Memorization

[HonketyHank]

Does the memorization of tunes get easier as one's technical skills improve?

I ask because I just feel somewhat frustrated spending so much time with memorizing stuff that I 'know' how to play if I have the music or tabs in front of me. There are so many neat tunes to learn and here I am spending a month of boring repetition just to get The Swallowtail Jig down and memorized.

How does memorization work anyway? I guess you do have to have the skill to play the piece first. Do you 'remember' chunks or notes or fingering sequences? Or do you just get to the point where you hear the tune in your head and it just flows out of your fingers? Gosh that would be nice, if true, and if attainable by mere mortals.

This Newbie needs some support from the old codgers here.

[Drew Streip]

Does the memorization of tunes get easier as one's technical skills improve?

How does memorization work anyway? I guess you do have to have the skill to play the piece first. Do you 'remember' chunks or notes or fingering sequences? Or do you just get to the point where you hear the tune in your head and it just flows out of your fingers?

I think it's half muscle memory, and half intimately knowing the tune. When I was studying classical saxophone with difficult passages, my teacher gave me a few tricks:

• Find the "target" notes where the melody lands on a strong tone
• Break it down, measure by measure, note by note.
• Memorize a measure, then add the next note so you start remembering and anticipating the melody
• Think about how the notes fit the chords. Is the melody based around arpeggios (chord tones) or does it resemble a scale?
• Play different rhythms. If it's straight eighth notes, swing it. If it's naturally swung, straighten it out. Play it using triplets. This trains your fingers to be in the right place, even when the rhythm is wrong.

You'll eventually find that plenty of patterns at the ends of phrases resemble each other. Your fingers will find those easily. Then it's just remembering the notes in between!

[Kris N]

I'm also in the newbie boat when it comes to mandolin, but have played other instruments for years. Repetition has been the best way for me (others I'm sure have differing opinions), but that doesn't mean I learn each song or piece in the same amount of time. I've found that it all depends on if I've played those notes/chords before, how close it is to a previous piece/song I've learned, muscle memory, etc. It might take a day or two to memorize, then closer to a month for others. The amount of time I can devote also plays a huge part. I guess you would call that building the skill to play the piece.

Sometimes when I get frustrated with piece/song I'm memorizing, I take a break from it for a few days, then come back. I am surprised at what I remembered after giving my mind time to relax.

After all that, for me, once I get it, it's a tune in my head and it flows.

[billkilpatrick]

... This Newbie needs some support from the old codgers here.

This old codger tries to remember a "hook" to the tune - once that gets engrained it usually/sometimes/occasionally leads me into the rest of the tune. Another trick I use is to get the bass line down - that works sometimes as well. My reading skills, alas, are very basic - being able to follow notation at a glance must be wonderful ...

[Jared Heddinger]

I think the WAY people memorize music varies vastly from person to person but I can attest, at least in my own experience that music gets easier to memorize across the board the more you play.

You eventually reach a point where you stop needing to memorize fingerings and instead memorize sounds which speeds up the process, and then when you memorize scales and chords the process speeds up even more since you can see that every melody is just a by-product of a scale or mode.

[Steve Repinec]

A while back I stumbled on a website called Brainjo (clawhammerbanjo.net) that gets into details about how memorization works in the brain, how best to practice to enable memorization etc. It reads like a set of book chapters on the neuroscience of learning music. Back then the entire site was free but he is now charging an access fee. It is worth a visit, there is still some free stuff and you may want to pay and get access. It was very interesting and I adjusted some of my practice habits based on the chapters.

Having said that, it still takes time and repetition to burn it into your brain. Some songs I have to practice for many months to be able to play then well in a jam. Because I still have the work thing getting in the way of my mando playing, I often prioritize and cut some out so that I can work on others, usually based on what is coming up in the jams I go to.

[Ky Slim]

Does the memorization of tunes get easier as one's technical skills improve?.

Yes, and technical skills should start to improve as you learn (or memorize) new tunes. I like the idea that each tune learned makes then next tune easier but it takes time. Also, this is most true with related tunes. Like, Swallowtail will make Irish Washerwoman easier just like Big Mon will make Salt Creek easier.. Good Luck!

[Steve Repinec]

In reference to my earlier post, the section on effective practice is still free on the Brainjo site:

https://clawhammerbanjo.net/the-immu...tive-practice/

As you read just think 'mando' wherever he writes 'banjo' :-)

[HonketyHank]

I have been a big fan of Josh Turknett and his Brainjo methods for a couple of years now. I will have to go back and reread. Thanks for bringing him up.

[Bill Foss]

I agree it gets easier the more you work at it. One thing that helps me is to listen over and over to the tune until it's stuck in my head and I can hum it without effort (I call this the "pre-soak"). Whether you are learning the tune from notation, tab or by ear, I find this really helps. It becomes a simpler matter of transferring what is in your head to your fingers and the fret board.

