If I learn a tune by ear I know it a million times better than if I
hadn’t.
I always seem freer to mess about with it.
However I’m not as good at it as others.
During the process I nearly always miss something – (if)
when it’s pointed out it, it always then seems such a glaring
obvious mistake that I can’t believe I made it.
Or if I use software to slow down a tune (boo!) I notice bits I’ve
got wrong.
I used to use software to slow a tune way down and transcribe
it myself, but I think that this is not actually learning by ear, but
writing out individual notes and then learning from the dots
(albeit ones I wrote down myself)
What’s good advice to be able to get to a stage of being able to pick up a pacey tune by ear
I’m not in a mad rush or anything, just interested in pitfalls or
advice others might have.
Eg. Is slowing down the tune cheating or helpful do you think ?
Is it better to learn tunes at speed, I don’t necessarily mean
fast tunes, but learn say slow reels
at actual speed rather than slow down fast reels ?
Slowing down using software could be compared to the situation where you sit in front of a person who slows down the tune in order for you to learn it. I think it is nice.
In the "old" days slowing down a record meant re-tuning and completely scratched LP's ;)
Slowing down helps me, but only if I have the tune in my head already. If the entire tune is not in my head, slowing it down isn't going to help. I need to have the whole tune in my head already as a whole, before I can begin to dissect it and truly "learn" it.
Carry on with your slowing down! There's no "right" way!
I remember the bad old days when slowing down a tune meant finding an unaccompanied fiddler playing the tune I wanted, using my 4 trx and with some hocus pocus Id end up with something I could figure out a banjo tune... Those were the days i learnt to read music. Sorted.
There is no cheating in this situation, because there are no rules. Only finding what works for you. Slowing the tunes down, playing a recording over and over again, asking someone to play it to you slowly, asking someone to listen to what you are playing, recording yourself and listening to see what you sound like compared with your source, (ducks behind barricade) checking with one or more written sources to see what they've got . . . anything that works.
It took me a long time to learn to play by ear and I still struggle sometimes when I can't work out what I'm hearing. (I'm going deaf, which doesn't help!)
The two most useless pieces of advice I had were: How do I learn to play by ear? - you just go along to a session and join in
and, How do you know which note comes next? - Oh, you just do.
jig,
What if the dots are also wrong ?
Anyway rather than a discussion Ear V Dots, I’d hope this would stick to
improving learning by ear or thoughts or advice on that aspect.
On the last 'useless advice' comment, with the more affordable handheld recorders, a person can start the learning by ear process by recording and repeating/slowing down. and then start working on picking up the tunes at a faster.
Some folks get it. some not. I was decent. But had to start using alot sheet music 8-9 years ago in my other music things.
After 1 year back learning ITM solely by ear....Playing by the spots really set me back. But the memory starts to work a bit faster after a while.
How do you know what comes next. You hear it in your head!
Beg, sorry if My comment may have diverted the discussion.
Re if the dots are 'wrong' that's normal isn't it! Like this site, the dots are often not the version I have in my head/ear. My solution is to ignore the bits that don't 'sound right' . After all I am just looking for a 'rough map' so to speak. After all its just a pictorial representation of some major features. Like a map, its not the actual land.
As far as helpful advice for learning by ear, a firm connection from ear to fingers is what you want, so you can put your finger down on the sound you can hear around you. Going via the dots is a disadvantage for ear learning. you have the map between you and the territory.
I dont know if there are any shortcuts. I was taught a lot of my tunes and I learnt a lot from backing as well. Listening carefully to accompany you get to know the tunes as an aural 'map'or 'story'.
