Three years without learning songs

[chanson]

I've been playing bass for roughly three and a half years. I knows bits and pieces of some songs, but can count the number of whole songs I have learned on one hand. Is this a bad thing? It's not that I lack the time or the ability to learn songs, I just don't seem to have the motivation to learn an entire song. It may possibly come from that fact that I have never been in a real band. What are your thoughts on this? Do I need to get myself into gear after three years? Or is this a common occurance?

[Jeff Martinez]

Don't feel bad. I've been playing for almost 20 years, and I can only play a small handful of complete covers off the top of my head. If I have a gig that requires me to know covers, I learn them as I need to, but most don't stick in my head past that. I just don't have the motivation to learn a ton of covers. I'd rather focus on songwriting.

[trust24]

I have the same thing, what i do is hear a song and think oh thats a catchy bass line so ill just learn that bass line and generally just not bother with the rest of the song. The only song i can play all the parts to is boris the spider by the who. Give that one ago its quite cool to play along to

[LowDown Hal]

Let me ask you...

Why did you get into Bass in the first place?
What have you been doing for three and a half years?

[DudeistMonk]

If you asked me to play a (non-original) song start to finish I might be able to play you 5 songs and 2 of them would be 12 bar blues...

I think its important to learn songs start to finish, so you can see/hear the transitions from section to section, and analyze the way the chorus feels as opposed to the verse or the bridge or w/e... But if you not going to be playing them every week you will forget them quickly...I would say learn a few songs beginning to end but don't stress if you don't find yourself being a juke box it takes a lot of work and "maintainence" to memorize a whole song.

just my .2

[megadan]

I've played in original bands my entire 8+ year bass player lifetime, and only rarely have a learned other band's songs, mostly just bits and pieces for my own amusement. I don't think I've ever learned a song note for note, start to finish. Never had a reason to.

[trust24]

When i start a band i hope we can do original songs, i suppose it depends on whos around in your area but i always thought it was pretty pointless being a cover band. I know alot of times thats what pubs want as entertainment on a firday night but yeah it seems abit pointless to me

[Silas Martinez]

Hmm. I tend to forget that I know material. I've learned perhaps 50+ covers all the way through in the past couple years, but as noted, if I'm not playing them every week, they slip into long term storage, and I have to strain a little to get them back into my fingers. The occasional phrase is often easier to remember than the whole piece.

Bits and pieces of these tend to creep into my work on originals. I've found that learning covers is really great for expanding vocabulary - so I spend a lot of time just learning random pieces, recommendations I've found on here, and tunes that interest me for whatever reasons.

I try to make learning new material a regular part of my practice routine. I'm of the opinion that learning cover material is, at the very least, on a par in terms of importance with site reading, scales, technique, theory, and other practice elements. When studying english, we spend a lot of time learning how to spell and how to build a proper sentence, learning proper punctuation, and all of that, but, at least when I was in school, we also spent a lot of time reading and breaking down other written works.

To me, learning complete cover songs is comparable to this. We need to learn the theory, and we need to learn the physical movements associated with playing, but of at least equal importance, we need to learn how to apply that theory - we need to see WHY all this theory works.

/soapbox

[paganjack]

It's pretty common to forget songs over time. heck, i've forgotten how to play songs that I wrote a year ago.

But to never ever learn how to play another person's song?
sounds like laziness to me. It's an integral portion of a good practice routine. I play along with songs on my itunes at random sometimes. I'm trying to learn 1-2 songs a week, just to improve my ear training and playing. I'm not in a cover band right now nor have I been for a good while.

most songs are pretty simple to play, and internalizing song structure will help your playing and songwriting alot.

[mambo4]

3 thoughts on this:

1.) join a band. then you'll have to learn songs.

2.) there is more value to learning a lot of songs than simply knowing a song. If there is a certain genre or style you are interested in, learning a bunch of songs in that style and analyzing the bass line against the chords, is probably the best way to get to know the style. you're not just learning to play the songs, but how to form bass lines to similar chord progressions in the future. If you take the time to understand how the bass line serves the chords and the song, you'll not only add a song to your repretiore, but you'll be adding to tools your creative tool box for future use.

3.)Learning songs quickly and solidly is a skill unto itself. the more songs you learn, the better and faster you get at learning new ones. This will come in really handy if you ever need to learn 3 sets of new material in 2 weeks...

unfortunately, yes it is a common occurrence...i took a long time to get around to really learning a song.

+1 to the value of playing through the transitions...that's where you will most often mess up.

[Stumbo]

Some people I know can remember pretty much any song they ever heard (including lyrics/melody), let alone played. I mean from memory (including lyrics/melody) at a moments notice. Just listening to song a few times through and they've got it.

Now the rest of us seem to learn songs when we need to for as long as we need to.
They go into long term storage and can usually be recalled after practicing them a bit.

I suggest that you learn songs regularly, create some charts (lyrics/chords/bass line, at least) and keep them in a note book for easy reference. It's great when you get in a band for when you to review what you've learned. Maybe even have a CD of all the songs that you've learned handy.

You'll hear how chord changes sound, learn some creative bass lines and various styles and techniques.

I don't think there is a down side.

I mean, if you talking about learning a language and could speak some words/phrases but never read a book all the way through...mmm