Hey there, do you want to learn how to memorize songs easily and faster? Good,
because that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's do this.
First I want to talk about the three types of memories and why this is important for
you to know. Second I'm going to give you a step-by-step example of how I would go about
learning and memorizing a piece. And then finally, I'll give you some
tried and true tips at least ones that have worked for me.
The three types of memory are muscle memory, auditory and cognitive. Muscle memory is kind of
what we first think about when you're practicing a piece. You basically do it over and over and
your mind and your muscles get together and kind of say “Ah, when we play this song this is where
your fingers should go or in the case of your vocals what we should sing. When you practice a
piece over and over and then you can do it without looking at the music that's mostly muscle memory.
Now the reason we don't want to depend completely on muscle memory is that it's kind of dependent
on the situation you're in. If you're in a room and you practice a piece and you can remember it,
it doesn't mean when you go out to play it in front of other people under a little bit
of stress and maybe different environments and other distractions that you'll be able to do it.
Matter of fact, I can vouch for this. I have a very clear memory as a younger dude
practicing a classical guitar piece over and over and over until I can play it flawlessly but then
I was put in front of about 30 other students and between those students looking at me and the
different environment I froze up right about the middle of the piece. It was very embarrassing. But
muscle memory is important and it's particularly useful when combined with auditory and cognitive.
Now auditory memory is just like it sounds. You hear something and you
remember it. Of course the more you hear it and the more emotionally charged it is,
the easier and quicker it is to remember it. For us music people,
that usually happens by listening to a song over and over but it also happens when we play
a song over and over. We connect the sound that we're hearing with the muscle memory.
And then there's cognitive memory which means using your brain intellect. Now this can really
support the muscle and auditory memories but for most guitar players this is usually on
the weaker side and when I say intellect I'm talking about kind of understanding how the
piece of music works. It's the key, it's in the chords that you're using especially for guitar
players. The chord progression one of the most important things is to understand common chord
progressions and to identify them as well as any other patterns in a piece of music
When you see the patterns and you go ahead and
practice and you connect the auditory with the muscle memory it's much easier to remember the
piece. When you're playing and you can't quite feel where that next chord should be
you go into your brain and see “Oh it's part of a common chord progression and the next chord
is and that strikes your muscle memory and your auditory memory and gets it back in gear. Now
that doesn't mean you should drop everything and just go out and learn a bunch of music theory.
I would recommend just using what you got and it probably know a little more than you give yourself
credit for and adding to it little by little as you learn new pieces.
Now these are all great in theory but I'm going to show you a step-by-step process of how I
would go about learning a very simple piece and the key is I'm using all three forms of memory.
They support each other and the three together are much stronger than anyone individually.
I'm going to go through this pretty quickly. The idea is not to teach
you how to play the song but rather to show you how these work together.
We have a very simple folk song and I'm using this just to demonstrate how to go about memorizing the
song quickly. The first thing I want to do is use my cognitive that means look it over and and
what can I learn about the song intellectually. Now first of all I can tell what key it's in.
In this case the key of D. I can tell by the key signature and also the chords.
Now I'm looking for any common patterns or any common chord patterns. I don't see anything
other than D G and A7 which is in the key very often the three chords that are used in the key.
But I can see there are some patterns going on here. I see the chords D G and D D G and D
again and then I see D G A7, D G A7. I can see a repeating pattern down here. As a matter of fact
I've kind of give you some hints. I can divide this song into four sections.
One being the chords D G to D. The second section is the chords D G D7. The third section was
exactly the same as one D G to D and then the fourth section is different because I'm playing
a chord every other beat instead of four. It drags out longer in the first part.
So now the second thing is to look to see how I can divide the song up. Often I look for like a
chorus and a verse or chorus verse and bridge. In this case, I don't I can't really call anything
the chorus and the verse but I can kind of see there's some natural divisions at least.
This main part and this last part are two sections that I could work on.
Now once you've kind of looked it over, use your intellect think about what kinds of patterns are
in the song. It's time to go ahead and play the song and connect that with your listening,
your auditory. So that means play the song and as you play through it, think about how that
what you're hearing connects with what you've looked at the key it's in the chord patterns.
You'll even hear patterns that you didn't notice by sight at first.
So once you play through the song and you might want to play through it a few times.
It's time to start working on the sections. So let's say we're going to work on this first part.
