How best can I paint a song?

April 3, 2023 7:17 AM

Help me to make visual representations of music so that I can remember details of the tunes more readily as I play.

I'm working on memorizing music with more formal details than I've played in the past, so not just verse-chorus-verse-chorus, but variations in A, B and C sections, etc. Still 3-4 minute traditional or pop tunes for the most part, but with more than just the usual folk or pop form since I'm doing solo arrangements.

Anyway, I got some advice that seems promising: make a visual representation of the tune's form that you can remember and use as a kind of scaffold for remembering the tune. That's great, but details and devils and all that.

This is where I think you all can help. I want to start making something (in the procreate art app, so all colors are available) that lays out the form of the tune, including representing the transitions and variations that make mostly-identical parts unique.

I'm not sure whether or not I want to make the diagram/chart/visual representation somehow recognizable as something (like the classic 'memory palace' architectural idea) or more abstract, so I'm open to either idea. What would you do?

posted by umbú to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

I tend to make pretty straightforward "timeline-style" representations like this.

Each section is represented by a block and the length of the block roughly corresponds to the length of the section. If it's a tricky song where I want to encode the exact number of bars, I would use graph paper and say 1 square = 4 bars or something like that.

Variations are represented as above, or by using different shades of the same color. I drew up the above image quickly as an example, but if I were doing it "for real" I would color in all the verse blocks the same color, all the chorus blocks the same color, etc.

If I'm not sure exactly where to split the blocks (e.g. is that one section the end of the bridge? or a variation on the beginning of the chorus? or its own section? etc.) sometimes what I will do first is print out the lyrics, write the chords alongside, and highlight each chord in a different color to look for patterns. Sometimes I go through a few drafts of a representation before I find one that works for my brain for that particular song.
posted by mekily at 7:59 AM on April 3, 2023

Maps work, and with a bit of luck you can base them on streets or parks or country walks that you are very familiar with. If you assign each feature of the music a scenic feature - for example your strings could be stands of trees, and the three variations they play be three types of trees, your chorus be a playground with trees and structures, rests can be bus stops - because you stop and wait there - and so on.

The main thing is to not randomly assign things, but to give them a reason. The high notes are pine trees because the violin bows go up repeatedly - pointy, pointy, pointy - and so you draw tree tops that you represent with a zigzag line against the horizon. Fast bits are flowing water. Mellow expansive bits are shade trees, and so on.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:59 AM on April 3, 2023