I've been following the "Bowing a reel" discussion and would like to spin off something that has arisen there. It seems obvious that music is about sounds, emotions, etc., not about something as visual as sheet music. I don't think any classically trained musician expects written music to convey everything. It's only a form of shorthand, a memory aid, a lingua franca, so to speak. Which means that it can be extremely useful, though of course it's only a limited means to transmit music from one player to another. It's convenient, like being able to read words without expecting them to convey all the nuances of speech that are expressed vocally, with body language, facial expression, touch, etc.
That said, my questions are:
(1) Why are some musicians who don't read music so opposed to learning to do so? Is it fear of the unknown, fear of failure, a territorial approach that says "my way is better," the possibility of getting confused and forgetting everything they already know, lack of interest or necessity, or something else that hasn't occurred to me? This is a matter of curiosity to me, as I know a number of adults who play quite well by ear but are extremely resistant to learning to read.
(2) Any suggestions for making the transition from reading music to playing by ear, other than the obvious: keep listening? As you might guess, I'm classically trained, but lately I've been working on playing by ear, and I'm getting better at it. Still, the subtleties of ornamentation, bowing, etc., often elude me, and I find that if I can obtain the altogether-too-rare transcription with such details, I can learn rather easily and quickly what would take me years to figure out just by listening. (I learn other things better when I have something to look at, too. I know some people learn all kinds of things better by listening.) Of course, nothing beats in-person workshops, lessons, etc. Alas, those don't happen as often as I would like.
Please don't anybody think I'm being judgmental, one way or the other. I'm not! If anything, I'm envious of people who find it easy to learn in ways that are difficult for me. And I'm interested in expanding my horizons and opening to new ways of thinking and learning. I'm always interested in the ways other people think.
I'll be interested to hear what y'all have to say.
This is a well aired topic on most music forums so I won't add to the pro's and con's.
For me as a reader from classical music, to playing (or attempting to play) traditional Irish music. I have found that another way to train my ear is to self record a reel or similar slowly, then play it back and learn it that way.
This obviously has it's short-comings but it does train the other part of my brain which is needed for this particular skill, as opposed to the reading part.
To clarify that, I discovered that when I learn music by reading notes in my minds eye I see dots... but when a tune is learnt by ear I hear the notes more clearly and there are no dots to get in the way.
My music reading skills are at the level of a 10 year old who has had 2 years of piano lessons. Basically, if I'm stuck, I can look at the sheet music to see what the note is, but for the rhythm, and nuances, the sheet music is useless to me. You can get so bogged down in what it says you should play, but if you just listen, it's like taking shackles off your feet and you can fly.
I do agree that being able to read music is a good tool, though. I don't think any reasonable person should be afraid of it. That kind of reminds me of some people who, back in art school were afraid to look at others' artwork, be they peers or professionals, because they were afraid their own ideas would be polluted and they would no longer make original art. They must not have been very confident of their own inner creative voice to begin with.
But like Will said on another thread, the music is inside of you--if not, it won't come out of you. You still have to listen to loads of it, even if you can read the written dots.
I suspect part and parcel of it is how you read music.
Imagine a vertical slot moving across the music - I read by intervals and could not sight read if I could only see one note at a time. A friend with perfect pitch can do that, but does not believe us mere mortals can work out each interval quick enough.
As a singer by training, when sight reading on an instrument, I sing along, and play what I sing, hence transposition or busking are a doddle as anything I can sing, I can play.
Pre- computers, for a long time, I taped radio programmes and dotted down what tunes I wanted, working up to being able to listen to say, 4 bars, then write it down. Really good training for the ear and handy to pinch someones tune on the back of a beermat late at night in the pub.
It's funny, I never think of written music as dots. But then I've been reading music for 43 years, so it's as natural as reading English. I sight-read well enough that if I look at an unfamiliar tune, I can pretty much figure out how it's supposed to sound (not counting those nuances and emotions, although a well-notated manuscript can give you some pretty good clues to that). Other than conveying sounds, when I see music, it translates to where my fingers go on the strings.
Twiz, I do have some instructional videos that include slow versions of the tunes, but they're very basic, without the ornamentation.
Does anybody use the Amazing Slow Downer or a similar program? I understand that you can change the tempo without changing the pitch --- or change the pitch, too, if you want to. Any feedback on this or some similar program? Is it easy to download and to use, does it have glitches, etc?
The Amazing Slow Downer is a great tool with many applications. Transcriptions are easy and fast ornaments become "hearable" Its pretty much just put a cd in your drive and click on the icon. It defaults to about a 70% "stretch". The free downloadable version will play the first 2 tracks of a cd only. Try it out. Another benefit is that you can play along with your favorite "too fast" cds.
I suspect that some people are resistant to learning to read music 'cos they know it's a long process to learn (like a new instrument) and they are comfortable with shunning it because it fits into the tradition and saves them lots of hard work!!
I recall that players tend to fit into one of two brackets: those who are naturally good at sight reading and those who are naturally good at playing by ear, most are one or the other. Traditional music is probably best suited to the latter, maybe 'cos the particular brain naturally picks the way it is naturally suited to meet the challenge, then perseveres with that way at the expense of the other. maybe ear prefference people (like me) are academically lazy but have musical ability, and sight readers are more methodical thinkers.
The ability to read music translates into the ability to write down music, an equally useful skill, and one (if practiced) which will vastly improve the initial reading skills. I can now read music much easier than I used to simply because I became accustomed to writing down tunes that I remembered from sessions or tapes.
As far as making the transition from the page to the head, I'd take a guess that playing by ear necessitates a different part of the brain than reading music, so its about getting used to using that part. Playing the music that you already know by the sheet then taking the sheet away might help, but still it's not getting to bottom of the problem-LEARNING FROM MEMORY of how a tune goes, how do we improve that skill? maybe starting with simpler tunes and getting the brain accustomed....blah....blah...
How many times have we seen people tethered to their music stands and books, carefully serving each note read as if the music were tiny packages of suger to be distrubuted at a tea party? Is this the sight-reading skill that people have harrangued me about since I started playing music four years ago?
It is true that reading music is the basic skill taught to all music students but don't forget that it's the college-level advanced music students that are required to take ear-training lessons!
Anyway, if I'm having trouble picking out certain notes, I can more easily read ABC than I can the dots. Just means you won't find me shopping at the music store for tunes.
What drives me a little crazy is people’s tendency to judge the quality of a tool by their ability or inability to use it. We have people here who are saying, essentially, “I don’t read dots — therefore dots are an albatross around people’s necks,” or, “I play by ear, so I’m free, free, free!”
It’s just a tool, people. Why would anybody diss a tool? It’s like saying, “I hate screwdrivers — real men just use their fingernails!”
We do know so-called trad players who are chained to their music stands, and I’ve yet to hear one that played well — in my opinion, anyway. But I’ve also seen players who, in the best folk tradition, can’t read a note and play by ear but whose ears were faulty. I recall hearing a fiddler do a tune, in which he was blithely playing along in a major key while the rest of the band was playing in mixolydian, and he was utterly clueless. I’m not saying he would’ve been better off playing by dots; it’s just that either approach can yield poor results.
As for the so-called greater freedom of playing by ear, well, you can just as easily become a slave to the version of your favorite recording as you can to someone’s transcription of a tune.
Geoff is absolutely right (wright?): It depends on HOW you read. It also depends on HOW you listen.
The biggest problem with dots, it seems to me, is that the people who are best at reading them are the classically trained musicians who more or less are taught to believe what they read. They take the documentation literally and play what they see. But the people who transcribe folk music are not as meticulous as the classically trained musicians expect. You could probably do a pretty fair job reducing a brilliant player’s version of a tune to dots, with every flourish exactly recorded, every anticipated note carefully metered out, and include a pile of directions — “play near the frog, here, with a light, bouncy pressure that you gradually increase as you lengthen your stroke…” but who the hell would want to read that? Who would want to have some music editor dictating their every nuance for something that is supposed to be lively folk music?
And so the best transcribers wisely leave most of that off. They put down what is basically a bare-bones version of the tune and trust that the intelligent player will use it as a road map.
A road map: that’s a fair metaphor. If you are a traveler and you can get to your destination efficiently without the map, terrific! If you have to wander around and waste a lot of time and fuel to find the place, well, maybe you should have used the map, and too bad for you if you don’t know how to read it. But if you can, look at the map and learn the route before you start the car, because motoring around and looking at a map at the same time is dangerous.
Many of us who sight read came to it through training in classical music. So let's think about how sheet music is used in the two genres, classical and Irish Trad.
An orchestra typically has the music in front of them at all times. Players rely on it to play through 2-3 hours of music at a time, in a pre-established sequence, and the score also helps everyone coordinate their distinct parts. The string section annotates their score with bowing marks so they all play in unison, even making sure that their bows are all going in the same direction at any given time. This helps them present a very uniform sound and appearance.
