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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I’m not sure about this phenomenon, but I can generally memorize the music of a song after one or two passes, sometimes even in the middle of the first pass, but I have to make a concentrated effort to memorize the words. It has been like this for as long as I can remember. It might go back to my dancing days when we had to listen so intently to the music and count like crazy. Maybe it started when I was first learning to play, which was all instrumental surf music. When I listen to a new song, I rarely hear the words...only the music. It takes a few passes for me to hear the words. I can’t stand to turn pages on a music stand, so for multiple paged music, I redo it in one or two pages with nothing but measures and chord inscriptions. There are no notes whatsoever on my sheets, so they are pretty much useless to real musicians. It has become a joke in the band. Honestly, most songs we do I don't have a clue what the words are. As a result, SWMBO (a classically trained professional singer) thinks I'm pretty shallow. It isn’t that I can’t memorize words as I’ve done much stage work over the years and had many lead roles (SWMBO and I actually met on stage after being cast in leads opposite one another), but memorizing notes is just easier. Phenomenally easier. Anybody else experience this? What is easier for you...notes or lyrics? |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | It depends on the song, each can be equally difficult. If I had to lean I'd say the music is easier to get. |
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Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I wish I were so fortunate. I can remember the melody almost the first time. It takes me thousands of repetitions to get the guitar music down. The lyrics I can remember, in part, after the first pass. Then it takes me many times to memorize all the lyrics. Then I put them together and forget parts of both. Then I get everything together for awhile, but as soon as I have to play in public, everything goes blank. |
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Posts: 3969
| Usually music - at least that's how I try to learn a new song. Get the music down first, then learn the lyrics. |
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Posts: 3411
Location: GA USA | I say it's age. I used to know every line of every song on every album I had. Now I have songs that I've listened to over and over, and I have no idea what the lyrics are. |
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Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | For me, definitely, the music is easier to get. But I'm my no means a guitar virtuoso. I have to learn both at the same time. I like songs with lyrics. |
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Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | John would say, "The words."
Paul would say, "The music."
George would say, "The theme."
Ringo would say, "One! Two! Three! FOUR!" |
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Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | I can struggle with both at times.
The only time it really matters for me is if we are playing for someone. It's like a thrill ride at times. I can be in the middle of one verse and all of a sudden I start freaking out that I won't remember the next verse. I have to remember to think to myself, "Don't worry... when you get to it the words (or chord) will be there and you'll be okay". Sure enough, sometimes within a micro second of when I need it, there it is.
Brian & I have talked about this. You need to be aware where you're at right now and where you are going to be maybe a half second from now. If you try to look just a little to far ahead, you're doomed. |
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Location: NJ | It's called "Playing on a Need-To-Know Basis" . . . |
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Posts: 843
Location: CA | I think it's a predisposition, something you're born with (or without). Like someone who can easily learn different languages.
I'm not a musician in any sense of the word. Always picked up stuff by just listening to song and trying to copy it (if I liked it). But lyrics stick in my brain like it's flypaper. Was playing with some guys the other night and one started an old G. Lightfoot tune that, I'm not kidding, I hadn't heard nor sung in probably 20 years. I breezed through and didn't leave out a single line. Even I could barely believe it. Of course, I can't do this the first time I hear a song, or even the 10th, but once it's in there, it's in there. So melody and chording are always a bit harder for me.
Naturally, I can't for the life or me remember if SWMBO likes her burgers well done and the steak medium — or the other way around. |
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Location: Jet City | I just recently have been attempting to sing, so I'd have to say music is easiest for me. |
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Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | I can usually get the chord progression down with no problem, but have to work at the lyrics. When we play the Friday nite jam, there are no charts in front of us..... |
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Posts: 2711
Location: Vernon CT | I ususally pick up the "music" fairly quickly.
The Lyrics, Forget about it!!! It takes forever to remember them. |
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Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | What do you mean by learning the music? If all you are talking about is learning the melody, figuring out what key it's in and playing the chords, I can almost always do that the first time. I don't know what the key is, but I can generally pick up the right chords by the sound of the melody.
If you're talking about figuring out the melody on the guitar, or learning the individual notes rather than the chords, that takes me forever. Santana's stuff for example. I can carry a full song note for note in my head without ever learning the lyrics (especially the ones in Spanish), but I've never been able to convert that to guitar. Other times I hear some guitar intro on the radio and I know that it starts in an A or a C or whatever and I can go home and play it reasonably well on the first try.
All my life I've sung along to the radio, but there are songs that I've sung a million times to the radio and I can't remember the next verse if I have to sing it by myself.
