A few months ago I suffered a stroke and although I am now largely restored to full health there are one or two residual problems.
Let me explain. Yesterday I was learning a new tune and it went extremely well. By the end of the day I had (in large part) managed to play the tune satisfactorily without looking at the dots.
This morning I picked up my mando to practice and I couldn't remember a thing. Now yesterdays's practice was no small session (about 4+ hours) so I should have been able to remember at least some of it. This is a common problem I encounter and demands I have to spend hours playing and listening to a tune so it lodges in my head. Even then I can find it goes into a vortex if I don't brush it down and play it regularly.
Does anyone else have a similar experience and, if so, what techniques have you used to resolve the problem. I am considering buying a small digital voice recorder so I can carry it in my pocket and play the tune when I need it.
Funny you should say that Welshman. I had a stroke last March. Now fully recovered and suffer the same problem. I don't suppose it helps much but you're not alone. I'm just accepting that this is a problem that ain't going away so I just have to put up with it. I find though that the tunes I had before the stroke are still there, it's learning new ones they just don't stick somehow.
I have had the same problem and have never experienced a stroke. Sometimes when I learn a song in one day, I am totally stumped to do it from memory the next day. I usually have to work on it for a few days before I really have it down.
When I learn from dots, I try to do it the same way my teacher would show me a new tune. Do the A part, then play it from memory and when I get that, move to the B part. So I don't use the dots anymore than I have to. Sometimes I'll break the A and B parts into two different parts, too. On the subsequent days when I can't remember, or I'm not 100% sure, I just sneak a peak at the dots.
I'll be interested to hear what other people have to say as well. Good luck, and I'm glad to hear your recovery has gone well. Keep up the playing!
I find that the tunes I learned when young flow out quite easily even when I've not played them for years. Its trying to get hold of a new tune that 's a problem. I can play it straight off from the dots..Work at until I can play it by ear. Then next morning, as with D, its gone....something with being well past 70 I reckon. So I cheat a bit ...write out the first 2 bars of the A &B parts in abc and use this as a prompt to get me going. It usually works.
Firstly, congrats and good luck on your progress recovering from the stroke.
That aside, learning tunes is a process and it takes some repetition to get the tune good and stuck into the grey matter before it can be readily recalled. As others have pointed out, sometimes you just need a familiar nudge to get you started again; the first few phrases from a recording, an ABC file, or a glimpse at the music.
As far as keeping the tune over the long haul - I know for me, playing through my list of tunes at least once a month keeps them handy in my brain for session recall. It doesn't take long to have them slip from memory if you don't take them out once in a while and run through them. When you start getting up around 200 to 300 tunes, it's the only way I know to keep them -otherwise the old ones start to fade as quickly as I learn new ones!
Do some really intensive work on a tune by looping it a few dozen times (a fiddle tutor at Bristol's Hibernia workshop says he plays a tune about 200 times if he wants to make sure he really knows it!)
Similarly, if you come to a tricky bit in a tune, isolate it and analyze it to see exactly what the problem is, and then play that bit in a loop, starting slowly and building up to speed as things fall into place and you get more confident.
Have a word with your GP or whoever is giving you post-stroke support. I don't expect that your problem is at all uncommon, and there is sure to be some general help, and perhaps even some specific.
Finally, it's quite possible that your memory recall will improve as time goes on; the important thing is to keep your mental faculties occupied and even a little stretched on occasion.
Can't say about the stroke element- but the forgetting-while-practicing bit, yes.
This used to bug me, especially when the mantra of saying the tune name> prompting the intro> recalling the whole tune ceased to work any more.
I now approach it differently: put mind into neutral, noodle around playing a sequence of G's, F's, A's whatever, until it trips the switch of a tune at random. Jump on and play tune, or maybe just the A or B part. Subsequently try to recognise tune, just for the satisfaction of remembering. Go with the flow- no stress.
That's what I do too PK. Noodle around until the right tune comes back.
[Sorry, this is an aside: Listening to a recording of the tune in question is a very very good idea - someone mentions a tune here and I am hot on eMusic to see if there's a track of it somewhere available for immediate download (faster than searching the CD/tape collection). ]
It may not be the beginning of the tune you remember, it may be a distinctive phrase in the B part even. Just somewhere to make a start. Its quite amazing how many tunes can get filed away and you think you have lost them but they come back to your fingers when you go actively searching for them in your head. Sometimes it is fragments superceded by some other parts of tunes learnt subsequently ... and sometimes tunes you think are new come easy like lost friends but you don't remember that you've actually played them before until you think on them and follow the leads back. Perhaps they didn't have a name, or had a different name, in a previous encounter or something. I don't know whether it is simply a product of a very patchy history with loving and learning the tunes that spans over ?? years. I get little revelations on a regular basis. Hear tunes I find I know somehow, from somewhere. A host of beautiful tunes that never went anywhere biding their time for a proper airing (sometime when I am able to do them justice, if that ever happens). In the meantime .... well, I love 'em anyway.
I think Welshman that a voice recorder would be just the ticket for you. Record the tune as you learn it and remember it the next day by playing it back and leave the dots alone. You want your memory to be triggered by sounds - that's what its all about hey! Sorry about your stroke, and glad to hear you've made a complete recovery. I second PK's go with the flow - take your time, no hurry and no worries.
I learnt many tunes by ear, If i could remember some of them id be delighted! if i dont have a name, or first bar, didnt write it down or record it., thats it ... gone.
I have several hundred tunes but actually ecalling some of them is tricky, untill i hear them at sessions. then its back straightaway. A handy bar helps, that can lead me into the tune.
But really, everything we have will be taken from us. All those skills we spend years polishing can be gone in an instant. Its not the destination, but the journey that matters. I enjoined learning and playing the tunes. I am richer for the experiance. We can not hold on to anything so i dont worry too much about it.
Saying that i use the name as a referance to access the tune in my mental library, I know allmost all the names of my tunes, Its nt foolproof but its not too bad a system.
now if i could just remember that tune....
Llig - your point is well made, but I can't read dots, learn exclusively from ear, and still find tunes slipping away if I don't visit with them regularly.
However, I agree with you entirely - that continued reliance on sheet music actually impedes your session playing ability.
Its so wonderful to hear everyones responses to this post. I had a traumatic brain injury 2 yrs ago via an skate sailing accident. I have since developed a fever for the fiddle. Having never played it before my injury I can't really attest to long term recall of tunes. But the process of learning as a method of attempting to heal myself has been nothing short of joyful. I can't recall a tune I just played, but give me a prompt,usually from my ipod, and I am good to go. I decided recently, with alot of encouragement from family and friends, to step outside my comfort zone and start sharing my story and fiddling with others. Maybe go into some eldery care facilities to volunteer. Yikes, how will I put my recovery journey into words, when speaking has been such a struggle for 2 yrs. Even worse how will I remember what to play... As Jig said in the previous reply, all of those things that we have taken for granted in a previous life can be gone in an instant. I am incredibly grateful to have experienced the day to day struggles associated with recovering from a brain injury. Not everyone gets to come out on the other side and reinvent themsleves as I have. So when it comes to spreading the joys of being alive and playing the fiddle, I guess I will just take several deep breaths relax into it, play with my pod in one ear if I have to.
@llig ,
Not everyone here is trying to learn from the dots. Some of us, including me, learn by ear. The problem is memory loss. Stroke combined with age doesn't help. Since I had my stroke my short term memory has deteriorated to a great extent and is quite worrying to say the least. I'm battling on but new tunes are becoming much harder to get. I can pick them up ok but a few hours later they are gone again they just dont stick like they used to.
Long term memory and short term if i remember correctly use different parts of the brain. I wonder if by continual practise the tunes could enter long term bypassing short?
Also, muscle memory, i try to trust this in playing the tunes, rather than a 'mental' memory. Its important to realise there is no 'real' separation between any of these aspects of humanity. The western dichotomy is merely a concept to attempt to explain/undrstand reality. The reality is there is only one, the being as a whole.
Coming from a family of classical musicians, I learn almost everything on the violin from "dots", outside of the fundamental style of course - which can't be notated. In order to avoid relying on the visual queues from the paper, I do a few things to internalize the music:
+ be able to sing the note/phrase before you play it - don't regurgitate notes from finger positions mechanically
+ identify intervals, not just note names (3rd, 5th, octave, etc.)
