Learning a piece of music

[Classic Banjo]

Hello everybody

Another newbie question. 

I find it hard remembering how to play a piece of music from beginning to end. Frankly, even just remembering the chord accompaniments is a challenge for me.

Can you suggest ways/systems that might achieve this?

Thank you

Eric 

[Joel Hooks]

The best advice I can give is also likely though of as the biggest cliche... Practice!

Oh yeah, get a metronome too if you don't have one.  I like the "mojo" of the swinging clockwork wooden ones with bell to mark the first beat. (a tip, cut a little square of sticky back craft felt an stick to the bell.)

The play the piece until you "know it," or it is in your head.

I have found that certain pieces will "click," and others I just cannot get to work.  If I don't like a piece I do not try to learn it.

I am interested in what Jody might add.

[Trapdoor2]

One of the 'tricks' I have used over the years is to figure out the smallest repeatable element (1 measure, 2 measures, etc., etc.) that you can stumble thru and simply do that element overandoverandoverandover.

Sometimes I have to simply concentrate on being able to do the right-hand movements...so I figure out a way to make whatever it is into a repeating structure...and go after that.

Once I have the small repeat ingrained, I move to the next element. Then I join the two and repeat that. It sometimes takes a lot of repetition...but I'll get there eventually.

I think that comes from my early learning of Scruggs style. Getting the RH licks into your fingers, etc. Then I concentrated on making the basic G-C-D chord forms over the full length of the neck...then combined the two, etc.

After you have a few years of playing under your belt, you can simply repeat an entire part (or the whole piece) until it is playable at speed. I like to challenge myself to play blind. Once I think I have a piece (or a part) memorized, I close my eyes and see if I can do it blind. That really helps me as I often have problems with being distracted. Squirrel!!

I love clockwork metronomes but I prefer ones I can run thru my headphones. Nobody else in the house has to hear the beat. I'm sure there's a phone app for that. ;-)

[Steve Harrison]

Why the need to play from memory? Once you become familiar with basic music theory and are able to sight read, all you need to know is on the score in front of you. Once you've mastered it, it's surprising how much of it  will stick in your memory. There really aren't any short cuts or quick fixes, just plenty of good old fashioned practice. Reading and playing from a score is the first and most necessary step. The same argument could be applied to those who only use tab. You need to be able to read it before you can learn it...Steve.

[Jody Stecher]

Joel, I'm very busy for the next week and may not have to time to chime in on much of anything.  I do 'preciate having my opinion valued. Well, briefly: most memorized music gets memorized sort of automatically. One hears the particular musical piece over and over and it lodges in the brain. Advertisers know this and that is why they hire people to write commercial "jingles" that sing the praises of their product. The person doing the remembering has to make no effort at all.  In order for that to happen the brain has to receive the melody through hearing. It is unlikely to happen by looking at dots. One has to practice over and over. In the case of classic banjo this can be done by reading the dots. One does not try to remember where to put one's fingers. That is not what it's about. One has already done exercises and has played enough simple melodies that one's brain totally equates the dots on the page with fingers at the appropriate frets. And the brain totally equates what is heard (one's own playing or someone else's) with fingering. One doesn't imagine the fingering. One simply knows. The aspiring banjoist, and the professional are alike in that at a certain point, after sufficient repetitions parts of the piece automatically are "heard" in the imagination. 

It is very rare for this to happen for an entire banjo solo. It usually happens a phrase at a time. And that is how to practice. A spoonful at a time. Not by the bucketful.

In the case of deliberate memorization it is same : the key is to commit to memory a phrase at a time. Our mental holding tanks are small. 

Sorry I've run out of time!

[Donna Stewart]

One wishes to chime in.  As another musician who first learned by ear and absorbed many thousands of tunes, "one" finds reading notation (of any sort) has proven to be a welcome release from the nasty business of improvisation.  

Seriously, the score on the music stand releases us from the time consuming and rigorous process of rote memorization, and gives the player a certain freedom from those memory lapses that visit more frequently as time marches on.  While memorization is not a bad thing, it's nice to have the occasional visual cue to rely upon and, while I actually perform from memory, I never fail to have the music stand as a shield against the possibility of odd objects hurled by the audience.

[Steve Harrison]

Hi Donna, The terror of advancing years! I find the ability to memorize tunes a lot more difficult now than it was 20 years ago, and like you, having the music in front of me is now a necessary fail safe.....Steve. 

Donna Stewart said:

One wishes to chime in.  As another musician who first learned by ear and absorbed many thousands of tunes, "one" finds reading notation (of any sort) has proven to be a welcome release from the nasty business of improvisation.  

