learning songs - your experiences...

[bigdawg]

I may be in a position soon where Ive got to learn a lot of songs very quicky (30+), to-date the way I learn songs is a bit at a time, but like a lick library dvd, so Ill do say the intro until Ive got it down perfectly and then move onto the next bit, and this way I can prob have 2 or 3 on the go at the same time.

the other way I can think if is try it all the away through doing the bits you can do and work on it as a whole song not as parts, my only concern here is that I could get overawed by the thing and end up giving up on it...

how do you guys do it???

[ambientnoize]

I can't say i've had to learn as much as 30 songs at once, probably 10 was the most at one time.

I firstly learned the basic chords of the rhythm of the song, so if i got totally stuck i'd have some knowledge to improvise over. Then with the difficult parts i took them slowly, using either Guitar Pro files or the actual song to play along with.

I couldn't work on 3 songs at a time, but that's just me. I found it more accomplishing to master one song at a time, and then that drove me to do some more.

I'd try and vary the difficulty and time consumption if i were you, if you try all the hard ones first you'll give up.. likewise if you do all the easy ones first you'll think you're doing awesome and then hit a brick wall when it becomes more difficult to learn quickly.

Good luck mate

[Chinster]

It's good to have a couple of songs on the go so you have something to hop across to when you get bored/hit a wall.

Any more than seriously trying to learn 2 might be asking for trouble though, memory is a funny thing, it likes lots of repetition and if you are learning more than that then that repetition is severely diluted.

I think

[JaseMorris]

30, feck! Of course, it depends on what those 30 are - you may already know some, and learning 30 blues songs is going to be relatively simple as they are mostly variations on a handful of basic repeating themes.

[bigdawg]

the songs all but a couple I know very well from listening to them prob for the best part of 30 years (I know playing them is a total different kettle of fish), so from reading tab Im pretty much in tune already.

Theyre basically for a new covers band doing a mix of Jam who small faces steve cropper rolling stones (US) blues and motown bits and tbh I dont think Ive got a cats hope in hell of getting the job but at the very least Ill get to learn a few new songs

[clare_bear]

I like to roughly learn a song all the way through (because I'm impatient!), then fill in the tricky parts and try to improve it. I find it useful to learn the song's structure and then when I've learnt the verse or chorus, I know I've cracked say a third of the song!

If I was you, I'd try to crack a couple of easier ones so you can tick them off the 'to learn' list, then start thinking about any trickier ones. I'd probably work on the tougher bits of a tricky song whilst learning an easier one for a bit of a break and some confidence boosting!

I've discovered that the more songs you learn, the more efficient you get at learning them. I think my memory for songs is imroving too, but I will randomly forget parts of a song I've played masses of times sometimes at rehearsal

Good luck with it.

[bigdawg]

just out of interest clare how many songs does your band cover...??

[Grunfeld.]

I did 26 songs in a week on joining a covers band for the first time. The notion of knowing the song perfect had to go out the window.

I just learned all of the songs roughly -- i.e. got the structure down so I knew how many verses, choruses, etc. Learned the intros and endings roughly too. Then kept on playing them till I had it so I wouldn't fall on my arse at the gig.

The solos I learned were just any signature licks plus a mental note of how to fill in the missing bars.

Did alright, and all the material got a lot tighter over the next few weeks.

[bigdawg]

I think thats what Im going to have to do - fortunately the solos for most of these things are the easiest parts townshend and weller were never fantastic soloists...

[clare_bear]

Originally Posted by bigdawg

just out of interest clare how many songs does your band cover...??

We're up to 26, I think.