how do you go about learning a highly technical piece?

[jonathan_matos5]

I'm tackling my first solo for bass guitar piece. Victor Wooten's Amazing Grace arrangement, and thought id start a discussion on how to go about learning new music. starting with the basics, I identify the key and chord structure. then i try a unrehearsed run through of the piece to see if i can play it.(usually i cannot) from there i will break it down to one measure at a time (one note if i have to) and progress to phrase, finally ill start adding the phrases together until i can play the whole thing.

[Slax]

I usually play it slow as possible. (~60bpm after I learn the basic idea). After that, I'll work up speed from there.

The saying is, "If you can't play it slow, you're faking it playing it fast"... or something along those lines.

[Oscar South]

I learn it bar by bar, then I play it 2 bars by 2 bars (overlapping), then 4 bars by 4 bars (also overlapping). Longish process but works pretty well for me, after 4 bars by 4 bars I can usually play anything I've been working on flawlessly then its just a matter of fine tuning, could go to 8 or 16 I guess but I usually don't.

[playinpearls]

i always memorize a song before i try to learn it...you can get somewhere a lot faster when you know where you are going...

[MarkTAW]

Bar-by-bar, using whatever REWIND function I have a lot until I nail the parts. Then I transcribe it so even if I forget it, I have some record of what I played.