I’ve been thinking it for awhile, that the app is a crutch that is preventing memorization. Its just that I love the backing tracks, playing along with all the sounds of the song. I find songs in the app that I would never have thought of, and that might be fun to play. I may keep it for those reasons, but also just force myself not to use it during dedicated practice.
I will admit, I don’t yet recognize strum patterns by listening to recorded songs, nor am I able to pick out chord or note complexities by ear. I don’t enjoy recreating riffs by trying to pick them out. This is where it will be important for me to either find a structured song lesson (so glad Justin has hundreds of these) or the tab and sheet music, and so far, its been too difficult choosing my own songs to learn, so I think I’ll be dependent on Justin’s lesson videos. And that’s fine. I just need to transition and get accustomed to using YT for backing tracks. Being a newbie to this instrument is just excruciating, ability-wise!
Riding is so fun. I take any opportunity to ride when I can find one. I took lessons when I was younger, and though I don’t get to ride often at all nowadays (like once a year, if that), every time I get in the saddle its always just as comfortable and familiar as when I were riding every day. My instructor put me in an English saddle and had me jumping! She had ideas that I could compete. It was a surprise to me that she took me in that direction because I wasn’t learning to ride to become a competitor, I was just wanting to ride because I loved it so much. But there was so much to learn about communicating with the horse and doing it subtly and using proper physical form and motions. I would focus on everything so intently that I would forget to breathe and I’d hyperventilate. Was a very baffling thing to me, as to why breathing would be the last thing I’d remember to do, but definitely taught me that complex activities take a lot of work and dedicated focus, have to be broken down into smaller pieces. But that was frustrating for me when riding horses, and its also frustrating with guitar.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about those questions, trying to find a direction to go. The truth is I didn’t have a particular goal other than to learn how to play. This is probably a little problematic for forward progress. I still feel its a bit early yet for me to pick a specialty and run with it. I mean I know what kind of music I like, but that doesn’t mean I want to focus solely on that style, at least not right now. I want to learn everything Justin has to teach and get a taste of all the genres. But yeah I just found myself in a rut approaching consolidation and it means I either need to just take a break until I find some motivation, or go back and determine what concepts are making me feel held back and keep working on them. And I need to memorize songs.
Just discussing with everyone and getting my thoughts out of my head is helping tremendously. Everyone’s suggestions are great and its helpful having some more experienced fingers pointing the way.
I urge you not to stop playing along with backing tracks - and eventually the original recorded songs of other songs not on the app.
The benefits are enormous and hard to summarise in one sentence. The fun factor is high too.
BUT … You said this again, same as before …
I can’t memorize songs for some reason.
Memorisation won’t come with playing one song 2 times, 3 times or even 5 times. It comes from many repeats over several weeks.
And remember this advice I gave above.
There are no short cuts. You have to play them often. One important help to this that you can give yourself is manually writing out the chord progressions in rows (of 4 bars per row perhaps).
Like this.
Well I don’t hate hearing that the app songs are still good for plenty of reasons!
Yeah, I realize it will take many many hours of playing to memorize a song, that in and of itself is a challenge. The reasons behind why I don’t do it is the question. I think it just comes down to getting bored with it after a few plays. I suppose I haven’t been disciplined enough because the accuracy in my fingers isn’t there to do many riffs, the dexterity isn’t there to do some of the song techniques Justin teaches in the song lessons. The muting parts, be it either hand, are challenges. There’s so much to playing that it’s easier to find other content to switch my focus to instead. It’s time to stop doing that. I am going to try to make a concerted effort to choose songs that Justin has a lesson for and prioritize them, and I think now that I’ve come to a stopping point in the modules I can do that.
Oh and I think using the manual writing method you’ve suggested might work as a psychological trick to get me invested in a song. I have Justin’s song books, but maybe I need to get me a spiral notebook to start working from- my own study notes might hold me accountable.
Just my thoughts: The app CAN BE a crutch but there are ways around it. The easiest is to simply not look at the screen. Turn your phone/tablet/computer around so you can’t even sneek-a-peek and leave the sound on. Not only do you then have to try to remember the chords/progression but you may also get to use your ears to know when you’ve hit a wrong chord.
I also think @Richard_close2u comment to write out the song by section is enormously helpful in memorizing.
