D'ye ever get where you learned a new tune last night, and today it's going round and round and round in your head?
It dictated the rhythm of your walking to work, and now it sits on top of your brain, swinging its legs and kicking the backs of your eyeballs.
It's there all the time, and you know the only way to stop it is to stop what you're doing and play it several times over. Then several more times over, until it will lie down and rest.
Or is it just me?
Having heard it played now and then for years, I just bothered last night to learn The Road to Lisdoonvarna. And now it's doing just what I described above.
Same here...al the time. Or maybe I wake up with one going round that I haven't yet learned (ie, to play)...and the fact that it's going around is enough to make me want to learn it to play.
Strange old pile of porridge the brain is - and my 2nd favourite organ. (Woody Allen)
Some say you need to stop and analyze when this happens, that your subconcious is telling you some thing about your life--who knows? It scares me, though, when the recurring song in my head is the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies....I'm going to fire my subconcious.
Well, if every new tune you heard affected you like that, there would be no problem in remembering and subsequently playing these at any time you chose.
So, we should rejoice at the experience. Someday "The Beverly Hilbillies" theme might come in handy.
the reason is that I am learning to learn tunes by ear...I have always relied on the dots, but realize that my future is learning tunes by ear. I learned these 2 tunes in 1 days time at 2 sittings. I forget how to start them sometimes, but somewhere in there always come around to the beginning...I say "learning to learn tunes be ear" because for me it will be an acquired skill ...I am amazed that I actually remember the tunes...and they are haunting me (in a good way)...there are tunes I have been playing by the dots for a while now (like Geese in the Bog) and I still get mixed up sometimes...I need to re-learn that one by ear next, I guess
I used to have trouble sleeping because of a newly learnt tune spinning around in my head. What I do now is play an old favourite before I go to bed, to replace the new tune. Because it's not new, it only spins around for a few minutes and I can a good night's sleep.
If all of it's going round and round that's fine - but sometimes part of it is stuck in my brain and I can't remember how the rest of it goes!! I land up totally frustrated until I can get back to the music or CD to relearn the missing part!!
Same happens to me, except it ALWAYS happens whenever I'm in a theater watching a movie of all things.. Always a different tune, always a certain section. I wish I could stop it so I could actually enjoy a movie ~_~;;
Cheers and The Polar Express is out on DVD.. BUY IT.,
Armand
"It scares me, though, when the recurring song in my head is the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies. . ."
In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson
Down the mighty Mississip
And then one day
He was shootin' at some food
When up from the ground come a bubblin' crude
It's just a variant of The 8th of January. Have at and have fun.
What my excuse for having Fishin' Hole ( The Andy Griffith Show Theme) stuck in my head is I don't know yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.
Oh drat now I can't get Road To Lisdoonvarna out of my head.....and I am trying to learn Dr.O'Neill's between the turkey bastings!!! Maybe a new tune will come out of it, Road To Dr.O'Neill's?
guess I'd better stop eating the Jack Daniels marinated ham!!!
While I've been intending to learn "The Fourpenny Bit" I have been haunted by (& learned or re-learned) The Witches, The Mad Magician, Sir Roger de Coverly, The Bluebell Polka, and Taimse im'Chodladh. Currently the Sir Roger de Coverly is going around my head, pleasantly, but I really ought to learn the fourpenny bit...
(Nuts! I used to know Dr. O'Neill's! - here we go again...)
Easy....get a shank or butt or boneless if you prefer (I do, but the rest of them want the bone so they can make me suffer further cooking slavery by making me make bean soup tomorrow). The precooked smoked kind, not a fresh ham.
Anyway you just make this paste of dark brown sugar and JD or other bourbon, whiskey, whatever....it's about the consistency of yogurt. You cut diamond patterns all over the surface of the ham about 1/4" deep. Brush the gloop all over and do it evey 20 minutes to half hour.
Put in 425 over for about an hour or so, and the surface tastes like the best bacon you've ever had. It gets crispy, especially if there is some fat on the ham.
I usually make that for lunch, then the turkey later.
It's really a pretty impressive but moronically simple meal to make. It makes a mess of the pan with the burnt sugar dripping down so I recommend a throwaway pan, or line with heavy tin foil. Otherwise you have to chisel it off.
hic!
Mell, great song to have stuck in your head. I just bought a CD that has Pretty Saro played on mandolin and a bowed Tennessee music box--so haunting.
