Faulty Musical Memory?

[Hekbass]

I've been playing bass (and only bass) since 1992, and I have a B.A. in music.

I can't seem to retain songs or bass lines in my head!!

If I don't play something for a month or two...POOF! Gone. I forget how to play it, no matter how well I knew it in the past.

Latest example: I learned to play the melody to "Gloria's Step." I've listened to the song hundreds of times, starting in the mid-1990's. That album (Bill Evans "Sunday at the Village Vanguard") is one of my favorites of all time. I KNOW this melody. I can sing it in my head, out loud...you name it. So, I learned it on the bass. I played it every day for weeks. I could play it with my eyes closed, with one hand tied behind my back. Then, I had to learn songs for my metal band, so I didn't play "Gloria's Step" for a month or two. The next time I tried to play it I DIDN'T REMEMBER A SINGLE NOTE. I looked at the fingerboard, befuddled. I had to pull out the sheet music and RE-LEARN it, note for note, as if it was my first time learning it.

Now, I must say that I don't suffer from general memory issues. I can remember band members, albums, years of release with no problem. I have in my head a pretty vast knowledge of rock, jazz, and metal bands and their histories, and I don't need to review any of it, ever. It's THERE.

So, what gives??? Any advice?
I can't possibly practice the dozens of tunes I wish to ingrain into my brain EVERY DAY. It's just not practical. Not even several times per week.

Thoughts? I forget.

EDIT: I don't do drugs at all or drink excessively. Never have. I only smoke regular cigarettes (about 2 cigs per day), and I drink sporadically (about 2-3 drinks per month.) So, it's most definitely not related to any sort of chemical abuse.

 

[John Wentzien]

Too many "bong-hits"....

 

[Hekbass]

Too many "bong-hits"....

LOL! Nope, not at all. I edited my post. I tried pot a couple times in my college days (90's), but I never liked it.

 

[rosanne]

Wow. When I forget a song I blame it on my age, but you are not that old.

Could you manage to go everything once a week? Can you make yourself a kind of master list of songs you don't want to forget? To approach things in a systematic way. Maybe you could even make yourself note cards with one song on each, with the chords, and the main baseline(s).

If I don't have time or opportunity to practice something I will go over it in my head, visualizing the fretboard and my fingers. This seems to help a lot.

Hope you find something that works for you!

 

[FenderBassist]

I can only guess that perhaps you need to increase your amount of self practice at home?

Do you spend a couple hours a day on your technique?

Me personally, I have a very large CD collection, and many of those have songs I've played in bands or learned for the experience.

Part of my daily self practice routine is to pick a CD and run through as many songs off of it as I can (I can EQ the original bass parts in recordings to a minimum and mix my bass in its place). Then I put the bass down (after wiping strings) and come back to it later, choosing a different CD.

From routinely playing for most of 27 years, I find that I retain hundreds of bass lines.

 

[wrench45us]

so when you were re-learning not a single passage came back in a rush -- every note had to be re-learned?

even people that play with sheet music in front of them get to the point where it's more a reminder than them actually sight reading fresh

You may just be wired differntly -- certainly a bit of a disadvantage for a musician, but I'm sure you'll work out a way

some musicians have natural gifts and some have natural impediments
I tend to see myself as one with more impediments than gifts sometimes.

but I take heart in reading how hard Robert Fripp had to work to do what came 'naturally' to others

 

[Hekbass]

so when you were re-learning not a single passage came back in a rush -- every note had to be re-learned?

Well, perhaps I exaggerated a bit for effect.
Sure, once I started "re-learning" it with the sheet music, bits of phrases did come back to me without having to read every individual note. But, the fact remains that this was a melody that I knew like the back of my hand several weeks prior. So, to be *that* stumped when trying to play it again was pretty shocking and disappointing to me.

Thanks.

 

[Hekbass]

I can only guess that perhaps you need to increase your amount of self practice at home?

Do you spend a couple hours a day on your technique?

Me personally, I have a very large CD collection, and many of those have songs I've played in bands or learned for the experience.

Part of my daily self practice routine is to pick a CD and run through as many songs off of it as I can.

I don't practice for hours each day, sadly. Right now, I'm really not gigging at all - just practicing at home. My band seems to be on hiatus, and my car broke down. Yay!

I try to split my practice more or less evenly between technical stuff (speed drills, scales, etc.), and a song or two of my choice, and the songs of the band I'm in. I practice about an hour most days, but not every day. *shrug*

You said that you "pick a CD and run through as many songs off of it" as you can each day. I don't get it. LOL! You mean you try to play along to songs you don't know, kinda "faking" your way through them by ear, or are you running only through songs that you did learn before, as a sort of review?

 

[Hekbass]

@rosanne - Thanks. That was very helpful.

 

[viper4000]

Don't feel too bad, I have similar problems. I can't retain exact historical facts like names, dates, etc. I can't regurgitate song names, album names, band members. Heck, I can't even remember some of the songs I have written and played a thousand times. My brain just doesn't work like that. Never did, even in grammar school.

You just have to work harder during prep time for a gig/rehearsal. There may be systematic approaches that will help, but I never found any that work for me. I just deal with it, and prep that much harder.

Good luck!

 

[Yerf Dog]

I make notes in a composition book.

Other than that, I rely on 'muscle memory'.

 

[BassChuck]

You need to practice playing whats in your head. Open a songbook to the table of contents and play the melody to as many songs as you can. Don't read the notes. Next day, play all the songs you can remember as a kid... or nursery rhythms or TV commericals, church hymns etc etc etc. Make list of song titles.
Sing scales as you play them. Sing everything as you play it.