Now consider a typical Irish session. There's no sheet music in sight. Players careen through 2-3 hours of music (or 10-12 hours if the pints keep flowing from memory, playing for the most part in unison--that is everyone basically playing the same notes at the same time. But no two players will play *exactly* the same all the time, and fiddlers don't worry about which direction their bows are going. Also, the sequence of the music is not pre-arranged--players have to *listen* to each other to determine what tune is next.
My point here is that you *need* to read sheet music if you play in an orchestra. But sight reading is *completely unnecessary* for participating in a session. Instead, session players rely on their ears, prodigious memories, and a responsible amount of freedom that lets them play tunes slightly differently than the person next to them.
Don't get me wrong--I've sight read for 36 years and use it daily, but not when it comes time to actually crank out the tunes. I use sheet music to learn tunes at home, to compare different settings of the same tune, to jog my memory, to pick up new tunes from the glut of printed sources, and for "storage" (I've transcribed around 1,000 tunes on my hard drive, so when someone introduces a new tune at my session, chances are I have a copy at home. If I don't pick the whole thing up by ear at the session, I have a backup at home so I'll be ready at next week's session).
An observation: people new to learning by ear are often amazed when someone picks up a reel on the second hearing. We've all felt that amazement at someone else's prowess in this. But it's far less obvious to the rest of us when an experienced sight reader glances at a sheet of paper and immediately "hears" the tune in his or her head. Even if s/he plays it perfectly and with great feeling, just seeing it for the first time, we may not recognize the remarkable translation that's just occurred. (Kevin's comment about people "tethered" to their sheet music rings true to me, but good sight readers can read at full playing speed and take the music in whole phrases.)
And this gets me to my main idea--it doesn't matter whether your source for a tune is hearing someone else play it or reading it off the paper. ***Either way, your goal should be to hear the tune in your own head.*** Music is aural, not visual, and though visual learners can benefit from sheet music, eventually they'll need to think aurally if they hope to become fluent with the music.
That said, I tend to think that people who refuse to learn to sight read are needlessly limiting themselves. It doesn't have to interfere with your ability to hear and feel the music (in fact, it's just another way of doing this). And by learning to read the dots, and abcs, and tablature, you can access more tunes than you could ever hope to find on recordings or hear live at sessions. There are whole lifetimes of tunes in books, online, scratched out longhand by the visiting fiddler (and in the tune archives here at thesession.org), etc., and access to them is usually free or very inexpensive. How many cds would you have to buy to get every tune in a $10 copy of O'Neill's?
Just realize that however you learn has to eventually help you hear the music in your head.
P.S. Carol, after I championed all the written sources of tunes out there, it occurred to me that it can be difficult to match a transcription to the aural setting you might be working from. Some transcriptions are just poor quality, some are uncommon settings, and many are oversimplified. You can get around this--and learn A LOT about Irish music in the process--by making your own transcriptions of the recordings and live tunes you're trying to learn. Think of it as a way of training yourself to really listen to what's being played. In other words, use the act of writing sheet music to improve your learning-by-ear skills.
Good points, all, Will. Greater access to more tunes, yes. And if you listen to several versions AND look at the dots, it can only help you towards a greater understanding of a tune’s possibilities.
I’d like to cite one more advantage to reading dots — this is a little less trad, but it comes in on the side of living art. If you read a tune that you’ve never heard before, you may think of it in a fresh way, and that can lead to an entirely new and interesting way of presenting it. You can come across a reel, for example, that sounds great slowed way down but leaves you cold when played up to speed. If you relied entirely on somone else’s playing, that change-up may never occur to you.
There seems to me to be far to much thought gone into this. It's really not that important in diddly music.
Some people need it, some people don't. Some people use it all the time, some people use it sparingly. I bet if you just listened to all this range of people diddling, you couldn't tell them apart
to reinforce what Will is saying, I found, in my early days of learning traditional music, that the most effective way for me to learn a new tune was to write it down, as it forced me to listen intently to every note played. When it came to playing it back from my transcription, I found that the notes were already in my head, making it much easier to practise - and just in case i forgot it 20 minutes later, I had it there on paper to remind me.
You're probably right, Michael. Still, it's interesting, and there was a beginner asking the question.
I would point out that even in classical music, the showcase virtuoso seldom performs with a score in front of him or her. The orchestra does -- mostly for reasons Will cited, but probably also because individual members of the orchestra have less motivation than the featured soloist to learn the tune by heart.
Motivation is an interesting reason.
I probably read very badly because I'm not motivated to. You'll probably find that most people who read at all well, were made to when they were kids.
Gee, I didn't really mean to start such a length discussion on the merits and limitations of reading and playing by ear. I'm really most interested in learning new ways to learn and getting inside other people's heads. All this is good stuff to think about though, and thanks to everybody for their suggestions. I think I will start transcribing things I want to learn to play by ear. That seems almost like cheating, since my aim is not to need written music, but I think it would be a good exercise. And I'm glad to have another opinion on the Amazing Slow Downer. Sounds like another good tool.
Michael, I did learn to sight read as a kid, but no one forced it on me. I wanted to understand how my older brother translated those funny dots into sounds on the piano. When I started in on Irish music, I learned predominantly by ear, but soon found written sources for tunes and realized that it was more efficient for me if I used both my ears and eyes to learn tunes.
I agree on your point about not being able to tell people apart based on how they learned a tune. In my own playing, how well I play a tune has nothing to do with whether I learned it from sound or sight. But this comes after many years of being immersed in the music. Sure, I've heard stilted versions of tunes by beginners learning from the dots, but I've also heard wildly errant versions from people unknowingly wandering away from the original aural source--and them crowing about how they play the tune "just like" so-and-so.
Your comment about too much thought going into this reminds me of my first wife. Made me laugh out loud. See, some of us actually *enjoy* thinking and talking at length about this stuff. That's why we're here at thesession.org. Yes, I'd rather be playing my fiddle right now, but I'm (ostensibly) at work. I'll get to play later at tonight's session. But if I can't be playing now, the next best thing is to come here and swap gray matter with my online friends.
Also, many people think A LOT about all this stuff, especially when they're first starting out, trying to understand what the rest of us just seem to intuitively know. That's even more true for the folks who don't live in one of the hotbeds of diddly eiddly. So it might be easy to assume that Will Harmon must sound like a robot when he plays because he's so analytical and overwrought with thinking about all this, but you'd be wrong. Playing the music and thinking/talking about it are two different things, and you can get carried away with trying to verbalize what can't be put into words, but while we're online here, we don't have many other options. And for some of us, at least, it helps us clarify what we think we know. In my experience, many of the most talented players have a deep, sophisticated understanding of what they're doing, and most can articulate it quite well. This is similar to what I'm trying to say about sight reading versus learning by ear--being able to think and talk rationally about music doesn't necessarily prevent you from being able to play well. In fact, for some of us, it helps.
David, I've used the exact same approach as you describe, with the same results. Nowadays, I tend to just learn tunes and write them down later (if I want to keep a transcription), but in the early years writing them down helped me listen more carefully. it also helped me understand the underlying structure of the tunes, which helps me immensely when I teach someone else.
Carol, this has been an ongoing and slightly touchy topic here for several years. Dont feel responsible for setting us off again, heh.
As for the slowdowner software, we've covered that on other threads, too. On one of them, I recently advocated using your own mind to do the same thing--take a tune that you know by heart and play it back in your head at different speeds. Chances are, you'll be able to do this without changing the pitch. You can learn to do the same with new tunes too--just get them in your head by listening to them over and over, and then consciously slow the tempo. Give it a try and see if it works for you.
Also, go to Zina's slow session web site for good advice on how to learn by ear. It's in the Links here. Small Circle something or other. I'll find it and post the link here.
Maybe the problem is some classical players that think that they are superior.I think in the most of the conservatories the people are taugh to be only "musical emulators".The teachers(at least mine) didnt teach nothing about criativity or having fun playing the instrument ,and the most of the students are people that actually dont like music(they´re obligated by their parents)
I guess this is the reason people sometimes refuse to play the partiturs.Anyway I´m studying ,trying to find my own solutions,My own style(thats important..and reading the "dots" didnt change my way of playing..and there goes the "map metaphore"
Will is right, I have been reading the dots as they say for a good few years but ... the music has to come from the heart NOT the page. The dots are useful if you can't remember a tune, but to get the feel the only way is to learn it by ear directly from the lads who know it, preferably in the session or.. second best from a recording of the session.
What Will says about experienced classical players being able to sight read at playing speed is absolutely true. British professional orchestras have a reputation for being among the best sight-readers in the business, which is economically important - fewer rehearsals and more concerts. This sight-reading ability filters down to the better amateur orchestras most of which have a handful or so of pros either retired or who like to play amateur on occasion. In the orchestras in which I'm a cellist, the first run-through of a new piece is usually at about 90% speed, and subsequent rehearsals are up to speed.
