How do you learn a song?

[Doug]

Alan's post about learning the song for IJ.  Got me thinking (Chris put out the fire).  I know how I learn a song wondering how others do it.

I'll rough out my steps and expand later as I should be going to bed. 

I get a copy of lyrics and basic chord structure (more later)

As soon as I can move through it (mistakes and all) I move it into the current folder where I have 10 or 12 songs that I play every day.

I play it once a day for how ever long it takes to make it adequate for my type audience.  10-100 days depending on the song.  From then on it's on a try to make it better than adequate.

The current folder may only have 2 new songs in it and the rest rotated in to polish and make sure I can still get to at least adequate if I need to play it.   

[Cosmic Wonder]

You know the scene in the Music Man when the towns elders catches Robert Prestons character and demand to hear the band play something? You gots to feel the music.

Mike

[RickW]

I don't learn songs, I learn pieces. I take them apart and analyze them for proper fingering, then make notes. I memorize a small section at a time. Once I memorize them, I play them for a bit, then forget them.

Don't do that much anymore.

[Dub]

I hadn't really thought about this question. Like others here (I assume) I know hundreds of songs. I don't keep them in hard copy because, after all, I know them. I don't have a single learning strategy it depends entirely on the song.

I seldom undertake learning music I've never heard so by the time I decide to learn it I probably know most of the lyrics and the chord structure. So "learning" a new song is often just a matter of selecting a key, tightening up the lyrics and phrasing, and maybe coming up with a guitar part.

Once in a while the lyrics present a problem. There are a few songs that have taken me years to learn the lyrics for. “The Model Church” and “East Texas Red” come to mind. I'm good when the lyrics are logical but if the song is long and the order of phrases seemingly arbitrary, it takes longer. I've never tried to learn “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” for example.

We do some O’Carolan tunes (instrumentals) that I've never heard anyone else do. We do them for weddings and such. There, even though I'm familiar with what we do, we keep the score on a stand. Of course it isn't a show. We’re seated somewhere away from attention. We'd never use paper for a show.

Sometimes I'm learning a specific instrumental piece that is well enough known that I can't just make something up. In those cases I'll find a recording, or video of possible, and slowly take the piece apart measure by measure until I have the technique. After that I may change it some but only when I'm comfortable. The only time I write any of it down is for a student or workshop I'm giving.

[Russell Letson]

If I don't learn on stage when my partner throws a previously-unplayed tune at me (usually something not-too-complicated in the country or blues vein), I sit down with the music and have at it. And when I say "music," what I really mean is the words and chords, since I can't read spots. I have a small library of folios that cover most of the standards, and I have copies of the various Real Books on the computer (though those are not always reliable and also lack words). Once I understand the harmonic structure (which I can usually hear but not explain), I find a vocal key and proceed to simplify the chords (often full of piano voicings and extensions in the sheet music) enough to fit it to my limitations.

I make charts that let me follow the structure--4 bars to the line, with sections and repeats conventionally marked, but nothing like the crowded orchestral charts I've seen. I'm not too proud to set out a chart to remind me of an odd or asymmetrical structure--"Cherokee" and "Girl from Ipanema" both took me forever to learn, and even after playing them for nearly a decade I still feel safer with my little pocket-notebook chart somewhere in my eye-line.

[majorminor]

I ask Bill.

[Deleted]

I look up videos of Esteban and see if I can learn the song from him. If it's not there, it's not worth learing.

[billhammond]

I ask Lonnie.

[millring]

I ask Mm.

[Rob Hanesworth]

I don't know. I haven't learned a song yet.

[majorminor]

Doug - have you though about cutting a deal with Satan?

[brucemacneill]

I only learn songs I like which means I probably know the lyrics before I start figuring out how or if to play it. I can read music but with my eyesight I can't read it and play at the same time. Most "Songs" I can find the chords for and then work out any extra melody notes by ear. Classical stuff is one or two bars at a time for a long time. Folkie stuff is pretty automatic by ear. Some of the jazz standards I play are from muscle memory, lots of weird chords I knew in 1964 but if you wanted to know what they are now I'd have to give it some thought, lots of thought. When I was "Learning" "Windmills of your mind" a couple of years ago, it was tough, with no real sense to the lyrics and some weird jazz chords. It was an interesting exercise though and when I got it it felt like an accomplishment.

[Lonnie]

May 22, 2015 12:59:27 GMT -5 billhammond said:

I ask Lonnie.

I picked up and reworked a trick from a famous sculptor. I figure out all the chords and melodies and words that aren't in the song, and then I play what's left.

[millring]

I have songs implanted.

[coachdoc]

Slow. Painstaking. Repetition.
My memory ain't what it usta be.

[coachdoc]

Well. Just finished typing out the words to EJ's song. Love 'em. Here ya go Doug. I'll be singing them a few times tonight. 

Thinkin' about things E.J. Trettier

When I was twenty, I was walking down this road
And I was thinkin', about things
Pretty girls and tight blue jeans
Saturday nights, making scenes
And I saw a dream that looked like you.

When I was thirty, I was walking down this road
And I was thinking, about things
Some of them wife and child
What if I'm still too wild
Then more dreams came into view

When was forty, I was walkin down this road,
And I was thinkin, about things
Feels like I work too hard
But I just can't let down my guard
Driving those dreams to come true

When was fifty, I was walkin down this road,
And I was thinkin, about things
Takin stock of how I've done
Some battles lost, battles won
But I had a dream to pull me through

No I'm an old man, and I'm walkin down this road
And I am thinkin. about things
Most of them days gone by
But I've no reason to cry
I'm living the dream, I still have you.

[Village Idiot]

If I want to learn a new song it's because I like the lyrics, and because I think to my simple self "I could play that". So I learn the lyrics and the melody by listening a few times, and when I've got that down I sit down with the guitar and figure out how to play the darned thing, which I can usually do, because the songs I like are generally nothing more than three or four cowboy chords.

[coachdoc]

This ones a little tricky for me as it is too high a register for me in G, and other keys don't catch some of those easy inversions so well. Play it in C on the 5th fret or D on the 3rd, fits my vocal range, but messes with first position chords.