KFG, never connected 8th of January and the Beverly Hillbillies before; so true. What does it all mean? Perhaps on Jan. 8th I will strike oil, become rich, quit my job and move to Californy. More than likely my music program will get cut and I'll become a porch hillbilly---actually I can think of worse things to be...
I often find it difficult playing at a session immediately after an intensive orchestral rehearsal (even more so if it's been a concert). The music I've been rehearsing/performing is replaying itself in my head for the rest of the evening and effectively overlays anything else. This may be mental tiredness as much as anything, I supppose. Thankfully, the effect disappears by morning and everything's back to normal. About the only exception to this is if the music I've been playing is baroque or early classical (Haydn or Mozart), and then it doesn't have that much effect on my playing in a following session that evening. This may be saying something about a deep relationship between baroque and Irish (and English and Scottish) traditional dance music.
I try to get through a page of new tunes a day. If any stick in my mind the next day, they get included in my jotter untill I have enough to make a set of them.
Those sort of tunes are the easiest to learn and keep in the mind.
I annoy my son by whistling a tune outside his bedroom door just as he has gone to bed. He reckons the tune stops in his dreams all night.
For me this tune in the head business is actually a part of the learning process.
I do not play from the dots - although I can work out how a tune goes from the dots, but the "going round in my head" is a kind of practice - that is to say it is practicing how the tune goes, as distinct from practicing actually playing it.
Tunes where I don't have the "going round in my head" experience are the ones that I can't remember readily at a later date.
Strange to see so many mentions of the 'Beverley Hillbillies' theme. I recently bought a cheap DVD of the first 3 episodes - to discover that the theme music (which I had bought it for) was not on it. Though Scruggs & Flatt did do a good job on the incidental music as well.
I can't remember it well enough to be haunted by it!
My current hauntings : The Drunken Piper (March), (both) Wheels of the World (reels) and, yes, The Beauty Spot.
The theme song may be in the more recent movie re-make of the show, I can't remember. The show is never off the air over here. There is a great episode featuring Flatt and Scruggs as Granny's kinfolk. I'm sure they recorded the song on one of their albums.
When I hear it in my head it is the most grandiose and when I drop everything to find it and, if I'm successful in finding it on disc or in my sheet music, it's the most unremarkable or lamest tune in the book. And then when I try to play it, the idea of it pales to the version I have on tape.
Last night I spent an hour trying to locate a tune that popped in and it motivated me I had to find it which I did -- computer played sheet music.
In my mind it sounds so much better, and when I try to play it, the tune is basic compared to the paper or CD. But I will spice it and rework it and I will improve on the sheet music and CD, at least my perspective on the tune will play it better and I will play it out in a venue and people will say "where did that come from?" It'll be as much me as it.
And I don't even know the name of today's tune, or who is performing it. It's some eastern European thing I think, with rhythm so complicated it makes my brain hurt.
For some reason, on DVDs of some old TV shows, they replace the theme songs with something else. Probably has something to do with the payment of royalties or obtaining the musical rights, is my guess.
I think there is some mysterious factor buried in the Road to Lisdoonvarna that causes it to re-occur in memory--whether you like it or not!
Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
D'ye ever get where you learned a new tune last night, and today it's going round and round and round in your head?
It dictated the rhythm of your walking to work, and now it sits on top of your brain, swinging its legs and kicking the backs of your eyeballs.
It's there all the time, and you know the only way to stop it is to stop what you're doing and play it several times over. Then several more times over, until it will lie down and rest.
Or is it just me?
Having heard it played now and then for years, I just bothered last night to learn The Road to Lisdoonvarna. And now it's doing just what I described above.
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Happens all the time; this time its the "Stoney Steps"
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by I_Fel
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Same here...al the time. Or maybe I wake up with one going round that I haven't yet learned (ie, to play)...and the fact that it's going around is enough to make me want to learn it to play.
Strange old pile of porridge the brain is - and my 2nd favourite organ. (Woody Allen)
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
yep
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Some say you need to stop and analyze when this happens, that your subconcious is telling you some thing about your life--who knows? It scares me, though, when the recurring song in my head is the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies....I'm going to fire my subconcious.
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by dmarie
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Well, if every new tune you heard affected you like that, there would be no problem in remembering and subsequently playing these at any time you chose.
So, we should rejoice at the experience. Someday "The Beverly Hilbillies" theme might come in handy.
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by John J.