+ write in the bowing/fingering/shifting/position if I find I'm always doing a section differently each time
+ play things differently on purpose - straight 8th notes, dotted etc. Even play the notes backwards, which is helpful where you're shift positions
+ play just the leading notes of a complex pattern, for ex. if you have a long run of 16 notes, play the first of each four notes in the run
+ identify the underlying harmonic structure, recognize common progressions, and play through just the chord progression (arpeggios, double stops, whatever)
+ work on several pieces at once, avoid marathons on a single piece
+ work on just the sections of difficulty, I rarely play through an entire piece to allow more repetition where its needed - if you can already play it you don't need to practice it
A technique I've been taught for memorization is to play "air violin". Physically move through the piece from memory, playing the notes in your head and in the "air" - bowing, fingering, everything. When you find a spot you aren't sure of, stop and actually play it. You continue on until you can get through the entire piece this way. I think the act of visualizing your physical instrument gets it off the paper and into the correct part of your brain. It is also a pain to keep putting your fiddle down and picking it up, so you tend to work harder at memorizing to avoid this.
So long term memory and short term memory are different? And it's better to trust to muscle memory rather than mental memory? But there is no real difference between these. Make your bloody mind up.
Monkey, you say "almost" everything. What is your experience of the music you haven't learned from the dots?
We all do the same you learn that many tunes and when you haven't played it for a few weeks, it takes you a few weeks to get back into salter, but good luck and hope the recovery goes well
I've learned tunes both by memory and by dots. I even learned one in my sleep. Yep, I dreamed I was playing the tune. It was so real. I played it in the morning. I had never played it before.
I can't remember what tune that was, though. And of the tunes I've learned by ear vs the ones I've learned by the dots the only ones that ever stick are the ones I really like and play a lot.
Taking a peek at the dots does help to jar the memory, at least of those I've played with the dots. If I've never played it from dots I'm at a loss unless I can listen to it. I have a pretty good photographic memory, too. But I can't say I'm all that great a listener.
I'm just better at remembering visual things, and at understanding them. I never could understand my English lit classes until I finally took a film studies class. Then everything they always tried to teach in English lit made sense.
Why not be interested in music? It's fun, I like it and I'm not horrible at it. I may never be as good as you are, but so what? Do I have to pass an audition to enjoy myself? Hardly.
I'm not knocking you being interested in music, I just don't undestand why. Why should you be intersted in something you plainly say you are not very good at?
It's that Evellyn Glennie thing. What's the feckin point?
Are you good at everything you do? And why not pursue interests where you have a chance to learn something you don't already know how to do perfectly?
I'm not bad at music and I'm not really a bad listener. I may be less adept at hearing some of the subtlelties that other musicians can hear. But I can hear well enough and I can keep decent time. Learning music again after all these decades is very stimulating.
Everybody is a collection of talents and difficulties. Some people are more disciplined and work harder than others. Some people luck into an endeavour that's perfectly suited to their abilities, and the rest of us struggle to get where we want to be.
What is the value of having someone sitting over your shoulder and constantly saying, "Everything would be better if only you gave up the dots" every 20 minutes? Particularly when they don't know you from a hole in the ground?
This has very little to do with Evelyn Glennie, and everything to do with learning what you need to learn, by hook or by crook.
And there is no feckin' point - people do what they will.
Being a visual learner myself, I'd say that learning music is about the most useful thing you could do, because it adds a whole dimension to life that you couldn't have expected, and on the whole improves your ability to deal with a range of abstract concepts. So there.
Me too- people are infinitely complex and intriguing- including you (do you do Christmas, btw?- if so, have a good one.) Not suggesting you play Bob Cratchit, obviously- just allow yourself a little slack
Llig, they are simply different facets of the same thing, human memory. different parts of a whole. not so complicated really.
Whats the point Llig in doing anything? so what if you are good or bad? surely its the experiance that counts, not the destination but the journey. After all the destination for us all is the same. Its how you get there that matters. Whether you rush through or stop to smell the flowers is simply a personal choice.
I am right handed, but over the years i became adept at a number of skills with my left hand, i still cant write with my left but i enjoy the sense of accomplishment with the small gains i have made . Is that not good enough a reason? It is for me anyhow.
Consider this; your lack of understanding doesnt reflect upon that which you dont undrstand but upon yourself.
I mean no harm, just calling for more acceptance of alternative choices and life paths. Do you read Music Llig?
I personally don't find the dots to be so all powerful as to ruin your ability to learn by ear. The dots are like a memory aid, a piece of low technology memory storage. The trick is to put the dots away as quickly as possible, and when you get stuck, refer to them but don't play while looking at them. Just look, put them away, and go back to playing.
I should think that someone who has had a brain injury and therefore has difficulty with memory would probably have had their doctor suggest means of augmenting their memory with some kind of memory storage device. A note pad, a PDA.
A friend of mine had a brain injury and now carries a small PDA to keep track of things that he forgets. Oh my god! That means he's not living life by ear, he's relying on dots! For shame! Take that thing away!
Jig, that stuff about different types of memory is just stuff you've read or been told by scientists or psychologists. It may be right or partly right or completely wrong, but who cares ? From a phenomenological point of view, when you're playing music you don't think 'right,now I'm going to use my muscle memory' and switch it on. You just do whatever you do. I'm with Llig, it's like swimming, you don't need to know the weight of water your body displaces, you just jump in and do it. If people want to analyze and learn about theory and and read from written scores, it's not like anybody can stop them doing that. My personal opinion is that it's unecessary, and my personal taste includes much great music made by people who didn't know anything about music theory, let alone medical theories about how we learn.
However, i have a disability myself, and I am very sympathetic to anyone trying to cope. If someone finds something that helps them, good luck, who am I to find fault ?
Maybe we don't say "now I will switch to muscle memory" but sometimes we realize that we have done that. I noticed somebody posted Simple Gifts in the tune list so I thought hey, maybe I'll play that. So I gave it a go but my muscle memory started playing something else.
That's not quite my point, sbhikes. Imagine if you were someone who'd never been told anything about muscle memory, you wouldn't be thinking about it in those terms at all, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to how or what you played. Nevermind. It's not something I care about enough to argue. It's just my personal view. You don't need to know or think about anything. You just pick up the instrument and use your fingers and ears, and off you go....
Abc's come in handy in the "Tunes ~ Comments"
section. It is quite useful when a number of people have different ways of playing a tune. Sure you might have to describe articulations with words but, visual or aural, each can be useful tools. Keep the dots out of a session. But on a discussion board why not use abcs?
It's one of the usual topics which comes around every couple of weeks and which never seems to be put to rest.
I'm not entering that debate. I'm only stating my personal position.
You don't NEED to be able to write to be able to talk. That's not saying that writing isn't useful, or that it ought to be banned.
Likewise, you don't need to know anything to play music on an instrument. People did it for millennia before anybody thought of ways to represent the sounds with signs, or thought in terms of keys and sharps and flats.
Yes, dear Muse, I was commenting upon jig and lligs little diversion away from the topic. Regarding individual cases with individual problems, like stroke or brain damage, I'd prefer to rely upon a specialist with therapeutic training in the appropriate field.
However sympathetic I might be towards welshman' s or alta's circumstances, I don't presume to have any relevant expertise.
I think you're a nice guy, Muse, and don't think you intend to sound patronising, but you have triggered my annoyance...essential for *what* or essential to *whom*?
Doctors try to treat illness, musicians try to make music.
I suffer from chronic Cluster Headache. If you check out the appropriate websites, it is described as the most painful condition it is possible to have. On December 1st the medicine which had been relieving the pain for two years stopped working. I have had ten days of as many as 8 attacks in 24 hours, meaning it's impossible to sleep or do anything. Each attack means I almost lose consciousness because of the intensity of the pain which last for half an hour on average.I vastly exceed the dosage of the useless medication, which means the physician doesn't want to prescribe more. Where should i turn for appropriate useful help, Muse ?
Please don't tell me I'm way off the topic, or i might say something unkind.
I agree, i am just repeating stuff i heard, thats called education right?
A lot of what we aim for is pattern recognition, as in face recognition, referencing the short term memory with long term memory. We hear a small section of a tune, recognise the pattern and access this from the long term memory. This may actually be using the same part of the brain as face recognition. depending on the training recieved. I am certainly no expert but find the brain and its workings fascinating.
The whole concept of 'mind' is a huge field in itself and by no means fully understood by the top minds working on the subject.
One possibility is similar to valley formation by rain, the information creates pathways which are strengthened by continued info, this creates a cyclical self-perpetuating system, the catchment area getting larger, catching more rain, creating a bigger catchment area etc.
The [T]raining itself acts to form the pathways in the mind[brain?]
