I heard a song yesterday for the first time in a while and it occurred to me that I once learned how to play it. However, when I picked up my guitar to try, I couldn’t remember some of the chords. It made me think: how do you make sure your repertoire of “campfire songs” stays fresh? Do you have any kind of spaced repetition strategy, or any other techniques to make sure they don’t get pushed out of your brain for all the new stuff you learn?
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I don’t have a strategy but I probably should, it’s a good idea. Maybe set aside 1 day a month to play through all the songs you know?
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Great question. I can play my repertoire from memory for a good 2 hours or more. But there are songs that fall out of my “rotation” and I don’t play them for many months. Typically, I have to refer to my song sheet once or twice before they are back to full memory.
Every now and again, I go through my list of all the songs I’ve learned and relearn the ones I’ve not playing in a long time. Each time I do this they come back to full memory more quickly than before.
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I’m using a spreadsheet. Google Leitner diagrams.
Basically, I have a column for the last day practice, a column that says how many days until I practice that song again, and another column with the next practice date. After I get it into long-term memory, I practice it every 7 days (not shown, but is lower in spreadsheet). Once I get a lot of songs, I can extend that time to 2 weeks, 4 weeks, whatever. Justin talks about this too.
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damn, thats impressive. I’m shocking at remembering 
Oh that’s handy! Right now I just have a table in my notes app that has a column each for Campfire, Developer, and Dreamer songs but I like the additional detail here. (For example, I have been learning Heart of Gold this week and I can play it easily enough but I don’t have the arrangement memorized—it would be good to note that somewhere, versus something like “End of the Line” that I think I could play in my sleep at any point.)
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I think Justin discusses such a strategy somewhere. But there are a lot of ways. You need to play the pieces you want to keep playable, so if there are more than a few, having a check list or flash cards may help.
Try writing each song on a flash card. Every, or every few, practices pick one or two to play through. When you have been through them all, shuffle and start over. Just an idea.
Justin has a Lesson on remembering songs. You need to revisit them on a regular schedule. 1 month then 3 months etc to lock them into long term memory.
I tried to find it but can’t remember what lesson is called.
Is this the one you’re thinking of, Rick?
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/memorize-easy-songs-b1-707
Tod
Thanks for posting @CATMAN62 but that’s not the one.
The lesson I’m thinking of Justin talks about revisiting song every few months and leaving more time inbetween visits. By doing this over a year or so the song gets stored in long term memory.
I found another lesson on Developing a Repertoire but it’s not the one I’m looking for either. He doesn’t talk about revisiting.
https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/developing-repertoire-bg-1406
It may be from the old website and never got transferred over to the new site.
Maybe @THEMADMAN_TOBYJENNER Toby or @Richard_close2u will remember
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That’s the one. I’ll should use this method to remember the video title 
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I keep repertoire in my Learning Log. I use the same format for tracking learning every time I write in there, which is about once a week, the Songs I practiced, Theory learned, what I have been listening to, what my practice sessions consisted of and Notes. In the Songs section I always have my repertoire songs pasted to the side as a reminder. They change over time, but I try not to change unless they are getting really stale. Most of my repertoire has been the same since I started maintaining learning log about 2 years. I don’t fret too much about which songs, but in my mind I try to touch those at least a few times a week, if not every day. Also keeping those songs printed out with pieces of paper floating around the house helps. I might pick them up and play randomly or my kids might also.
When I first started performing at our local music club, I was tied to my song sheets and thought it was too hard to learn songs from memory. We had an outdoor jam once because our usual space was booked by someone else and my sheets flew all over the place. Another club member commented that I usually play the same 3 or 4 songs and maybe I should memorize just them.
So I took that advice and once I broke free of the mindset that it’s too hard to memorize songs, I was surprised that it wasn’t as hard as I thought.
It’s well worth the effort. The joy of being able to pull a number of songs out of one’s back pocket at a moments notice is wonderful.
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Nothing comes overnight, but… once you stop relying on sheets/notes and start memorizing songs you’ll automatically train your ear as well. Eventually you’ll be able to instinctively know/hear what the next chord is in MANY songs. Many songs also follow very similar chord progressions, when written out in numerical form (like the I-IV-V progression etc)… just in different keys. But the movement/harmony of the songs are the same.
I’ve been doing this for 30+ years, and have played hundreds of songs from memory… and transcribed most of them myself. The payoff is that by now I can generally play along pretty well to most pop/rock songs already before the first listen is done. Not perfect, of course, but I’ll likely catch the chords of the verse and chorus almost immediately. I don’t say this to brag, but to let you know that this is where you’ll eventually get… IF you start ditching the sheets/papers and play by memory 
Good luck, and happy transcribing/memorizing!
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