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Learning songs with many sections?

 
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Goho  





Joined: 29 Jul 2008
Posts: 272

PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 4:45 pm    Post subject: Learning songs with many sections? Reply with quote

Whenever I learn a song with a lot of different sections, I feel that I learn it very slowly. Any tips on learning songs faster? I want to be able to maybe 5 star Llama and others.
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blingdomepiece  





Joined: 03 Aug 2007
Posts: 4358
Location: Ottawa ON Canada

PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Learning songs with many sections? Reply with quote

Goho wrote:
Whenever I learn a song with a lot of different sections, I feel that I learn it very slowly. Any tips on learning songs faster? I want to be able to maybe 5 star Llama and others.


Practice mode.

Go section by section in practice mode until you are proficient at all/most sections. Then start doing real runs and figure out your OD strategy based on what you can hit and where the notes are.

Unless you are good enough to hit a section without knowing what's coming (that level will be different for every player and will depend on the chart) you need to know what's coming. For songs that don't repeat as much, the only way you will know what's coming is pure rote memorization.

Sometimes that's frustrating, like I'll GS a song after a bunch of work and then play it again 4 months later and 4* it. But that's life. Re-learning tends to go faster than initial learning at least.

When I'm trying to 5* something, I will play through it 3-4 times to see if I just pick up the sections I initially miss the second or third time. If I'm not making progress, then I usually have to go section by section. Simply playing the entire song 25 or 30 times to work out a couple of 5-10 second stretches is really inefficient.
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Expert Pro Keys: 50/63 GS, most recent The Killing Moon
Expert Pro Drums: 53/83 GS, most recent Free Bird / Oh My God / Oye Mi Amor
Expert Pro Bass: 6/83 GS, most recent Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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Hobo111  





Joined: 27 Dec 2009
Posts: 3414

PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Learning it slowly is only natural, since there are more sections to learn

But on the topic of Llama, your best bet is to learn the Guitar Solo sections inside and out, they're the most point-abundant. If you get those down, you can kinda BS through the rest.
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Goho  





Joined: 29 Jul 2008
Posts: 272

PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 5:29 pm    Post subject: Re: Learning songs with many sections? Reply with quote

blingdomepiece wrote:
Goho wrote:
Whenever I learn a song with a lot of different sections, I feel that I learn it very slowly. Any tips on learning songs faster? I want to be able to maybe 5 star Llama and others.


Practice mode.

Go section by section in practice mode until you are proficient at all/most sections. Then start doing real runs and figure out your OD strategy based on what you can hit and where the notes are.

Unless you are good enough to hit a section without knowing what's coming (that level will be different for every player and will depend on the chart) you need to know what's coming. For songs that don't repeat as much, the only way you will know what's coming is pure rote memorization.

Sometimes that's frustrating, like I'll GS a song after a bunch of work and then play it again 4 months later and 4* it. But that's life. Re-learning tends to go faster than initial learning at least.

When I'm trying to 5* something, I will play through it 3-4 times to see if I just pick up the sections I initially miss the second or third time. If I'm not making progress, then I usually have to go section by section. Simply playing the entire song 25 or 30 times to work out a couple of 5-10 second stretches is really inefficient.

That's my problem. I use practice mode, but I'm still learning slowly.
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blingdomepiece  





Joined: 03 Aug 2007
Posts: 4358
Location: Ottawa ON Canada

PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Learning songs with many sections? Reply with quote

Goho wrote:
That's my problem. I use practice mode, but I'm still learning slowly.


It's also possible you aren't ready for the chart yet. If you are doing poorly at 70% speed, it might be better to work on other songs instead of banging your ahead against that wall. Put another way, if you are having trouble with songs that are mostly four-note chords, you should make sure you can handle songs that have just a few. Or if you are bad at songs with extended tough solos, you should learn songs with easier solos.

