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Post subject: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 9:12 pm
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I recently got back into playing guitar after 10 years! A lot has changed since then: YouTube guitar instructions, any tab book you can think of etc. I am like a kid in a candy store! I have tabs for over 200 songs I want to learn! Therefore, I find that I pick a song play it a couple of times then move on. I just play for myself but I would like some advice/suggestions on how to focus my choices.
1.Can anybody suggest a system for me to be able to try to play each song? I was going alphabetically for a while.
2.How do you learn a song? I am not interested in learning the solos.
Any advice appreciated!


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 12:50 am
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Hey man, congratz for picking up again the guitar !!
I've started quite recently and I know only the modern ways of learning guitar....but I know them well.

First, you have forgotten the "computer" part : some software like guitarpro (or tux guitar) can be a good way to learn things. It reads tabs...but it also plays them.
But usually, to have the durarion of a note, the bends correctly bended etc...you need a video. Unless you know well the song.
Most of time I use a good* tab PLUS a good* video and I use both at the same time. I play and watch the video, the tab is printed on a paper, and i have my guitar in hand.
*= tons of videos and tabs also means tons of crap...beware !

Last but not least, Rocksmith 2014 is a fantastic tool to teach you fast a song. It is like a video game but it is not it is a guitar teaching software...you have a given number of songs, you can add (purchase) new songs, you play over the original song. The guitar amp settings are dead on, and the software displays the notes on the screen.
It starts with a few notes, and it increases the number of notes when you get better.
It also has side little lessons to learn scales, bends etc...if you are not against modern technology and think things can evolve you should definitely take a look at rocksmith 2014. (Not the first version, less evolved)

Regarding the choices of songs....well I would make groups. Groups of difficulty, style, love you have for them.....and I would start with a few ones I love and a few easy ones.

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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 11:27 pm
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Thank you!


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 12:01 am
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My advice would be to always learn with your ears, and only learn with your eyes if you are really stuck on something.


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 9:46 pm
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Larry Christopher wrote:
My advice would be to always learn with your ears, and only learn with your eyes if you are really stuck on something.


I totally agree with that as well.

It seems that your main purpose is just to learn some songs for fun, so using your ears is not going to be the quickest way to do it, but if you ever want to play beyond that, I would say essential to have competency.

Having a good tuner helps develop your ears faster. Start with your ears, figure out what you can and use some tab when you get stuck.

As far as going through a long list of songs you want to learn, just go with what you want to play that day - keep it fun, going through a huge list may make it tedious.


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2014 10:54 am
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Larry Christopher wrote:
My advice would be to always learn with your ears, and only learn with your eyes if you are really stuck on something.


Right on. I learned guitar in the days before any sort of internet-enabled social networking existed. My method was to get my desired material onto cassette. I had a little desktop dictation recorder that I'd use to constantly play, rewind, play again, using my ears to hear each note in a chord. This was a reliable way to really figure out voicings. Same for single note stuff, like solos. Just listen, map it to the fingerboard, then practice. Practice. Practice.

Video's are cool, and I do occasionally learn from them today. But... I'm always challenging the authority of any particular video. "Why should I believe YOU, when you tell me this is how it's played?" You should ask yourself the same question, I humbly suggest.

Of course, if you find a reliable and trustworthy source that you enjoy learning from, video-wise, then mine that until you've absorbed all you can.


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:13 pm
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In my opinion, it all depends on how your own brain processes information. Everyone learns differently be it auditory, visual or a combination of the two.

Personally, I am a visual learner and learn new song by reading sheet music (guitar tablature). In addition, I have the piece of music on cd to listen and make sure I have the correct tempo, rhtyhm etc.

Nowadays, I am learning "styles" as opposed to "songs". I have two books both by Brett Duncan: Progressive Slide Guitar and Slide Guitar Licks (Includes TAB and play along CD)

I re-discovered my long lost (Intermediate) BLUES GUITAR with CD Enclosed by Matt Smith. I am going back to the basics of the blues and learning techniques etc that I may have forgotten over the years.