Trad musicians don't have a monopoly of memory either. Most classical soloists play from memory, and many of them can have a dozen or more hours of music at performing standard stored in their brains. Some experienced orchestral players can play whole symphonies from memory, but conductors tend to get nervous when they see members of an orchestra with no music in front of them! There is based in Bristol UK, where I live, a professional chamber orchestra of a dozen or so players who not only play their concerts from memory, but play standing up (apart from the two cellists) in a semi-circle facing the audience. Their leader played Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (4 interlinked concertos) with my chamber orchestra during the summer; at no time during rehearsal or the concert did he have a scrap of music in front of him.
Historically, people have always learnt by ear. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, totalling over 27000 lines, were passed on by word of mouth for hundreds of years before they were committed to writing. The Greek bards were expected to recite (or sing actually) hundreds of lines at a sitting from those works, and many others which are now lost to us, at a moment's notice.
Musicians who learn by ear are carrying on a fine old tradition, but unfortunately a lot of us don't have the advantage of being encouraged to learn that way when young. It is indeed a struggle to turn from sight-reading to learning by ear when you're older, but it can still be done.
Another satisfied Slowdowner customer here. I've learned more tunes, faster since I got it than I ever did before. Plus, with it I can hear and understand what ornaments the pros are using and it gives me ideas to liven up my own playing. This has made a huge difference to me. And it has actually *helped* train and sharpen the "slowdowner in my brain" that Will talks about. An unexpected bonus for me!
I learned by ear for my first few years and only learned to read because my teacher pointed out all the cool tunes that were written down that no-one plays much anymore. I'm not good at it, but I can puzzle out a tune with a litte effort, learn the basic form and then add my own ornaments and such. I was resistant to learning it because, basically, I figured I had enough on my plate learning to play an instrument w/o adding learning to read music. Plus, I could learn quite fast by ear and I enjoyed learning from a live person and of course this is part of what makes tradtional music traditional. That made ignoring the learning to read part feel legitimate!
Yes carolsvioin, I learn tunes and technique by listening to a lot of players and make a habit of watching everybody like a hawk when they play. I can get the 'bones' of a tune fairly rapidly, but getting it up to speed with all the details can take quite a bit longer. Are you 'gifted' with sight-reading? How does ear-learning work for you?
Since several people had mentioned the Amazing Slow Downer, I thought I'd post something which may be of interest.
When Michael Coleman was recording in the 20's in New York, a lot of those albums made their way back to Ireland and they caused a bit of a sensation among the players of the day. Everybody wanted to play like Michael Coleman, though some lamented that this general enthusiasm would lead to the downfall of various regional styles, turning everyone into a Sligo player! Others say that the 20's were a period of great decline in Irish Traditional music and that Michael Coleman and the New York recording industry had saved ITM from the brink of extinction. All interesting points of view and likely none of it true.
Anyway, in the 20's the Irish musicians of the day would play their Michael Coleman records at the slowest possible speed on their record players and then tune their fiddles down so they could match the tone of the record (apparently, some people still do!). Once they thought they had it, they'd retune their fiddles and have a go at it at a higher speed, repeating as often as they could to get it just right.
Anyway, it seems to me that the Amazing Slow Downer program is just a natural progression of this tradition, but a lot less stress on the old bridge!
I remember when I joined the session being resistant to learning abc, thinking the proper dots were a much more upstanding form of notation. It's silly thinking back now, although abc will never be as satisfying to read and I doubt if anyone can sight read up to speed using it, it is a good form of recording and passing on of music over computer screens, just as the dots are a good form of recording and passing it on otherwise.
Hah! I'd read that somewhere, too, Caoimghgin. We're just going at it in a modern day manner Speaking of down-tuning, I think I've mentioned before that I leave one of my fiddles tuned down a whole step and it really makes the tunes sound even older and more beautiful than they sound anyway!
Reading music is not essential, but it's a very nice thing to have. Not totally unsimillar to reading text; the majority of the people in the world go along with their lives just fine without knowing how to read or write, but would you like to try? Reading and writing music opens avenues of communication between you and your fellow musicians, which may in the long run help you a lot. Our snug/snobbish attitude towards written music in the transmission of the tradition stems from the fact that all of us were born after the invention of the tape-recorder.
As a total music illiterate and unable to read a line of music I envy all you guys out there. It seems to me that being able to read would help to shortcut the learning process.
I know several musicians who can write down the bare bones notes of a tune while it's being played and play it right back at you. Andy Dickson, a Belfast fiddler, once amazed me by doing exactly that. He is, incidentally, one of the best traditional fiddlers in the country so there is no contradiction between learning through sight or sound. Indeed it would appear that Andy sees and hears the music at the same time!
This is, however, very rare. I agree with several of the comments above that many classically trained musicians have a real difficulty in making the transition to traditional. They often sound stilted and strained.
One comment on the road map analogy as well. Sometimes it's better not to read the map at all and to head off in the general direction of your destination. Travelling the by ways and getting lost sometimes means that you meet people, see places, and experience life in a way that is surprising and wonderful. The map is useful only if you want to get there in the shortest time possible - but then you will almost certainly end up on a featureless and boring motorway.
I too cant read music, I dont feel like its holding me back at all. At the start of my playing I used to read ABCs (badly) but nobody in the sessions ever knew the names of the tunes anyway so I couldnt say 'wow I'm going straight home to learn that tune out of a book or off the net'. Instead I started learning by ear - I dont find it hard at all now - it has taken years to get totally comfortable with it, but its worth it. Its second nature and I find that when I used to learn by abcs they never stuck in my head the way the tunes do now. Its especially useful if I hear a brilliant tune in a session - I can just record it, listen to it on the way home on the bus and then learn it or if Ive heard it before I can usually pick it up then and there.
On the other hand - great - if you feel that learning by music is good for you then that is fantastic, as its been stated before its only the bare bones and up to us to put our own touches to it. I think we mostly agree that sessions arent the place for sheet music (???) but absolutely if you use it as a 'tool' then good stuff. I would say though that its probably worth learning by ear even if you can read music after all its an oral tradition
Whew! I feel like I started an avalanche here, though obviously I'm not the first to do so. Next time I'll think twice before I kick the snowbank.
To answer your questions, Caoimghgin, am I gifted with sight-reading? That's a philosophical question. First, though, a bit of definition for those who are confounded by dots:
Sight-reading refers to playing or singing (or, in my extended definition of it, sounding in your head) music you've never seen before. I'm a pretty rudimentary sight-reader.
But reading music per se --- I'm quite comfortable with that, unless it comes to, say, picking a melody line out of a piano score. In which case I would just say, no thanks, there's gotta be an easier way.
Gifted? When I was a kid, my twin sister and I made good grades, played musical instruments, learned to cook and sew, etc. --- and I would be irritated when grown-ups said we were gifted. I didn't understand then that those talents are indeed gifts. So am I gifted at reading music? I don't know. When you start doing something as a kid, it seems natural. Wish I'd started playing by ear back then, but I didn't come from a musical family and didn't have that kind of input. (And yes, Kenn, I agree that reading and playing by ear probably involve different parts of the brain. I'd like to integrate the two.)
By the way, I don't slavishly adhere to written music. I play with feeling and nuances, whether they're learned through sight, sound or intuition. It's the fast parts and ornamentation that I don't always catch by ear. But I'm working on it.
"I wish"
This comes up quite a lot on this web site.
"I wish I could sight read"
"I wish I could learn by ear"
"I wish I could play the pipes"
"I wish I could play like Kevin Burke"
etc etc
I hope then when we use "wish", it is just the begining of being able, and just not some forlorn hope
I love it when people are passionate about whatever they believe in. I used to debate whether oenophiles or opera aficionados were the most outspoken and adamant. (i.e.: "What! You can't talk about the harvest of '58 without mentioning the frost of '57!") I think I'll add Irish musicians to that list.
Michael, I'm afraid my wish that I had learned to play by ear as a kid is just a forlorn hope. I understand that it's possible to transform the past by changing your attitude toward it, but I don't think it goes quite that far. However, I tend to think of playing by ear as a latent ability I'm just now beginning to explore and something I am capable of accomplishing.
I started to learn to play music in my twenties (rather a long time ago now...). I was keen to learn the whistle, as I'd been advised it was a good starting point by a man I met at a session I used to go to (to listen). I went to Cecil Sharpe House (London) and the man there sold me a D whistle and a book which I think was simply called 'how to play the Feadog Stain', and was produced by some official body in Ireland. When I got home, I realised that I had a slight problem in that it was full of tunes, but I couldn't read music! We had an old piano that my girlfriend sort of played, so I wrote the notes on the keys, and learned the basics of notation. It took about two weeks to get it into my head, and then I got started on the whistle, which is what I wanted to do in the first place. Written music is a language with only a few letters, particularly as we only use the treble clef, and it's very useful (it certainly was back in the dark days before ABC). However, the limitations of reading became apparent immediately. Along with the book came a tape, on which two versions of each tune were played, a 'slow' one, to get you started, and one as it might be played with ornamentation and variations. I remember the first 'proper' tune in the book was Whelan's Jig. The slow version was impossible for me to keep up with, and the second one seemed to have no relation to what was on the page, but was definitely the sort of thing I'd heard at the session, and was what I wanted to play! I tried learning tunes from this and other books, and I got to the point where I could read and play quite fast, and then I tried playing with some other people. Then it was back to square one!
