How do you memorize a new song?

[Bong Bong]

As our first rehearsal approaches, I find myself preparing a small bunch of songs. None of them is particularly challenging from a technical point of view, but this will be my first time ever playing the bass with other people, so I am mostly worried about how will I manage to keep up with the groove and how to setup my instrument's sound properly.

But something that is getting in the way of my primary concerns is the fact that I don't yet remember the songs note-by-note without looking at some sort of transcription, so I have prepared printouts and handwritten notes to help me visually remember grooves, song structures, variations and such. This is what I always did when I used to play the guitar, until the time when the song has been rehearsed enough so that I don't need visual aids anymore. Reading a full transcription at rehearsals is unwieldy, therefore I make my own notes with "clues", with the target of fitting everything I need for a song in a single page. It's not a perfect system... for instance this time I am really struggling on how to capture on paper all the small variations for "Are you gonna go my way" without transcribing the whole thing.

What is your method for memorizing a song faster than just keep playing it all the time?

These days with Spotify , I load up the same song , maybe 3 or 4 times , all on the same playlist , and then play & play , till I get it, Very convenient these days with headphones , playing silently at home etc . Would always end up working on the difficult bits over & over.
If songs had to be transposed it just meant doing the work. After a while it gets easy (almost ).
Sometimes might have to buy the odd sheet music off internet for the really tricky stuff.
When I could , I'd have the bands play list on spotify - 3 copies of each song.
Alternatively , as some drummers seem to do , is record practice sessions & play back at home / at work etc / record on the phone
You could wander around all day listening to Spotify on phone , in car etc

Another good idea from the old days was to rough out the song in this form I , IV , V etc
with maybe some bar lines if required. I could get away with this written down as small as I could on small note pad size , worked also when I was playing keys too & learning songs

 

[BassAndCigars]

Make sure it's in your head. Listen to it over and over and over.
This becomes something of a problem if you don't actually like the music I find.
But, hopefully, if you do, get it all up in your head by repetitive listening.
My two cents. What do I know?

 

[badinage]

I had a gig for about three years where I had to learn four new songs a week in a genre unfamiliar to me. Charts were provided in DropBox, but I quickly discovered that those charts were seldom in the key we would end up presenting the song in, so I decided that first thing I'd do is print the charts and convert the changes to numbers by hand. I found (to my delight) that just that process alone tended to imprint the chord changes, song structure and arrangement into my brain. Good luck, have fun!

 

[Captain Comet]

How you learn songs is really going to depend on how YOU best learn things in general.
There have been a lot of good tips here, but ultimately a lot will still rely on you.

Personally, the way I have things stick in my memory is to hear something (music, conversation, TV broadcast) and then hand-write something about it. Typing notes that appear on a screen does not work as well for me.

One of the biggest challenges I had when learning 3-4 songs for the next band practice is if two of the songs had similar components or chord structure. I would already have the original songs sunk into memory but some bits of a similar song would try to jump into the other while playing. Learning those songs would go slower than normal for me unless I really ignored one, and went through the whole process to completely learn the other first.

Also, learning a song right the first time worked better than winging it. If I had a bit wrong, un-learning that and inserting the correct part seemed to take much longer than it should. FIRST memories of something stuck the best.

 

[5StringBlues]

Repeat listenings to start off with. Once I know the melody in my head, most songs are fairly easy. Then I just play them over and over and over until I'm totally sick of them..

 

[HardNHeavy]

memorize and play along with each section of the song, then string them together so its fluid transition. there's 7 notes, the rest are sharps and flats. I find it easier to approach that way. Getting the initial groove and timing is the most important to me, all the other stuff falls into place.

 

[bolophonic]

I just listen to the song until I can hear the bass line without it. If there is a particularly difficult passage, then I focus on nailing that part first.

I can somewhat read music, but only as a distant second language. My earlier attempts to "take notes" resulted in even more confusion as I would spend more time trying to decipher what my clues meant. I have only had success with complete memorization.

 

[retslock]

As our first rehearsal approaches, I find myself preparing a small bunch of songs. None of them is particularly challenging from a technical point of view, but this will be my first time ever playing the bass with other people, so I am mostly worried about how will I manage to keep up with the groove and how to setup my instrument's sound properly.