A couple other things about practice mode (good timing since I just got Lithium to a 5* with this technique):
* I try to go section by section, 70% to full speed. I don't skip sections; but if a section is exactly like one I've already done, I'll start it at full speed.
* I usually aim for > 95% at full speed. But you can usually 5* a song with 1-2 weaker sections. If I go into full runs and nail all my "known" sections and still fall short, then I know I have to go back in and learn more sections.
* At slower speeds, make sure you aren't just focusing on the 100% (which is often fairly easy), but also in positioning your fingers in such a way that is economical that will make it easier to hit the same section at higher speed. If FCing a section at 70% requires a bunch of movement that you can't do 42% faster, it's a waste of time.
* You ideally should have stuff memorized so that you can hit it somewhat on autopilot and so that if you get momentarily distracted you can get back to where you need to be BY EAR.
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Expert Pro Keys: 50/63 GS, most recent The Killing Moon
Expert Pro Drums: 53/83 GS, most recent Free Bird / Oh My God / Oye Mi Amor
Expert Pro Bass: 6/83 GS, most recent Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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megallica  





Joined: 22 Jun 2007
Posts: 2429
Location: Woodbridge, VA

PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

just to echo what bling said

the majority of my FCs came from using the trainers and practice mode

for many songs, i was able to go from not passing to FC within a few hours, by focusing only on that song. Starting out with trying to FC all of the trainer sections at full speed (starting at slower speeds if it was too hard to play well at full speed right away), then going through EVERY section in practice mode and only moving on if i could FC it.

finding the easiest finger positions to play tricky parts is also important

i've found that many hard parts can be FCed with several different hand positions, but there's usually one that is much easier to FC the section consistently

muscle memory and chart memorization go a long way for getting FCs, which is why i like to focus on songs one at a time, and go after the easiest ones first, so i don't struggle with songs that i'm not quite ready for yet

this thread is a pretty good guide to the relative FC difficulty of each song for the on disc setlist

if you're just going for GSes or 5*s, you can play through the song a few times, and try to spot small parts that you're missing that break up large chunks of the song that you can get a note streak on. learning those parts will be more beneficial than learning parts in the middle of solos where your multiplier will keep breaking anyway. finding OD paths that work around the parts you can't combo and learning how to hit tricky OD sections will also boost your score quite a bit if you can get an extra activation or two out of them
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blingdomepiece  





Joined: 03 Aug 2007
Posts: 4358
Location: Ottawa ON Canada

PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

megallica wrote:
finding the easiest finger positions to play tricky parts is also important


Yup, one of my bad habits is trying to hit a given chord the same way without taking into account the chart, what comes before it, and what comes after. Then after trying a new positioning I get unblocked and progress quickly.
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Expert Pro Keys: 50/63 GS, most recent The Killing Moon
Expert Pro Drums: 53/83 GS, most recent Free Bird / Oh My God / Oye Mi Amor
Expert Pro Bass: 6/83 GS, most recent Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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mazegeek999PSN  





Joined: 23 Jul 2012
Posts: 460

PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 12:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I learn a tough song I normally try to first tech FC it (FCing each section in practice mode). If I can't it's no big deal, but it definitely helps to know how to play each section. But, like Hobo said, it's naturally going to take a longer time if there's more sections; that's just the way it is.
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Alternity  





Joined: 26 Jul 2008
Posts: 410
Location: Montréal, QC

PostPosted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 2:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I go to practice a song, First off I go for a tech FC if possible, then I still stay in practice mode, beginning with the first part to FC it again, then adding parts to it, and try to FC the thing, or at least 99%, to get more consistancy over the whole thing.

That, or sightreading the song over and over can work too in my case. (On some songs it even works better than actially going in practice mode for me)

For an example: I have never, never, never used the trainer or practice mode for Llama (maybe I should, though), and I'm close to 5 star it. I don't even play it that often.

When I began with pro keys, I simply played everything on expert + no-fail, then I chose an impossible song I wanted to play well (In my case, Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting), a couple of months later, I did a 100% overhit run. Then I attacked the other impossible songs and it seemed way easier than it was when I began, didn't even took that long to 5 star Free Bird and Bohemian Rhapsody.
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blingdomepiece  





Joined: 03 Aug 2007
Posts: 4358
Location: Ottawa ON Canada

PostPosted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 3:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Alternity wrote:
For an example: I have never, never, never used the trainer or practice mode for Llama (maybe I should, though), and I'm close to 5 star it. I don't even play it that often.


If that's the case, I think it speaks more to your previous experience as a keyboardist than to the utility of practice mode. Practice mode is great for songs that have parts you can't learn on the fly. What that means is different for each player because it depends on your keyboarding experience and what kind of charts you've seen before.
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Expert Pro Keys: 50/63 GS, most recent The Killing Moon
Expert Pro Drums: 53/83 GS, most recent Free Bird / Oh My God / Oye Mi Amor
Expert Pro Bass: 6/83 GS, most recent Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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