Nowadays I sort of learn by ear, but use dots to confirm that I'm on the right track, and then go back to the aural source to get it to sound like I want it to (does that make sense?). I find that sometimes, if I'm playing something fairly new to me, which is similar to another tune I play, (and after a certain amount of tunes have been learned, they almost all are!), having a memory of the dots in my head can help clarify that important point where the tune might wander off into one of it's close relations.
As far as learning the ability to pick up tunes by ear, if you attend enough sessions and actually keep your ears open, your mind must accumulate phrases and bits of tunes without you making any concious effort at all. After a while that means that a 'new' tune becomes quick and effortless to learn, as you already have most of the bits in your head. Also, I think that attending as wide a range of sessions (in terms of speed and level of expertise) is really useful. You might sit in on a brilliant one in which you only play one tune all night (I know I have), but learn more (consciously and subconsciously) and be more inspired than at any amount of sessions where you spend the night grinding out the Kesh Jig at the speed of a waltz....
Just a few thoughts.
OK, "I wish I had..." is different from " I wish I could..."
But when you think about it, the outcome should still be the same. The first move to being able.
You can't indeed change your past, but the future?
But I'm not so sure I think one's latent abilitys stretch to something as complicated as music. Human instinctive behaviour is really quite limited. We even have to learn to walk.
Learning by the sheet involves taking notes from a page and playing them.
Learning by ear involves subconciously figuring out in the head what the notes are then playing them.
So listening then writing down the dots must combine both skills.
Therefore, to help a good sight reader to start hearing the tune, how about combining the two using the following technique:
A tune, say in the key of D has two obvious reference notes that are clearly distinguishable by ear, they are D and G.
All the other notes can be thought of as being so many tones above these reference notes (play them in the head to find out how many), eg A is obvious at 1 tone above G. B is also obvious at 2 tones above G. etc. etc.
So now with a bit of practice to gain speed, it becomes easy to write down tunes without first transferring them to a keyboard. Then, before you know it, I'd imagine it'll become easier to play the tune instead of write it down, Voila!
Incidentally, writing down tunes (dots) helped my reading ability immensely.
Hints for those who won't learn to read:
Dots going up=Tune going up
Dots going down=Tune going down
Dots close together=Fast notes
Now I'm being faecetious!!!!, sorry(and wish I could spell)!
You're quite right. The rise and fall of the dots clearly show the up-and-down shape of the tune. This is one of the things that helps the experienced orchestral player to get it right first time at performing speed.
Incidentally, "facetiously" is one of the few words in the English language that has all the vowels in their correct order.
This site is great, now I'm learning to read English from the sheet (not the ear), a skill which doesn't come naturally to a Scot.
OK , what does abstemiously mean cuchulain? I wish I knew///-feel I'm beginning to know what it means.
Apologies for the mistake above:
In the key of D, the obvios notes are D and A, not D and G.
. As I said, I only used the word as a joke, because Trevor said "facetiously" had all the vowels in order -- a-e i-o-u and y -- and I used "absemiously" because it also does.
But it's an ugly, pretentious word, with an unpleasant definition, I think. It means not drinking Guinness. Or Jameson. Or anything else of interest.
I'll admit that I haven't thoughly read all the discussion points here but would like to pass on my story. I've been "involved" with music all my life. There hasn't been a day that I haven't sung, played, listened and so on and so on. I can say this absolutely honestly. I play fiddle, flute, guitar, harp.... just about anything I can get my hands on. I trained as a band teacher and so for a brief moment had to learn absolutely everything or at least the basics. I was always a little "outside" the classical world however. I never felt good enough or could ever find enough hours in the day to practice enough to keep up to the level my professors expected me to be at. Maybe I was trying to learn too many things and yes on that side of my musical life, everything was from the written page. I had a wonderful flute teacher who saw something else. He sensed my stress about the exams and the classes and the competitions and the recitals etc etc etc. He stopped trying to teach me. We just played and he let me play from the heart. He kept the joy in the music for me. Unfortunately all the other things forced me to stop my "lessons". To make a long story short... I quit. I quit playing, I quit learning and moved on to other things. About 3 years later I realized I couldn't do that. I started playing everything I could learn only by ear and refused to look at a sheet of music. I started learning songs I liked, that there wasn't any written music for and I struggled with it and yes started stressing about it. It became a thing that I had to do. I had to play by ear or I wasn't any good. I passed on those sentiments to a friend who laughed his head off. He basically said "you idiot" stop being upset about the effort it takes you to learn something by ear. You can read music! It's not cheating, it's a tool that you actually know how to use. You still play everthing from the heart and it doesn't matter how you learned it. Once learned.... it's yours to do with as your heart pleases. Now, I do a bit of both. If I'm struggling with a tune.. I'll look for the music and usually find out that there was a good reason that I was struggling with it. I've also found that some people have odd ways of teaching a new tune that doesn't follow what my brain understands. It's odd phrasing or you don't hear where the phrases start and stop and then it just turns into a jumble of individual notes that by the time you get to the end... you don't know where you started. After a session like that, I find the music, I read it, play through it then I listen to my tape and the light bulb goes on. No stress but I have a new tune in my repetoire.
I particularly like the bit about reading not being cheating. Some diddlers I know do turn there noses up at reading just like that. Daft.
It's odd you describing tunes where you can't hear where the phrases start. Tunes that do this are my absolute favourites. Tunes like the Spike Island Lasses and Lepadumdowledum. Tunes that are so well written that they cross over from one part to then next.
The only way I found I could learn Lepadumdowledum was by transcribing it first. Just like people have suggested earlier in this thread.
Nice story ANNY, sounds like your love of music was turned into an overwork project but now you've got it back again.
It must be so much more satisfying to develop your own way of learning and style than to blindly follow other's teaching techniques. I think everyone involved in traditional music shouldn't be scared of developing their own ways of doing things, that's how it's been done for centurys afterall.
Reply to Michael. The odd comment about hearing phrases more refered to some teaching styles that focus on almost one note at a time. I tend to hear things in chunks and get an overall sense of a tune. It's kind of like hearing the next chord, sometimes its a surprise but once you hear the sense of where the melody wants to go its easier to get there. Harmony and voice leading. There's only so many choices after all and there's a pattern to everything. I'll have to check out the tunes you mentioned, they sound like a challenge.
I'm a guitar and hammered dulcimer player who started teaching Hammered Dulcimer last spring. I learned to play by listening to the tune and especially with the guitar listen for the chord changes and boogie along. Unfortunately I have a wide range of students, some who are trying to figure out if you hit the dulcimer or use it as a cheese grader. Those I found were easy to teach, however as luck would have it I have two students, one of which sight reads piano and the other well versed in music theory that are pushing the heck out of me to get on with it and learn how to sight read. I had a million excuses for not bothering but in order to keep up with those students and others that will arrive, bringing knowledge with them from other instruments I've had to force myself to get on with it and learn how to plunk out a tune from the pile of books I have laying around cluttering up my music room. I don't cut myself or anybody else much excuse for not learning if need be. It's just a tool.
An excellent point, j.
Another way to look at this is: music is what we do, and any and all aspects of it ought to be not only helpful but desireable. I can see the argument that learning something wouldn't be worth the results, but aside from that, why should anybody be glad about NOT knowing something? I may be glad, for example, that I don't NEED to learn Russian, but I still sort of wish I had the time and motivation to learn it.
reading music / playing by ear
reading music / playing by ear
Hello to all,
I've been following the "Bowing a reel" discussion and would like to spin off something that has arisen there. It seems obvious that music is about sounds, emotions, etc., not about something as visual as sheet music. I don't think any classically trained musician expects written music to convey everything. It's only a form of shorthand, a memory aid, a lingua franca, so to speak. Which means that it can be extremely useful, though of course it's only a limited means to transmit music from one player to another. It's convenient, like being able to read words without expecting them to convey all the nuances of speech that are expressed vocally, with body language, facial expression, touch, etc.
That said, my questions are:
(1) Why are some musicians who don't read music so opposed to learning to do so? Is it fear of the unknown, fear of failure, a territorial approach that says "my way is better," the possibility of getting confused and forgetting everything they already know, lack of interest or necessity, or something else that hasn't occurred to me? This is a matter of curiosity to me, as I know a number of adults who play quite well by ear but are extremely resistant to learning to read.
(2) Any suggestions for making the transition from reading music to playing by ear, other than the obvious: keep listening? As you might guess, I'm classically trained, but lately I've been working on playing by ear, and I'm getting better at it. Still, the subtleties of ornamentation, bowing, etc., often elude me, and I find that if I can obtain the altogether-too-rare transcription with such details, I can learn rather easily and quickly what would take me years to figure out just by listening. (I learn other things better when I have something to look at, too. I know some people learn all kinds of things better by listening.) Of course, nothing beats in-person workshops, lessons, etc. Alas, those don't happen as often as I would like.