Seriously, the score on the music stand releases us from the time consuming and rigorous process of rote memorization, and gives the player a certain freedom from those memory lapses that visit more frequently as time marches on.  While memorization is not a bad thing, it's nice to have the occasional visual cue to rely upon and, while I actually perform from memory, I never fail to have the music stand as a shield against the possibility of odd objects hurled by the audience.

[thereallyniceman]

Eric,

I don't agree with your summing up or some suggestions!

Some do, but I don't play with a score in front of me. Memorise is THE way. I learn from the printed score.. very slowly and repetitively until a section is implanted in my head. I then practise without the score, referring to it when I get lost. Eventually I can play through without looking and THEN I start to add the "feel" to the piece... the louds and softs, staccato and the occasional smile too!

One thing I can say is that in all my time playing and watching people play the banjo I have NEVER seen anyone who is playing from a score in front of them smile.

They are stony faced and gazing at the printed page as though their lives depend on it.  When committed to memory, although it is really only muscle memory in that your fingers know where to land next, the playing looks more confident, relaxed and feels MUCH better.

When a player smiles it adds to the performance for the audience as they feel the smile inside too.

Everybody to their own way, I guess!

p.s Grimaces and grinding of teeth count as smiles when I am playing. ;-)

[Steve Harrison]

Hi Ian, I pretty much do the same but the point I was trying to get over to Eric is that reading the music is the starting point from which all else follows. You have to be competent in reading the dots before you can memorize any tune...Steve.

[thereallyniceman]

I still don't agree Steve,

You DON"T need to be competent in reading the dots before you can play the banjo, that is what the "clues" on the scores are for.

When I first started to learn I knew NO music ..NONE, ZIPPO..but I was soon playing Morley Solos by memorising the 13 shape and positions. I was taught :"jump to 10P 421 play the chord and then the broken chord and lift a finger for the C on a Barre at 10P etc".

Soon you get used to jumping to the correct position and chord shapes around the fingerboard and even sooner being to recognise where the notes are on the fingerboard and how they relate to the dots.

I started to learn the notes on individual strings up to position 5, then to 7 then to 10 and then 12...then it simply repeats!

I can honestly say that I knew virtually NO music theory at the time I won all the banjo playing cups available in the BMG and BFFI rallies of the late 1970s !!!

I found that learning the music came SECOND. Probably this is why I memorise rather than sight read as my site reading is still poor..but I don't really care, as I can work it out slowly when learning pieces.

[Jody Stecher]

Sorry, Steve, it just ain't so. I doubt whether more than 90% of the world's musicians can read music. When it comes to banjo playing I doubt whether even a quarter of a percent are literate (can read dots). And they all memorize music with ease. It's because they listen that they can remember.  I have heard a lot of superb musicians who are literate. But the best musicians I have heard are ear players. The starting point is listening. The great literate players are the ones who listen. they listen to their own playing. They listen to their fellow musicians. One of the greatest assembly of musicians I ever heard was the San Francisco Symphony. This was a few years ago when I and two other banjoists were seated in front of them (photos and discussion are on this site). Let me tell you something. The coordination I heard from that orchestra came from one skill and one skill only and it wasn't reading. And it wasn't following the batton. It was from listening. 

Steve Harrison said:

Hi Ian, I pretty much do the same but the point I was trying to get over to Eric is that reading the music is the starting point from which all else follows. You have to be competent in reading the dots before you can memorize any tune...Steve.

[Donna Stewart]

Thank you Ian for your logical, systematic and impassioned description of your method, which is really nice.  But perhaps you'll permit me to add a few insights.

The banjo has a limited number of strings and a tuning that really favors the chordal approach.  Additionally, in order to play the notes essential to a piece that has an interesting melodic character and range, one must travel up and down the fingerboard, sometimes with great velocity.  Your method makes a great deal of sense as an approach to managing the mechanics.

But I have found that chordal playing (or even anticipation of a position) can rather stiffen the sinews of the left hand, in a sense, locking the otherwise independent fingers into place and impeding their flexibility.  This ultimately causes  mechanical response to be a bit tight. While learning a piece from the "position" perspective is effective, thinking melodically—or even polyphonicly—can unlock the fingers and inform them to fall into place with more independence. This approach is in line with the ideas of George Van Eps, son of the great banjoist Fred.

What does this have to do with memorization?  Everything.  Memorization involves response to a set of cues, whether internal (mental cues) or external (visual cues).  While I wholeheartedly agree that memorizing and eliminating the need to stare at the blasted notes offers the player the freedom to smile charmingly and exude real niceness while playing a demanding finger crunching piece, the visual cues on the page do not necessarily require that one set one's jaw in a determined grimace.  Notes on the page can be just that.  Notes on the page, there to remind the wayward memory of what comes next.  

Just an alternative perspective... 

[thereallyniceman]

Q.E.D.  "Everybody to their own way, I guess!"