Anyhow..... not sure if i am back on subject
Okay. Muse, I'm sorry that i threw that at you. It was rather unwarranted. It would have been better if i'd kept my mouth shut. i was complaining about my hard life and lost my self-control because of the frustration i am experiencing. It would be more straightforward if I was told i had a few weeks to live or something. I'd know what i needed to do. This illness is just about constant bouts of pain with no foreseeable ending, or cure, or even remedy to alleviate the suffering. But I've had it for a long time and so i have some strategies for copeing. All the same, i don't think my personal situation is relevant to the topic. Except perhaps in so far as to explain why I'm not in a polite reasonable mood. in fact, i'm half way down Crazy Street, and who wouldn't be ?
This is the place - to get help learning tunes ! Most of the preceding were great suggestions.
I have found that small digital video cameras, are great learning
aids. Sometimes a good player, or teacher, will let you make a
close up video of a certain "LICK", trick, or tune, With a video you can incorporate both the power of the visual as well as auditory systems. There are new mp3 players that allow you do slow down music. (Sylvia Woods Harp Center sells them) You Tube is a great place to learn music, also, JS Bach drank coffee, too !! Prozac is rumored to be neurogenic ~ Practice Play Perform, Notation MP3 it's all fair play !
Okay jig. Yes that is called education. But IMO what passes for education on the whole is ridiculous. It just means being able to repeat the story that someone has told you is the right story to repeat. Little better than passing on gossip. It doesn't mean that the 'educated' person actually *understands* anything.
If what you say about pattern recognition is what you believe, then believe that. Yes there are thousand of people who publish papers trying to elucidate what mind is. if you think you've found one that seems plausible to you, fine. I don't care. I take a very different approach. Forget all that stuff. Forget everything anybody ever told you about anything. Stop living in second hand descriptions. Wake up to the reality of pure existence without any mediated conceptual framework. Be a real being instead of an idea of what you are supposed to be.
If you become conscious of your own consciousness, in a feedback loop, without any conceptual thought or intention, then you can experience what mind is. Or should I say Mind ?
Then theories and opinions are irrelevant.
Of course, this is of little or any assistance to someone who has had a stroke or whatever calamity. IMO, they'd be best served to find a specialist whose devoted the same sort of time and effort as you'd expect from a great fiddle teacher, someone with a good working insight. I have no such knowledge to offer. What i know a bit about is how to 'be'.
I mean,how many people on this site can sit in a chair, doing nothing else, and be perfectly completely happy ? For five minutes, or half an hour ? I hope there might be a few. But they are probably considered 'abnormal'...the 'normal' condition, in this soceity, IMHO, is a sort of haunted frenetic desperation...
Ther ehave been a number of useful suggestions bounced into the arena and a few I will take on baoard. Many thanks to all those who offered suggestions. Like a few of my compatriates I have been advised to use a number of aids to help me remember the basics in life and these apply well.
I chose some time ago to learn to read music and though I tend to be slow it does offer me some help.I will buy the digital recorder, If nothing else it will be a useful little tool when I visit sessions.
If I gained anything from the discussion it is a great deal of gratitude. I don't have headaches like wolfbird, I haven't experiened the trauma of brain surgery etc. I am a very, very lucky man.
Finally I am more fortunate than most of you because now, when I play badly I have an excuse. It's because of the stroke!
Finally, thanks b0dhran for the camera idea! Should have thought of it as I have 2 hanging around the house. Excellent idea.
Some interesting thoughts here on muscle memory. The psychologist in me says there is no such thing, but then I pick up an instrument and I feel it. I guess I've worked out the problem - my mando can't read cognitive psychology books.
sbhikes, Yes, dots as a memory aid is a grand thing. I wholeheartedly approve. And I agree, they will never ruin your ability to learn by ear. The do, however, stilt ability to learn to learn by ear. i.e., if you don't already posses the ability to learn by ear, using dots will hinder any movement towards gaining that ability.
wolfbird, you are right. Repeating stuff you have heard is not education, it's being a parrot. As witness, for example, Jig's preposterous assertion that slides are the same thing as single jigs.
Right back off topic... Llig asked:
>So long term memory and short term memory are different?
I didn't say they were different. I know that when I only read through a piece of music repetitively, I am memorizing something different than how to play the piece without the music. I've found that I can commit it to memory faster if I do things that force me to approach the same thing in a different manner. Which is why the list of things that I have found work for me, and the air-violin mention.
>... Make your bloody...
That was maybe not the greatest cliche to use in the context of a stroke victim asking for help. That had to be accidental. Being the sick and twisted individual I am though, I couldn't help but notice
>What is your experience of the music you haven't learned from the dots?
It takes me a lot longer to learn by rote - without a doubt. But I've never really spent time trying to improve the process of learning melodies by ear. (Intervals and Chord progressions - different story.) First you have to know the tune (memorize it so you can sing/whistle it). If you can't sing it, you can't figure out how to play it. So you have to invest time memorizing what you are going to play before you can even start playing it. Once you know it you have to figure out how to finger it and how to bow it. True, you have to do that in any case but working from notation, I'm able to do both at the same time. I find that I'll frequently alter shifting and bowings until things settle down if I don't write them down as I'm figuring out what works best. I'll eventually stumble upon the same thing, which feels a lot like reinventing the wheel every time. I think it is much worse with fingering than bowing. The more demands the tune imposes on shifting and bowing, the worse it is to be working "in the dark".
You make some fascinating contributions monkey. I'm rerally bust at ther moment so please don't think i'm blanking you or not replying. I shall engage my brain and get back to you.
(and yes, "make your bloody mind up" was a bit of a car crash. sorry)
If not, I'm sure the topic will resurface yet again elsewhere. It's a worthy subject. I find "the 2 completely different methods to arrive at the same result" discussions interesting.
Dots vs ears - I learn almost exclusively by ear, and have forgotten tunes (not many) that I'd probably have remembered better had I learned them from sheet music. For instance, for months I was able to play Pigeon on the Gate reasonably well, at the session, and then all of a sudden I got messed up around the same two bars, every. single. time. I tried to play the tune. I couldn't hum that part anymore, either. This probably had something to do with the fact that I had three or four recordings of the tune, all different versions, and they differed precisely in the two bars that I kept bungling. So my mind was cluttered with several different possibilities for that one passage in the tune, and consequently couldn't direct my fingers appropriately when that phrase came up. Yes, yes, a more experienced fiddler would be able to vary those bars when playing the tune, but I couldn't, not then anyway and only barely now. This isn't to say that I should have learned by the dots, but that the dots have both the advantage and the limitation of presenting one version of a tune, which is easier to hold in memory than the many versions of a tune that one would hear. And then there was another tune, which I also learned by ear, for which I could still play the notes, but after months of playing it I suddently just couldn't bow the damned thing right anymore. I found myself bowing the wrong way at some point, and couldn't recover. Drove me nuts, and took me weeks to get so that I could play it at speed again.
Muscle memory - what's going on, apparently, is that by practicing, your brain gets remapped so that it's no longer the cerebral cortex (conscious thought) that directs your hands every time you play a note. Instead, your cerebral cortex, cued by a simple instruction (eg, "play a roll", "start the Kesh Jig") triggers the cerebellum (muscle control) to tell your body what to do when you play. That's why I can't tell you offhand whether I'm playing an upbow or a downbow on the third bar of the Kesh, even though I play it the same way pretty much every time.
monkey, it's a shame that you have never really spent time trying to improve the process of learning melodies by ear. Because once you start to get better at it one the the magical things that happens is that you don't have to figure out how to finger and how to bow. It just happens.
TDM, It's a shame that you shy away from one of the defining characteristics of this aural tradition. Your pigeon on the gate is a succinct example. There are many ways to play that tune and each should exist in your subconcious. The great joy of playing is that you relax into it and just let whichever version just roll out, all by itself. You are describing being almost there with it, but just at the last moment you became frightened of it. Why? And it's the same with that thing you describe of finding yourself bowing the wrong way. This is precicely how you should be playing. Go with it, don't fight it, See where it takes you. See how it changes the next phrase in the tune.
"TDM, It's a shame that you shy away from one of the defining characteristics of this aural tradition. "
Llig, you've either completely misunderstood or are are wilfully misinterpreting me. You commented that the folks who'd forgotten tunes had all learned from the dots. I offered myself as a counterexample. Here's what i said:
"learn almost exclusively by ear, and have forgotten tunes (not many) that I'd probably have remembered better had I learned them from sheet music....So my mind was cluttered with several different possibilities for that one passage in the tune, and consequently couldn't direct my fingers appropriately when that phrase came up. ****Yes, yes, a more experienced fiddler would be able to vary those bars when playing the tune, but I couldn't, not then anyway and only barely now.****"
And here's something I posted a few months ago on another thread:
"I love seeking out different versions of tunes, and seeing how many liberties can be taken with the basic form of a tune while still maintaining its identity. In this, playing ITM has made me listen to it so much more attentively, and I am finding that the tunes that I liked best before I played fiddle aren't the tunes I like best now. The ones I liked best before were the most lively and driving ones; **the ones I like best now are still lively and driving, but also lend themselves well to melodic variation.**"
Here's what I *didn't* say:
* "I hate how there are so many variations of each tune."