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2014 4:30 pm
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Larry Christopher wrote:
My advice would be to always learn with your ears, and only learn with your eyes if you are really stuck on something.

+3

They way I do that is I just play the song on the stereo or the computer and try to play along and sort it out on the fly. If I get stuck on something and can't quite figure it out that's when I will look something up. For me it's usually the particular voicing of a chord that will stump me. I will be able to tell that it's obviously an Am7 for example but I can hear they're not playing it on the same spot on the neck I'm using. Other times there's a pretty typical chord but it has a non-standard root that throws me. That's when I will cheat and look it up. I call it cheating because my goal is to be able to play anything I put my mind to by ear. For the most part I'm there but every once in a while they stump me.

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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:37 am
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I heard an interview on the radio with a soprano who would learn the different parts of an opera from end to start, so that as she learned new sections, it got easier to finish.
I could kinda' see the sense in that.
Image

My two favourite tools are tabs from the internet (not always right, but at least some hints) and a "slowdowner" app on my iPod touch (eg. "AnyTune Pro").

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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:28 pm
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For PC users some versions of Windows Media Player have the option to slow down a playback.

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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 7:02 am
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While this is obviously an older thread (Aug 2014), I wanted to toss my own $.02 worth in here for the sake of posterity should anyone else come here looking for info.


Over-all I completely agree with the sentiment about "learning with your ears", however I'd like to add a few things to that. As others have suggested, learning by tab, sheet music, chord charts, etc. (even Youtube), is fine when you get stuck, but learning by ear will carry you further than any form of sheet music ever can. I've worked with a number of people over the years who simply use sheet music (tab, whatever) as a crutch...the notes go in their eyes and out to the hands. It's all mechanical - there's little or nothing of their own heart that goes into it. That's fine, except that the moment you take the sheet music away, their hands stop moving - they can't play without it. Some of them can "memorize" the sheet music, but when they're playing, they're still reading the sheet music...only now it's inside the head. The problem with that is that if you (or the band) deviates from the written work in ANY way, they get lost or just can't keep up...

I worked with a drummer once who had memorized the studio version of SRV's Pride and Joy...down to the last beat, however because I do the intro just a bit different, it threw this person EVERY time, because they were so busy counting measures, they weren't listening to the actual music. Of course, this person kept telling me that I was playing it wrong, however my attitude is hey...Stevie Ray never played it the same way, why should I? LOL!

So yes...first step is to listen and learn with your ears. And don't just listen to the same studio version over and over...remember, a lot of folks will cover their own material and do it very differently in later years, particularly live. Eric Clapton is a great example...a lot of his music has evolved over the years from the way he originally recorded the tunes (Layla being a prime example). And should you work with others, don't assume that everyone's gonna play a given tune the exact same way or the way the original was recorded. One band I was in was doing the classic "Little Wing"...the problem was that the guitar player knew the Hendrix version, the singer knew the Sting version and I myself (the drummer at the time) knew the Clapton/Cream version (turned out to be an interesting mix, LOL!). There's a lot of us out here who "fly by the seat of our pants". When you're working in a band, always remember that it's a collaboration...and sometimes you have to find your own path.

With that, my second piece of advice is to learn to improvise! Learning tunes is great and wonderful and all, but a good musician (guitarist or otherwise) needs to know what to do when things get "outside the box". Learning to improvise will also allow you to take the music past where you found it...put your own spit on it, so to speak. It may even give you the creative freedom to start writing your own music!

Now when it comes to learning tunes in general, perhaps the greatest piece advice I can offer to a budding rhythm guitarist is this; learn to look for patterns. Certainly not "all", but a great majority of contemporary music is actually pretty redundant and repetitive regarding things like chord structure (it also tends to be rather redundant and repetitive...). This thing we call "The Blues" is a prime example...more often than not, it's just 3 chords...what we call a I-IV-V chord progression (if the tune is in E, then the chords would be E, A and B). There is sooooooooo much music out there that's based on this very simple chord structure (or some variation of it). Little story here...

