Best way to remember riffs?

[BloodRose]

Im embarrassed to admit (but I'm an honest guy) that for as long as Ive been tinkering with guitars, Im barely above a begginner. (breaks my heart, but true..) Anyhow, I used to make cassettes of song ideas. I havent listened to them in a couple of years and since my "new" (2001 but new to me) car has a cassette deck, Ive been listening to them again.

Bottom line, I recorded some stuff that though amatuer to most of you, was pretty cool to me. Sadly, I dont remember how to play half of them.. With the tapes, Ill try to relearn.. I cant believe I forgot so many ideas.

Anyhow, how do you guys (that dont write music) remember riffs and stuff that you have created in the past?

 

[DankStar]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I video them with my phone and email them to my YouTube account (comments disabled since its mainly just for me) so they post there to save on my channel. They add up before you know it! I also have a bunch on my ipad that I quickly recorded with the on board mic.

I have a bunch of tapes, some burned CDs of wavs, and some hand written tabs around as well. Even still I'll forget certain nuances and positions.

What's weird is, it's not so much the notes I have trouble remembering, but the pauses, spaces between notes, and palm mutes versus open notes. Subtle things that make a riff unique.

 

[TheLivingDead]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I dunno man. I basically know me, ya know? Once you... um... 'play' with yourself long enough *Butthead laugh* it's not hard to recall most licks n riffs that you've come up with. Muscle n musical memory and all that.

 

[Powdered Toast Man]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I've forgotten many. In fact, I was talking to my former band mates and there's a song we wrote that we played at gigs a number of times and we can't even remember how it goes now! Too bad, because I remember it being a pretty good song too.

 

[CTN]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

hard way: repetition - drill it into your skull from sheer exhaustive repetition.

easy way: record them...in audio, video, tab or even sheet music if you want, but record them.


or get a hold of some ways to improve your memory overall.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I have the same trouble, forgetting cool **** I come up with but always remember the same crap I've been playing for the last 20 years. This is why I need to get a PC setup for recording.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I make them so easy that an eight year old could play them.

 

[loversmoon]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I do the video recording thing as well. I save them on my computer so i can go back and look at them. For me its the best way because otherwise Id forget them too. Do dont feel bad in that regard. Ive seen major bands have to sit down with their old music and relearn it. you are only human and after a long time of ont playing something its gonna leave the brain.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I´ve probably forgotten more good riffs than I`ve recorded or written down, and rediscovered and reforgotten hundreds of not thousands of those.

I´m more the kind of guy that gets or imagines a beat and just starts up at full throttle, only slowing down when I start to think of new things to try. a perfect riff can happen anytime, anyplace, and is not necessarily in any way thought out. I feel that truly good riffs instantly melt themselves to your soul, I´ve got dozens that come out at some point and get refined (or redefined) every time I pick up the guitar, but they´re all missing at least one more "buddy" to build a perfect song from them. When the songs are finished, they`ll let me know the next time I pick up a guitar, and they will rock my world when the unveil their final beauty.

But yeah, any form of recording or notation, even if nothing else just humming a smartphone a voicemessage.

I have the same trouble, forgetting cool **** I come up with but always remember the same crap I've been playing for the last 20 years. This is why I need to get a PC setup for recording.

I actually own a frickin' Toneport UX2, and have figured out how the software works (havent installed it under win8, though, I may be screwed from the word go but I doubt it) , but I suck donkey balls at programming beats and don`t really need or want a full blown studio application. The freaking soundrecorder from win95 would do just fine if I can interface it. Just something where I can plug in, start the toneport guitar rig thingamajigger, (set the tone on the toneport app the first time and save it as a preset), push a button, push it again, unplug, done.

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

Usually if I come up with a melody or riff if its a good one I will usually remember it if I feel it was just ok I just forget it and come up with a new idea. Really I try to play what I hear in my head once I do that I just remember it. For me the hard part is deciding what tempo to play it at or what parts to add to it. I will say for chords I write out the numbers like 1-4-5 in A Maj or 2-5-1 in A Min. Similar to the Nashville Number system people use.