* "I should learn from the dots more often."
I don't by any means shy away from one of the defining characteristics of this aural tradition; to the contrary, this is one of my favourite aspects of this aural tradition. I mess around with melodic variations, and bowings, all the time. But I've been playing fiddle, and ITM, for all of *a year and a half*; I'm a baby. I can't learn everything at once. I'm getting to the stage, now, where when I find myself bowing the wrong way, I can often (not always) recover. I'm getting to the stage where every now and again (not often), I can vary a phrase on the fly. When I can't recover, or vary a phrase, it's not because I'm frightened; it's because I'm inexperienced. It does no good to tell a novice fiddler, who's still working on rhythm, intonation, bowing, and what have you, that all they need to do is relax. These different versions all exist in my subconscious, but that doesn't mean that I can suddenly translate them into music at 120 bpm. That'll come, I'm sure, and all I said in my previous comment was that I'm not there *yet*, and if I had had just one version of Pigeon on the Gate in my head, I'd have found it *easier* to hold onto a passable version of it in my head, and I'd likely not have messed up those two specific bars.
I'm the choir on this one, llig. Congregation's thataway.
Llig are you refering to tradpipers quote from Matt Crannitch? I personally would not argue with him , you however seem to, once again, consider your opinions to be the 'one true way'. Is this a overinflated ego? or actual understanding? I will leave it to you to consider this.
What baffles me is that someone who plays this music , presumaby to a competant leval, does not feel that spending time and money researching the background to this said music. And yet insists on propounding their viewpoint with scant referance to the facts.
You dont answer my question, do you read music.? have you learnt tunes from the dots Llig?
The accumulating scientific evidence points to short-term and long-term memory being different in several ways. For one thing, they appear to largely involve different parts of the brain. There are some very dramatic examples of this in people with brain damage to one area or the other who lose one type of memory but retain the other.
I don’t know how much science is behind this, but I read recently that memory training exercises tend to have benefits that remain specific to the actual training, with very little carryover into general memory improvement. One thing that apparently does improve overall memory is aerobic exercise. According to the reports, it even works better than the armchair memory exercises.
I gather that long term memory is the forgeing of synaptic links, creating permanent neural pathways, while short term is mre of an activeation of present connections. Brain damage can actually destroy these connections, so requiring a new learning process to replace them.
If my impressions are correct them what is needed in this case is persistance in the learning process and trust that the cumulative effects will have the desired result.
just keep at it and good luck
Unless you 'need' tunes for a specific purpose, perhaps you might try the following.
Rather than focus on the undeniably distressing 'forgetting' side of things, try to focus on getting out some of those tunes you undoubtedly find yourself humming during the course of the day and which you know, though have never actually tried to play.
I find that noodling one of these through brings a sense of achievement- even if, an hour or so later, the tune has vanished again into the ether. Let it go- it will come back again in its own good time.
Yes I read music. Though, oddly enough, the most use I have found for the ability is when people here refer to a specific tune and I draw a blank, I look it up here and go, oh yeah, that one.
I play only one tune tune that I got from the dots, a slip jig on O'Neil's. And I am dissatisfied with it. My mates have learned it from me aurally, and they do it more justice. I would love to hear someone play it who didn't get it from O'Neil's.
This is all pretty interesting to sit back and 'listen' to. A whole lot of great information has been shared and much unecessary judgement and personal attack as well. Isn't this all just a testament to the unlimited wonder that is our brian and therefore our memory and all its complexites. I may not be able to spar with the likes of Llig either on paper or on the fiddle, but having
'been there' while recovering for the past two yrs. I do feel I have a bit of expertise of sorts. Learning from dots was not an option as my eyes could not track across a page. Does that make my learning process more or less efficient or effective than others? I don't think so. It was just what my condition would allow me to do at the time. What worked for me. Isn't this site about bringing together people with a shared love for music. I know I learn alot from all of you. But please relax your at times condesending commets, or people like me will be too afraid to join in and offer a comment or two when the feeling strikes
I for one like it feisty... Leave your egos at the door, but by all means say what you're thinking.
I hate coming late to the party, but...
Llig says:
>monkey, it's a shame that you have never really spent time trying to improve the process of learning melodies by ear...
>you don't have to figure out how to finger and how to bow. It just happens.
Ah well, I only have to mess with the parts that are awkward. I seem to gravitate towards the tunes with a lot of that anymore. I know exactly what you're saying though - common bowing patterns and fingerings without a position change all magically fit together by themselves after a while. Even when you switch into completely keys. I play a lot of heavily improvised music, and the same thing happens there. Guess I'm not completely crippled, then.
Sometime in the last few weeks I heard 'Maid Behind the Bar' in a set of 3 reels.It really caught my ear.
Unfortunately I do not remember where I heard the set. I will look through the 'Recordings' after I post. Anyway I came to realize last week that I do not have 'The Maid Behind the Bar' in my head. So I decided it would be the next reel to learn. I put it on the player & listened. Turned off the machine & played. I was not getting it into my head any too fast. That was a bit hard on my pride as it is a simple reel. But I kept at it 3 days & nights every chance I got. I cannot say I quite had it 'down' last night. I had it memorized so the notes were all there ~ I just wasn't giving it what it deserved ~ not yet.
The 1st thing this morning, when I woke up, I played it. I felt I had found what I had been wanting to hear.
It's interesting, once I 'got it' ~ & I don't know how to say this ~ it did not seem so much like work. That was great!
Who knows what makes music sound so good? Not me but I enjoy trying. So if you like something you hear keep at it.
Cheers!
I also had trouble getting that tune to stick- particularly the B music- but it's interesting what you say about playing first thing in the morning. Sometimes it's almost as if a night's sleep helps me 'visualise' (i.e 'auralise') playing something I've been working on and labouring over the previous day- can' t wait to get playing.
Forgetting tunes
Forgetting tunes
I have something of an embarassing query.
A few months ago I suffered a stroke and although I am now largely restored to full health there are one or two residual problems.
Let me explain. Yesterday I was learning a new tune and it went extremely well. By the end of the day I had (in large part) managed to play the tune satisfactorily without looking at the dots.
This morning I picked up my mando to practice and I couldn't remember a thing. Now yesterdays's practice was no small session (about 4+ hours) so I should have been able to remember at least some of it. This is a common problem I encounter and demands I have to spend hours playing and listening to a tune so it lodges in my head. Even then I can find it goes into a vortex if I don't brush it down and play it regularly.
Does anyone else have a similar experience and, if so, what techniques have you used to resolve the problem. I am considering buying a small digital voice recorder so I can carry it in my pocket and play the tune when I need it.
Any other ideas?
D
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by Welshman
Re: Forgetting tunes
Funny you should say that Welshman. I had a stroke last March. Now fully recovered and suffer the same problem. I don't suppose it helps much but you're not alone. I'm just accepting that this is a problem that ain't going away so I just have to put up with it. I find though that the tunes I had before the stroke are still there, it's learning new ones they just don't stick somehow.
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by Bernie
Re: Forgetting tunes
D,
I have had the same problem and have never experienced a stroke. Sometimes when I learn a song in one day, I am totally stumped to do it from memory the next day. I usually have to work on it for a few days before I really have it down.
When I learn from dots, I try to do it the same way my teacher would show me a new tune. Do the A part, then play it from memory and when I get that, move to the B part. So I don't use the dots anymore than I have to. Sometimes I'll break the A and B parts into two different parts, too. On the subsequent days when I can't remember, or I'm not 100% sure, I just sneak a peak at the dots.
I'll be interested to hear what other people have to say as well. Good luck, and I'm glad to hear your recovery has gone well. Keep up the playing!
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by nofrets
Re: Forgetting tunes
I find that the tunes I learned when young flow out quite easily even when I've not played them for years. Its trying to get hold of a new tune that 's a problem. I can play it straight off from the dots..Work at until I can play it by ear. Then next morning, as with D, its gone....something with being well past 70 I reckon. So I cheat a bit ...write out the first 2 bars of the A &B parts in abc and use this as a prompt to get me going. It usually works.
