[scarecrowbob]

I learn a lot of songs, both lyrics and performance on other instruments. I've memorized 500-800, and I have a couple hundred tunes I routinely perform in front of people.

Slow, perfect practice of component parts in all things is the only easy way to gain skills, IMO.

Long-term periodic repetition is the easy way to keep skills.

So, for instance, I can learn most generic country songs in about an hour. As with most skills I break it into smaller chunks...

I memorize and perfect a song's first line, Then I do the same with the second line, then I return to the first line and re-work it if I haven't got it full memorized.

When I have the first and second lines memorized, I turn to the third by itself, and when that's done, I turn back to the first two lines.

This process has a second level, in which I do the same for each section of the song (chorus, brides, variations): learn a small chunk perfectly, move on to another chunk, return to the previous chunk.

Learning a song like Willie Nelson's "Mamas Don't Let Your babies Grow up to be Cowboys" takes about 30 min or less.

By definition you return to the previous chunks less and less frequently. That's a structural part of this method; the second part is to play the song 20-30 times in the next couple of days.

However, once you've done that, if you start increasing the period of performance, I've found it's pretty reliable to double the amount of time you can go in between performances and still have the material memorized... if I do this process, then I only need to play the tune every couple of days for the next week or two, and then once every week for the next month or two, and then once a month over the next year.

Using that method, I've been able to call up stuff I haven't played in 2-3 years. And if I'm playing things even less frequently than that, well, I dunno if I really need to know it.

I've found my other skill sets, at least the ones that don't rely on being in a specific physical condition like rock climbing, generally benefit from this periodization.

[BoiledCabbage]

If you're not already familiar with the term, it's "spaced repetition" - And is big in learning/memory.

[scarecrowbob]

Yeah, this method is not original to me, for sure.

Neither the "slow perfect practice" nor the "break down the skill" nor the "spaced repetition" is my invention.

[ohthehugemanate]

on piano, I do the same but rather than working on components in chronological order, I order from most to least difficult. So the hardest parts get the most practice.

For singing, where my technique is a lot more advanced and it's more about memorization, I learn components in reverse chronological order, ie start with the last four bars, then the last 8 bars, then the last 12, etc. That way the piece is increasingly well memorized as I go along.

[egypturnash]

Seconding "slow, perfect practice of component parts".

It is a thing that the good teachers I have had in many skills have emphasized. Dancing. Martial arts. Drawing. Start slow, train your muscles to put this part of your body right there, with good form that minimizes the chance of injury. Once you can do that reliably, start doing it faster.