Mark's Blog How I learn songs REALLY FAST!

[Mark Wein]

http://www.markwein.com/how-i-learn-songs-really-fast/

 

[Denverdave]

Do you keep PDFs of your charts on your tablet onstage?

 

[Mark Wein]

Do you keep PDFs of your charts on your tablet onstage?

not of this stuff although if I had a new gig I might just for reference. I'd prefer just to have stuff as memorized as possible. I do use Forscore on my iPad for chart reading when I need to though. The double pedal to the right of my pedalboard is a Bluetooth page turner for the iPad. It's nice because I can mark up charts with the Apple Pencil or even just my finger on the fly like you see in the pic below.

 

[Denverdave]

I like the bluetooth duel pedal thing.

I always had everything memorized with my band, though we had two guitars so if I had a brain freeze I could always drop back/out and it generally was not noticed. Though the scary thing was that the other guitar player AND the bass player knew I'd have the songs down so if they got lost they always looked to see what I was playing for their cues. So if I was lost the train wreck commenced....

if I get back into another band (hopefully) I may use a similar setup to yours.

 

[Gary Blanchard]

Because I have trouble memorizing lyrics I use a tablet or laptop with a Bluetooth pedal to keep track. I prefer a laptop kept a bit out of the sightline; I can glance at it when I need a prompt but it isn't right in my (and the audience's) face. Age is a bitch sometimes.

 

[Mark Wein]

I like the bluetooth duel pedal thing.

I always had everything memorized with my band, though we had two guitars so if I had a brain freeze I could always drop back/out and it generally was not noticed. Though the scary thing was that the other guitar player AND the bass player knew I'd have the songs down so if they got lost they always looked to see what I was playing for their cues. So if I was lost the train wreck commenced....

if I get back into another band (hopefully) I may use a similar setup to yours.

I really like the iPad Pro for charts but I don’t feel comfortable with such a large tablet on my mic stand (stuff gets dumped on my gigs thanks to drunk idiots quite often) so I have a second smaller iPad for lyrics and monitor mixes on rock gigs:

 

[Chad]

There have been a handful of times I've either joined a band right before a gig or I was filling in for someone and have had to cram for a gig. The hard part, was they were all mostly originals, so they weren't songs I've heard a million times or I could pop on the cd. I made little charts like you did and left them on my amp and before each song started, I'd glance at them quickly and hope for the best

 

[B Valley]

Good article.
Lately I've taken to using Riffstation to get the chords and from there I can figure out the different guitar parts.
Like your approach, I will write them out in sections with the first verse chord structure and lyrics, then chorus and bridge and then lyrics for other verses.
Writing it out in that form really helps me remember. After I've played them a hundred times I just need the lyrics.

 

[vonbladet]

Oh that kind of learning tunes really fast. I was hoping for something a bit more



but this is good too.