All of those things can occur, but on the other hand, you may not experience them at all. When you pick up your guitar again, you might be surprised at how much you’ve retained.

Either way, you can cultivate ways to avoid or diminish the chance of completely losing what you learn or to retrieve what you’ve lost.

First, consider the two aspects of music that will serve you best in recalling projects that you haven’t recently visited: your understanding of the piece and your ear.

The More You Know

When you first begin playing guitar you don’t have enough knowledge of music to help you remember the music you learn. But as you progress, you increase not only your strength and dexterity, but also your ability to recognize and recall patterns and sounds.

That means that the more you learn, the easier it will be to retain what you learn. And if you’ve played consistently for years, you will probably fare well after a break. If you’ve only played for a few weeks or months though, don’t expect to put your guitar down for months and come back to the place you left off. Do the work when you can and you’ll enjoy the payoff later.

Comprehension

The more logical or familiar a chord progression is to you, the more easily you will recall it. Learn a lot of songs and learn to hear common chord progressions to make them stick in your mind. Get some experience with changing tonal centers within a song or common key changes between parts of the song. Be aware of what’s happening in the songs you play.

Your Ear

In the early years of playing guitar, I would spend hours or even days working out long or complex pieces by ear. Now I can play something on my guitar as soon as I hear it. That’s great for a lot of reasons, but one is that I don’t worry about forgetting things anymore. If I can hear it, I can play it. It may require some practice to choose fingerings or get up to speed, but my fingers know where to go to make the sounds I hear. That works on anything available for listening, so I try to record anything I come up with and want to keep.

The takeaway is invest in training your ear. It takes time, but you’ll start reaping the rewards quickly and continue improving throughout your life.

Ease Your Way Back

If it’s been more than a few weeks since you touched a guitar, you may be anxious to see what you can remember. Don’t get in a hurry, though—this is the time to relax! Tension can sabotage your efforts, so take a deep breath and detach from any expectations. Then, ease in with something reliable.

What was the first song you learned? Start with that, no matter how simple it is. You’ll be amazed at how good it sounds, and it will warm up your fingers and your musical mind.

Relax!

When you’re ready to play the things that you’re most afraid you’ve lost, take a deep breath and clear your mind of all thoughts. Start playing and if you hit a part you can’t remember, take another breath and try again. If you still don’t find the notes, skip over the problematic part. Play all the parts you can and don’t worry about the parts you can’t remember. They’ll come back—maybe not in the first practice session, but at some point, everything will come back together.

If you don’t know how to start playing the song at all, you may have to find notes you’ve made, written music, or a tutorial. But don’t go there until you’ve spent some time letting the answers come to you. Once you find success through relaxed intention, you’ll start to trust it, and that’s empowering!

Revive Your Routine 

Once you’ve started back, you’ll want to reestablish a routine. Aside from sheer discipline, the thing that will help you the most is to find something that you feel inspired to play. Try expanding your listening and when you hear something that gets your attention, write it down!

You’ll find lots of other advice and tips that will help you in You & Your Guitar, but the most important thing is to pick up your guitar and have some fun!

Extra Tips

There’s a lot  you can do to keep growing as a musician while you’re away from your guitar. Construct chords, practice sight reading in your mind, or draw scales and arpeggios on blank fretboard diagrams. You can find plenty of ideas and lessons to help you in the Virtual Studio. If no other lessons grab you first, go to the ear training course in the Studio. It’s really valuable and you can’t do it too much!