Your routine for learning a new song?

I divide them up, learn each piece seperately at a very low BPM. Then I put it together and slowly increase tempo while always playing the entire song.

I chuck it on the music stand and play it chunk by chunk from sight time after time after time until I can play it at full speed all the way through fromsight. Then I try and stop looking at the music.

Classical pieces tend to get chucked on the music stand and played all the way through time after time after etc.....

Best,

A :-)

Breaking it up into small chunks seems to be everyone's favourite method, myself included. Once I've got it down to my satisfaction, I always try and strum along with the CD - that helps with the timing, and to smooth out any wrinkles. Some people would say slavishly learning a song parrot-fashion isn't real musicianship, but hell, once you know a song really well, you can always tweak it and mess around with it later if youu want to put your own spin on it!

:D :D :D

Vic

Cool, thanks, yeah, I guess it would make more sense to get all the sections up to speed in parallel, instead of trying to get one section perfect before trying the next.

I do the chunks thing to but I learn what I feel are the hardest parts first and when I feel comfortable with them then I learn the easier parts.

Jim

Chunks works for me too. Also once I've got two or more chunks weighed off I will take the end of one chunk and the start of the next one and concentrate on the transition from one chunk to another so the whole thing hopefully will seem seemless when played together.

Not that I've been working on songs much lately. I'm giving technique and improvising a hammering.

8)

I do something similar, but I also "watch" the song being played in Guitar Pro or Powertab several times when available. Helps me to see how it's supposed to be played.

I do it in chunks like everyone else, but I also make a point to put the original on my MP3 player so I can dissect the song on the way to and from work.

I guess it depends on the source I'm learning from - by ear, by notes, or tab.

By ear I listen and try to define sections: intro, verse, bridge, chorus, outro, whatever. And as I listen, I think "What's this like?"... it's amazing how a part of one song is nearly identical to another. If you can listen to La Bamba, and hear the changes of Good Loving in it, you can nail the tune very quickly.

From sheet music, I put a pencil on the music stand. Then I start at the beginning and play through it twice - I'll note any areas that gave me problems either time. The rest of the tune, the parts I played perfectly well twice in a row with no preparaton - well, they don't need any practice time. All I need to do is memorize them.

Then I start working on the parts I had trouble with. There's probably a different way to finger that passage, and once I find it and learn it, I move on to the next problem spot. Only after a piece presents no technical hurdles will I work on memorizing it - knowing half a tune isn't much good.

From tab I'll listen to a recording and note the rhythm. Then I'll follow the same basic steps.

When I go to memorize a piece, I'll learn the most memorable part first. Sometimes that's a riff, sometimes it's the intro, most of the times it's a chorus. After that I usually go straight through from the beginning.