[Mandobart]

I've been playing music for almost 45 years, starting on classical violin in grade school. There are very few songs that I learned from sheet music that I've memorized. However, I started learning bluegrass fiddle tunes at age 13. Jerry would show me tunes (I listened and watched as he played). Then I played them back for him to critique. He sent me home with cassette tapes each lesson. Those tunes that I learned by ear came right back to me 30 some years later when I first picked up a mandolin. It is still true today - I don't forget the tunes I learn by ear. I have books full of great tunes, but if I learn them off the sheet music I don't memorize them as readily. My advice for anyone wanting to be able to quickly memorize a tune is to learn it by ear. This will also help train your ear so you will eventually be able to play whatever you hear in your head. Yes its done by many of us mortals.

[Bill Foss]

My advice for anyone wanting to be able to quickly memorize a tune is to learn it by ear. This will also help train your ear so you will eventually be able to play whatever you hear in your head. Yes its done by many of us mortals.

I agree completely and recommend it.

[Bill McCall]

I think it's half muscle memory, and half intimately knowing the tune. When I was studying classical saxophone with difficult passages, my teacher gave me a few tricks:

• Find the "target" notes where the melody lands on a strong tone
• Break it down, measure by measure, note by note.
• Memorize a measure, then add the next note so you start remembering and anticipating the melody
• Think about how the notes fit the chords. Is the melody based around arpeggios (chord tones) or does it resemble a scale?
• Play different rhythms. If it's straight eighth notes, swing it. If it's naturally swung, straighten it out. Play it using triplets. This trains your fingers to be in the right place, even when the rhythm is wrong.

This is good advice, similar to how I learn tunes, and if you break the tune down into short phrases, maybe 2 or four measures depending on how the tune lays out, it'll become much more manageable. Most tunes use a fair amount of repetition, so as you recognize that you will see there are a smaller number of phrases to learn. Of course, learning the melody so you can hear it in your head is a very powerful tool. As they say, if you can't sing it (not necessarily out loud), you can't play it.

[Beanzy]

It could be worth your while to have a read of this article by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh on "linear versus poetic learning" http://www.ictm.ie/?p=1632

[Jim Garber]

I find that the longer I play (over 4 decades) the easier it is to memorize. It especially helps if I have the tune in my head and remember what key it is played in. Then I can almost see where my fingers need to go without having an instrument in my hand. So I recommend also getting to the point where you can hear it in your head and sing it out loud. Tunes I want to learn I burn to a CD and play in my car so I have them ingrained in my brain and ears. Then I lay them to get the ingrained in my fingers and hands.

[catmandu2]

Absolutely - 'ear' playing will often assist in expediting memorization. Play along with recording, then as soon as possible start playing bits of it - phrase by phrase - without the assistance of the recording; build it up piece by piece - it's just puzzle


And don't fret Hank - eventually after enough repetition, most everything is on 'automatic' anyway, and the challenge then becomes yet more cognition, though in another area of the brain: to minimize the repetition, imbuing with feeling, and trying to play it *like the first time*

[catmandu2]

It could be worth your while to have a read of this article by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh on "linear versus poetic learning" http://www.ictm.ie/?p=1632

Indeed. If you haven't yet learned - a poetic disposition can help in many facets of living. Music and playing instr is a wonderful analog - we're so blessed to have. *don't forget, years from now when you can barely remember being consumed with the basic mechanics, the impetus to impart fineness and beauty will be your new compulsion.

[bobby bill]

•Find the "target" notes where the melody lands on a strong tone
•Break it down, measure by measure, note by note.
•Memorize a measure, then add the next note so you start remembering and anticipating the melody
•Think about how the notes fit the chords. Is the melody based around arpeggios (chord tones) or does it resemble a scale?
•Play different rhythms. If it's straight eighth notes, swing it. If it's naturally swung, straighten it out. Play it using triplets. This trains your fingers to be in the right place, even when the rhythm is wrong.

This is all good advice. And fiddle tunes such as Swallow Tail Jig fit this kind of analysis well. The A part is typically eight measurers and those can often be broken down into two four measure phrases that start the same and have a slightly different ending. In STJ, the first two measures are essential an arpeggio of the e minor chord. The next two, an arpeggio of the D major chord. Break it down into these smaller chunks and then put them back together. Force yourself to play without the music and then when you have to cheat and take a peak, note where your memory lapsed. If I find myself repeatedly lapsing in the same place, then I might work on that 3-4 note transition exclusively for a bit. And to answer your question, I memorize tunes much much quicker than I used to.

[BJ O'Day]

Those tunes that I learned by ear came right back to me 30 some years later when I first picked up a mandolin. It is still true today - I don't forget the tunes I learn by ear. I have books full of great tunes, but if I learn them off the sheet music I don't memorize them as readily.

I've had this same experience. My instructor shows me a tune and I practice from a recording. My ear is not so sharp. I need to know what note we're starting on. Then I can get most of the rest by ear. If I practice diligently on the first 2 days after a lesson I will easily memorize the tune.

I have learned half a dozen by myself from notation. Much more difficult to memorize. I have to concentrate on a single phrase and put away the sheet music. It takes me much longer to "know" the tune.