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by alexboydell
Re: Forgetting tunes
Firstly, congrats and good luck on your progress recovering from the stroke.
That aside, learning tunes is a process and it takes some repetition to get the tune good and stuck into the grey matter before it can be readily recalled. As others have pointed out, sometimes you just need a familiar nudge to get you started again; the first few phrases from a recording, an ABC file, or a glimpse at the music.
As far as keeping the tune over the long haul - I know for me, playing through my list of tunes at least once a month keeps them handy in my brain for session recall. It doesn't take long to have them slip from memory if you don't take them out once in a while and run through them. When you start getting up around 200 to 300 tunes, it's the only way I know to keep them -otherwise the old ones start to fade as quickly as I learn new ones!
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Forgetting tunes
Welshman, some things that may help ...
Do some really intensive work on a tune by looping it a few dozen times (a fiddle tutor at Bristol's Hibernia workshop says he plays a tune about 200 times if he wants to make sure he really knows it!)
Similarly, if you come to a tricky bit in a tune, isolate it and analyze it to see exactly what the problem is, and then play that bit in a loop, starting slowly and building up to speed as things fall into place and you get more confident.
I am not entirely convinced that merely listening a lot will help unless it is backed up by, and closely linked to, the physical process of playing. So, when listening, try to imagine yourself actually playing the music. In this connection it may be useful to look at these links,
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/15697/comments#comment325236
and then,
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/15697/comments#comment325240.
Have a word with your GP or whoever is giving you post-stroke support. I don't expect that your problem is at all uncommon, and there is sure to be some general help, and perhaps even some specific.
Finally, it's quite possible that your memory recall will improve as time goes on; the important thing is to keep your mental faculties occupied and even a little stretched on occasion.
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Forgetting tunes
Can't say about the stroke element- but the forgetting-while-practicing bit, yes.
This used to bug me, especially when the mantra of saying the tune name> prompting the intro> recalling the whole tune ceased to work any more.
I now approach it differently: put mind into neutral, noodle around playing a sequence of G's, F's, A's whatever, until it trips the switch of a tune at random. Jump on and play tune, or maybe just the A or B part. Subsequently try to recognise tune, just for the satisfaction of remembering. Go with the flow- no stress.
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by P-K
Re: Forgetting tunes
I find that I have trouble remembering them on my own but when I play with others (and have a couple of pints) they seem to come right out.
I guess for me it is stimulus from other people that jogs my memory.
Congrats for coming back from the stroke! Mando rules; the fiddlers just don't recognise that
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by chris stolz
Re: Forgetting tunes
That's what I do too PK. Noodle around until the right tune comes back.
[Sorry, this is an aside: Listening to a recording of the tune in question is a very very good idea - someone mentions a tune here and I am hot on eMusic to see if there's a track of it somewhere available for immediate download (faster than searching the CD/tape collection). ]
It may not be the beginning of the tune you remember, it may be a distinctive phrase in the B part even. Just somewhere to make a start. Its quite amazing how many tunes can get filed away and you think you have lost them but they come back to your fingers when you go actively searching for them in your head. Sometimes it is fragments superceded by some other parts of tunes learnt subsequently ... and sometimes tunes you think are new come easy like lost friends but you don't remember that you've actually played them before until you think on them and follow the leads back. Perhaps they didn't have a name, or had a different name, in a previous encounter or something. I don't know whether it is simply a product of a very patchy history with loving and learning the tunes that spans over ?? years. I get little revelations on a regular basis. Hear tunes I find I know somehow, from somewhere. A host of beautiful tunes that never went anywhere biding their time for a proper airing (sometime when I am able to do them justice, if that ever happens). In the meantime .... well, I love 'em anyway.
I think Welshman that a voice recorder would be just the ticket for you. Record the tune as you learn it and remember it the next day by playing it back and leave the dots alone. You want your memory to be triggered by sounds - that's what its all about hey! Sorry about your stroke, and glad to hear you've made a complete recovery. I second PK's go with the flow - take your time, no hurry and no worries.
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by Clear Drops
Re: Forgetting tunes
I hate to mention it, but everyone here who is having problems remembering tunes are trying to learn them from dots
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
I learnt many tunes by ear, If i could remember some of them id be delighted! if i dont have a name, or first bar, didnt write it down or record it., thats it ... gone.
I have several hundred tunes but actually ecalling some of them is tricky, untill i hear them at sessions. then its back straightaway. A handy bar helps, that can lead me into the tune.
But really, everything we have will be taken from us. All those skills we spend years polishing can be gone in an instant. Its not the destination, but the journey that matters. I enjoined learning and playing the tunes. I am richer for the experiance. We can not hold on to anything so i dont worry too much about it.
Saying that i use the name as a referance to access the tune in my mental library, I know allmost all the names of my tunes, Its nt foolproof but its not too bad a system.
now if i could just remember that tune....
# Posted on December 9th 2007 by jig
Re: Forgetting tunes
Llig - your point is well made, but I can't read dots, learn exclusively from ear, and still find tunes slipping away if I don't visit with them regularly.
However, I agree with you entirely - that continued reliance on sheet music actually impedes your session playing ability.
# Posted on December 10th 2007 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Forgetting tunes
Its so wonderful to hear everyones responses to this post. I had a traumatic brain injury 2 yrs ago via an skate sailing accident. I have since developed a fever for the fiddle. Having never played it before my injury I can't really attest to long term recall of tunes. But the process of learning as a method of attempting to heal myself has been nothing short of joyful. I can't recall a tune I just played, but give me a prompt,usually from my ipod, and I am good to go. I decided recently, with alot of encouragement from family and friends, to step outside my comfort zone and start sharing my story and fiddling with others. Maybe go into some eldery care facilities to volunteer. Yikes, how will I put my recovery journey into words, when speaking has been such a struggle for 2 yrs. Even worse how will I remember what to play... As Jig said in the previous reply, all of those things that we have taken for granted in a previous life can be gone in an instant. I am incredibly grateful to have experienced the day to day struggles associated with recovering from a brain injury. Not everyone gets to come out on the other side and reinvent themsleves as I have. So when it comes to spreading the joys of being alive and playing the fiddle, I guess I will just take several deep breaths relax into it, play with my pod in one ear if I have to.
# Posted on December 10th 2007 by alta
Re: Forgetting tunes
@llig ,
Not everyone here is trying to learn from the dots. Some of us, including me, learn by ear. The problem is memory loss. Stroke combined with age doesn't help. Since I had my stroke my short term memory has deteriorated to a great extent and is quite worrying to say the least. I'm battling on but new tunes are becoming much harder to get. I can pick them up ok but a few hours later they are gone again they just dont stick like they used to.
# Posted on December 10th 2007 by Bernie
Re: Forgetting tunes
OK, not everyone, but a fair few
# Posted on December 10th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
Long term memory and short term if i remember correctly use different parts of the brain. I wonder if by continual practise the tunes could enter long term bypassing short?
Also, muscle memory, i try to trust this in playing the tunes, rather than a 'mental' memory. Its important to realise there is no 'real' separation between any of these aspects of humanity. The western dichotomy is merely a concept to attempt to explain/undrstand reality. The reality is there is only one, the being as a whole.
# Posted on December 10th 2007 by jig
Re: Forgetting tunes
Well said jig, well said
# Posted on December 10th 2007 by alta
Re: Forgetting tunes
Coming from a family of classical musicians, I learn almost everything on the violin from "dots", outside of the fundamental style of course - which can't be notated. In order to avoid relying on the visual queues from the paper, I do a few things to internalize the music:
+ be able to sing the note/phrase before you play it - don't regurgitate notes from finger positions mechanically
+ identify intervals, not just note names (3rd, 5th, octave, etc.)
+ write in the bowing/fingering/shifting/position if I find I'm always doing a section differently each time
+ play things differently on purpose - straight 8th notes, dotted etc. Even play the notes backwards, which is helpful where you're shift positions
+ play just the leading notes of a complex pattern, for ex. if you have a long run of 16 notes, play the first of each four notes in the run
+ identify the underlying harmonic structure, recognize common progressions, and play through just the chord progression (arpeggios, double stops, whatever)
+ work on several pieces at once, avoid marathons on a single piece
+ work on just the sections of difficulty, I rarely play through an entire piece to allow more repetition where its needed - if you can already play it you don't need to practice it
A technique I've been taught for memorization is to play "air violin". Physically move through the piece from memory, playing the notes in your head and in the "air" - bowing, fingering, everything. When you find a spot you aren't sure of, stop and actually play it. You continue on until you can get through the entire piece this way. I think the act of visualizing your physical instrument gets it off the paper and into the correct part of your brain. It is also a pain to keep putting your fiddle down and picking it up, so you tend to work harder at memorizing to avoid this.
