Respectfully disagree. This might be good advice for someone who is only interested in playing the drums as a hobby, but someone going by "(Future)DWdrummer" has ambitions beyond that, right? Would you give that sort of advice to someone who was filling in for your gig on short notice? If a fill-in only had 24 hours to learn an entire concert's worth of material, how would you do it?
I was simply addressing the OP's comment that he listens for a few days, and makes "a few notes on key parts". If a "few notes" is the result of a few days' work, I say don't work so hard. A few notes can be made in a few listens.
Indeed, a few listens isn't normally enough to really learn a song, and that's the point I was trying to make. I wasn't suggesting anyone attempt to learn songs like that.
In 2005, I was given 2 days' notice to learn 36 songs to sub on a gig. Lots of originals, varied arrangements, crucial pushes and breaks, interesting intros and endings, and the songs came to me on
cassettes, so my initial listening opportunity was dumpimng the songs to digital (in real time of course.) With repeat listens I made simple but effective charts, brought them to the gig 2 nights later, and apparently did well - I've been with the band ever since.
It's all about how hard one wants/needs to work. I always assume parts should be
correct, whatever that may mean to the band. I don't recall anyone ever asking me to simply get the
flavor of a song, and that's not how I approach playing.
Bermuda