BJ

[farmerjones]

DW says I'm 54. I've played this or that since 1980 something. I try to stay curious. Buy a gadget. Here a new tune. Play with new folks.
I started off learning ten tunes by ear/memory. Ten tunes turned into twenty. That turned into thirty, that topped out around eighty. Then I sat and thought, "There are thousands of songs & tunes. I'll never know them all. Why am I doing this?"
So from there I went and tried to simply learn stuff as I heard it. This sounds complex but it's basically just parroting. BUT! This whole time, I'm learning bits and bites of Music Theory. So this supplements my ear and memory. So a Waltz in C is . . . .there's only so much that is a Waltz. A bit of creativity, music theory, and a good ear/memory, and Bob's your Uncle. The caveated is this: I may be able to speak in Bluegrass, Swing, Country, or a bit of Old Time fiddle, but I can't speak Classical, or strange "dialects." One never knows everything. It's very much like a language. Some tell the same story word for word. Some think that it's better to change it up for timing, pace, and delivery. I don't think in terms of "getting rusty." Because that would be like getting rusty at talking. Sometimes it does seems easier to play than talk. It's more fun to develop musical vocabulary than lingual. Aurally, one can talk all day and not be understood. If you get amongst like minded musicians, all that melts away.

[sblock]

First, ABSOLUTELY YES, the process of committing a piece to memory ("memorization") gets easier and easier as you get better and better on your instrument. There can be little doubt about that. Whether you realize it or not, you are slowly training yourself on how to remember music, and not just how to play it!

Second, YES, the process of physical repetition -- obtained by any combination that you like of individual practice and performance/playing with other people -- makes the process of memorization much, much easier. And the same goes for hearing the piece, in recordings or in performance. I can memorize new pieces I've heard on record or in jams or onstage much faster than those for which I only have sheet music. Familiarity with the tune is everything!

Third, YES, the best and quickest way to memorize a piece is not to play it from some sheet music, but to learn it by ear. You will learn it faster. You will remember it longer, too.

Fourth, it may not necessarily pay to think of this process as brute-force "memorization," in the narrow sense that you are somehow remembering it note-by-note -- which is the way you might read it from sheet music, for example. It pays instead to commit things to what's often called "physical memory" (by dint of repetition), and also to remember things like the "lines of a melody" and the "harmonic structure" (e.g., chord progression). Yes, we store things "in chunks" and "by association." We just don't store the individual notes in our brains a similar way that sheet music -- or tab -- records the notes on paper. At least I don't, anyway!

[Kevin Stueve]

millions of college marching band students and classical musicians memorize music by reading standard notation. I think there is a misconception that we are strange ducks and memorize what the notes look like on the page. We do not. We memorize it the same way the "real musicians learn by ear" crowd memorize it. We learn to hear and reproduce phrases by a combination of musical and muscle memory. My daughter (degree in piano) once had a teacher tell her that if you are struggling to memorize it helps to learn the song out of order. In other words memorize the last phrase. Then learn the phrase that precedes the last phrase ...

[Mandoplumb]

I play and sing in a bluegrass band, both" by ear" though a certain amount of by ear playing is memorization. I have done that for 50 years. I played in the school band in high school where I got what musical notation and theory that I know, but have never used that directly in BG. A couple of years ago I started singing in the church choir by written music. I can't remember any of that if the music isn't in front of me. If the music doesn't have a tenor part written and I want one, I can practice one by ear a couple times and I've got it. Guess it's what you get used to doing.

[NEH57]

....and for my two'pennuth Hank, being in a similar position and stage as you, I find the best way to learn the tune I am 'on' is to start learning the next one ( or just another one )
The one I am straining and struggling with loses it's "must learn" pressure and all the natural memory that the initial learning effort has imposed seems to flood in when I 'drop back' on it after moving to something else ( which I invariably find equally frustrating initially ). "We" know we know it because we have thrashed it umpteen times.

I look at it in the same way as riding a motorbike. When you ride a bike, you get on and off you go. If you decide to start looking at each individual activity and position and "thinking" about the processes involved and all the multiple things that are coordinating to keep you going and upright, all of sudden it is likely to start getting 'cranky'.

Every time I start learning a new tune and get to a boredom overload on it, I drop back into the last tune I was learning ( or an earlier one.....) and they just seem to 'flow' ( until the little red light goes on & it all goes for a ball of chalk, again ).

[HonketyHank]

I just finished reading beanzy's link on 'poetic learning' vs 'linear learning' and found it interesting on several counts. Perhaps most notably, Baron Collins-Hill follows the 'poetic learning' model almost exactly in his lessons at mandolessons.com. Me, I'm an engineer kind of person - always have been. That means linear. I am getting over that, thanks in part to my exposure to Baron and his lessons.

Kevin's mention of marching band music reminds me of just how linear I was even back in high school. I must have played all the fight songs and marching tunes in our repertoire hundreds of times. But I had to have the sheet music propped up in front of me. Couldn't memorize it (or maybe too lazy to memorize it). I mean, how hard is "On Wisconsin"? The dot on the staff in black and white automatically made me hold down the right keys, no problem, but I had to have that dot. And being a (pre-) engineer, why bother memorizing a stupid string of dots when somebody has them all written down for you, nice and neat?

Oh well.

Keep the comments coming. I am really getting a lot out of all of them.