PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic How do you memorize chords to lots of cover songs without looking at sheet music....and without forg

Scott, I couldn't disagree more with you. First of all, I don't know why people looking for examples to back their theory immediately turn the apples and oranges comparisons of major stars to newbie musicians. Keith plays that on a 3 string Tele and he has been playing guitar since he came over on the Mayflower. He knows how to play. This guy asking the question can barely play anything.

Rookie players who learn to play with a capo will learn how to play an open position A, D and E. Then by moving the capo around and playing those 3 chords, they can bluff their way through 1000 songs having never learned how to play the guitar. They learn songs ON a guitar, but to have something thrown at them in Eb, then what? Those fret markers are there for a reason. Learn the neck. Play every song you know in every key. (If ONE more person says "That's the wrong key" to me I am going to punch them. There is no wrong key. The key in which a song is recorded is just the key THAT singer is comfortable with.) Learn the neck. Do you also propose that keyboard players play only in C and buy a keyboard with a key transpose button so they can play everything in no sharps or flats by transposing? (So Bob, a piano has no capo, but a synthesizer can. My Roland Juno 60 had a transpose button on it, and when I would go to sessions that saw things thrown at me for sight reading in keys with 4 sharps or 3 flats, things that would have required a lot of practice to get voicings, I would transpose to where I played in C. It's cheating, but when they are paying for no more than 2 takes, it has to be done.)

Your argument is the same as those people who immediately want to say "SINATRA DIDN'T WRITE!!!" It doesn't matter what Sinatra did. It matters what Joe Smith does.

There are no shortcuts. Too many people are looking for them. Put in the hours. Kids today are buying sequences, loading them into their keyboards, and pressing the start button, and calling it playing a keyboard. That is not playing anything. There are no shortcuts.

You old enough to remember Heathkit products? For those who don't you could buy these kits and build small things like transistor radios. The kit had all the pieces and solder, and you took Board A and to it soldered resistor 32b between holes 47 and 49. And when you did that, if you followed directions, you had a working little radio.

Did that make you en electrical engineer, or just someone who can follow directions?

Now we have these "Blue Apron" kind of things that send you food and a set of directions. When you finish making your crusted salmon, did you really "cook" anything, or did you merely become the hands that assembled a dish from the directions?

There are no shortcuts. This forum sees far too many questions that ask how to cut into the express lane and bypass years of practicing. The answer?

You don't. There are no shortcuts. Don't play one chord form with a capo. Learn the neck. There are 12 keys. Learn them all. Every fret. Every fret marker. Every chord formant. Barre. Double barre. Start in C. Move to G and add a sharp. Then move to D and add another sharp. Until you run out of sharps. Then go back to C and go the other direction. Go to F and add one flat. Then to Bb and add another flat.

Learn MUSIC, not songs. If you know music, songs follow. If you learn songs, music does NOT follow. Music is not aural. Music is knowledge. Songs are aural. Notes on a paper are not music. Music is knowing that the little dot on the 2nd space up with the line extending up is a quarter note A. And that if there is a dot behind it you add half the value to the original.

You can learn songs and dazzle your circle of friends around the campfire at the weenie roast. Dazzling your friends is the easy part. Your friends won't tell you if you stink. (Well, MINE would. And DO!!)