Put it away
Do you have those tunes that seem to be made of rubber? The kind that, no matter how hard you work on them, bounce right out of your head. Boing – right out of your hands! In fact, these tunes seem to have some sort of negative charge – the harder you work on trying to learn them, the farther from being learned they get. Or maybe it’s just me that has worked and worked and worked and when I can’t stand it anymore, I <still> can’t remember or play it. Grrr. Worse – it’s almost always a tune you really want to play. Double grrr.
Like everything else, when you have this challenge, it’s good to have a strategy to overcome it. But the “obvious” approach might not be the one you want to use. Because when, as you sit on your bench, you feel like you should be able to play something, but you can’t – despite a great deal of brain work. That’s when you might think you should double down and keep working. Don’t!
It’s the perfect time to put it away. Yup. Set it aside. Put it out of your mind. Don’t give it a thought. And definitely don’t work on playing it. I don’t mean just a day or two – let it sit for a while. Let it marinate.
How long is a while? Well, that depends on you. I know for me it’s more than a couple of weeks. If I can, I let it wait until it pops up in my head (uninvited – no fair “prompting” it!) and makes me crazy trying to identify it! But when I sit to play it, I’m often pleasantly surprised! Most surprising is that the tune that was just not going into my head is quickly worked up – like there never was a problem to begin with.
So, the next time something’s giving you trouble, put it away and come back to it later. Have you tried this? Let me know in the comments!
When I have a tune that won’t stick, it’s often because I’ve over arranged it and made it far more difficult than it needs to be. The solution – put it away for a while, then simplify until I rediscover the essence of the melody that I loved in the first place.
That’s a leather good distinction – getting the tune vs getting the arrangement!
yes! those slippery tunes….
the elusive notes/memory can be a message from the harp gods… ditch it.
i spent a lot of frustrated effort with some pieces that i should have let go- waste of time/effort – and that can sour everything else.
You’re right – and isn’t it funny/sad that we never forget the tunes that evade us (by being unrememberable) but easily forget how many tunes we know/love/play! Cruel irony that.
indeed! spot on.