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Banshee and Maid Behind the Bar for me...
the reason is that I am learning to learn tunes by ear...I have always relied on the dots, but realize that my future is learning tunes by ear. I learned these 2 tunes in 1 days time at 2 sittings. I forget how to start them sometimes, but somewhere in there always come around to the beginning...I say "learning to learn tunes be ear" because for me it will be an acquired skill ...I am amazed that I actually remember the tunes...and they are haunting me (in a good way)...there are tunes I have been playing by the dots for a while now (like Geese in the Bog) and I still get mixed up sometimes...I need to re-learn that one by ear next, I guess
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by Sunnybear
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Every new tune does it to me.
I used to have trouble sleeping because of a newly learnt tune spinning around in my head. What I do now is play an old favourite before I go to bed, to replace the new tune. Because it's not new, it only spins around for a few minutes and I can a good night's sleep.
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by halfirish
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
If all of it's going round and round that's fine - but sometimes part of it is stuck in my brain and I can't remember how the rest of it goes!! I land up totally frustrated until I can get back to the music or CD to relearn the missing part!!
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by Tarrantella
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Same happens to me, except it ALWAYS happens whenever I'm in a theater watching a movie of all things.. Always a different tune, always a certain section. I wish I could stop it so I could actually enjoy a movie ~_~;;
Cheers and The Polar Express is out on DVD.. BUY IT.,
Armand
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by armandale
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Barrowburn- which I learnt last week is still in my head, I'm always tapping my foot and humming it in my head.
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by ecidralla
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
"It scares me, though, when the recurring song in my head is the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies. . ."
In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson
Down the mighty Mississip
And then one day
He was shootin' at some food
When up from the ground come a bubblin' crude
It's just a variant of The 8th of January. Have at and have fun.
What my excuse for having Fishin' Hole ( The Andy Griffith Show Theme) stuck in my head is I don't know yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.
KFG
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by KFG
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
All the time.
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by Why Bother?
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Oh drat now I can't get Road To Lisdoonvarna out of my head.....and I am trying to learn Dr.O'Neill's between the turkey bastings!!! Maybe a new tune will come out of it, Road To Dr.O'Neill's?
guess I'd better stop eating the Jack Daniels marinated ham!!!
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by irisnevins
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Pretty Saro- Just watched Songcatcher
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by mell
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
While I've been intending to learn "The Fourpenny Bit" I have been haunted by (& learned or re-learned) The Witches, The Mad Magician, Sir Roger de Coverly, The Bluebell Polka, and Taimse im'Chodladh. Currently the Sir Roger de Coverly is going around my head, pleasantly, but I really ought to learn the fourpenny bit...
(Nuts! I used to know Dr. O'Neill's! - here we go again...)
# Posted on November 24th 2005 by Innocent Bystander
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Wierd - I've been getting the Beverley Hillbillies a lot lately, too.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by kris
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Easy....get a shank or butt or boneless if you prefer (I do, but the rest of them want the bone so they can make me suffer further cooking slavery by making me make bean soup tomorrow). The precooked smoked kind, not a fresh ham.
Anyway you just make this paste of dark brown sugar and JD or other bourbon, whiskey, whatever....it's about the consistency of yogurt. You cut diamond patterns all over the surface of the ham about 1/4" deep. Brush the gloop all over and do it evey 20 minutes to half hour.
Put in 425 over for about an hour or so, and the surface tastes like the best bacon you've ever had. It gets crispy, especially if there is some fat on the ham.
I usually make that for lunch, then the turkey later.
It's really a pretty impressive but moronically simple meal to make. It makes a mess of the pan with the burnt sugar dripping down so I recommend a throwaway pan, or line with heavy tin foil. Otherwise you have to chisel it off.
hic!
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by irisnevins
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
About once every three weeks. Most recently, One for the Record and the Shetland set on the Blazin' Fiddles' latest, Magnificent Seven.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by cathrynb
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Mell, great song to have stuck in your head. I just bought a CD that has Pretty Saro played on mandolin and a bowed Tennessee music box--so haunting.
KFG, never connected 8th of January and the Beverly Hillbillies before; so true. What does it all mean? Perhaps on Jan. 8th I will strike oil, become rich, quit my job and move to Californy. More than likely my music program will get cut and I'll become a porch hillbilly---actually I can think of worse things to be...
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by dmarie
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Jameson spuds?