# Posted on December 10th 2007 by monkey440
Re: Forgetting tunes
So long term memory and short term memory are different? And it's better to trust to muscle memory rather than mental memory? But there is no real difference between these. Make your bloody mind up.
Monkey, you say "almost" everything. What is your experience of the music you haven't learned from the dots?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
We all do the same you learn that many tunes and when you haven't played it for a few weeks, it takes you a few weeks to get back into salter, but good luck and hope the recovery goes well
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by undone
Re: Forgetting tunes
I've learned tunes both by memory and by dots. I even learned one in my sleep. Yep, I dreamed I was playing the tune. It was so real. I played it in the morning. I had never played it before.
I can't remember what tune that was, though. And of the tunes I've learned by ear vs the ones I've learned by the dots the only ones that ever stick are the ones I really like and play a lot.
Taking a peek at the dots does help to jar the memory, at least of those I've played with the dots. If I've never played it from dots I'm at a loss unless I can listen to it. I have a pretty good photographic memory, too. But I can't say I'm all that great a listener.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Forgetting tunes
I just don't get it. I'm aghast.
" I have a pretty good photographic memory, too. But I can't say I'm all that great a listener."
So why not be a photagrapher then? Why not go into the visual arts? I just don't understand why you are inerested in music?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
I'm just better at remembering visual things, and at understanding them. I never could understand my English lit classes until I finally took a film studies class. Then everything they always tried to teach in English lit made sense.
Why not be interested in music? It's fun, I like it and I'm not horrible at it. I may never be as good as you are, but so what? Do I have to pass an audition to enjoy myself? Hardly.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by sbhikes
Holier than thou
Michael everyone knows your mantra.
I agree with you.
Now can you honestly say you have experienced memory loss due to brain trauma?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
I'm not knocking you being interested in music, I just don't undestand why. Why should you be intersted in something you plainly say you are not very good at?
It's that Evellyn Glennie thing. What's the feckin point?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
Are you good at everything you do? And why not pursue interests where you have a chance to learn something you don't already know how to do perfectly?
I'm not bad at music and I'm not really a bad listener. I may be less adept at hearing some of the subtlelties that other musicians can hear. But I can hear well enough and I can keep decent time. Learning music again after all these decades is very stimulating.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Forgetting tunes
Everybody is a collection of talents and difficulties. Some people are more disciplined and work harder than others. Some people luck into an endeavour that's perfectly suited to their abilities, and the rest of us struggle to get where we want to be.
What is the value of having someone sitting over your shoulder and constantly saying, "Everything would be better if only you gave up the dots" every 20 minutes? Particularly when they don't know you from a hole in the ground?
This has very little to do with Evelyn Glennie, and everything to do with learning what you need to learn, by hook or by crook.
And there is no feckin' point - people do what they will.
Being a visual learner myself, I'd say that learning music is about the most useful thing you could do, because it adds a whole dimension to life that you couldn't have expected, and on the whole improves your ability to deal with a range of abstract concepts. So there.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Gzeg
Re: Forgetting tunes
I said I wasn't knocking it, just that I don't understand
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
I like your post, Gzeg.
(It's called tolerance, Michael.)
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by P-K
Re: Forgetting tunes
I'm more than tolerant. I'm intrigued
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
Me too- people are infinitely complex and intriguing- including you (do you do Christmas, btw?- if so, have a good one.) Not suggesting you play Bob Cratchit, obviously- just allow yourself a little slack
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by P-K
Re: Forgetting tunes
...or even a few lumps of coal...
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by P-K
Re: Forgetting tunes
Llig, they are simply different facets of the same thing, human memory. different parts of a whole. not so complicated really.
Whats the point Llig in doing anything? so what if you are good or bad? surely its the experiance that counts, not the destination but the journey. After all the destination for us all is the same. Its how you get there that matters. Whether you rush through or stop to smell the flowers is simply a personal choice.
I am right handed, but over the years i became adept at a number of skills with my left hand, i still cant write with my left but i enjoy the sense of accomplishment with the small gains i have made . Is that not good enough a reason? It is for me anyhow.
Consider this; your lack of understanding doesnt reflect upon that which you dont undrstand but upon yourself.
I mean no harm, just calling for more acceptance of alternative choices and life paths. Do you read Music Llig?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by jig
Re: Forgetting tunes
I personally don't find the dots to be so all powerful as to ruin your ability to learn by ear. The dots are like a memory aid, a piece of low technology memory storage. The trick is to put the dots away as quickly as possible, and when you get stuck, refer to them but don't play while looking at them. Just look, put them away, and go back to playing.
I should think that someone who has had a brain injury and therefore has difficulty with memory would probably have had their doctor suggest means of augmenting their memory with some kind of memory storage device. A note pad, a PDA.
A friend of mine had a brain injury and now carries a small PDA to keep track of things that he forgets. Oh my god! That means he's not living life by ear, he's relying on dots! For shame! Take that thing away!
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Forgetting tunes
Jig, that stuff about different types of memory is just stuff you've read or been told by scientists or psychologists. It may be right or partly right or completely wrong, but who cares ? From a phenomenological point of view, when you're playing music you don't think 'right,now I'm going to use my muscle memory' and switch it on. You just do whatever you do. I'm with Llig, it's like swimming, you don't need to know the weight of water your body displaces, you just jump in and do it. If people want to analyze and learn about theory and and read from written scores, it's not like anybody can stop them doing that. My personal opinion is that it's unecessary, and my personal taste includes much great music made by people who didn't know anything about music theory, let alone medical theories about how we learn.
However, i have a disability myself, and I am very sympathetic to anyone trying to cope. If someone finds something that helps them, good luck, who am I to find fault ?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Forgetting tunes
Maybe we don't say "now I will switch to muscle memory" but sometimes we realize that we have done that. I noticed somebody posted Simple Gifts in the tune list so I thought hey, maybe I'll play that. So I gave it a go but my muscle memory started playing something else.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Forgetting tunes
That's not quite my point, sbhikes. Imagine if you were someone who'd never been told anything about muscle memory, you wouldn't be thinking about it in those terms at all, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to how or what you played. Nevermind. It's not something I care about enough to argue. It's just my personal view. You don't need to know or think about anything. You just pick up the instrument and use your fingers and ears, and off you go....
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by wolfbird
Switching between visual & aural
Abc's come in handy in the "Tunes ~ Comments"
section. It is quite useful when a number of people have different ways of playing a tune. Sure you might have to describe articulations with words but, visual or aural, each can be useful tools. Keep the dots out of a session. But on a discussion board why not use abcs?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Random_notes
Recovering lost memory
non-traumatic brain injury ~ apologies Welshman I don't want to imply a more severe condition.
Cheers!
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
It's one of the usual topics which comes around every couple of weeks and which never seems to be put to rest.
I'm not entering that debate. I'm only stating my personal position.
You don't NEED to be able to write to be able to talk. That's not saying that writing isn't useful, or that it ought to be banned.
Likewise, you don't need to know anything to play music on an instrument. People did it for millennia before anybody thought of ways to represent the sounds with signs, or thought in terms of keys and sharps and flats.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by wolfbird
Thank you wolfbird
& of course a secondary topic is how to continue playing music as we get older. Remember?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
Yes, dear Muse, I was commenting upon jig and lligs little diversion away from the topic. Regarding individual cases with individual problems, like stroke or brain damage, I'd prefer to rely upon a specialist with therapeutic training in the appropriate field.
However sympathetic I might be towards welshman' s or alta's circumstances, I don't presume to have any relevant expertise.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by wolfbird
Musical therapy
Physicians ~ therapists ~ musicians ~ community.
Maybe that is the hierarchy. I think each part is essential
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
I think you're a nice guy, Muse, and don't think you intend to sound patronising, but you have triggered my annoyance...essential for *what* or essential to *whom*?
Doctors try to treat illness, musicians try to make music.
I suffer from chronic Cluster Headache. If you check out the appropriate websites, it is described as the most painful condition it is possible to have. On December 1st the medicine which had been relieving the pain for two years stopped working. I have had ten days of as many as 8 attacks in 24 hours, meaning it's impossible to sleep or do anything. Each attack means I almost lose consciousness because of the intensity of the pain which last for half an hour on average.I vastly exceed the dosage of the useless medication, which means the physician doesn't want to prescribe more. Where should i turn for appropriate useful help, Muse ?
Please don't tell me I'm way off the topic, or i might say something unkind.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Forgetting tunes
Do you are definitely on topic.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
I mean you are "on" topic.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
I agree, i am just repeating stuff i heard, thats called education right?