Please don't anybody think I'm being judgmental, one way or the other. I'm not! If anything, I'm envious of people who find it easy to learn in ways that are difficult for me. And I'm interested in expanding my horizons and opening to new ways of thinking and learning. I'm always interested in the ways other people think.
I'll be interested to hear what y'all have to say.
Best,
Carol
# Posted on November 25th 2002 by carolsviolin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
This is a well aired topic on most music forums so I won't add to the pro's and con's.
For me as a reader from classical music, to playing (or attempting to play) traditional Irish music. I have found that another way to train my ear is to self record a reel or similar slowly, then play it back and learn it that way.
This obviously has it's short-comings but it does train the other part of my brain which is needed for this particular skill, as opposed to the reading part.
To clarify that, I discovered that when I learn music by reading notes in my minds eye I see dots... but when a tune is learnt by ear I hear the notes more clearly and there are no dots to get in the way.
Dave.
# Posted on November 25th 2002 by Twiz
Re: reading music / playing by ear
My music reading skills are at the level of a 10 year old who has had 2 years of piano lessons. Basically, if I'm stuck, I can look at the sheet music to see what the note is, but for the rhythm, and nuances, the sheet music is useless to me. You can get so bogged down in what it says you should play, but if you just listen, it's like taking shackles off your feet and you can fly.
I do agree that being able to read music is a good tool, though. I don't think any reasonable person should be afraid of it. That kind of reminds me of some people who, back in art school were afraid to look at others' artwork, be they peers or professionals, because they were afraid their own ideas would be polluted and they would no longer make original art. They must not have been very confident of their own inner creative voice to begin with.
But like Will said on another thread, the music is inside of you--if not, it won't come out of you. You still have to listen to loads of it, even if you can read the written dots.
# Posted on November 25th 2002 by Andee
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I suspect part and parcel of it is how you read music.
Imagine a vertical slot moving across the music - I read by intervals and could not sight read if I could only see one note at a time. A friend with perfect pitch can do that, but does not believe us mere mortals can work out each interval quick enough.
As a singer by training, when sight reading on an instrument, I sing along, and play what I sing, hence transposition or busking are a doddle as anything I can sing, I can play.
Pre- computers, for a long time, I taped radio programmes and dotted down what tunes I wanted, working up to being able to listen to say, 4 bars, then write it down. Really good training for the ear and handy to pinch someones tune on the back of a beermat late at night in the pub.
# Posted on November 25th 2002 by geoffwright
Re: reading music / playing by ear
It's funny, I never think of written music as dots. But then I've been reading music for 43 years, so it's as natural as reading English. I sight-read well enough that if I look at an unfamiliar tune, I can pretty much figure out how it's supposed to sound (not counting those nuances and emotions, although a well-notated manuscript can give you some pretty good clues to that). Other than conveying sounds, when I see music, it translates to where my fingers go on the strings.
Twiz, I do have some instructional videos that include slow versions of the tunes, but they're very basic, without the ornamentation.
Does anybody use the Amazing Slow Downer or a similar program? I understand that you can change the tempo without changing the pitch --- or change the pitch, too, if you want to. Any feedback on this or some similar program? Is it easy to download and to use, does it have glitches, etc?
Thanks,
Carol
# Posted on November 25th 2002 by carolsviolin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Carol
The Amazing Slow Downer is a great tool with many applications. Transcriptions are easy and fast ornaments become "hearable" Its pretty much just put a cd in your drive and click on the icon. It defaults to about a 70% "stretch". The free downloadable version will play the first 2 tracks of a cd only. Try it out. Another benefit is that you can play along with your favorite "too fast" cds.
Joe
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Carrmuse
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I suspect that some people are resistant to learning to read music 'cos they know it's a long process to learn (like a new instrument) and they are comfortable with shunning it because it fits into the tradition and saves them lots of hard work!!
I recall that players tend to fit into one of two brackets: those who are naturally good at sight reading and those who are naturally good at playing by ear, most are one or the other. Traditional music is probably best suited to the latter, maybe 'cos the particular brain naturally picks the way it is naturally suited to meet the challenge, then perseveres with that way at the expense of the other. maybe ear prefference people (like me) are academically lazy but have musical ability, and sight readers are more methodical thinkers.
The ability to read music translates into the ability to write down music, an equally useful skill, and one (if practiced) which will vastly improve the initial reading skills. I can now read music much easier than I used to simply because I became accustomed to writing down tunes that I remembered from sessions or tapes.
As far as making the transition from the page to the head, I'd take a guess that playing by ear necessitates a different part of the brain than reading music, so its about getting used to using that part. Playing the music that you already know by the sheet then taking the sheet away might help, but still it's not getting to bottom of the problem-LEARNING FROM MEMORY of how a tune goes, how do we improve that skill? maybe starting with simpler tunes and getting the brain accustomed....blah....blah...
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Kenn
Re: reading music / playing by ear
How many times have we seen people tethered to their music stands and books, carefully serving each note read as if the music were tiny packages of suger to be distrubuted at a tea party? Is this the sight-reading skill that people have harrangued me about since I started playing music four years ago?
It is true that reading music is the basic skill taught to all music students but don't forget that it's the college-level advanced music students that are required to take ear-training lessons!
Anyway, if I'm having trouble picking out certain notes, I can more easily read ABC than I can the dots. Just means you won't find me shopping at the music store for tunes.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Caoimghgin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Caoimghgin,
That's a funny image about the sugar packets.
How do you usually go about learning a tune? From listening to/watching other players, listening to music or tapes, taking lessons, etc?
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by carolsviolin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
What drives me a little crazy is people’s tendency to judge the quality of a tool by their ability or inability to use it. We have people here who are saying, essentially, “I don’t read dots — therefore dots are an albatross around people’s necks,” or, “I play by ear, so I’m free, free, free!”
It’s just a tool, people. Why would anybody diss a tool? It’s like saying, “I hate screwdrivers — real men just use their fingernails!”
We do know so-called trad players who are chained to their music stands, and I’ve yet to hear one that played well — in my opinion, anyway. But I’ve also seen players who, in the best folk tradition, can’t read a note and play by ear but whose ears were faulty. I recall hearing a fiddler do a tune, in which he was blithely playing along in a major key while the rest of the band was playing in mixolydian, and he was utterly clueless. I’m not saying he would’ve been better off playing by dots; it’s just that either approach can yield poor results.
As for the so-called greater freedom of playing by ear, well, you can just as easily become a slave to the version of your favorite recording as you can to someone’s transcription of a tune.
Geoff is absolutely right (wright?): It depends on HOW you read. It also depends on HOW you listen.
The biggest problem with dots, it seems to me, is that the people who are best at reading them are the classically trained musicians who more or less are taught to believe what they read. They take the documentation literally and play what they see. But the people who transcribe folk music are not as meticulous as the classically trained musicians expect. You could probably do a pretty fair job reducing a brilliant player’s version of a tune to dots, with every flourish exactly recorded, every anticipated note carefully metered out, and include a pile of directions — “play near the frog, here, with a light, bouncy pressure that you gradually increase as you lengthen your stroke…” but who the hell would want to read that? Who would want to have some music editor dictating their every nuance for something that is supposed to be lively folk music?
And so the best transcribers wisely leave most of that off. They put down what is basically a bare-bones version of the tune and trust that the intelligent player will use it as a road map.
A road map: that’s a fair metaphor. If you are a traveler and you can get to your destination efficiently without the map, terrific! If you have to wander around and waste a lot of time and fuel to find the place, well, maybe you should have used the map, and too bad for you if you don’t know how to read it. But if you can, look at the map and learn the route before you start the car, because motoring around and looking at a map at the same time is dangerous.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Many of us who sight read came to it through training in classical music. So let's think about how sheet music is used in the two genres, classical and Irish Trad.
An orchestra typically has the music in front of them at all times. Players rely on it to play through 2-3 hours of music at a time, in a pre-established sequence, and the score also helps everyone coordinate their distinct parts. The string section annotates their score with bowing marks so they all play in unison, even making sure that their bows are all going in the same direction at any given time. This helps them present a very uniform sound and appearance.
Now consider a typical Irish session. There's no sheet music in sight. Players careen through 2-3 hours of music (or 10-12 hours if the pints keep flowing
from memory, playing for the most part in unison--that is everyone basically playing the same notes at the same time. But no two players will play *exactly* the same all the time, and fiddlers don't worry about which direction their bows are going. Also, the sequence of the music is not pre-arranged--players have to *listen* to each other to determine what tune is next.
My point here is that you *need* to read sheet music if you play in an orchestra. But sight reading is *completely unnecessary* for participating in a session. Instead, session players rely on their ears, prodigious memories, and a responsible amount of freedom that lets them play tunes slightly differently than the person next to them.