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by dmarie
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
I often find it difficult playing at a session immediately after an intensive orchestral rehearsal (even more so if it's been a concert). The music I've been rehearsing/performing is replaying itself in my head for the rest of the evening and effectively overlays anything else. This may be mental tiredness as much as anything, I supppose. Thankfully, the effect disappears by morning and everything's back to normal. About the only exception to this is if the music I've been playing is baroque or early classical (Haydn or Mozart), and then it doesn't have that much effect on my playing in a following session that evening. This may be saying something about a deep relationship between baroque and Irish (and English and Scottish) traditional dance music.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
The Beauty Spot. Picked it up tuesday and it's been with me ever since.
I often find this happens with tunes I knew decades ago but have forgotten.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
"I'll become a porch hillbilly---actually I can think of worse things to be..."
It works for me.
KFG
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by KFG
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
I try to get through a page of new tunes a day. If any stick in my mind the next day, they get included in my jotter untill I have enough to make a set of them.
Those sort of tunes are the easiest to learn and keep in the mind.
I annoy my son by whistling a tune outside his bedroom door just as he has gone to bed. He reckons the tune stops in his dreams all night.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Is that a subliminal way of learning new tunes - listen to a recording before going to sleep?
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
For me this tune in the head business is actually a part of the learning process.
I do not play from the dots - although I can work out how a tune goes from the dots, but the "going round in my head" is a kind of practice - that is to say it is practicing how the tune goes, as distinct from practicing actually playing it.
Tunes where I don't have the "going round in my head" experience are the ones that I can't remember readily at a later date.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Jim - your recipe doesn't rhyme, doesn't scan, and won't go to the tune of the Beverley Hillbillies.
Otherwise, fine.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Wonder what Granny's moonshine spuds would be like?
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by dmarie
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
John Dowland's lute pieces have been running around my head. I actually learned one of them this afternoon. May I post it to this site?
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by slainte
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
That happens to me all the time! Every new tune.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by Red Crow
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Strange to see so many mentions of the 'Beverley Hillbillies' theme. I recently bought a cheap DVD of the first 3 episodes - to discover that the theme music (which I had bought it for) was not on it. Though Scruggs & Flatt did do a good job on the incidental music as well.
I can't remember it well enough to be haunted by it!
My current hauntings : The Drunken Piper (March), (both) Wheels of the World (reels) and, yes, The Beauty Spot.
# Posted on November 25th 2005 by The Archivist
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
The theme song may be in the more recent movie re-make of the show, I can't remember. The show is never off the air over here. There is a great episode featuring Flatt and Scruggs as Granny's kinfolk. I'm sure they recorded the song on one of their albums.
# Posted on November 26th 2005 by dmarie
When I hear it in my head it is the most grandiose and when I drop everything to find it and, if I'm successful in finding it on disc or in my sheet music, it's the most unremarkable or lamest tune in the book. And then when I try to play it, the idea of it pales to the version I have on tape.
Last night I spent an hour trying to locate a tune that popped in and it motivated me I had to find it which I did -- computer played sheet music.
In my mind it sounds so much better, and when I try to play it, the tune is basic compared to the paper or CD. But I will spice it and rework it and I will improve on the sheet music and CD, at least my perspective on the tune will play it better and I will play it out in a venue and people will say "where did that come from?" It'll be as much me as it.
# Posted on November 26th 2005 by dogmageek
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
I've been fairly lucky lately.
White Petticoat last and now Father Kelly.
# Posted on November 26th 2005 by Owell Mabee
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
8th of January...
Beverly Hillbillies...
*drops head into hands* Thanks, KFG. Now I'm probably going to dream about General Sir Harry Smith and his Juana talking to Jed and Granny...
Current tune stuck in head --- in partial form --- Red-Haired Boy. May have to learn it to get it dislodged. Or play part of Das Rheingold.
# Posted on November 26th 2005 by sara g
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
Haunted - possessed -
All the time.
And I don't even know the name of today's tune, or who is performing it. It's some eastern European thing I think, with rhythm so complicated it makes my brain hurt.
But it's great.
# Posted on November 27th 2005 by flying tigerpig
Re: Haunted - Possessed - by a new tune
For some reason, on DVDs of some old TV shows, they replace the theme songs with something else. Probably has something to do with the payment of royalties or obtaining the musical rights, is my guess.
I think there is some mysterious factor buried in the Road to Lisdoonvarna that causes it to re-occur in memory--whether you like it or not!
# Posted on November 28th 2005 by AlBrown