How do you learn a new tune...

[TonyL]

...not do you learn by tabs, score or by ear but do you learn one tune and then play it all day every day until you are note perfect (and possibly bored to tears by the tune) or do you try to learn 3 or 4 at the same time so that you have a bit of variety.

I've just taken up the guitar after a break of about 40 years (now retired early so have more time on my hands ;D) and have started re-learning the Shads tunes that I used to know in the sixties. The trouble is that learning one tune for about a week and only playing that one tune would drive my even more nuts than I am now. So I'm learning 5 tunes, some fairly easy (Peace Pipe, Wonderful Land) and a couple a bit more difficult. The problem is that my mind starts wondering while I'm playing one tune and I start thinking about the next one, the result is that my fingering goes to pot.

How do you more proficient players learn?

I must say that it is easier to learn by ear now than it was in the sixties, back then I was using a reel to reel tape recorder with pre recorded tapes, winding the tape backwards and forwards just about wore both out. Now with the PC and programs like Audacity it means that you can select a part of a tune and play that part over and over until you've got it. You can also slow down the tune and increase the pitch so that it sounds correct when you play it slowly.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Tony,
For me, I definitely have to concentrate on one piece only until I have got it as perfect as I want it, especially if it is an instrumental. I have just started learning a very difficult Chet Atkins tune that I hope to post on this site if or when I have mastered it. I don't yet know if I will succeed.
Strangely enough, when learning a new number with the band, it takes one play at a gig before I can concentrate on playing another new piece.
Sometimes we learn two or three numbers before we get to play them at gigs, and have to have about as many rehearsals to keep going over them to make sure they are still OK before playing them at a gig. That is much more difficult than introducing one new number at a time.
Regards,
Charlie

[martyn]

Interesting topic and I suspect a lot of the problems some of us regularly face are age related. When playing as a 17 year old our group played about twenty numbers in a row without a break, using a simple key change or short drum riff to mark the progression to the next. We'd then do the same again with the next batch and so on until we'd reach our mid-session break. After the break we'd repeat the process for the second half but using different songs or maybe some from the first half as requests.
The idea was to keep the audience dancing without giving them the chance to head back to their seats between songs and having to maybe look for a new partner for the next. This way the crowd was perpetually listening and dancing to a continuous onslaught of sound and this novel routine (at that time) proved extremely popular with the venues where we played. No pauses whilst one of us announced the next song (most folk really weren't that interested as they probably knew all of them anyway) - we just got stuck into them and bashed them out.

I realise playing song chords with just a few solo breaks in the middle were a lot easier to remember than solo tunes throughout, but it was continuos playing and key changing, aside from the differing chord patterns, tempos etc of each song and I just can't imagine now how the heck we remembered it all, given our repertoire was possibly fifty or so songs and only the keyboard player could read music, the rest of us played by ear.

Now I try to learn just one at a time, record it then revisit it later to see if I can remember how I played it. More often than not, if it's quite complex I can't and have to have a session relearning it.
This getting older malarkey's a pain in the wotsits at times . . . .

[spikestevens]

Hi Tony. Good thread.

My own take on it is that the process will differ from person to person. What suits one might not suit another, sort of thing.

I can have about 3 or 4 going if they're relatively simple, but if it's one with a lot to take on board I just work on it bit by bit. Go over the intro as many times as I can until I've got it off pat (thanks, Pat!), have a break, a cup of tea, write a begging letter to my bank manager, that sort of thing, then come back and try the next section.


Horses for courses, really. Find a way that suits you and go about it in that way. The ends justify the means, and all that.