So by listening to a bar from a teacher, then trying to copy that helped me in being able to listen to a tune and copy it in a session. So Each time a 'riff' is played I allready 'know' it. then I miss a bit because I am 'learning' the first bit. next time round i get the bits i missed first time. Mind you, there will always be tricky little bits that elude me, I guess I simplify those bits
The disadvantage in this method is I end up with versions of the tunes that have ' simplified' bits.... mind you I do that even when I am learning from the dots! Regional variation anyone
"I used to use software to slow a tune way down and transcribe it myself, but I think that this is not actually learning by ear, but writing out individual notes and then learning from the dots (albeit ones I wrote down myself)"
I think you're not giving yourself enough credit with this. If you've transcribed it yourself, you've learned it by ear, in my opinion. I do this a lot, although I find that by the time I have it on paper, I don't need it anymore. I think it's a good exercise in itself, just to reinforce your understanding of abc and written music in general. The other advantage is you have the tune written as *you* play it.
"I wonder does slowing it down lose something, especially with the rhythm of the “ornaments”"
Yes. But slowing down is just for the purpose of catching all the notes. To learn the nuances of timing, rhythm, feeling etc, you have to hear the tunes played at their natural speed - preferably 'live', not on recordings.
Like SWFL, I find that I need to know the tune as a whole before I can learn to play it, and I can only get to know it by hearing it played at full speed. I have never used slowing down software - luddite that I am, I tend to resort to the 'listen, rewind, listen again...' method - but if I had such software, I would only use it to catch the finer details, once I already had the shape of the tune.
When I'm stuck because I really can't work out what I'm hearing, I sometimes check the dots, preferably from more than one source, and use that as a basis to work out the tune as I'm trying to learn it. I know it's not ideal, and if I can get a recording of one or two instruments playing the tune I'm fine. I have trouble with band CD's or session recordings - this is my problem because of the dodgy hearing and part of my solution to it. Other people have other problems and solutions. The important thing is to achieve the goal - being able to play in sessions. To that end use whatever means necessary. Some people have advantages - like a more experienced musician able to help them.Some struggle on their own.
Having got the name of a tune I've heard, I usually follow up trying to get the bare bones of it it from the midi on this site- though that doesn't always sound much like the tune I'm after. Then I try and find a version of the tune on a CD and add to the bare bones- getting support from the dots if need be for the difficult bits. The only real slowing down comes when I play it, but then I gradually build up speed- this usually goes together with shedding the stabilisers (dots). In my case, it often takes weeks of repetition (in rotation with a lot of other tunes) to actually nail the tune in anywhere near a satisfactory way. Thus armed, I'll try it at a session, where, more often than not it will crash and burn in the maelstrom of playing with others. At first this would really discourage me, but now it seems a necessary part of the learning process, so it's back to the practicing, building up speed etc.- the next time out it usually works better- and what a buzz when it does!
Some people have mentioed ending up with slightly misheard versions of tunes...is that necessarily a bad thing? I mean, we can go someplace else for the melodic variation discussion, but I love being able to say, "oh, you do x? I play it y..."
The more tunes you know the easier it gets. At least that's my experience. I probably know about 100 OT pieces and another 75 Irish tunes, and after 3 years, it's just starting to get easy to pickup tunes by ear. I think it's from the different parts of the tunes that are re-used by many other tunes. When you've gone through a lot of tunes, you're not learning the whole tune, but the notes that exist inbetween the phrases you're already familiar with.
This makes sense in my head, but could sound like hogwash. If that's the case, forgive me.
No thats true enough, there are many little stock phrases, bits of scales arpeggio's, triplets etc etc the more you know the easier it is to learn more.
If you have more or less learned a tune by ear, perhaps by hearing it at a session a lot or hearing it on your favourite CD, to whistling-along standard shall we say, and there's a bit you can't quite get the drift of, just look at a book of dots. You will probably end up not playing what the dots say, but the dots will suggest a way through. It really is OK to do this. Trust me, I'm a dog-turd.
Come on, Michael. You can't always hear everything but you want to find a way through. I had hellish trouble learning The Grand Spey from Fire Aflame because I couldn't make out what the buggers were playing at one point in the third part. Would you deny me the opportunity to seek an alternative source at least some time before I die?
I think some instruments are easier to do by ear than others, and it's different for different people. I have recently started on the mountain dulcimer and it's really easy to play tunes by ear and to play them in different keys, too. I don't find the flute as easy.
