Learning and Memorizing

I've always been someone who kind of leaned on written music (or tabs/chords) perhaps more than I should. I had trouble memorizing songs I'd play with bands. This was the case even on drums, which you'd think were pattern based enough that you wouldn't need notes.

Over the last year I've gotten better at remembering drum parts. When I started playing bass again, though, I really worried that I wouldn't be able to remember my parts without notes. Back in the day I ALWAYS used notes for playing with the MPs/PdF.

Turns out that a funny thing happens when you play a song every single day, though...you remember it. And now I remember 29 Pixies songs (plus parts of a few others). And this fact truly amazes me.

So much has changed in my approach over the last few years that it kind of amazes me. I was thinking how I only played root notes or easy argeggios with the MPs/PdF. I never looked up bass tab and I never listened to recordings of songs that we played...or watched videos. I just found out what the guitar chords were and played the root notes of the chords. In lots of cases we were playing songs that I had never heard before...and I never bothered to find recordings to listen to the songs. I was flying blind...not only of the original bass part...but of how the original arrangement sounded entirely. AND I never...NEVER...played the songs outside of band practice.

The Pixies have taken me in the direction of the exact opposite approach. I find the bass tab, I listen to the recording, I watch videos of the parts...and I try to copy it exactly like the original (at least the same notes, anyway...sometimes her habit of always sliding annoys me and I chose to instead play everything in the same position). Then I play it every day until I have it memorized.

I'm not sure that one approach is any better than another...and both have served their purposes. I guess that I'm just surprised that it never occurred to me to do a little more in the past. Of course, now I'm suffering a little from copy-itis...and the fear that I won't be able to write my own bass parts when the need arises. But I'm not too worried because copying for a while is a great way to develop the skills to write your own parts.