General Music Chat

Over the years I've noticed a consistent pattern to learning a new song, even a simple one I wrote myself (which is all I play anyway). I'm noticing the same pattern redoing old songs now, but more accelerated because I already know them.

I'll write a song, playing various sections of it, writing lyric snippets etc. Then, I'll sit down with the lyrics alone, and start filling in more lines, creating structure, hearing the chord changes that go with each part in my head. Once that's done. I'll throw together a simple drum track with breaks only where I need to know when the change ups are coming. Then, sit down and "learn" to play it on the guitar.

Here's the pattern:

Step one: Screw up a few times on the intro, first verse and chorus, until I get that section right.

Step two: Fly through the first section, and repeat the screw up pattern on the second verse/chorus section a few times, until I get that far through it.

Step three: Repeat steps one and two with the third section for a little bit, until I've played the whole song trough once or twice with only a few hitches.

Step four: Start screwing up the first section worse than ever.

Step five: Put the guitar away for a while, and don't think, listen to, or do anything with music for at least a few hours, or maybe a day.

Step six: Break out the guitar and wail through the entire song once without a hitch.

Step seven: Arm the track for recording and do it again easy as pie.

With my older songs, the process is exactly the same, just a lot faster.

It's not the screwing up part that interests me. I'm not bothered by that. Screwing up is part of the process.

It's that odd "breakthrough" period that only seems to happen during NOT playing or think about it at all. It's almost as if my brain has to work on it subconsciously for a while. I know damned well that once I start repeating the screwing up on the song's first section, it's time to stop for a while. When I come back to it though, it's like something happened in my head while I was away. Like I couldn't do it before, and now all of a sudden it just flows like melted butter.

Do the rest of you have this kind of experience teaching yourself new stuff? Is your experience different? I'm curious what works for you.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I step away from the music even I am not dealing with a mental block. You need to keep the brain fresh. Everything needs a coffee break.

When I'm home ( N.C. ) and recording, I find I always have to clear the mind to get it right. I'll walk along the river but.... I will bring a Native Flute w/ and just play along with the sounds of the river. Come back to the studeo and It's good to go.

Does not happen to me. I get a line from my wandering mind while I am doing something totally unrelated to music. Maybe from something droning on from the TV generating noise in the background, or just a random thought.

Then I consider it and put a melody to the first line. Then I try to write other lines in cadence to the rhythm of that first line until I have a verse or chorus. If it isn't going well it goes into a song starts folder on my computer. If it keeps flowing I stay with it until it is rather solid. Then I play and sing the song to see if it flows. If it doesn't I make changes to the lyrics where needed. When I record, I play and sing the song with a drum track. When I get to where I want a guitar ride I just start jamming with the melody in my head. Then I add a bass line, and some left / right guitar chops to fill it out. Crude perhaps, but it feels and sounds live simply because it all is. Most of the time I leave the mistakes in. I really don't care for computer sanitized music. When it is done, I perform it the way it was recorded. If I think I can do it better at a later time I re record it.

Occasionally I go back and review the song starts. Sometimes I just trash them, other times one will start flowing and get out of that folder.

And that is my formula to write crappy songs that nobody wants to listen to. But then, I play "for my own amusement".

Damn, Chris! Your learning curve looks like the space-time continuum!



Yeah...it happens to us all, in one form or another...

We use the same method Sent

The worse part is if you get lazy on the breeze throughs and do it too quick, after a while that pace and those motions become learned, almost like a separate song. So when you go to do it for real it’s actually a bit more difficult, because at that pace it’s unpracticed. Or if you have a bad session and practice the heck out of a mistake, you can’t seem to unlearn. Getting back to what you originally wanted can be a chore.

Structure changes take a while to pick up, since the old way is usually practiced like crazy. I’ll head down the old path before realizing I’m doing it. It’s during structure changes that I’ll have any kind of break through, because it’s forcing something new and the spastic stab at it can produce unpredicted results.

We use the same method Sent

The worse part is if you get lazy on the breeze throughs and do it too quick, after a while that pace and those motions become learned, almost like a separate song. So when you go to do it for real it’s actually a bit more difficult, because at that pace it’s unpracticed. Or if you have a bad session and practice the heck out of a mistake, you can’t seem to unlearn. Getting back to what you originally wanted can be a chore.

Structure changes take a while to pick up, since the old way is usually practiced like crazy. I’ll head down the old path before realizing I’m doing it. It’s during structure changes that I’ll have any kind of break through, because it’s forcing something new and the spastic stab at it can produce unpredicted results.

Practice does not make perfect. It makes permanent.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

We use the same method Sent

The worse part is if you get lazy on the breeze throughs and do it too quick, after a while that pace and those motions become learned, almost like a separate song. So when you go to do it for real it’s actually a bit more difficult, because at that pace it’s unpracticed. Or if you have a bad session and practice the heck out of a mistake, you can’t seem to unlearn. Getting back to what you originally wanted can be a chore.

Structure changes take a while to pick up, since the old way is usually practiced like crazy. I’ll head down the old path before realizing I’m doing it. It’s during structure changes that I’ll have any kind of break through, because it’s forcing something new and the spastic stab at it can produce unpredicted results.

Practice does not make perfect. It makes permanent.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

I tell y students all the time that perfect practice makes perfect.

Well I was just kinda saying that you're better off working through one arrangement, and getting the parts right, even if it's a irritatingly slow process, rather than get the mistakes stuck in your fingers.

Beautify, then run through till the right stuff sticks.