. but that I do it more because I find it fun, than a necessity.