Recently I put my hand up to sing the verses to Cluck Old Hen. (never done that before)..backed up by the the rest of a fairly large rabble of community string band members. Then I had to learn the lyrics, and I am nearing that stage when its a challenge to find my car keys and reading glasses some days, much less remember a whole set of verses and be able to remember them under the spotlights at a gig.
I think I practiced the effort maybe 200 times over a couple of days..there are some tongue twisting aspects to those lyrics...too...so in the practice, I kept tripping up on the words..but all the work was worth it, I managed to remember it all and it was great to not have to use all that effort trying to read the words off a page. I used to rely on written music always, but find its not that hard to learn things if one simply decides to. To remember the lyrics at first, I made mental pictures for a defining word in each of the four verses, Railroad Wooden leg Taters Corn It worked. I quickly learned the order of verses ...and the key word tapped me into the rest of the words for each verse. Where memory is concerned, It could be a case of use it or lose it...there is that to consider. On Jul 3, 12:23 am, 14strings <[email protected]> wrote: > I often seen people put sheets on the floor with a really big font > size (no one can really see the flat paper on the floor); instead of > the entire lyric they put the first word or two which would be enough > to remember the rest of the line > > You can put the sheets in those plastic protectors to keep them from > blowing around or moving > > i.e. for Shady grove > > Peaches > Apples > > banjo string > golden twine > > needle and thread > sew > > barlow knife > etc... > > On Jul 2, 8:04 am, Robin Gravina <[email protected]> wrote: > > > We went through this a while back and decided that the only way of removing > > the crutch of the lyrics sheet is to ban using the papers at practice time. > > It's very easy to learn lyrics if you put your mind to it, and you sing 'em > > much better when you know them. Otherwise we found that we were being lazy > > and using up good brainpower on looking at the words when we could have been > > admiring our own reflections, or wondering if we had left the gas on.... or > > maybe even in listening to each other. > > > On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 1:58 PM, The Holstein Kid > > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > > Thought I might throw this out there. The new group I’m in is having a > > > little trouble remembering lyrics to our tunes at this stage, and > > > we’ve got a performance on Sat night. Because we’re only doing up to > > > six tunes, I suggested we shouldn’t have a music stand in sight. I > > > think it looks more professional not to have a stand and you should > > > know your music. Right or not so? > > > > Perhaps if we were doing several sets it might be a different story. I > > > noticed a photo of EC and Co. on his recent tour with music stands on > > > stage. It’s obviously acceptable to do this and I wonder if that was > > > for a full show which is what it looked like. > > > > Any opinion or rule of thumb you guys go by? > > > > HK --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
