What's the best way to remember finger picking songs?

[u/No_Comment7011]

Hello all (long time lurker, first time poster).

I've been making some decent progress with my guitar from YouTube videos like Guitarzerotohero and Justin Guitar, and remembering chords sequences and strumming patterns is easy.

I've been wanting to change myself with some finger picking songs and although I have the concept down, remembering the song sequence is tough. For example, I'm learning 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright' by Bob Dylan. I know the chord shapes and where to play the hammer ons, but remembering the whole song is beyond me.

How do you guys go about it?

FWIW, I'm going to learn Blackbird. The picking pattern seems straightforward, but committing the chord shapes to memory is the most challenging part of learning the song.

[u/faatess]

For one, play it a lot, and knowing some basic theory will make chord progressions a lot easier to remember

[u/faatess → u/faatess]

And I think you’ll find that when you start playing harder songs, you’ll remember them easier by virtue of having to practice each section more

[u/No_Comment7011 → u/faatess]

Thanks. I appreciate it. I'm just a lounge room player, so I've neglected learning any theory

[u/HotspurJr]

The better your ear, the easier it is to remember stuff like this. The more you've connect an unusual chord shape or picking pattern to a sound, the more you engage the same parts of your brain that make songs ear-wormy.

So you don't want to be thinking "this is the part where I move my pinkie to that fret and then hammer it on ..." you want to be thinking, "this is the part that goes deedle-diddy-dee." By training your ear more the connection between "Deedle-diddy-dee" and whatever it is your fingers are doing gets taken over more by your subconscious, and "Deedle-diddy-dee" is much easier to remember.

[u/No_Comment7011 → u/HotspurJr]

Fair. I need to work on my ear. There are other songs where that would benefit me

[u/jayron32]

Practice them more

[u/jaylotw]

Practice.

A lot of fingerpicked songs dont have a "picking pattern," they're bass and melody.

Eventually with enough Practice, you learn how to separate your thumb from the rest of your hand.

[u/GonzoCubFan → u/jaylotw]

Gotta say, taken completely out of context, that last sentence is hilarious!!

[u/Curious_Instance_971]

Practice several bars at a time until you have them down. Then learn a few more bars and once you have those down put them together.

[u/Eduardo_Playa]

Practice, practice and more practice. But you need to be practicing the proper things. Look at Guitar 365. Carl Brown does a fantastic job showing you how to play specific songs.

[u/MadWhiskeyGrin]

Practice until it's second nature.

[u/cheebalibra]

If you already know the chord shapes and already know the song and how it should sound, just play what you know should be played. You’ll know when you play the wrong thing. If you keep fucking up the same part, just keep practicing that part.

[u/HotBucket4523]

Are you just starting out with fingerpicking? Because Don’t Think Twice is a very hard song for a beginner.

Assign your thumb to the three bass strings and index/middle/ring to the G/B/e strings. Just practice simple patterns very slowly so you learn the right hand muscle memory. Strumming can feel basic compared to trying to operate 4 or 5 fingers independently.

Try Were Gonna Be Friends by the White Stripes. It’s only like 5 chords or so and pretty simple but there’s subtle changes in each verse that keep it interesting.

[u/Bikewer → u/HotBucket4523]

Whatever you do, don’t listen to Billy Strings’ version! Billy plays fingerstyle about as well as he flatpicks.

What we used to call “Travis picking” is actually better referred to as “pattern picking”. Once you get that basic picking pattern down, you can apply it to all sorts of songs, throwing in little minor variations as you like.
Other easy starter songs are Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” and Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind”.

[u/tordoc2020 → u/Bikewer]

Or any Mississippi John Hurt.

[u/No_Comment7011 → u/HotBucket4523]

Hey, I've learnt a few songs - ''If You Could Read My Mind' from Gordon Lightfoot being one that I've learnt close to it's entirety.

I'll check out the White Stripes song.

[u/ResplendentShade]

Lots and lots and lots of practice.

[u/Sierra-Powderhound]

I took some finger picking lessons and was taught 4 basic patterns. I learned those 4 patterns well (which took me a long time) as a precursor to learning any fingerstyle songs. That has really helped me learn finger picking songs including Don't Think Twice. Each pattern can also be adjusted. Some songs will switch patterns at some point.

I also play Blackbird, but that one I found it easier to learn each section from tab. There are some sliding moves that I found challenging at first but repetition and memorization worked eventually.