What's your memorization method?

Down Up Dick said:

Stevepetergal and VegasGeorge, I couldn't agree more about fading memory but wait! It gets worse as you climb into your golden years. I especially hate it when I learn something well, and then two days later I can only stumble through it. ld:

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Well, I'm almost 70 right now. When do those "golden years" start?

Actually, memory problems are not confined to the elderly. I took piano lessons when I was in about the third grade. My teacher sponsored one of those stupid piano recitals to show off all her hard word to the parents. My "concert piece" was "On Top Of Old Smokey." I practiced, and practiced, and practiced that darn piece until I could play it with my eyes closed. I was sure I was going to ace it at the recital. The day before the recital, I sat down at the piano and couldn't even remember how it started. I had forgotten the whole thing, completely. It was gone, gone, gone. I tried to relearn it for the recital the next day, but didn't have much luck. I'm afraid my performance wasn't too good.

I'm really tired of trying to memorize certain tunes, yet I can memorize some tunes right away. I've been working on "The White Cockade" (Celtic flute piece) for years, but I still can't play it from memory.

Now, I'm trying something new. I'm teaching myself to play the Uke by ear. I can easily read and understand the song and the words, and then play along with the Uke. Strumming the Uke seems to help with the words, and the tune will be no sweat (I hope.).

I've played and sang or whistled lots of songs but mostly with music. And I'm still fighting those darned tabs.

If you're only 69, you've got a lot more weird things comin'. But keep lookin' for the golden years, that's what "they" call 'em. I've got a big doctor's appointment tomorrow morning; one never knows . . . ld:

I learn by playing music. I only memorize music I really love, so I generally play it over and over until I have it down because I enjoy playing it. It's a bit easier that way because sometimes I can just feel my way through and even on hard songs I want to learn the tough bits so there's a lot of motivation for me to memorize it. I also carry a uke with me everywhere, weather permitting, and play whenever I have a couple of free minutes.

Anyway... yesterday morning I was riding home from work on the bus and I had my tenor with me. The bus driver has been trying to get me to play something for her for a while and I had promised that I would play her a song when I found a gig bag for my tenor. Yesterday was the day. I played her a gag song I do that is 4 chords and 6 words. She laughed, and asked me to play her a real song, so I played Has Anybody Seen My Gal for her, and a happy little tune I play all the time about kids who kill people. Then I realized that I couldn't remember complete chords or lyrics to songs I was playing from memory just last month. My mind was just kinda blank and it was hard to remember how some of my favorite songs even started...

Last month I could play a 30 minute set from memory, but lately I've been working on a soft fingerpicking style and the only songs I could remember the words and chords too were too soft for her to hear over the bus. Right now I can do about 20 minutes worth of music with that style, but it was pretty useless under the circumstances.

I had to pull out my Android and play her a couple more songs from music I have stored there, which was fine I guess. It was enlightening to learn from experience how much I lost from just a short time of concentrating my efforts on a different style of play, though.

Some musicians just have a knack for memorizing and also playing by ear. I found that many of my friends who played cocktail piano bar had the best ears.
I have always had good ears, my background is in jazz as a trumpeter. When I was actively playing I could play a 4 hour job and never look at a piece of music. I also play keyboard reasonably well and play pretty much by ear. Keyboard players who are excellent sight readers have always intrigued me. I teach instrumental/classroom music in an arts magnet school. My colleague in the next room can sight read anything, watching her read two separate lines of music in two clefs just amazes me. She rarely makes mistakes. That said, her ears are not at the same level. She is largely trained in classical music. I found that the long hair classical players don't usually use their ears as much as they use their eyes. I don't mean it as a knock on classical musicians, more of an observation.
The late Thad Jones who was a great Jazz trumpeter, composer and arranger was once asked what the difference was between classical and jazz musicians. His response was that classical musicians take directions while jazz musicians make directions. I think that the ability to memorize and play by ear depends largely on how we are trained early on.

fretie said:

So what's the easiest way for you to memorize a uke piece, chord melody or fingerstyle specifically?

Then a few months ago I started on a couple of new pieces using tutorials that I found on YouTube where uke players actually demonstrated and visually displayed the progression of notes and chords in a piece.

I could not believe how much faster I learned a piece 'by heart' when following this type of tutorial. So, obviously the visual demonstration stuck with me so much more quickly and with less effort than trying to recall numbers on a sheet of paper.

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Can you tell us the YouTube/Vimeo videos that you are using? I noticed that you listed one of them in the thread, but are there others that you find particularly useful?

Thanks.