A lot of what we aim for is pattern recognition, as in face recognition, referencing the short term memory with long term memory. We hear a small section of a tune, recognise the pattern and access this from the long term memory. This may actually be using the same part of the brain as face recognition. depending on the training recieved. I am certainly no expert but find the brain and its workings fascinating.
The whole concept of 'mind' is a huge field in itself and by no means fully understood by the top minds working on the subject.
One possibility is similar to valley formation by rain, the information creates pathways which are strengthened by continued info, this creates a cyclical self-perpetuating system, the catchment area getting larger, catching more rain, creating a bigger catchment area etc.
The [T]raining itself acts to form the pathways in the mind[brain?]
Anyhow..... not sure if i am back on subject
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by jig
Re: Forgetting tunes
Okay. Muse, I'm sorry that i threw that at you. It was rather unwarranted. It would have been better if i'd kept my mouth shut. i was complaining about my hard life and lost my self-control because of the frustration i am experiencing. It would be more straightforward if I was told i had a few weeks to live or something. I'd know what i needed to do. This illness is just about constant bouts of pain with no foreseeable ending, or cure, or even remedy to alleviate the suffering. But I've had it for a long time and so i have some strategies for copeing. All the same, i don't think my personal situation is relevant to the topic. Except perhaps in so far as to explain why I'm not in a polite reasonable mood. in fact, i'm half way down Crazy Street, and who wouldn't be ?
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Forgetting tunes
This is the place - to get help learning tunes ! Most of the preceding were great suggestions.
I have found that small digital video cameras, are great learning
aids. Sometimes a good player, or teacher, will let you make a
close up video of a certain "LICK", trick, or tune, With a video you can incorporate both the power of the visual as well as auditory systems. There are new mp3 players that allow you do slow down music. (Sylvia Woods Harp Center sells them) You Tube is a great place to learn music, also, JS Bach drank coffee, too !! Prozac is rumored to be neurogenic ~ Practice Play Perform, Notation MP3 it's all fair play !
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by b0dhran
Re: Forgetting tunes
Okay jig. Yes that is called education. But IMO what passes for education on the whole is ridiculous. It just means being able to repeat the story that someone has told you is the right story to repeat. Little better than passing on gossip. It doesn't mean that the 'educated' person actually *understands* anything.
If what you say about pattern recognition is what you believe, then believe that. Yes there are thousand of people who publish papers trying to elucidate what mind is. if you think you've found one that seems plausible to you, fine. I don't care. I take a very different approach. Forget all that stuff. Forget everything anybody ever told you about anything. Stop living in second hand descriptions. Wake up to the reality of pure existence without any mediated conceptual framework. Be a real being instead of an idea of what you are supposed to be.
If you become conscious of your own consciousness, in a feedback loop, without any conceptual thought or intention, then you can experience what mind is. Or should I say Mind ?
Then theories and opinions are irrelevant.
Of course, this is of little or any assistance to someone who has had a stroke or whatever calamity. IMO, they'd be best served to find a specialist whose devoted the same sort of time and effort as you'd expect from a great fiddle teacher, someone with a good working insight. I have no such knowledge to offer. What i know a bit about is how to 'be'.
I mean,how many people on this site can sit in a chair, doing nothing else, and be perfectly completely happy ? For five minutes, or half an hour ? I hope there might be a few. But they are probably considered 'abnormal'...the 'normal' condition, in this soceity, IMHO, is a sort of haunted frenetic desperation...
Okay, enough.
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: Forgetting tunes
Ther ehave been a number of useful suggestions bounced into the arena and a few I will take on baoard. Many thanks to all those who offered suggestions. Like a few of my compatriates I have been advised to use a number of aids to help me remember the basics in life and these apply well.
I chose some time ago to learn to read music and though I tend to be slow it does offer me some help.I will buy the digital recorder, If nothing else it will be a useful little tool when I visit sessions.
If I gained anything from the discussion it is a great deal of gratitude. I don't have headaches like wolfbird, I haven't experiened the trauma of brain surgery etc. I am a very, very lucky man.
Finally I am more fortunate than most of you because now, when I play badly I have an excuse. It's because of the stroke!
Finally, thanks b0dhran for the camera idea! Should have thought of it as I have 2 hanging around the house. Excellent idea.
Some interesting thoughts here on muscle memory. The psychologist in me says there is no such thing, but then I pick up an instrument and I feel it. I guess I've worked out the problem - my mando can't read cognitive psychology books.
D
# Posted on December 11th 2007 by Welshman
Re: Forgetting tunes
sbhikes, Yes, dots as a memory aid is a grand thing. I wholeheartedly approve. And I agree, they will never ruin your ability to learn by ear. The do, however, stilt ability to learn to learn by ear. i.e., if you don't already posses the ability to learn by ear, using dots will hinder any movement towards gaining that ability.
wolfbird, you are right. Repeating stuff you have heard is not education, it's being a parrot. As witness, for example, Jig's preposterous assertion that slides are the same thing as single jigs.
# Posted on December 12th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
Right back off topic... Llig asked:
>So long term memory and short term memory are different?
I didn't say they were different. I know that when I only read through a piece of music repetitively, I am memorizing something different than how to play the piece without the music. I've found that I can commit it to memory faster if I do things that force me to approach the same thing in a different manner. Which is why the list of things that I have found work for me, and the air-violin mention.
>... Make your bloody...
That was maybe not the greatest cliche to use in the context of a stroke victim asking for help. That had to be accidental. Being the sick and twisted individual I am though, I couldn't help but notice
>What is your experience of the music you haven't learned from the dots?
It takes me a lot longer to learn by rote - without a doubt. But I've never really spent time trying to improve the process of learning melodies by ear. (Intervals and Chord progressions - different story.) First you have to know the tune (memorize it so you can sing/whistle it). If you can't sing it, you can't figure out how to play it. So you have to invest time memorizing what you are going to play before you can even start playing it. Once you know it you have to figure out how to finger it and how to bow it. True, you have to do that in any case but working from notation, I'm able to do both at the same time. I find that I'll frequently alter shifting and bowings until things settle down if I don't write them down as I'm figuring out what works best. I'll eventually stumble upon the same thing, which feels a lot like reinventing the wheel every time. I think it is much worse with fingering than bowing. The more demands the tune imposes on shifting and bowing, the worse it is to be working "in the dark".
# Posted on December 13th 2007 by monkey440
Re: Forgetting tunes
You make some fascinating contributions monkey. I'm rerally bust at ther moment so please don't think i'm blanking you or not replying. I shall engage my brain and get back to you.
(and yes, "make your bloody mind up" was a bit of a car crash. sorry)
# Posted on December 13th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
If not, I'm sure the topic will resurface yet again elsewhere. It's a worthy subject. I find "the 2 completely different methods to arrive at the same result" discussions interesting.
# Posted on December 13th 2007 by monkey440
Re: Forgetting tunes
Dots vs ears - I learn almost exclusively by ear, and have forgotten tunes (not many) that I'd probably have remembered better had I learned them from sheet music. For instance, for months I was able to play Pigeon on the Gate reasonably well, at the session, and then all of a sudden I got messed up around the same two bars, every. single. time. I tried to play the tune. I couldn't hum that part anymore, either. This probably had something to do with the fact that I had three or four recordings of the tune, all different versions, and they differed precisely in the two bars that I kept bungling. So my mind was cluttered with several different possibilities for that one passage in the tune, and consequently couldn't direct my fingers appropriately when that phrase came up. Yes, yes, a more experienced fiddler would be able to vary those bars when playing the tune, but I couldn't, not then anyway and only barely now. This isn't to say that I should have learned by the dots, but that the dots have both the advantage and the limitation of presenting one version of a tune, which is easier to hold in memory than the many versions of a tune that one would hear. And then there was another tune, which I also learned by ear, for which I could still play the notes, but after months of playing it I suddently just couldn't bow the damned thing right anymore. I found myself bowing the wrong way at some point, and couldn't recover. Drove me nuts, and took me weeks to get so that I could play it at speed again.
Muscle memory - what's going on, apparently, is that by practicing, your brain gets remapped so that it's no longer the cerebral cortex (conscious thought) that directs your hands every time you play a note. Instead, your cerebral cortex, cued by a simple instruction (eg, "play a roll", "start the Kesh Jig") triggers the cerebellum (muscle control) to tell your body what to do when you play. That's why I can't tell you offhand whether I'm playing an upbow or a downbow on the third bar of the Kesh, even though I play it the same way pretty much every time.