It will be fun to literally compare notes at the NW Gathering next week. I'm expecting lessons and I hope I learn more than I did from any of the golf lessons I've received. |
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Posts: 486
Location: North Carolina | I've been doing this for so long, I can't tell you how I memorize the music, I just do. As for the lyrics, when I used to do theater I memorized dialog and long speeches by projecting these images in my head of what the words suggest. Sometimes they were nonsensical, but they always created an association. Hope this helps. |
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Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Another thing I just remembered. I seem to be able to memorize quickly the bass runs of a song, possibly because I sang bass in school so I was accustomed to listening to the low notes. Often that helps lead me quickly to the chords. Often, such as with some Clapton stuff, I can't figure out how he plays the bass note with the chord that he's playing. Then I consult YouTube. |
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Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Matt Smith gave us a hint in adlibbing leads at Amelia...sing the notes while you play (be sure to turn away from the mic when you do this!). In time, you'll memorize the entire fretboard, or as much of it as you need. Playing a lead line then becomes as easy as singing the notes. You can make up your own melody or counter melody within the chord structure and you don't really have to memorize anything. Singing words is tougher. |
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Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | For me, memorization of both vocals and guitar part is easy (to the point of being automatic) if I learn a song by ear.
But if I learn it off of paper (tab sheet, chord diagram, whatever) then I find I can never remember it at all. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I've heard that's how they teach (ie singing) ragas and tabla rhythyms in india. |
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Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Originally posted by moody, p.i.:
I can usually get the chord progression down with no problem,..... This from a guy who doesn't believe in the forth chord! |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Now here's the second part of all this, see if anyone can relate to this part.
I can practice a song for a couple of weeks, take a day off and it's gone, or big parts of it.
I find that once I've played it in front of people(Wed nights) I can remember it much more clearly. That happen to anyone else?
If I don't keep after it the words will slip away but the music usually stays. Of course we all are singing from lyric sheets since it's a new song every week so there's always help for the words. I never put down chords or and music notes to help in performance. Sometimes I'll put them in the book afterwards so I'll remember them 4-5 months down the road. |
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Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | When you remember songs you learned 30 years ago and forget the ones you learned last week it means you're old. |
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Posts: 2241
Location: Simpsonville, SC | music for me...I have a hard time remembering my name...
Trader Jim |
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Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I believe a performance helps memory. It's a little like in medievil days, before paper was common, when they would walk a small boy around the property and then punch him in the mouth. He would remember the boundary forever. Similarly, the anxiety of the performance charges the memory. Well that's my theory ... |
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| I have no problem with memorizing lyrics and I'm old. As for the music it depends on how complicated it is. |
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July 2005
Posts: 3411
Location: GA USA | Originally posted by Mark in Boise:
When you remember songs you learned 30 years ago and forget the ones you learned last week it means you're old. Exactly! So I'm old. |
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Location: Sunshine State, Australia | ProfBB, I remember in my first year of high school, one of my teachers asked the class if they listened to the music or the lyrics. I was the ONLY one in a class of 25 that said 'music'.
Mark, I used to play bass before acoustic, and I also find that finding the bass lines helps enormously in working out songs from scratch.
But... that was then, this is now, I'm currently struggling with remembering both chord progressions AND lyrics as I approach the big five oh. |
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Location: closely held secret | Music. I have trouble remembering the words to songs I write... |
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November 2005
Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | Originally posted by an4340:
I believe a performance helps memory. It's a little like in medievil days, before paper was common, when they would walk a small boy around the property and then punch him in the mouth. He would remember the boundary forever. Similarly, the anxiety of the performance charges the memory. Well that's my theory ... When audience members hit me in the head with beer bottles, I find my memory is very clear. |
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Posts: 1017
Location: Budd Lake, NJ | For me, the chord progressions themselves are the easiest; after that, getting the melody exactly, and lastly the lyrics. Once I've got all three, though, it's generally there for good.
When I took music theory in college, in music dictation class we figured out the melody first, the bass second, and then filled in everything else in; that has stood me in good stead over the years.
I wonder how much over-all learning style (visual, auditory or kinestetic) or dominant "handedness" affects the way we learn music; I'm an auditory learner--I can't sight read worth two cents, and tab gives me fits, but I can memorize fairly easily.
--Karen |
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Location: GA USA | Me too, John, and like a dummy I wrote 5 verses to "Beggin Jim" for the jam. |
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March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | When you think about it, there are only so many chords in one key. There are only so many notes in a scale. Compare that with how many words are in the dictionary. No wonder the lyrics are harder to remember. Combine that with the fact that after so many years of playing guitar, most of us are paying a lot more attention to the music than the words. There are songs from the 60's that I've been listening to or playing all my life, and some of them - I don't even know what the song is about! I've always had a singer to worry about that for me. |
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Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | There are songs from the 60's that I've been listening to or playing all my life, and some of them - I don't even know what the song is about! Ain't that the truth!
Two examples just off top of my head...
White Room
Two of Us
And you've got to sing them like you know what the heck you're talking about. |
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May 2005
Posts: 486
Location: North Carolina | Unless the meaning/message of the song is absolutely out front in plain view, I'm as dense as it gets in trying to understand these things. For the most part, I don't really care. For me it's about the music. |
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What's easier: music or lyrics?