Also, it's so much easier if you already know a lot of tunes. There's a little bit of truth to the quip that all these tunes sound the same. It starts to be less about learning whole tune to learning bits of connective tissue around bits you already know.
And another thing. I think it is easier to do by ear a relatively unfamiliar tune if you are listening to certain instruments. I find it easier to take a stab at what I hear a fiddler doing, but harder to take a stab at what a guitar is doing.
It's quite easy to figure out by ear tunes you know in your sleep too. But if you had to wait until every jig and reel was so ingrained in your brain you are dreaming about them you'd learn things way too slowly. Some of us don't have that many years left in us.
Dots are at least friendly to non-electrified environments. No batteries, no computers required.
earlier from BegF
"During the process I nearly always miss something – (if)
when it’s pointed out it, it always then seems such a glaring
obvious mistake that I can’t believe I made it."
Is it not grand to learn from your mistakes?
~ But you do learn. . . Don't you?
Here's my take on the matter, (from an old fogy immersed in music most of his life).
I believe first off most people can and should learn trad by ear. Why? Because these tunes mostly originated as a person's musical expression at a particular time or of a particular place or feeling etc. This I believe results in the phenomena of so many different variations dependent upon who's playing it, when and where etc. and what the hell they felt like at the time.
One of the advantages of being an old fogy is in the fact that over the years I have heard probably millions of tunes, in hundreds of different styles, settings, musicians and and and...... What does this translate into? I believe that hearing is the most important part of learning music by ear. This may sound a rather stupid thing to state, however when I say consciously hearing a tune, I don't mean listening to a tune if this makes sense. Many people listen to music but few rarely consciously hear the tune or its colour, its depth, its emotion and everything else that comes with it, including the musician(s).
Sub-consciously they may feel they like the tune or love it enough to want to play it, however until one develops a hearing ear, learning a tune by ear will always be difficult.
There have been many discussions on the board I think, about really listening (I'd change that to hearing) to loads of trad tunes almost constantly. That way I am convinced that a person's ear will either develop it's unique ability to understand a melody or not. If it doesn't then try another genre because this one isn't for you. When learning a new language, first of all the spoken words often sound like a complete babble of mixed sounds which mean nothing. As the ear develops and the brain stores information it's almost as though it's been put on a slow downer just as we do with music.
Constant listening to and more important hearing the tunes will develop just the same ability in the person's ear..... So how do you learn by ear? Listen hear, listen hear, listen hear, listen hear, listen hear, listen hear,..........................Play, play, play, play, play, play,.......
Not sure if this is too simplified or plain common sense, it's done me well over the years.
It often amazes me, when I get really well into the process of learning some tune, that I'll find a couple of intervals which suddenly confuse my ear and it's a big struggle to sort it out and get it right.
When I listened to the tune as a whole, I didn't perceive that part of the tune as being a problem -- it usually seemed quite obvious. But when I go to start playing it, suddenly -- it's like having "vertigo of the ears" --- it can be a matter of listening and trying it against the source, for some time, and thinking to myself, "I've got it -- NO --- that's WRONG --- oh, I think that was actually right; wait -- NO --- now I think it wasn't right at all. Maybe it's totally different from either way I played it." This can go on for a while - and little by little the tune is creeping into the "dedicated tune track" in my brain. Sooner or later I'll get most of it. Once in a while, some very kind other musician will help me see the "wrong parts" I had.
You just get better at it.
One of the great pleasures of learning to play IrTrad on an instrument as an adult is -- experiencing yourself learning something from scratch (assuming you did) and making steady progress -- all the little steps along the way -- being so pleased that you can do what you couldn't do a month ago!
I use dots to file away tunes I want to learn, but not this week.
Once I have learned a tune, the dots are useless as I soon start changing the tune as I put my own style on it. The dots simply become a record of how I used to play it.
Before pcs, I used to keep a jotter with a page for jigs, page for polkas etc. and when I had enough similar tunes to form into a set, a new set was born, often a unique set that no-one else plays, as the tunes were "collected" one by one. Again, you can put your own style on the way your sets are made up.
Keep going. There is no need to be too puritanical with yourself!