Don't get me wrong--I've sight read for 36 years and use it daily, but not when it comes time to actually crank out the tunes. I use sheet music to learn tunes at home, to compare different settings of the same tune, to jog my memory, to pick up new tunes from the glut of printed sources, and for "storage" (I've transcribed around 1,000 tunes on my hard drive, so when someone introduces a new tune at my session, chances are I have a copy at home. If I don't pick the whole thing up by ear at the session, I have a backup at home so I'll be ready at next week's session).
An observation: people new to learning by ear are often amazed when someone picks up a reel on the second hearing. We've all felt that amazement at someone else's prowess in this. But it's far less obvious to the rest of us when an experienced sight reader glances at a sheet of paper and immediately "hears" the tune in his or her head. Even if s/he plays it perfectly and with great feeling, just seeing it for the first time, we may not recognize the remarkable translation that's just occurred. (Kevin's comment about people "tethered" to their sheet music rings true to me, but good sight readers can read at full playing speed and take the music in whole phrases.)
And this gets me to my main idea--it doesn't matter whether your source for a tune is hearing someone else play it or reading it off the paper. ***Either way, your goal should be to hear the tune in your own head.*** Music is aural, not visual, and though visual learners can benefit from sheet music, eventually they'll need to think aurally if they hope to become fluent with the music.
That said, I tend to think that people who refuse to learn to sight read are needlessly limiting themselves. It doesn't have to interfere with your ability to hear and feel the music (in fact, it's just another way of doing this). And by learning to read the dots, and abcs, and tablature, you can access more tunes than you could ever hope to find on recordings or hear live at sessions. There are whole lifetimes of tunes in books, online, scratched out longhand by the visiting fiddler (and in the tune archives here at thesession.org), etc., and access to them is usually free or very inexpensive. How many cds would you have to buy to get every tune in a $10 copy of O'Neill's?
Just realize that however you learn has to eventually help you hear the music in your head.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Will CPT
P.S. Carol, after I championed all the written sources of tunes out there, it occurred to me that it can be difficult to match a transcription to the aural setting you might be working from. Some transcriptions are just poor quality, some are uncommon settings, and many are oversimplified. You can get around this--and learn A LOT about Irish music in the process--by making your own transcriptions of the recordings and live tunes you're trying to learn. Think of it as a way of training yourself to really listen to what's being played. In other words, use the act of writing sheet music to improve your learning-by-ear skills.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Will CPT
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Cuchulain, your road map metaphor is brilliant, especially that last line...LOL!
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Will CPT
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Good points, all, Will. Greater access to more tunes, yes. And if you listen to several versions AND look at the dots, it can only help you towards a greater understanding of a tune’s possibilities.
I’d like to cite one more advantage to reading dots — this is a little less trad, but it comes in on the side of living art. If you read a tune that you’ve never heard before, you may think of it in a fresh way, and that can lead to an entirely new and interesting way of presenting it. You can come across a reel, for example, that sounds great slowed way down but leaves you cold when played up to speed. If you relied entirely on somone else’s playing, that change-up may never occur to you.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
There seems to me to be far to much thought gone into this. It's really not that important in diddly music.
Some people need it, some people don't. Some people use it all the time, some people use it sparingly. I bet if you just listened to all this range of people diddling, you couldn't tell them apart
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by llig leahcim
Re: reading music / playing by ear
to reinforce what Will is saying, I found, in my early days of learning traditional music, that the most effective way for me to learn a new tune was to write it down, as it forced me to listen intently to every note played. When it came to playing it back from my transcription, I found that the notes were already in my head, making it much easier to practise - and just in case i forgot it 20 minutes later, I had it there on paper to remind me.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by ragaman
Re: reading music / playing by ear
You're probably right, Michael. Still, it's interesting, and there was a beginner asking the question.
I would point out that even in classical music, the showcase virtuoso seldom performs with a score in front of him or her. The orchestra does -- mostly for reasons Will cited, but probably also because individual members of the orchestra have less motivation than the featured soloist to learn the tune by heart.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Motivation is an interesting reason.
I probably read very badly because I'm not motivated to. You'll probably find that most people who read at all well, were made to when they were kids.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by llig leahcim
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Gee, I didn't really mean to start such a length discussion on the merits and limitations of reading and playing by ear. I'm really most interested in learning new ways to learn and getting inside other people's heads. All this is good stuff to think about though, and thanks to everybody for their suggestions. I think I will start transcribing things I want to learn to play by ear. That seems almost like cheating, since my aim is not to need written music, but I think it would be a good exercise. And I'm glad to have another opinion on the Amazing Slow Downer. Sounds like another good tool.
Thanks, Carol
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by carolsviolin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Michael, I did learn to sight read as a kid, but no one forced it on me. I wanted to understand how my older brother translated those funny dots into sounds on the piano. When I started in on Irish music, I learned predominantly by ear, but soon found written sources for tunes and realized that it was more efficient for me if I used both my ears and eyes to learn tunes.
I agree on your point about not being able to tell people apart based on how they learned a tune. In my own playing, how well I play a tune has nothing to do with whether I learned it from sound or sight. But this comes after many years of being immersed in the music. Sure, I've heard stilted versions of tunes by beginners learning from the dots, but I've also heard wildly errant versions from people unknowingly wandering away from the original aural source--and them crowing about how they play the tune "just like" so-and-so.
Your comment about too much thought going into this reminds me of my first wife. Made me laugh out loud. See, some of us actually *enjoy* thinking and talking at length about this stuff. That's why we're here at thesession.org. Yes, I'd rather be playing my fiddle right now, but I'm (ostensibly) at work. I'll get to play later at tonight's session. But if I can't be playing now, the next best thing is to come here and swap gray matter with my online friends.
Also, many people think A LOT about all this stuff, especially when they're first starting out, trying to understand what the rest of us just seem to intuitively know. That's even more true for the folks who don't live in one of the hotbeds of diddly eiddly. So it might be easy to assume that Will Harmon must sound like a robot when he plays because he's so analytical and overwrought with thinking about all this, but you'd be wrong. Playing the music and thinking/talking about it are two different things, and you can get carried away with trying to verbalize what can't be put into words, but while we're online here, we don't have many other options. And for some of us, at least, it helps us clarify what we think we know. In my experience, many of the most talented players have a deep, sophisticated understanding of what they're doing, and most can articulate it quite well. This is similar to what I'm trying to say about sight reading versus learning by ear--being able to think and talk rationally about music doesn't necessarily prevent you from being able to play well. In fact, for some of us, it helps.
David, I've used the exact same approach as you describe, with the same results. Nowadays, I tend to just learn tunes and write them down later (if I want to keep a transcription), but in the early years writing them down helped me listen more carefully. it also helped me understand the underlying structure of the tunes, which helps me immensely when I teach someone else.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Will CPT
Carol, this has been an ongoing and slightly touchy topic here for several years. Dont feel responsible for setting us off again, heh.
As for the slowdowner software, we've covered that on other threads, too. On one of them, I recently advocated using your own mind to do the same thing--take a tune that you know by heart and play it back in your head at different speeds. Chances are, you'll be able to do this without changing the pitch. You can learn to do the same with new tunes too--just get them in your head by listening to them over and over, and then consciously slow the tempo. Give it a try and see if it works for you.
Also, go to Zina's slow session web site for good advice on how to learn by ear. It's in the Links here. Small Circle something or other. I'll find it and post the link here.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Will CPT
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Here's the link to Zina's Small Circle Tune Learning Session:
http://www.slowplayers.org/SCTLS/
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Will CPT
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Maybe the problem is some classical players that think that they are superior.I think in the most of the conservatories the people are taugh to be only "musical emulators".The teachers(at least mine) didnt teach nothing about criativity or having fun playing the instrument ,and the most of the students are people that actually dont like music(they´re obligated by their parents)
..and reading the "dots" didnt change my way of playing..and there goes the "map metaphore"
I guess this is the reason people sometimes refuse to play the partiturs.Anyway I´m studying ,trying to find my own solutions,My own style(thats important
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by CelticMetalFiddler
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Will is right, I have been reading the dots as they say for a good few years but ... the music has to come from the heart NOT the page. The dots are useful if you can't remember a tune, but to get the feel the only way is to learn it by ear directly from the lads who know it, preferably in the session or.. second best from a recording of the session.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Bernie
Re: reading music / playing by ear
What Will says about experienced classical players being able to sight read at playing speed is absolutely true. British professional orchestras have a reputation for being among the best sight-readers in the business, which is economically important - fewer rehearsals and more concerts. This sight-reading ability filters down to the better amateur orchestras most of which have a handful or so of pros either retired or who like to play amateur on occasion. In the orchestras in which I'm a cellist, the first run-through of a new piece is usually at about 90% speed, and subsequent rehearsals are up to speed.
Trad musicians don't have a monopoly of memory either. Most classical soloists play from memory, and many of them can have a dozen or more hours of music at performing standard stored in their brains. Some experienced orchestral players can play whole symphonies from memory, but conductors tend to get nervous when they see members of an orchestra with no music in front of them! There is based in Bristol UK, where I live, a professional chamber orchestra of a dozen or so players who not only play their concerts from memory, but play standing up (apart from the two cellists) in a semi-circle facing the audience. Their leader played Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (4 interlinked concertos) with my chamber orchestra during the summer; at no time during rehearsal or the concert did he have a scrap of music in front of him.