At the moment, I'm working with a young woman (well...she's 28 and I'm 49, so she seems young to me, LOL!) and while she's a decent guitar player and a very good singer, she is somewhat lacking in any sense of formal training. As she's learning tunes, I'm pointing out this whole chord structure thing to her. This new band is doing a lot of oldies and classic rock, so we'll do something like the old Troggs classic, "Wild Thing" and I'll show her that it's almost the exact same song as The Kingsman's "Louie Louie"...in this case we're playing both tunes in the same key, so the association was easy for her. Then I'd showed her that if you move that SAME chord pattern down a few frets, it's the same basic chord pattern as SRV's "Pride and Joy" and "Mary had a LIttle Lamb", the blues classic "Sweet Home Chicago", etc.. Move that up 2 frets and you have SRV's "Texas Flood"...2 more frets and you have Hendrix's "Red House". Then back in the key of G (from Louie Louie and Wild Thing), I showed her that these are the same chords we use in John Mellonhead's "Pink Houses", Marshall Tucker's "Can't You See", Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl", etc...it's the same 3 chords, just played a bit differently (or in a different order, such as Sweet Home Alabama and Can't You See where these chords are played in a reverse order). One chord pattern with only slight variations and we nailed 11 songs right off the bat!

While this I-IV-V pattern is no doubt the most popular, there are other such chord patterns that get used very frequently. Consider the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along the Watchtower". Not sure what key the tune was in originally, however I play it Cm, Bb, Ab (or Cm, A#, G#, LOL!). If you move that chord pattern down 5 frets and start at G, suddenly you have BOC's "Don't Fear the Reaper", Joe Walsh's "Turn to Stone" and the ending of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". There are, obviously, some slight variations between the songs, but the basic chord pattern is essentially the same.

Obviously not all songs fall under this description....there's a lot of rather complex music out there as well. When it comes to contemporary music however...rock, blues, country, etc., a lot of what you hear was already done by someone else who came earlier. As someone once said, there's very little that's "new" in new music. Very simply, once you learn to recognize chord patterns, "learning new tunes" becomes A LOT easier.

With this said, there was the OP's question of "How do you learn a song?". Honestly...how do you learn anything? In the simplest terms, "repetition" and "practice". Unless you're blessed with a photographic memory, you can't really just sit down with a piece of music (be it sheet music or mp3) and expect to really learn or remember it the first time you play it. Some songs come easier than others (see the comments above about patterns) however for most folks it's simply about doing it over and over and over again until you're comfortable with it. There is something however that can make this a bit easier...


As to "a system...to be able to try to play each song", my advice is simply this; play the tunes you enjoy. Learning new songs is a lot easier if you're playing music that you actually like! LOL! Conversely, if you don't like the tune to begin with, you're going to be less likely to want to sit there and practice it over and over again. Start with the tunes you enjoy the most...if you find one you just can't play or that's overly complex for you, then move on to the next. Unless you're auditioning for a band in the next week or so or you have a gig coming up, there's no need to learn 40 or 50 songs right away or all at once. Just start with as many tunes as you feel comfortable with...even if it's just 5 or 10 tunes...and make sure they are tunes you'll enjoy playing. My attitude (along with many others I'm sure) is that playing guitar should be fun. If you don't enjoy what you're doing, you're probably not going to do it for very long at all (especially if you're not getting payed for it!). Another little story here...

When I was but a wee lad (4 years old), my folks bought me an acoustic guitar and sent me out for lessons. Well, even at this tender young age, I knew I wanted an electric guitar...I wanted to play the kind of music my older brother was listening to at the time (Beach Boys, Elvis, The Shocking Blue, The 4 Seasons, etc). In lessons however, I was sat down with those horrifying "Sam Fox Modern Guitar Method" books (I think it's Mel Bay these days) and after 3 years of playing "Little Brown Jug" and "When the Saints go Marching In"...yea...I got fed up and quit. That just wasn't the music that -I- wanted to play. After buying my own electric guitar in my late teens, I went back for lessons and this time at the first lesson I was fortunate enough to have a teacher who asked me this one simple question; what do you want to play? I mean wow...no one had ever asked me that before! Whether it was teachers or my own parents, I was always told what to play, so that one question was very liberating for me. I thought about it for a moment and told the guy Eric Clapton's "Cocaine". The next week the guy brought in a cassette for me...he had recorded a 4-track version of the tune for me with the basic rhythm, drums and bass parts and he showed me a couple of bar chords and the basics for a minor pentatonic...and here some 32 odd years later, I'm still playing (thank you Basil, wherever you are!)! Today of course we have resources like Youtube and such and "jam tracks" are again, just a mouse click away, but at the end of the day, you'll always do better if you simply play the music that you enjoy.

