The Spacing Effect is a technique you can use to memorize almost anything.

In this lesson, we'll explore how to use this technique to learn songs and licks on the guitar. Memorizing a few things is important to all guitar players! You don't want to always rely on a songbook, licks page, scale diagrams, or whatever. The Spacing Effect technique will help you memorize many things you can access when needed.

This technique involves learning and revising things over a gradually increasing time frame, which is much more effective than trying to learn things in one time block.

The Science Behind It

The Spacing effect has been recognized since the late 19th century, when Hermann Ebbinghaus first wrote about it. It has become one of the most consistently repeatable concepts born out of experimental psychology. Solid science.

The point of this lesson is to teach you how to use this science to help you remember songs and licks. I guarantee this works!

💬 Storytime! I first learned about this idea in 1995 while studying at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music. I learned 20 or 30 pieces for my final recital, and I can still remember them today because I applied these principles!

Now let's get started and check out how to use the Spacing Effect technique to boost your guitar playing!

How To Easily Memorize Almost Everything

You always want to ensure that you practice in short, concise blocks, usually around five minutes long. There are a few reasons for this, but it's mostly because people can't fully focus for longer than five minutes. Secondly, if you're trying to learn a whole bunch of things, you don't want to work on them for too long! Thirdly, it'll help you space them out - and here's the trick.

🚨 If you're doing short blocks, leave a little gap between your practice blocks when designing your practice schedule. So, if you're going to practice for five minutes, leave a one-minute gap before you start your next five-minute block. It'll really help consolidate the information!

It's important to give your brain a chance to digest what you're learning. You don't want to go straight from one thing right into another, then right into another. So, practice in five-minute blocks and leave a little one-minute gap in between each of your practice blocks.

☕️ Have a cup of tea or coffee, or look out the window! Stand-up exercise is always a good thing to do - it's a little reset before you hit your next practice block.

From my experience teaching for over 30 years now, it is much much more effective to do 6 five-minute practice blocks during a week than it would be to do a one-hour practice block.

Isn't this a little counterintuitive?

You might think this doesn't sound like a good idea. After the five minutes, you might want to keep going because you haven't finished or are excited. Still, I'd encourage you to try just doing little five-minute blocks, even if you feel you're not done or could go further. Just stop!

How often should you practice guitar a week?

My generation recommendation is to practice 6 days a week for a shorter period. An interesting analogy to help you understand the Spacing Effect is the idea of RAM and hard drive space!

💡RAM stands for Random Access Memory.

When you first learn something, it goes into your short-term memory - your RAM. After some time, it'll disappear off into the long-term storage - your hard drive. When you revisit it again, your brain brings that piece of information back into the RAM. After a few revisits, your new learning will live permanently in a part of your drive that's more easily accessible than the long-term storage!

Key Points to an Effective Learning Process

Some studies show that leaving things for longer than 4 days is like learning them again for the first time. So, particularly in the initial stages, you don't want to wait longer than 3 days before you revive something.

Ideally, you learn it the first day and revise it the next day. Then, maybe leave a gap day and revise it again. That's where you're starting the process of elongating the recalls, which will put things into this permanent memory so you'll never be able to forget stuff, even if you wanted to!

🔑 To get that song, lick, or scale into your permanent memory, you need to gradually increase the time between revisiting the information. That's the key thing!

But don't forget to ensure that you got it right first! Start slowly, and practice carefully.

Memorizing New Songs

I recommend getting your songs up to a performance level. Once you've got it, you want to leave it for a whole week without looking at it. Then, revise it for:

- Two weeks;

- A month;

- Three months;

- Six months;

- A year!

Again, this might sound a little bit crazy, but it works! I still remember songs I learned over 15 years ago!

Studying Music Theory & Learning Scales

Spend one hour learning a scale up and down, and you'll probably find that you can play it pretty confidently. If you went for the five minutes a day, every day for a week, you'd actually have done less practice. Still, your brain would have digested the scale so that you could play up and down inside and out or even jumble up the notes better!

When learning Music Theory in short blocks, you help your brain digest everything and make further connections you wouldn't have had a chance to make if you were learning it all in one large block.

Sleep!

Good sleep is crucial to the way we remember things. So, ensure you get a good night's sleep after a heavy practice session! That really is going to help your attention and your ability to absorb the information.

There's always a lot going on in our subconscious after we've learned new things. We don't even realize that our brains are doing anything, but it's sorting out all the new information! It's cataloging and making connections between different things.

If you're always tired, your brain will not learn new stuff very well. Ensure you find a nice way to get a good night's sleep!

Memorizing Blues Licks

Blues licks are an important part of the Blues language. The Spacing Effect technique is very useful when learning a new language!

When you're learning a new language, you're looking for retention. You don't want to look at a book or a page of licks while doing a solo. You need to access your licks instantly without having to think about them.

So, even though the initial learning phase might take a little longer when using the Spacing Effect technique, your retention will be stronger!

Scheduled Revision

You must use a scheduled revision calendar! You can use a task manager app and set reminders to pop up when it's time to revisit something. You could also do it in a paper book, which I used to do back when I was studying Classical guitar.

Semantic Priming

A beautiful little thing you might like to try is Semantic Priming. The idea here is that when you're learning new information if it's related to something you've learned before, it's easier to remember. So, anytime you're trying to learn a new thing, see if you can find something related to that, so you've already got somewhere to store that information - like a folder on your hard drive!

For example, if learning a new song, you might play a similar song by the same artist or uses a similar technique. Like that, you tell your brain where the new information belongs. It's jaw-dropping, eh?

Learn More! Explore my Advancing Beginner lessons and unleash your guitar fretboard.