Learning tunes by ear is great and inevitably leads to some gaps, especially when carried out at normal pace, but he gaps or inaccuracies will be inevitably corrected as your ear gets better and you notice the small focal incongruency with other players. There is nothing wrong with learning from a slowed down version either. Infact, I think it inculcates a much stronger adherence to a set steady pace. Watch out for sets that deliberately speed up in recordings, because I don't think developing this habit is an easy one to reverse (as I've discovered)!
The more you learn by ear, the better you'll get at it. I also use two techniques I learnt from professional rock-climbing (not joking):
1) is to vicariously play tunes - which in the rock climbing equivalent was going through the imagined motions when watching someone climb - listen carefully to tunes you don't yet know in sessions and start to put your fingers on your instrument in what you think are the right places (but without actually playing)
2) is similar to 1) except you try and imagine playing a tune in your head, and allow your fingers to move in the right place, when you are learning to play tunes that are mostly or totally in your head, but not yet on your instrument. This can be done, for example, when listening to an ipod on a train etc etc
These techniques help speed things up in my view....
I'm a dot man myself (ABC is not my cup of tea)--
but the "dots" are only a "suggestion" to me.
Creative playing requires creative experimentation.
Do what your ear, mind, and heart require. You'll
do well to do what comes more naturally for you.
Good luck.
Learning by ear
Learning by ear
If I learn a tune by ear I know it a million times better than if I
hadn’t.
I always seem freer to mess about with it.
However I’m not as good at it as others.
During the process I nearly always miss something – (if)
when it’s pointed out it, it always then seems such a glaring
obvious mistake that I can’t believe I made it.
Or if I use software to slow down a tune (boo!) I notice bits I’ve
got wrong.
I used to use software to slow a tune way down and transcribe
it myself, but I think that this is not actually learning by ear, but
writing out individual notes and then learning from the dots
(albeit ones I wrote down myself)
What’s good advice to be able to get to a stage of being able to pick up a pacey tune by ear
I’m not in a mad rush or anything, just interested in pitfalls or
advice others might have.
Eg. Is slowing down the tune cheating or helpful do you think ?
Is it better to learn tunes at speed, I don’t necessarily mean
fast tunes, but learn say slow reels
at actual speed rather than slow down fast reels ?
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by BegF
Re: Learning by ear
Slowing down using software could be compared to the situation where you sit in front of a person who slows down the tune in order for you to learn it. I think it is nice.
In the "old" days slowing down a record meant re-tuning and completely scratched LP's ;)
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by houlberg
Re: Learning by ear
Slowing down helps me, but only if I have the tune in my head already. If the entire tune is not in my head, slowing it down isn't going to help. I need to have the whole tune in my head already as a whole, before I can begin to dissect it and truly "learn" it.
Carry on with your slowing down! There's no "right" way!
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Learning by ear
I remember the bad old days when slowing down a tune meant finding an unaccompanied fiddler playing the tune I wanted, using my 4 trx and with some hocus pocus Id end up with something I could figure out a banjo tune... Those were the days
i learnt to read music. Sorted.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Learning by ear
. . . is slowing down cheating . . .
There is no cheating in this situation, because there are no rules. Only finding what works for you. Slowing the tunes down, playing a recording over and over again, asking someone to play it to you slowly, asking someone to listen to what you are playing, recording yourself and listening to see what you sound like compared with your source, (ducks behind barricade) checking with one or more written sources to see what they've got . . . anything that works.
It took me a long time to learn to play by ear and I still struggle sometimes when I can't work out what I'm hearing. (I'm going deaf, which doesn't help!)
The two most useless pieces of advice I had were: How do I learn to play by ear? - you just go along to a session and join in
and, How do you know which note comes next? - Oh, you just do.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by c.g.
Re: Learning by ear
jig,
What if the dots are also wrong ?
Anyway rather than a discussion Ear V Dots, I’d hope this would stick to
improving learning by ear or thoughts or advice on that aspect.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by BegF
Re: Learning by ear
Learning by ear-absolutely necessary.
