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Remembering all those lines

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peaveyuser

Inactive
Oct 18, 2006
4,349
7
Montreal,Canada
#1
I'm currently learning "one" by metallica for a band and while the lines aren't hard its just that so many are all different that I have a trouble remembering the whole thing. There are literally 114 bars with no constant repeating line everything seems different and changing bar to bar.

Anybody have any idea if this is correct (no use in telling me to learn it by ear it Is And Justice for All The bass is TOTALLY lost in the mix) or can give me any tips on remembering?
 
#6
If you've got a chord chart on stage it looks like you're a hired gun backing up a singer/songwriter. Then again, I once saw a singer/songwriter that had a binder full of original material that she flipped through onstage. I figured she was more interested in the writing of songs than in actually coming up with a killer set.
 
#8
peaveyuser said:
I'm currently learning "one" by metallica for a band and while the lines aren't hard its just that so many are all different that I have a trouble remembering the whole thing. There are literally 114 bars with no constant repeating line everything seems different and changing bar to bar.

Anybody have any idea if this is correct (no use in telling me to learn it by ear it Is And Justice for All The bass is TOTALLY lost in the mix) or can give me any tips on remembering?
Click to expand...


Memorize the song to the point where you can play it in your head. Easiest way to start is to learn the lyrics and use those as a signposts. Ya, that song has a lot of parts, but a lot of the parts are the same.
 
#9
Try thinking of it as a story. Each part generally leads to the next like a story unfolds. When I started playing some friends and I tried playing "The Four Horsemen" and I ran into the same thing. There is no quick way around it. It also helped to look at how the line progressed. Many times, there will be a riff that slowly mutates. Think of the riff and how it changes as the song goes on. I'm not familiar with "One" but hope this helps
 
#10
Breaking it down into parts is the way to go. My cover band has well over 200 songs to select from, on the set list I have my "cheat sheets" I write in what notes start, then add in something like this...Verse 1 A, C, D then Chorus G, C, A 99% of the time the song stays like that all the way through.
One is the same...the Verses are the same bass notes, the chorus is the same too.
So technically you only have to remember 3 parts....Verse, Chorus, then the ending part. which is 3 notes E, F and a G thrown in ....getting the timing right at the end might be a b#tch :bassist:
 
#11
I usually remember the song well enough so I can hear it in my head. It does pose a problem when I forget a song. Had a gig where I couldn't remember a song's groove to save my life, so I played the changes, remembered the groove half way through the song... no one noticed.

It might be easier to start memorizing the basic groove first, then adding in all the fills and stuff.
 
#12
I constantly have to juggle a huge repertoire in my head for gigs, and it can be overwhelming at times. One good trick I've learned is to first learn the individual parts of a song (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.), then put your bass down and listen to the song without playing, concentrating only on the form. This will help you draw a clear mental "road map" of the song without being distracted by the technical details along the way.
 
#14
Our band once did a "battle of the bands" show. Since most of the acts were country, we wanted to show that we could do lots of stuff, as we actually preferred rock. Here's what we came up with and how we finally got it all down.

We worked out a medley of 17 songs that covered all kinds of ground from country, old rock, blues, etc. Each song didn't get much time as we worked this into 15 minutes.

To learn all this, we started by practicing the first song till we had it perfect. Then, the first and second song till we had that. Then the first, second, and third. And so on until we had it all down. It worked out so well that we started doing it as part of our regular show.

Hope that helps,
Dan
 

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