Learning Songs - how much time to spend on it

[jbrin0tk]

Hey everyone,

Quick question: When you are trying to learn a new song, how much of your practice time do you dedicate to it? Let's just say you are given a 2hr time period. How much of that 2 hours would you spend on the new song? I'm trying to find a good balance between learning a new song and practicing licks, scales, etc. Thanks for your help.

 

[Sikthness]

For me it varies wildly from song to song. for instance, if its simply a matter of memorization and practicing it, I'd spend most if not all the time learning it. Memorizing the riffs and timing etc. Now if I learn I song I consider to be beyond my skills, or like right at the border of what I can do technique wise, i'll split it up more. dunno if that made sense so here is an example:


I always wanted to be able to play Bland Street Bloom by SikTh, esp the chorus part with the tapping. At the time I tried learning it, I was a beginner at best with tapping. Just super easy basics for me. So I 'learned' the song in the sense I memorized what was supposed to be played even thought I couldn't come close to nailing it. So once I did that I looked online for tapping practice/technique etc and eventually chipped away at the song and ultimately returned to it some time later when I was much more comfortable with tapping and then sat down n just really hammered away at it for a couple hours.

I use that basic idea for almost all songs I learn. Hope that makes sense. Just feel it out man, if you feel like you are struggling cuz the song is too fast, or too difficult or has a lot of sweeps n thats your weakness then id say focus a good portion on practicing technique. If its a song that you can play all the parts n its just a matter of memorization/repetition, then just sit down n get that shit done.

 

[Solodini]

I sort of agree with Sikthness but I'd say that if the tune features a technique that you need to work at then use the tune as your exercise. It'll be more difficult but I've always been one for learning things the more difficult way so that easier examples then seem super-easy.

In terms of your question, in a 2 hour practise I'd say to spend the middle 40-60 mins working on the song.

Use the first 20-40 mins to warm up and get your brain in gear with going over theory exercises as well, then spend the middle 40-60 mins on the song but working on the immediate areas of difficulty and practising the technique/timing et c. rather than just playing through the song for an hour.

The last 30-40 mins I'd spend working on other areas of difficulty outside of the song, for instance, if the song throws up some weakness in your timing/legato et c. then do a wee bit of time working on the part of that which is weak, while it's fresh in your mind and you're otherwise in the right mindset to do that technique from the song. Make up exercises which don't use licks from the song but are still musical. You don't want to spend all your time practising working on the song or you'll burn out from practising things which you think should be teaching you the song but aren't.

 

[Winspear]

I'm the same as Sikthness. I tend to spend a very long time (months) learning songs because I pick things out of my ability. Rather than using picking exercises every day to increase my speed, for example, I will choose a crazy song I'd like to play and make exercises out of each section of that. Drilling the verse on repeat at 50% tempo for example. After a week or so I usually have the whole song memorized and can play it at 50% - I spend however long then increasing the speed gradually just as people do with exercises.
I always learn a few different songs in various styles at once to keep myself sane, and do do exercises to a lesser extent.
I posted a cover of an Animals as Leaders song here recently - that took me a year and a half or so. I was completely relearning guitar and it was my first try at proper technique, fingerpicking/hybrid picking, and sweep/economy picking. I treated that just the same way people do exercises, speeding them up over a year - but the bonus is being able to play something musical at the end of it.

 

[Geetarism]

So the last few replies are great. I would totally agree. I approach learning new songs in a few ways. For me time is dictated by purpose. Learnign it becasue....
1) i just like it: much less time spent each session, and get to it when it get to it

2) it was requested (from my utube page): spend much more time (a few hours in total on avg) getting down the nuances to make it as close to the original as possible

3) it has the potential to take my playing to a new level: here i tend to spend more time in the technical aspect and replicate passes over and over till i feel i can do them at about 1/2 speed. The time on this can vary greatly for me as the harder the technique, the longer i spend..unless of course i just give up. insert Bulb playing tapping solo from Letter experiment!!
All of it is of course dictated by the overal difficulty relative to your skilll level and the time you have (most of us have lives outside playing I remember taking like 30 hrs to learn songs when my skill and ear was just awful. As your skill level inc then the time it takes to learn new tunes is greatly diminished. Then you begin to challange yourself with more technical tunes and it starts all over again!! YEAH!

some weeks I play 3 hrs a day for 5 days, then life happens and i cant touch it for a week or so.

What I find interesting is that eventually recreating others stuff lost a lot of its attraction when i felt confident in my overall skill and desire to write my own stuff. I now rarely try to learn another's song unless it is becasue of reasons 2 or 3 above.

Just my thoughts brother.

great question.

PEACE!

 

[jbrin0tk]

Thanks for the responses, guys. They were all awesome.