Slowing down. Not cheating.
Practice makes it easier.
On the last 'useless advice' comment, with the more affordable handheld recorders, a person can start the learning by ear process by recording and repeating/slowing down. and then start working on picking up the tunes at a faster.
Some folks get it. some not. I was decent. But had to start using alot sheet music 8-9 years ago in my other music things.
After 1 year back learning ITM solely by ear....Playing by the spots really set me back. But the memory starts to work a bit faster after a while.
How do you know what comes next. You hear it in your head!
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by zippydw
Re: Learning by ear
I wonder does slowing it down lose something, especially with the rhythm of the “ornaments”
I suppose if the tune is properly in your head, then you can slow it down all you like in your head and
software wouldn’t be needed.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by BegF
Re: Learning by ear
Beg, sorry if My comment may have diverted the discussion.
Regional variation anyone
Re if the dots are 'wrong' that's normal isn't it! Like this site, the dots are often not the version I have in my head/ear. My solution is to ignore the bits that don't 'sound right' . After all I am just looking for a 'rough map' so to speak. After all its just a pictorial representation of some major features. Like a map, its not the actual land.
As far as helpful advice for learning by ear, a firm connection from ear to fingers is what you want, so you can put your finger down on the sound you can hear around you. Going via the dots is a disadvantage for ear learning. you have the map between you and the territory.
I dont know if there are any shortcuts. I was taught a lot of my tunes and I learnt a lot from backing as well. Listening carefully to accompany you get to know the tunes as an aural 'map'or 'story'.
So by listening to a bar from a teacher, then trying to copy that helped me in being able to listen to a tune and copy it in a session. So Each time a 'riff' is played I allready 'know' it. then I miss a bit because I am 'learning' the first bit. next time round i get the bits i missed first time. Mind you, there will always be tricky little bits that elude me, I guess I simplify those bits
The disadvantage in this method is I end up with versions of the tunes that have ' simplified' bits.... mind you I do that even when I am learning from the dots!
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Learning by ear
"I used to use software to slow a tune way down and transcribe it myself, but I think that this is not actually learning by ear, but writing out individual notes and then learning from the dots (albeit ones I wrote down myself)"
I think you're not giving yourself enough credit with this. If you've transcribed it yourself, you've learned it by ear, in my opinion. I do this a lot, although I find that by the time I have it on paper, I don't need it anymore. I think it's a good exercise in itself, just to reinforce your understanding of abc and written music in general. The other advantage is you have the tune written as *you* play it.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Learning by ear
"I wonder does slowing it down lose something, especially with the rhythm of the “ornaments”"
Yes. But slowing down is just for the purpose of catching all the notes. To learn the nuances of timing, rhythm, feeling etc, you have to hear the tunes played at their natural speed - preferably 'live', not on recordings.
Like SWFL, I find that I need to know the tune as a whole before I can learn to play it, and I can only get to know it by hearing it played at full speed. I have never used slowing down software - luddite that I am, I tend to resort to the 'listen, rewind, listen again...' method - but if I had such software, I would only use it to catch the finer details, once I already had the shape of the tune.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Learning by ear
When I'm stuck because I really can't work out what I'm hearing, I sometimes check the dots, preferably from more than one source, and use that as a basis to work out the tune as I'm trying to learn it. I know it's not ideal, and if I can get a recording of one or two instruments playing the tune I'm fine. I have trouble with band CD's or session recordings - this is my problem because of the dodgy hearing and part of my solution to it. Other people have other problems and solutions. The important thing is to achieve the goal - being able to play in sessions. To that end use whatever means necessary. Some people have advantages - like a more experienced musician able to help them.Some struggle on their own.
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by c.g.
