Memorize tabs or follow along?

When learning a song, do you try and memorize the tabs or play and follow along as you go? Seems very difficult to play as I go.

Memorize first, then play along. I actually try to memorize the song first. It helps greatly with the other two.

Poundhound, so the process would be to (i) memorise the lyrics first (as if you wanted to sing along to a backing track), then (ii) memorise the chord strums or note picks, tying them to the lyrics.

Does that sound right ?

Originally Posted by: Mikey54

Poundhound, so the process would be to (i) memorise the lyrics first (as if you wanted to sing along to a backing track), then (ii) memorise the chord strums or note picks, tying them to the lyrics.

Does that sound right ?

Hi,

No, when I mean memorize the song I mean the guitar. When I listen to songs I mostly focus on the instrumentation. I know I'm not the only one who can "sing" a great many guitar solos. So knowing the flow of the music from start to finish helps me have, at least, a basic understanding of what I'm about to learn should sound like.[br][br]

Once I know the guitar parts in my head then I learn how to play them from the tabs and once that's all done I play along with the (usually) single guitar performance videos.

👍

Also bear in mind that this is my usual method. I don't follow it rigidly and I'm no expert to take advice from 😄

Hi,

No, when I mean memorize the song I mean the guitar. When I listen to songs I mostly focus on the instrumentation. I know I'm not the only one who can "sing" a great many guitar solos. So knowing the flow of the music from start to finish helps me have, at least, a basic understanding of what I'm about to learn should sound like.

Ah ok, thanks Poundhound.

So if a chord progression is say DAGADG, what you would have memorised are

the sounds made by those chords , not the letters "D" "A" ..."G" ?

Thanks in advance ,. Mike.

Sort of. I can't recognise a chord by ear, so if someone is playing the progression you've given I'll have no idea what the chords are until I look at the tab. I'm listening for the rhythm etc.

Just as an example take Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, which you can find on this site. I already knew that song quite well, but I added it to Spotify and listened to it repeatedly so I could sing the guitar parts. I had no idea how to play any of the song, no idea what chords were being played. Fortunately, the chords are quite simple, so knowing the rhythm meant I was able to learn the song quite quickly once I could remember the progression. When it came to the solo, I had a couple of technical issues to overcome due to my abilities at the time, but again, knowing how it should sound helped me.

This method is completely my preference and I'm sure that instructors will advise differently, especially as I'm avoiding real techniques like counting the beat and reading the notation by relying on memory alone.

Hey & welcome to GT!

Originally Posted by: dmartin022

When learning a song, do you try and memorize the tabs or play and follow along as you go? Seems very difficult to play as I go.

This is a multi-step process. It's especially difficult if you are a beginner & still just learning to play guitar! So be patient with yourself. :)[br][br]I encourage students to watch the video playthough of a section. Listen to it several times until you can hum it to yourself. Then watch the breakdown section. Then stop the video in order to try to play small increments of the part. How big an increment depends on your skill level & the difficulty of the song section.

Sometimes you might be able to do 2 or 4 measures if the notes/chords, rhythms & technique used is basic enough. Other times if the notes or techniques used are more difficult then you might have to just work on a measure, or even a part of a measure.

I think it's important to separate 2 steps here:

1. Watching & listening to the instructor breakdown.

2. Trying to play the part while you are learning it.

Eventually you might be able to put together all the parts enough to play along slowly at the end of a song lesson section. The instructors usually repeat the section taught a few times at the end of a lesson.

But even then, you might need to spend time away from the video, from the computer, from everything else & just focus on playing the parts over & again until they are second nature.

This process takes a different amount of time for each individual depending on their skill, how much technique they bring to the process. But the same thing has to happen with everyone: in order to play a song in real time all the physical motions have to be completely automated. You have to practice enough that you can just play the part like second nature.

When you are playing music in real time there is no time to second guess, or think about the part while you are playing it. You have to be thinking a little ahead of where you are in music so you can just think of what is next & those hours of repetitious practice take over, your brain sends the signals to your hands & muscle memory takes over.

Hope this helps! Please ask more if necessary. Best of success with it!

Great info! Thanks that's exactly what I was looking for

Originally Posted by: dmartin022

Great info! Thanks that's exactly what I was looking for

Good deal!