Hey everyone and @JT as you helped us jump into this pool’s deep end
What is everyone’s strategy for after they do their recording? How often will you continue to practice the song(s) you’ve learned? Have you guys/gals been able to do these songs (so far) from memory completely or are you still leaning on the sheet music (or TAB for folks like me)?
I know “repetition is essential to learning” so I guess continuing to play the songs regularly will engrain muscle memory and brain memory, but I was curious as I don’t want to forget these songs after taking 2 or more weeks to learn them. Thanks!
Good question. For songs I love, I’m trying to memorize them, so I can play them when and where I want to. I can imagine going to an open-mic night and someone says, “Hey, do you know ‘Another Brick in the Wall’”? “Why yes, yes I do”.
For songs I’m less keen on, I plan on just getting familiar enough with the tab to do a play-through while reading the tab. I don’t plan on skipping any songs, because I consider it all part of the learning experience. In any music class I’ve ever taken there are songs I’ve not been keen on that I’ve had to learn and I still got some use out of them. Obviously people are free to do what they want.
I haven’t played Another Brick in the Wall since recording it a week or so though, because my wife is tired of hearing it for the time being and is specifically requesting me NOT to play that one when I get my bass out.
That is the model I was planning to follow. My goal is to at least be able to play in an open-mic night, but if more is in the cards, i.e. join a cover band, awesome, I will be a “Bass Badass” in whatever role comes my way.
I basically stop when its recorded so far.
I am working on other songs I would rather learn for myself along with Talking Bass Chord Tones course and the Ariane Cap book #1, so not much room for playing these again and again.
In a bit of a Motown vibe of late “Heatwave”, “Where Did Our Love Go”, and the dreaded “I Want You Back”. Planning on recording them all soon too in between.
For now, I stop practicing the song as soon as I’ve recorded it. I need to spend time on the course as well, or I will never complete it. Fortunately the next song is relatively easy, so hopefully it won’t take me as much time as Bad Moon Rising did.
I save all the songs I’ve ever learned into a playlist (actually multiple playlists, separated by tuning - E standard, drop D, etc), and when I am too tired to learn anything new, I just go back to these songs and play some of them. The list is not very long, so I usually play every song at least once per week.
I’d say “accidentally memorized”. My end goal is to be able to sight read on the fly, but in reality by the time I’m done with a song I usually have it memorized.
Me too, but there is a half-life to that memorization sticking. And it ain’t very long.
I took a few “all by ear” courses for sax and although they helped with ear training what I realized is sight reading on the fly is WAY more useful for my lack of memory so now super focused on connecting eyes to fingers on sax. This automatic connection is really helpful to develop.
I never fully learned the bass clef, still working off tabs right now but will soon sort out bass clef too and do the same.
Yeah eventually I’ll have to let some of them go, but as I mentioned my repertoire is not very big at the moment, so my brain is not at capacity yet
I’ve tried doing ear training as well, but my musical hearing is just atrocious. And my sight reading isn’t fast enough yet. And I can’t play without looking at my fretting fingers anyway. So yeah, I have a lot to work on… Playing from memory is pretty much my only option at the moment.
What I find works really really well, is find a simple song, or even better a part of a song you like, throw it in a program that will transcribe it to all 12 keys (or sit on the couch watching TV and transcribe it yourself), then play that song/lick in all 12 keys.
This way every last darn note is hit multiple times, from both flats and sharps. This hones your reading FAST, D#, Gb, Cb, B#, etc…all those odd ones we don’t nomrally see, you strat to nail them quickly.
Well, I’d like to remember them, the ability of playing an entire song on command is cool, whether to play with the track or others, I’d think that’s what we all want to do, obviously some I’ll be more interested in, but I’m still getting thru the course and that’s the priority… I’ll try to go back and review them now and then
I just peeked into this topic to see how it’s going, and I’m impressed by all the participation and great accomplishments. Each of you participants have much to be proud of. Keep up the good work.