Re: Learning by ear
Having got the name of a tune I've heard, I usually follow up trying to get the bare bones of it it from the midi on this site- though that doesn't always sound much like the tune I'm after. Then I try and find a version of the tune on a CD and add to the bare bones- getting support from the dots if need be for the difficult bits. The only real slowing down comes when I play it, but then I gradually build up speed- this usually goes together with shedding the stabilisers (dots). In my case, it often takes weeks of repetition (in rotation with a lot of other tunes) to actually nail the tune in anywhere near a satisfactory way. Thus armed, I'll try it at a session, where, more often than not it will crash and burn in the maelstrom of playing with others. At first this would really discourage me, but now it seems a necessary part of the learning process, so it's back to the practicing, building up speed etc.- the next time out it usually works better- and what a buzz when it does!
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by P-K
Re: Learning by ear
Some people have mentioed ending up with slightly misheard versions of tunes...is that necessarily a bad thing? I mean, we can go someplace else for the melodic variation discussion, but I love being able to say, "oh, you do x? I play it y..."
--DtM
# Posted on February 6th 2008 by Dan the Man
Re: Learning by ear
The more tunes you know the easier it gets. At least that's my experience. I probably know about 100 OT pieces and another 75 Irish tunes, and after 3 years, it's just starting to get easy to pickup tunes by ear. I think it's from the different parts of the tunes that are re-used by many other tunes. When you've gone through a lot of tunes, you're not learning the whole tune, but the notes that exist inbetween the phrases you're already familiar with.
This makes sense in my head, but could sound like hogwash. If that's the case, forgive me.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by nofrets
Re: Learning by ear
No thats true enough, there are many little stock phrases, bits of scales arpeggio's, triplets etc etc the more you know the easier it is to learn more.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Learning by ear
If you have more or less learned a tune by ear, perhaps by hearing it at a session a lot or hearing it on your favourite CD, to whistling-along standard shall we say, and there's a bit you can't quite get the drift of, just look at a book of dots. You will probably end up not playing what the dots say, but the dots will suggest a way through. It really is OK to do this. Trust me, I'm a dog-turd.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Learning by ear
If you have more or less learned a tune by ear, try harder
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Learning by ear
Come on, Michael. You can't always hear everything but you want to find a way through. I had hellish trouble learning The Grand Spey from Fire Aflame because I couldn't make out what the buggers were playing at one point in the third part. Would you deny me the opportunity to seek an alternative source at least some time before I die?
And you know I've never learned a tune from dots.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Learning by ear
It was the second part actually.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Learning by ear
I think some instruments are easier to do by ear than others, and it's different for different people. I have recently started on the mountain dulcimer and it's really easy to play tunes by ear and to play them in different keys, too. I don't find the flute as easy.
Also, it's so much easier if you already know a lot of tunes. There's a little bit of truth to the quip that all these tunes sound the same. It starts to be less about learning whole tune to learning bits of connective tissue around bits you already know.
And another thing. I think it is easier to do by ear a relatively unfamiliar tune if you are listening to certain instruments. I find it easier to take a stab at what I hear a fiddler doing, but harder to take a stab at what a guitar is doing.
It's quite easy to figure out by ear tunes you know in your sleep too. But if you had to wait until every jig and reel was so ingrained in your brain you are dreaming about them you'd learn things way too slowly. Some of us don't have that many years left in us.
Dots are at least friendly to non-electrified environments. No batteries, no computers required.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by sbhikes
Re: Learning by ear
earlier from BegF
"During the process I nearly always miss something – (if)
when it’s pointed out it, it always then seems such a glaring
obvious mistake that I can’t believe I made it."
Is it not grand to learn from your mistakes?
~ But you do learn. . . Don't you?
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Learning by ear
Here's my take on the matter, (from an old fogy immersed in music most of his life).
I believe first off most people can and should learn trad by ear. Why? Because these tunes mostly originated as a person's musical expression at a particular time or of a particular place or feeling etc. This I believe results in the phenomena of so many different variations dependent upon who's playing it, when and where etc. and what the hell they felt like at the time.
One of the advantages of being an old fogy is in the fact that over the years I have heard probably millions of tunes, in hundreds of different styles, settings, musicians and and and...... What does this translate into? I believe that hearing is the most important part of learning music by ear. This may sound a rather stupid thing to state, however when I say consciously hearing a tune, I don't mean listening to a tune if this makes sense. Many people listen to music but few rarely consciously hear the tune or its colour, its depth, its emotion and everything else that comes with it, including the musician(s).