Historically, people have always learnt by ear. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, totalling over 27000 lines, were passed on by word of mouth for hundreds of years before they were committed to writing. The Greek bards were expected to recite (or sing actually) hundreds of lines at a sitting from those works, and many others which are now lost to us, at a moment's notice.
Musicians who learn by ear are carrying on a fine old tradition, but unfortunately a lot of us don't have the advantage of being encouraged to learn that way when young. It is indeed a struggle to turn from sight-reading to learning by ear when you're older, but it can still be done.
trevor
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by lazyhound
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Another satisfied Slowdowner customer here. I've learned more tunes, faster since I got it than I ever did before. Plus, with it I can hear and understand what ornaments the pros are using and it gives me ideas to liven up my own playing. This has made a huge difference to me. And it has actually *helped* train and sharpen the "slowdowner in my brain" that Will talks about. An unexpected bonus for me!
I learned by ear for my first few years and only learned to read because my teacher pointed out all the cool tunes that were written down that no-one plays much anymore. I'm not good at it, but I can puzzle out a tune with a litte effort, learn the basic form and then add my own ornaments and such. I was resistant to learning it because, basically, I figured I had enough on my plate learning to play an instrument w/o adding learning to read music. Plus, I could learn quite fast by ear and I enjoyed learning from a live person and of course this is part of what makes tradtional music traditional. That made ignoring the learning to read part feel legitimate!
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by soft black stars
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Yes carolsvioin, I learn tunes and technique by listening to a lot of players and make a habit of watching everybody like a hawk when they play. I can get the 'bones' of a tune fairly rapidly, but getting it up to speed with all the details can take quite a bit longer. Are you 'gifted' with sight-reading? How does ear-learning work for you?
Since several people had mentioned the Amazing Slow Downer, I thought I'd post something which may be of interest.
When Michael Coleman was recording in the 20's in New York, a lot of those albums made their way back to Ireland and they caused a bit of a sensation among the players of the day. Everybody wanted to play like Michael Coleman, though some lamented that this general enthusiasm would lead to the downfall of various regional styles, turning everyone into a Sligo player! Others say that the 20's were a period of great decline in Irish Traditional music and that Michael Coleman and the New York recording industry had saved ITM from the brink of extinction. All interesting points of view and likely none of it true.
Anyway, in the 20's the Irish musicians of the day would play their Michael Coleman records at the slowest possible speed on their record players and then tune their fiddles down so they could match the tone of the record (apparently, some people still do!). Once they thought they had it, they'd retune their fiddles and have a go at it at a higher speed, repeating as often as they could to get it just right.
Anyway, it seems to me that the Amazing Slow Downer program is just a natural progression of this tradition, but a lot less stress on the old bridge!
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Caoimghgin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I remember when I joined the session being resistant to learning abc, thinking the proper dots were a much more upstanding form of notation. It's silly thinking back now, although abc will never be as satisfying to read and I doubt if anyone can sight read up to speed using it, it is a good form of recording and passing on of music over computer screens, just as the dots are a good form of recording and passing it on otherwise.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by Kenn
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Hah! I'd read that somewhere, too, Caoimghgin. We're just going at it in a modern day manner
Speaking of down-tuning, I think I've mentioned before that I leave one of my fiddles tuned down a whole step and it really makes the tunes sound even older and more beautiful than they sound anyway!
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by soft black stars
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Reading music is not essential, but it's a very nice thing to have. Not totally unsimillar to reading text; the majority of the people in the world go along with their lives just fine without knowing how to read or write, but would you like to try? Reading and writing music opens avenues of communication between you and your fellow musicians, which may in the long run help you a lot. Our snug/snobbish attitude towards written music in the transmission of the tradition stems from the fact that all of us were born after the invention of the tape-recorder.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by glauber
Re: reading music / playing by ear
As a total music illiterate and unable to read a line of music I envy all you guys out there. It seems to me that being able to read would help to shortcut the learning process.
I know several musicians who can write down the bare bones notes of a tune while it's being played and play it right back at you. Andy Dickson, a Belfast fiddler, once amazed me by doing exactly that. He is, incidentally, one of the best traditional fiddlers in the country so there is no contradiction between learning through sight or sound. Indeed it would appear that Andy sees and hears the music at the same time!
This is, however, very rare. I agree with several of the comments above that many classically trained musicians have a real difficulty in making the transition to traditional. They often sound stilted and strained.
One comment on the road map analogy as well. Sometimes it's better not to read the map at all and to head off in the general direction of your destination. Travelling the by ways and getting lost sometimes means that you meet people, see places, and experience life in a way that is surprising and wonderful. The map is useful only if you want to get there in the shortest time possible - but then you will almost certainly end up on a featureless and boring motorway.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by breandan
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I too cant read music, I dont feel like its holding me back at all. At the start of my playing I used to read ABCs (badly) but nobody in the sessions ever knew the names of the tunes anyway so I couldnt say 'wow I'm going straight home to learn that tune out of a book or off the net'. Instead I started learning by ear - I dont find it hard at all now - it has taken years to get totally comfortable with it, but its worth it. Its second nature and I find that when I used to learn by abcs they never stuck in my head the way the tunes do now. Its especially useful if I hear a brilliant tune in a session - I can just record it, listen to it on the way home on the bus and then learn it or if Ive heard it before I can usually pick it up then and there.
On the other hand - great - if you feel that learning by music is good for you then that is fantastic, as its been stated before its only the bare bones and up to us to put our own touches to it. I think we mostly agree that sessions arent the place for sheet music (???) but absolutely if you use it as a 'tool' then good stuff. I would say though that its probably worth learning by ear even if you can read music after all its an oral tradition
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by bb
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Whew! I feel like I started an avalanche here, though obviously I'm not the first to do so. Next time I'll think twice before I kick the snowbank.
To answer your questions, Caoimghgin, am I gifted with sight-reading? That's a philosophical question. First, though, a bit of definition for those who are confounded by dots:
Sight-reading refers to playing or singing (or, in my extended definition of it, sounding in your head) music you've never seen before. I'm a pretty rudimentary sight-reader.
But reading music per se --- I'm quite comfortable with that, unless it comes to, say, picking a melody line out of a piano score. In which case I would just say, no thanks, there's gotta be an easier way.
Gifted? When I was a kid, my twin sister and I made good grades, played musical instruments, learned to cook and sew, etc. --- and I would be irritated when grown-ups said we were gifted. I didn't understand then that those talents are indeed gifts. So am I gifted at reading music? I don't know. When you start doing something as a kid, it seems natural. Wish I'd started playing by ear back then, but I didn't come from a musical family and didn't have that kind of input. (And yes, Kenn, I agree that reading and playing by ear probably involve different parts of the brain. I'd like to integrate the two.)
By the way, I don't slavishly adhere to written music. I play with feeling and nuances, whether they're learned through sight, sound or intuition. It's the fast parts and ornamentation that I don't always catch by ear. But I'm working on it.
Thanks to all,
Carol
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by carolsviolin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
hey carol, I love it when a thread comes up that everyone gets involved and interested in, thats all part of the fun ;)
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by bb
Re: reading music / playing by ear
"I wish"
This comes up quite a lot on this web site.
"I wish I could sight read"
"I wish I could learn by ear"
"I wish I could play the pipes"
"I wish I could play like Kevin Burke"
etc etc
I hope then when we use "wish", it is just the begining of being able, and just not some forlorn hope
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by llig leahcim
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I love it when people are passionate about whatever they believe in. I used to debate whether oenophiles or opera aficionados were the most outspoken and adamant. (i.e.: "What! You can't talk about the harvest of '58 without mentioning the frost of '57!") I think I'll add Irish musicians to that list.
Michael, I'm afraid my wish that I had learned to play by ear as a kid is just a forlorn hope. I understand that it's possible to transform the past by changing your attitude toward it, but I don't think it goes quite that far. However, I tend to think of playing by ear as a latent ability I'm just now beginning to explore and something I am capable of accomplishing.
# Posted on November 26th 2002 by carolsviolin
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I started to learn to play music in my twenties (rather a long time ago now...). I was keen to learn the whistle, as I'd been advised it was a good starting point by a man I met at a session I used to go to (to listen). I went to Cecil Sharpe House (London) and the man there sold me a D whistle and a book which I think was simply called 'how to play the Feadog Stain', and was produced by some official body in Ireland. When I got home, I realised that I had a slight problem in that it was full of tunes, but I couldn't read music! We had an old piano that my girlfriend sort of played, so I wrote the notes on the keys, and learned the basics of notation. It took about two weeks to get it into my head, and then I got started on the whistle, which is what I wanted to do in the first place. Written music is a language with only a few letters, particularly as we only use the treble clef, and it's very useful (it certainly was back in the dark days before ABC). However, the limitations of reading became apparent immediately. Along with the book came a tape, on which two versions of each tune were played, a 'slow' one, to get you started, and one as it might be played with ornamentation and variations. I remember the first 'proper' tune in the book was Whelan's Jig. The slow version was impossible for me to keep up with, and the second one seemed to have no relation to what was on the page, but was definitely the sort of thing I'd heard at the session, and was what I wanted to play! I tried learning tunes from this and other books, and I got to the point where I could read and play quite fast, and then I tried playing with some other people. Then it was back to square one!