 

[FenderBassist]

I don't practice for hours each day, sadly. Right now, I'm really not gigging at all - just practicing at home. My band seems to be on hiatus, and my car broke down. Yay!

I try to split my practice more or less evenly between technical stuff (speed drills, scales, etc.), and a song or two of my choice, and the songs of the band I'm in. I practice about an hour most days, but not every day. *shrug*

You said that you "pick a CD and run through as many songs off of it" as you can each day. I don't get it. LOL! You mean you try to play along to songs you don't know, kinda "faking" your way through them by ear, or are you running only through songs that you did learn before, as a sort of review?

I spent most of my playing time learning songs (the actual bass part off of the original recording) for years. Bands were a plus, but unfortunately never the center of my musical life. I have worked with 70+ cover bands in 27 years (member, sub)...some were ok, many were "so-so"...and regardless of them I spent a TON of time playing to "albums" (did some recording studio work, used to teach in a music store & privately).

I'd say I've covered half the CDs I play along to in previous bands, and half I just chose to learn. I felt it was good training to play balanced in the mix so that my parts would be correct to the arrangement/tempo (i.e. I didn't play louder than the other instruments, I played at same level as bass in the original recordings...through my playback system).

 

[bassinplace]

If you have a lot of songs you are currently playing memorized at any given time, it's perfectly normal that the ones you haven't played will be forgotten/lost in the memory banks. Your brain can only hold so much info at once.

 

[mbeall]

For me unless it's a song I've played hundreds of times I will have trouble remembering it after a couple months if I just "learned" the part. I find the retention is better if I've also done the harmonic analysis on the tune. i.e. If I've learned the melody and chords of the song and have analyzed and understand the function of the melody in relation to the chords. That gets the retention to last longer but it is still a use it or lose it proposition for me as it is for most people. At this point I've probably have forgotten more songs then I will ever have at my disposal @ any given time. The guys I've known and/or worked with that have 300+ songs on tap work a lot as solo acoustic performers several nights a week so they are constantly refreshing their memories but it's not uncommon to see 'em reach for the chart on tunes they haven't played in a few months which happens when/if you got that much stuff in your set.

I guess in short, you'll remember what you practice/perform and forget what you don't, just like anything else. At this point since you have been playing as long as you have and you admittedly only dedicate a small amount of time to playing each day, skip the technique stuff. You've got plenty. Focus on the music not the mechanics. Think about want you want to sound like and try to do that. I'm pretty sure you don't want to sound like "speed drills and scales", most people usually prefer to listen to musicians playing songs Split your practice time between a couple of tasks. i.e. Warm up with a song you know, proceed to a new work in progress(something you sort of know), and have something new and unfamiliar on deck( maybe another new song or developing harmonic/rhythmic ideas etc..etc..). I think in your case even 30 mins a day divided between these type of activities for a month will get you further then all the scales and technique stuff practiced for a year.


Mike

 

[dave2k5]

"I played it every day for weeks"

I've found that playing something too often works against me (for memorization). It's like it never gets "sunk in" (I always think: "grocery list"). If I ignore it for a couple days in-between it seems to stick better. It happened on accident the first time, but now I do it intentionally. Maybe there's some kind of short/long term thing working there, I don't know. But it seems to work for me. Good luck.

 

[miltslackford]

Maybe you have a memory problem. I think that's quite unusual what you're describing.

Can you remember lyrics?

 

[Hekbass]

For me unless it's a song I've played hundreds of times I will have trouble remembering it after a couple months if I just "learned" the part. I find the retention is better if I've also done the harmonic analysis on the tune.

...skip the technique stuff. You've got plenty. Focus on the music not the mechanics. Think about want you want to sound like and try to do that. I'm pretty sure you don't want to sound like "speed drills and scales", most people usually prefer to listen to musicians playing songs

Thanks, Mike. I'll try going a bit deeper into the songs.

As for the technique stuff...I LOVE practicing that stuff, and for my goals, I believe it helps. I'm playing in a metal band in which the guitarist plays it straight, and they want me to NOT mimic the riffs as often as I can. The ad that I answered to get in the band literally said that they wanted a bass player to "basically solo throughout all the songs." I kid you not. Of course, I don't go quite that far, but they're very happy with me. Check out a live gig (and you CAN hear the bass!):


That's from our debut show.
I've also written a few songs, and I started recording them. My music will have only bass, drums, and two vocalists (me doing gruff vocals, and a female doing cleans.) Yep. No guitars. It's very bass-intensive, of course.
reverbnation.com/voiceofthevortex

So, as you can see, I'm not aiming to be the average "meat and potatoes" bassist. Pushing the limits of my technique is basically my main priority. Granted, I could learn a lot of Cannibal Corpse and Obscura songs and that would definitely help, I guess. But, the downside is that I'm a 4-stringer, and I tend to stay in standard tuning. Most of the metal guys detune. On my "solo project" I only use standard tuning. The metal band goes for drop-D, no lower than that.

PHEW! Sorry for that long tome.

 

[Hekbass]

Maybe you have a memory problem. I think that's quite unusual what you're describing.

Can you remember lyrics?

Lyrics are no problem. I seldom forget a lyric. Like I said, I do have a good memory for musician names, their bands, who played on what record, approximate years of record release, general music history, etc. I'm pretty damn good with that kind of information as well as lyrics. It's odd, indeed.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

You have a BA in music and you can't remember something you put 4 weeks in it ? Wierd.

But I remember that I forgot many thing I did because of my lack of careness or because I didn't did it again to keep the memory fresh. Or in case of classical music I can't remember them, I read them and song in real book I always forgot the chords progression but I remember the melody. Otherwise if I learn a Metallica song or something by Victor Wooten, if I play it regularly for a few months, it will be burn in my memory.