Finally, whether you choose to work with mp3's, Youtube, old 45's and 8-tracks or you decide to print out some tab and chord charts, perhaps the single best piece of advice I can offer to anyone is this; play. Don't let excuses get in the way..."I don't have time", "I don't have talent", "the dog ate my sheet music"...rubbish!!! If you want to play guitar, just do it! If you truly have a passion for something, you'll find the time. Very often my wife and I will take the dogs to the park for a walk or have a picnic or something and I'll toss a guitar in the minivan and just "noodle around" for 15 - 20 minutes at a picnic table. I'll drop the wife and the dogs in a canoe and drive downstream to the pickup location and just sit on the river bank with my guitar. Many an evening I've just sat on the porch "just strummin' & humming". Even when my father was in the hospital just before he passed away, I'd toss a guitar in the van when I'd go to see him...since I was usually at the hospital with Dad all day, I'd slip out occasionally to have a smoke and head out to the van and just play for a few minutes. As a very dear friend of mine often said, "Woodshed every day".

We learn by doing.


...now turn off your computer and go play your guitar!!!!

8)


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 1:49 pm
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rem22 wrote:
Hey man, congratz for picking up again the guitar !!
I've started quite recently and I know only the modern ways of learning guitar....but I know them well.

First, you have forgotten the "computer" part : some software like guitarpro (or tux guitar) can be a good way to learn things. It reads tabs...but it also plays them.
But usually, to have the durarion of a note, the bends correctly bended etc...you need a video. Unless you know well the song.
Most of time I use a good* tab PLUS a good* video and I use both at the same time. I play and watch the video, the tab is printed on a paper, and i have my guitar in hand.
*= tons of videos and tabs also means tons of crap...beware !

Last but not least, Rocksmith 2014 is a fantastic tool to teach you fast a song. It is like a video game but it is not it is a guitar teaching software...you have a given number of songs, you can add (purchase) new songs, you play over the original song. The guitar amp settings are dead on, and the software displays the notes on the screen.
It starts with a few notes, and it increases the number of notes when you get better.
It also has side little lessons to learn scales, bends etc...if you are not against modern technology and think things can evolve you should definitely take a look at rocksmith 2014. (Not the first version, less evolved)

Regarding the choices of songs....well I would make groups. Groups of difficulty, style, love you have for them.....and I would start with a few ones I love and a few easy ones.

I'm a big fan of Rocksmith - my first thought was little plastic guitars with buttons but after finding out that you use your real guitar I was all for it. Is a great way to learn new songs. Wish I wouldn't have gotten the original though. New version also includes bass and I started teaching myself last year.


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 10:47 pm
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fenderfan wrote:
I'm a big fan of Rocksmith - my first thought was little plastic guitars with buttons but after finding out that you use your real guitar I was all for it. Is a great way to learn new songs. Wish I wouldn't have gotten the original though. New version also includes bass and I started teaching myself last year.


Rocksmith is good if and only if you can mentally associate specific colors with specific strings. Most can, but if you can't make that association, it will just get more and more frustrating the more you play.

I think some of the problem is that I already have a strong association between color temperature and frequency, and can't wrap my head around the purple-green-orange-blue-yellow-red order. If red is the deep E, surely orange should be A?


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Post subject: Re: Learning new songs...need some advice
Posted: Sun May 21, 2017 7:26 am
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Stick to one song and learn it until the results satisfy you.
Then move on to the next one

You're in the wrong place if you're looking for fast food


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