About start playing Kumbaya my Lord Kumbaya and then I'll take away the sheet music and see if
I can play that without the music. If that's okay then I'll go on to section number two.
Kumbaya my little Kumbaya. It ends on A7 now. I'll play that without the
sheet music then I'll play the two together without the music. Kumbaya my Lord Kumbaya.
You like my fake guitar playing there. See my hands up in the air.
Kumbaya my Lord Kumbaya. So once I get that, keep going on. In this case
I’d probably practice this last section a little bit more because I can see it goes
a little faster so I play with the music then I take away the music. Don't go get it. Pull back
the music. Try it again, take it away again and then try adding it to the rest of the chords.
Once I've done that and I can play through the entire song by memory then I would come back at
it in intervals. I would assume that I'm going to forget it and come back at it maybe even the same
day a few times at first. But then over time I'd practice several times during the week.
Now it's common to have just the words and the chords without the actual music or measures.
And this is Green Sleeves, another common song simple song with a few more chords than that
kumbaya. I can look at this and again I can first of all look to see what key it's in.
I'm going to guess the key of E minor. I'll know more when I try to play it on the guitar
but I can see it starts in E minor and ends on E minor that's a good cue and B7 is a common chord
in the key of E minor. It's the five chord in the key E minor. Now I divide the song into sections.
Fortunately for me each of the line looks like a section.
Alas my love you do me wrong to cast me also courageously and so on. I probably assume each
of these lines are a section. I don't have to know that for sure until I hear it. Now I'd
play through the whole song and once I played through it I'd be pretty sure it's in the key
of E minor. I could hear it kind of just feels like home once I play it and I can also tell that
each of these lines will be a good section to work on one at a time. Now I'd play through it.
I'd get to where I could play that first line. I take away the music and once I could play it
without looking I do the second line and so on put the two together until I got to the end.
Now here's some additional tips that have worked for me over the years the most important thing
is to start simple. Build up step by step. Start with very simple songs, work at memorizing them
and then start adding more and more complex songs. Like anything else the more you do it the easier
it gets. Now another thing I do almost every single time is to write out the chord progression
on paper. I mean that's a great way to memorize things in general and sometimes I'll write it out
a couple of times partly because I make mistakes but also because I just want the repetition.
Now what I do when I'm not at my guitar is I'll rehearse a song in my head.
Yeah. I'll visualize it. It's the audio thing. I hear it in my head. It works for me. I
suggest giving it a try and see the more you do it the easier it gets.
And number four is focus. This is something I see students take for granted. Put your
attention and your focus on what you're doing and it'll go faster. You'll memorize it faster.
That might mean finding a place with less distractions if you can.
Now tip number five is something I use to kind of test myself. I'll play it slow. Slower than
it can reasonably sound good but it kind of helps me just feel each of the motions
and then I can see how well I can actually play the piece.I'll
particularly go to a part of the song that I think I need to work on. I play it really slow,
pick it up and then slow it down again. Pick it up and then slow it down again.
And the sixth tip maybe is kind of obvious but do it a little at a time regularly. The more
you use your muscle memory the better it works. That combined with starting with small steps and
building up right it's to help people develop their regular muscles in the gym or in sports.
When you're ready, try recording the song and I don't mean when you got it perfect. I mean when
you feel like you can do it justice to pull out an Iphone or your computer if you're using that.
This helps you on several levels. One I think it helps you focus. It helps me focus but also
you kind of see where my weaknesses are and I'll go back and listen to it and then practice some
more and this seems to really work for me. I'll often combine that with writing out the
chord progression. Playing it from the chord progression on paper and then pulling it away
and trying without. So what about the lyrics? Well I don't do that very often. I don't learn
songs that I have to sing and play. Sometimes, yes and I do have experience with that but
I'm not the expert here. I will say I know some things that have worked for me one is
simply writing out the lyrics and I'll write them out several times that seems to help. And another
thing which again is kind of obvious is listening to the song over and over on YouTube and singing
along with it. That helps me get the lyrics without having to worry about the guitar part.
Another kind of fun thing I like to do is to record the chord progression on the guitar
and then play back and sing along with it. This helps me
focus on my singing and get it right as well as help remember the lyrics.
Well that's it for now. I hope this video helped you out. If it did I
appreciate a thumbs up and if you're not sure where you should be spending
your time to get the fastest results sign up for my free guitar success checklist.
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link below or you can visit my website directly at www.tomasmichaud.com I'll see you again soon. Bye.