Sub-consciously they may feel they like the tune or love it enough to want to play it, however until one develops a hearing ear, learning a tune by ear will always be difficult.
There have been many discussions on the board I think, about really listening (I'd change that to hearing) to loads of trad tunes almost constantly. That way I am convinced that a person's ear will either develop it's unique ability to understand a melody or not. If it doesn't then try another genre because this one isn't for you. When learning a new language, first of all the spoken words often sound like a complete babble of mixed sounds which mean nothing. As the ear develops and the brain stores information it's almost as though it's been put on a slow downer just as we do with music.
Constant listening to and more important hearing the tunes will develop just the same ability in the person's ear..... So how do you learn by ear? Listen hear, listen hear, listen hear, listen hear, listen hear, listen hear,..........................Play, play, play, play, play, play,.......
Not sure if this is too simplified or plain common sense, it's done me well over the years.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by tctelboy
Re: Learning by ear
It often amazes me, when I get really well into the process of learning some tune, that I'll find a couple of intervals which suddenly confuse my ear and it's a big struggle to sort it out and get it right.
When I listened to the tune as a whole, I didn't perceive that part of the tune as being a problem -- it usually seemed quite obvious. But when I go to start playing it, suddenly -- it's like having "vertigo of the ears" --- it can be a matter of listening and trying it against the source, for some time, and thinking to myself, "I've got it -- NO --- that's WRONG --- oh, I think that was actually right; wait -- NO --- now I think it wasn't right at all. Maybe it's totally different from either way I played it." This can go on for a while - and little by little the tune is creeping into the "dedicated tune track" in my brain. Sooner or later I'll get most of it. Once in a while, some very kind other musician will help me see the "wrong parts" I had.
You just get better at it.
One of the great pleasures of learning to play IrTrad on an instrument as an adult is -- experiencing yourself learning something from scratch (assuming you did) and making steady progress -- all the little steps along the way -- being so pleased that you can do what you couldn't do a month ago!
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by Fid42
Re: Learning by ear
I use dots to file away tunes I want to learn, but not this week.
Once I have learned a tune, the dots are useless as I soon start changing the tune as I put my own style on it. The dots simply become a record of how I used to play it.
Before pcs, I used to keep a jotter with a page for jigs, page for polkas etc. and when I had enough similar tunes to form into a set, a new set was born, often a unique set that no-one else plays, as the tunes were "collected" one by one. Again, you can put your own style on the way your sets are made up.
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by geoffwright
Re: Learning by ear
Keep going. There is no need to be too puritanical with yourself!
Learning tunes by ear is great and inevitably leads to some gaps, especially when carried out at normal pace, but he gaps or inaccuracies will be inevitably corrected as your ear gets better and you notice the small focal incongruency with other players. There is nothing wrong with learning from a slowed down version either. Infact, I think it inculcates a much stronger adherence to a set steady pace. Watch out for sets that deliberately speed up in recordings, because I don't think developing this habit is an easy one to reverse (as I've discovered)!
The more you learn by ear, the better you'll get at it. I also use two techniques I learnt from professional rock-climbing (not joking):
1) is to vicariously play tunes - which in the rock climbing equivalent was going through the imagined motions when watching someone climb - listen carefully to tunes you don't yet know in sessions and start to put your fingers on your instrument in what you think are the right places (but without actually playing)
2) is similar to 1) except you try and imagine playing a tune in your head, and allow your fingers to move in the right place, when you are learning to play tunes that are mostly or totally in your head, but not yet on your instrument. This can be done, for example, when listening to an ipod on a train etc etc
These techniques help speed things up in my view....
j
# Posted on February 7th 2008 by Jamie
Re: Learning by ear
I'm a dot man myself (ABC is not my cup of tea)--
but the "dots" are only a "suggestion" to me.
Creative playing requires creative experimentation.
Do what your ear, mind, and heart require. You'll
do well to do what comes more naturally for you.
Good luck.
# Posted on February 10th 2008 by hauke