Nowadays I sort of learn by ear, but use dots to confirm that I'm on the right track, and then go back to the aural source to get it to sound like I want it to (does that make sense?). I find that sometimes, if I'm playing something fairly new to me, which is similar to another tune I play, (and after a certain amount of tunes have been learned, they almost all are!), having a memory of the dots in my head can help clarify that important point where the tune might wander off into one of it's close relations.
As far as learning the ability to pick up tunes by ear, if you attend enough sessions and actually keep your ears open, your mind must accumulate phrases and bits of tunes without you making any concious effort at all. After a while that means that a 'new' tune becomes quick and effortless to learn, as you already have most of the bits in your head. Also, I think that attending as wide a range of sessions (in terms of speed and level of expertise) is really useful. You might sit in on a brilliant one in which you only play one tune all night (I know I have), but learn more (consciously and subconsciously) and be more inspired than at any amount of sessions where you spend the night grinding out the Kesh Jig at the speed of a waltz....
Just a few thoughts.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by Ottery
Re: reading music / playing by ear
OK, "I wish I had..." is different from " I wish I could..."
But when you think about it, the outcome should still be the same. The first move to being able.
You can't indeed change your past, but the future?
But I'm not so sure I think one's latent abilitys stretch to something as complicated as music. Human instinctive behaviour is really quite limited. We even have to learn to walk.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by llig leahcim
Re: reading music / playing by ear
A possible technique for leaning to play by ear:
Learning by the sheet involves taking notes from a page and playing them.
Learning by ear involves subconciously figuring out in the head what the notes are then playing them.
So listening then writing down the dots must combine both skills.
Therefore, to help a good sight reader to start hearing the tune, how about combining the two using the following technique:
A tune, say in the key of D has two obvious reference notes that are clearly distinguishable by ear, they are D and G.
All the other notes can be thought of as being so many tones above these reference notes (play them in the head to find out how many), eg A is obvious at 1 tone above G. B is also obvious at 2 tones above G. etc. etc.
So now with a bit of practice to gain speed, it becomes easy to write down tunes without first transferring them to a keyboard. Then, before you know it, I'd imagine it'll become easier to play the tune instead of write it down, Voila!
Incidentally, writing down tunes (dots) helped my reading ability immensely.
Hints for those who won't learn to read:
Dots going up=Tune going up
Dots going down=Tune going down
Dots close together=Fast notes
Now I'm being faecetious!!!!, sorry(and wish I could spell)!
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by Kenn
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Kenn,
You're quite right. The rise and fall of the dots clearly show the up-and-down shape of the tune. This is one of the things that helps the experienced orchestral player to get it right first time at performing speed.
Incidentally, "facetiously" is one of the few words in the English language that has all the vowels in their correct order.
trevor
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by lazyhound
ps. Hope I haven't started another thread on English orthography!
trevor
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by lazyhound
Re: reading music / playing by ear
If we begin such a thread, I'd suggest we do it abstemiously.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Not at the sessions I go to!
trevor
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by lazyhound
Re: reading music / playing by ear
No, me either. I was using the word facetiously, since both words have the vowels in order.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
This site is great, now I'm learning to read English from the sheet (not the ear), a skill which doesn't come naturally to a Scot.
OK , what does abstemiously mean cuchulain? I wish I knew///-feel I'm beginning to know what it means.
Apologies for the mistake above:
In the key of D, the obvios notes are D and A, not D and G.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by Kenn
Re: reading music / playing by ear
. As I said, I only used the word as a joke, because Trevor said "facetiously" had all the vowels in order -- a-e i-o-u and y -- and I used "absemiously" because it also does.
But it's an ugly, pretentious word, with an unpleasant definition, I think. It means not drinking Guinness. Or Jameson. Or anything else of interest.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Ooops, can't type. You know what I mean.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I'll admit that I haven't thoughly read all the discussion points here but would like to pass on my story. I've been "involved" with music all my life. There hasn't been a day that I haven't sung, played, listened and so on and so on. I can say this absolutely honestly. I play fiddle, flute, guitar, harp.... just about anything I can get my hands on. I trained as a band teacher and so for a brief moment had to learn absolutely everything or at least the basics. I was always a little "outside" the classical world however. I never felt good enough or could ever find enough hours in the day to practice enough to keep up to the level my professors expected me to be at. Maybe I was trying to learn too many things and yes on that side of my musical life, everything was from the written page. I had a wonderful flute teacher who saw something else. He sensed my stress about the exams and the classes and the competitions and the recitals etc etc etc. He stopped trying to teach me. We just played and he let me play from the heart. He kept the joy in the music for me. Unfortunately all the other things forced me to stop my "lessons". To make a long story short... I quit. I quit playing, I quit learning and moved on to other things. About 3 years later I realized I couldn't do that. I started playing everything I could learn only by ear and refused to look at a sheet of music. I started learning songs I liked, that there wasn't any written music for and I struggled with it and yes started stressing about it. It became a thing that I had to do. I had to play by ear or I wasn't any good. I passed on those sentiments to a friend who laughed his head off. He basically said "you idiot" stop being upset about the effort it takes you to learn something by ear. You can read music! It's not cheating, it's a tool that you actually know how to use. You still play everthing from the heart and it doesn't matter how you learned it. Once learned.... it's yours to do with as your heart pleases. Now, I do a bit of both. If I'm struggling with a tune.. I'll look for the music and usually find out that there was a good reason that I was struggling with it. I've also found that some people have odd ways of teaching a new tune that doesn't follow what my brain understands. It's odd phrasing or you don't hear where the phrases start and stop and then it just turns into a jumble of individual notes that by the time you get to the end... you don't know where you started. After a session like that, I find the music, I read it, play through it then I listen to my tape and the light bulb goes on. No stress but I have a new tune in my repetoire.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by ANNY
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Anny, good tale that.
I particularly like the bit about reading not being cheating. Some diddlers I know do turn there noses up at reading just like that. Daft.
It's odd you describing tunes where you can't hear where the phrases start. Tunes that do this are my absolute favourites. Tunes like the Spike Island Lasses and Lepadumdowledum. Tunes that are so well written that they cross over from one part to then next.
The only way I found I could learn Lepadumdowledum was by transcribing it first. Just like people have suggested earlier in this thread.
# Posted on November 27th 2002 by llig leahcim
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Nice story ANNY, sounds like your love of music was turned into an overwork project but now you've got it back again.
It must be so much more satisfying to develop your own way of learning and style than to blindly follow other's teaching techniques. I think everyone involved in traditional music shouldn't be scared of developing their own ways of doing things, that's how it's been done for centurys afterall.
# Posted on November 28th 2002 by Kenn
Re: reading music / playing by ear
Reply to Michael. The odd comment about hearing phrases more refered to some teaching styles that focus on almost one note at a time. I tend to hear things in chunks and get an overall sense of a tune. It's kind of like hearing the next chord, sometimes its a surprise but once you hear the sense of where the melody wants to go its easier to get there. Harmony and voice leading. There's only so many choices after all and there's a pattern to everything. I'll have to check out the tunes you mentioned, they sound like a challenge.
# Posted on November 28th 2002 by ANNY
Re: reading music / playing by ear
I'm a guitar and hammered dulcimer player who started teaching Hammered Dulcimer last spring. I learned to play by listening to the tune and especially with the guitar listen for the chord changes and boogie along. Unfortunately I have a wide range of students, some who are trying to figure out if you hit the dulcimer or use it as a cheese grader. Those I found were easy to teach, however as luck would have it I have two students, one of which sight reads piano and the other well versed in music theory that are pushing the heck out of me to get on with it and learn how to sight read. I had a million excuses for not bothering but in order to keep up with those students and others that will arrive, bringing knowledge with them from other instruments I've had to force myself to get on with it and learn how to plunk out a tune from the pile of books I have laying around cluttering up my music room. I don't cut myself or anybody else much excuse for not learning if need be. It's just a tool.
# Posted on November 28th 2002 by jrathbun
Re: reading music / playing by ear
An excellent point, j.
Another way to look at this is: music is what we do, and any and all aspects of it ought to be not only helpful but desireable. I can see the argument that learning something wouldn't be worth the results, but aside from that, why should anybody be glad about NOT knowing something? I may be glad, for example, that I don't NEED to learn Russian, but I still sort of wish I had the time and motivation to learn it.
# Posted on November 29th 2002 by cuchulain54
Re: reading music / playing by ear
There you go with that " I wish" again
# Posted on November 30th 2002 by llig leahcim