# Posted on December 13th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Forgetting tunes
It's my experience that if I try to play music from the dots when I've already got it in my head, then my fingers get confused.
# Posted on December 13th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Forgetting tunes
T- Spot on - as usual!
# Posted on December 13th 2007 by domnull
Don't Forget
However you articulate music it tends to have 1 of 7 notes in the bare bones. & some accidentals ~ up or down an octave
# Posted on December 13th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
monkey, it's a shame that you have never really spent time trying to improve the process of learning melodies by ear. Because once you start to get better at it one the the magical things that happens is that you don't have to figure out how to finger and how to bow. It just happens.
TDM, It's a shame that you shy away from one of the defining characteristics of this aural tradition. Your pigeon on the gate is a succinct example. There are many ways to play that tune and each should exist in your subconcious. The great joy of playing is that you relax into it and just let whichever version just roll out, all by itself. You are describing being almost there with it, but just at the last moment you became frightened of it. Why? And it's the same with that thing you describe of finding yourself bowing the wrong way. This is precicely how you should be playing. Go with it, don't fight it, See where it takes you. See how it changes the next phrase in the tune.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
"TDM, It's a shame that you shy away from one of the defining characteristics of this aural tradition. "
Llig, you've either completely misunderstood or are are wilfully misinterpreting me. You commented that the folks who'd forgotten tunes had all learned from the dots. I offered myself as a counterexample. Here's what i said:
"learn almost exclusively by ear, and have forgotten tunes (not many) that I'd probably have remembered better had I learned them from sheet music....So my mind was cluttered with several different possibilities for that one passage in the tune, and consequently couldn't direct my fingers appropriately when that phrase came up. ****Yes, yes, a more experienced fiddler would be able to vary those bars when playing the tune, but I couldn't, not then anyway and only barely now.****"
And here's something I posted a few months ago on another thread:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/15365#comment317398
"I love seeking out different versions of tunes, and seeing how many liberties can be taken with the basic form of a tune while still maintaining its identity. In this, playing ITM has made me listen to it so much more attentively, and I am finding that the tunes that I liked best before I played fiddle aren't the tunes I like best now. The ones I liked best before were the most lively and driving ones; **the ones I like best now are still lively and driving, but also lend themselves well to melodic variation.**"
Here's what I *didn't* say:
* "I hate how there are so many variations of each tune."
* "I should learn from the dots more often."
I don't by any means shy away from one of the defining characteristics of this aural tradition; to the contrary, this is one of my favourite aspects of this aural tradition. I mess around with melodic variations, and bowings, all the time. But I've been playing fiddle, and ITM, for all of *a year and a half*; I'm a baby. I can't learn everything at once. I'm getting to the stage, now, where when I find myself bowing the wrong way, I can often (not always) recover. I'm getting to the stage where every now and again (not often), I can vary a phrase on the fly. When I can't recover, or vary a phrase, it's not because I'm frightened; it's because I'm inexperienced. It does no good to tell a novice fiddler, who's still working on rhythm, intonation, bowing, and what have you, that all they need to do is relax. These different versions all exist in my subconscious, but that doesn't mean that I can suddenly translate them into music at 120 bpm. That'll come, I'm sure, and all I said in my previous comment was that I'm not there *yet*, and if I had had just one version of Pigeon on the Gate in my head, I'd have found it *easier* to hold onto a passable version of it in my head, and I'd likely not have messed up those two specific bars.
I'm the choir on this one, llig. Congregation's thataway.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Forgetting tunes
Llig are you refering to tradpipers quote from Matt Crannitch? I personally would not argue with him , you however seem to, once again, consider your opinions to be the 'one true way'. Is this a overinflated ego? or actual understanding? I will leave it to you to consider this.
What baffles me is that someone who plays this music , presumaby to a competant leval, does not feel that spending time and money researching the background to this said music. And yet insists on propounding their viewpoint with scant referance to the facts.
You dont answer my question, do you read music.? have you learnt tunes from the dots Llig?
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by jig
Re: Forgetting tunes
The accumulating scientific evidence points to short-term and long-term memory being different in several ways. For one thing, they appear to largely involve different parts of the brain. There are some very dramatic examples of this in people with brain damage to one area or the other who lose one type of memory but retain the other.
I don’t know how much science is behind this, but I read recently that memory training exercises tend to have benefits that remain specific to the actual training, with very little carryover into general memory improvement. One thing that apparently does improve overall memory is aerobic exercise. According to the reports, it even works better than the armchair memory exercises.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Bob himself
Re: Forgetting tunes
I gather that long term memory is the forgeing of synaptic links, creating permanent neural pathways, while short term is mre of an activeation of present connections. Brain damage can actually destroy these connections, so requiring a new learning process to replace them.
If my impressions are correct them what is needed in this case is persistance in the learning process and trust that the cumulative effects will have the desired result.
just keep at it and good luck
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by jig
Re: Forgetting tunes
Unless you 'need' tunes for a specific purpose, perhaps you might try the following.
Rather than focus on the undeniably distressing 'forgetting' side of things, try to focus on getting out some of those tunes you undoubtedly find yourself humming during the course of the day and which you know, though have never actually tried to play.
I find that noodling one of these through brings a sense of achievement- even if, an hour or so later, the tune has vanished again into the ether. Let it go- it will come back again in its own good time.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by P-K
Re: Forgetting tunes
Yes I read music. Though, oddly enough, the most use I have found for the ability is when people here refer to a specific tune and I draw a blank, I look it up here and go, oh yeah, that one.
I play only one tune tune that I got from the dots, a slip jig on O'Neil's. And I am dissatisfied with it. My mates have learned it from me aurally, and they do it more justice. I would love to hear someone play it who didn't get it from O'Neil's.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Forgetting tunes
This is all pretty interesting to sit back and 'listen' to. A whole lot of great information has been shared and much unecessary judgement and personal attack as well. Isn't this all just a testament to the unlimited wonder that is our brian and therefore our memory and all its complexites. I may not be able to spar with the likes of Llig either on paper or on the fiddle, but having
'been there' while recovering for the past two yrs. I do feel I have a bit of expertise of sorts. Learning from dots was not an option as my eyes could not track across a page. Does that make my learning process more or less efficient or effective than others? I don't think so. It was just what my condition would allow me to do at the time. What worked for me. Isn't this site about bringing together people with a shared love for music. I know I learn alot from all of you. But please relax your at times condesending commets, or people like me will be too afraid to join in and offer a comment or two when the feeling strikes
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by alta
Re: Forgetting tunes
I for one like it feisty... Leave your egos at the door, but by all means say what you're thinking.
I hate coming late to the party, but...
Llig says:
>monkey, it's a shame that you have never really spent time trying to improve the process of learning melodies by ear...
>you don't have to figure out how to finger and how to bow. It just happens.
Ah well, I only have to mess with the parts that are awkward. I seem to gravitate towards the tunes with a lot of that anymore. I know exactly what you're saying though - common bowing patterns and fingerings without a position change all magically fit together by themselves after a while. Even when you switch into completely keys. I play a lot of heavily improvised music, and the same thing happens there. Guess I'm not completely crippled, then.
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by monkey440
Re: Forgetting tunes
Sometime in the last few weeks I heard 'Maid Behind the Bar' in a set of 3 reels.It really caught my ear.
Unfortunately I do not remember where I heard the set. I will look through the 'Recordings' after I post. Anyway I came to realize last week that I do not have 'The Maid Behind the Bar' in my head. So I decided it would be the next reel to learn. I put it on the player & listened. Turned off the machine & played. I was not getting it into my head any too fast. That was a bit hard on my pride as it is a simple reel. But I kept at it 3 days & nights every chance I got. I cannot say I quite had it 'down' last night. I had it memorized so the notes were all there ~ I just wasn't giving it what it deserved ~ not yet.
The 1st thing this morning, when I woke up, I played it. I felt I had found what I had been wanting to hear.
It's interesting, once I 'got it' ~ & I don't know how to say this ~ it did not seem so much like work. That was great!
Who knows what makes music sound so good? Not me but I enjoy trying. So if you like something you hear keep at it.
Cheers!
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by Random_notes
Re: Forgetting tunes
I also had trouble getting that tune to stick- particularly the B music- but it's interesting what you say about playing first thing in the morning. Sometimes it's almost as if a night's sleep helps me 'visualise' (i.e 'auralise') playing something I've been working on and labouring over the previous day- can' t wait to get playing.
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by P-K
Re: Forgetting tunes
Play the B part of that one mostly in 3rd position? (assuming you're in D major.)
# Posted on December 19th 2007 by monkey440