Tune Categories/Similarities

Ando · January 2011

Has this been covered before? In committing repertoire to memory, it's helpful a) to play the tune a thousand times (duh), and b) reducing repertory information to rough harmony-descriptive chunks which are easier to remember. For example:

major blues (blues clair)
minor blues (blues en mineur)
a-train changes (exactly like you)
rhythm changes (daphne)
chromatic progressions (djangology)
etc.

Could we multiply the examples in each category? Or if this is too mundane, maybe comment on "tunes that are surprisingly similar in structure"? Or address generally the goal of "becoming a rhythm guitarist who knows hundreds of tunes"? I know the route to Carnegie Hall -- I'm fishing for memory tricks along the way.

Cheers
Ando

adrian · January 2011

I've heard people describe bridges this way:

* "Honeysuckle Rose bridge" (1, 4, 2, 5) -- "Honeysuckle Rose," "Coquette," "Confessin'"
* "Rhythm Changes bridge" (3, 6, 2, 5) -- "Moppin' the Bride," "Double Scotch," "Stompin' at Decca"

Adrian

djangology · January 2011

You will always notice similarities between songs... some are just vague similarities and some are exact... and that being the case, its tough to answer this question. Rather than hoping for "tricks", I think that a person just to set goals and force yourself to sit down and memorize songs. Keep challenging yourself to try to recall songs you can't quite remember. When I first started I had a initial goal to memorize 10 songs and then after that my next goal was 30 songs , and that is what I did. As long as you stick to the genre, 60-100 tunes is all you need to play for hours with anyone. I think that if you are able to get to 100+ then you are probably at the level that you can figure any song out on the fly. If you want challenge yourself, I think some relatively harder ones to memorize are : Melodie au Crepescule, Stardust, Time On My Hands, There Will Never Be Another You, How High The Moon, most of the waltzes, and Menilmontant.