But something that is getting in the way of my primary concerns is the fact that I don't yet remember the songs note-by-note without looking at some sort of transcription, so I have prepared printouts and handwritten notes to help me visually remember grooves, song structures, variations and such. This is what I always did when I used to play the guitar, until the time when the song has been rehearsed enough so that I don't need visual aids anymore. Reading a full transcription at rehearsals is unwieldy, therefore I make my own notes with "clues", with the target of fitting everything I need for a song in a single page. It's not a perfect system... for instance this time I am really struggling on how to capture on paper all the small variations for "Are you gonna go my way" without transcribing the whole thing.

What is your method for memorizing a song faster than just keep playing it all the time?

Listen to the songs.....a lot. Before you try to play them your brain has to know how they go. Your hands can’t do what your brain doesn’t know yet. Sing the parts first. When your brain knows how they go your fingers will do their work quicker and easier.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Carry the cat by the tail (figurative).
If it bites you, bite back. Gain an affiliation.
Go deeper. Be that cat.
​

 

[madjazzbass]

IME, there simply is no substitute for listening to the song enough times that I can hear it in my head without the recording. Once it's etched into my brain I can usually come up with a bass line that's "close enough" if I can't remember the exact notes -- which in many/most bands is close enough.

^THIS^

 

[LowActionHero]

I used to write out a short hand chart when I had several songs I couldn't memorize yet. Repetition is definitely the key, and, as mentioned, listening to the set list over and over at work, etc, helps with learning the song structures.

Soak yourself in the list until the next practice

 

[madjazzbass]

Carry the cat by the tail (figurative).
If it bites you, bite back. Gain an affiliation.
Go deeper. Be that cat.
​

Confucius say? ... or Bruce Lee?

 

[Tom Bomb]

It is written kitten.​

 

[Geogio]

Listen, repeat, notate, then change the vibe and make it your own. Otherwise get into DJ work and spin the originals. Copybands are as interesting as their set list, yet boring at the same time.

 

[HolmeBass]

If you really want to memorize it, get off of your charts/transcriptions as soon as possible.

Other than that, repetition of play throughs and listenings are the way.

 

[Todd Hamby]

For me, writing down song structure and variations is the way to go.

 

[bonespatrol]

i learn it

 

[fishdude101101]

IME, there simply is no substitute for listening to the song enough times that I can hear it in my head without the recording. Once it's etched into my brain I can usually come up with a bass line that's "close enough" if I can't remember the exact notes -- which in many/most bands is close enough.

Yep I make Playlist and just listen to it a bunch of times.

 

[lordradish]

One thing that really works for me:

Even though I have the charts, I always try to figure out the song first on my own. For some reason, having this be my first introduction to the song really makes a huge difference. I'm internalizing it right away, instead of reading it. It is VERY easy to become dependent on charts and end up never learning the song.

I had a period that I didn't play out much for a while, most of my stuff in that time period were one or two-off pickup gigs, so in that period, I didn't put a lot of time into actually learning the songs, I'd just use the chart on stage on a discreet ipad. When I started getting back into actual bands as a member, it was REALLY hard to memorize because I'd been so dependent on just reading the chart. Took a while to get back into the swing of things, but I'm generally good with it, again.

 

[J Wilson]

Primarily, I listen.

I don't even think of writing anything down until I've got some sort of aural picture of what it is. Fast. Slow. Dark. Happy. Speedball fast. Funeral slow. Really busy. Really sparse. And most of all how do the musical parts frame the vocals. Once I have at least a low-res picture in my mind, then I'll start writing something.

Simple tunes, I may write nothing down save for intro/verse/chorus/ verse, etc. just the running order of the sections. What key. What time sig. Any inventive kinks, the 'wow, where'd they come up with THAT' bits. The more I write down and the more I listen, I've pretty much got it.

Now if I'm going from 'Black Monday' to 'Aja', well, THAT's going to take more detailed charts !

For me, the whole point is to have a solid road map in my head. If I must write some stuff out to get to it, then I will, whatever it takes to get there. But any gigs where I've got a long lead time before playing it, I want to get to where I've got no charts on stage: I just work better if I have it nailed and I can play along with everyone else, because invariably, somebody or all of the rest of them are going to play it differently regardless of the fact we all charted the same recording. If I was strictly reading it with guys that aren't really readers, they WILL zag when I zigged. This is where you have to have eyes open, ears and radar turned up to go with them.