 

[Dr. Vegetable]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I used to use a 4-track to capture ideas as they hit me. Now I keep a small bound notebook in my gig bag for jotting down tab, lyrics, or whatever hits me.

Nowadays, I rely more on repetition and chord memory than on a recorder. When I discover a cool riff or chord progression, I play it a bunch of times and tweak the rhythm/voicing, etc. to find interesting variations on the theme. The next day I will try to remember what I played. It usually takes a few minutes to rediscover the hook, and the ideas evolve toward more memorable forms over time. For me, remembering the finger positions is the easy part, as I'm constantly learning how to play other people's music the same way. The hard part is remembering the rhythm or melodies that sounded so great the day before, and sometimes they morph over the course of a few days until the idea stabilizes in my memory.

I haven't recorded a demo of a song idea in forever, although I've had a few new song ideas recently. Maybe I'll do some recording this weekend while the snow falls...

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

The few times that I've played something I actually like I play it over and over until it's firmly engrained and almost impossible to forget. It's not that I ever intend to remember, but rather that I am generally so uninspired that I repeat myself to the point where memorization is coincidental.

That said, I listened to some old recordings of my band from many years ago and heard some lead guitar parts that I can't figure out today. They were sloppy like everything I do now, but very unique and I wish I could relearn whatever it was that I was able to do back then.

 

[lpmarshall]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I either:

1.) Pull up the voice memo on my amp and record it real quick. Not the best sound, but not terrible. I have song ideas going back years.
2.) Record it on my Jamman Stereo as a patch and save it.

It's enough to jog my memory on how I played it by ear.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

I record anything and everything worth remembering and a lot of things that probably aren't.

The true bane of my playing life is how often I think of great passages of music when I am nowhere near a guitar.

 

[Kam]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

The true bane of my playing life is how often I think of great passages of music when I am nowhere near a guitar.

+1,000,000

I've written at least three records worth of really great material in the last few minutes before I fall asleep and they're always totally gone when I wake up in the morning.

I use the voice memo thing on my phone to record some ideas when I can, though I've only started doing that recently.

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

The true bane of my playing life is how often I think of great passages of music when I am nowhere near a guitar.

F'n this.

I recently acquired an SM57 (mostly to mic myself at gigs and run through a small PA behind my drummer so he can hear me and the bass when the amps aren't pointed towards him) but I plan on using it at home to record my acoustic. Once I get a ****ty practice amp, maybe a Mustang 1 or something, I can start playing electric at home again. Right now, everything I have is at rehearsal space save an acoustic guitar and a project guitar.

We have a Tascam handheld recorder at band practice. A lot of our music is just borne of jams, so we record everything we do when we're not practicing old stuff so I can listen to it later and create full songs. Our newest track came from one of those recordings, and it KICKS ****IN ASS. I'm really proud of that one.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

A good mix of induced alpha waves and some muscle memory always helps. If i want to remember a riff or melody i write it into guitar pro. Its simple but works for me.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

its the same thing as being able to do anything else in music:
practice.

 

[Robbiedbee]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

If I can't record it, I have no choice but to play it over, and over, and over again until it becomes a part of my DNA.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Best way to remember riffs?

If I can't record it, I have no choice but to play it over, and over, and over again until it becomes a part of my DNA.

I've never been big on recording stuff for future use, because it just seems to create a big back catalogue of ideas that never get reviewed. But i do believe in just playing ideas endlessly for days and becoming almost hypnotised by them. (this works for me because many of my ideas have unusal timings and i need the repetition to get the technique right to play them, so the long hypnotic sessions of playing them over and over serves two purposes ... getting my hands around what's required and drilling the idea into my mind).

I have always felt that if i can't remember a new idea over the first few days, it probably wasn't that good. If i do remember it, it's likely to be something that is worthwhile. Also, playing ideas on acousic is great, it removes electric tones and effects and strips things right down to the bone. If they can stand up like that, the ideas have legs and will survive.