The Session >> Discussions >> ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
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''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Interesting quote from Llig, so here it is;
How would you suggest someone learns the tune from you live? does that mean playing along every time you start that tune until they get it? or by taking private lessons ?
Personally If some one can pick up a tune unobtrusively then I have no objection to them joining in to learn the tune. But with some instruments this is very tricky to do.
So for open debate;
How do we learn tunes?what is acceptable? noodling? How many people joining in to learn a tune drags the tune into the dust?
If someone has little experiance picking up tunes by ear, how can we support them and suggest acceptable and effective methods and techniques?
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Some people can and some can't. Some try to and still can't. Some tunes are more easily learned and others aren't. And as you say, some tunes lend themselves to some instruments for learning non-prescriptively, on this ad hoc basis, whereas not to all instruments. To ascertain why who can or can't you'd have to do an Affymetrix genotype analysis.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Genetic determinism, KML ? What if the baby had spent half a century overcoming any inherited disadvantage by practising learning tunes 8 hours a day ? Methinks yer Affy whatsit wodna help ye much
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Often enough a session is loud and, dare I say it, rhythmically loose enough for a reasonably discreet noodler to make no detrimental impact on it, IOM.
I have a vested interest in pleading for noodlers' rights to live, as I am an inveterate one myself. How often have I sat through a tune waiting for one of its difficult bits to come up, pounced on it to see if I could get it this week, and fluffed it yet again...
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Bollix wolfbird. Of course there is genetic determinism involved in intellectual or for that matter musical ability. It's just not as simple as Eysenck and Jensen would have had you believe. The environmental factors are enormous of course, AND INCLUDE congenital factors - go figure.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Picking up tunes on the fly gets easier with practice, but you have to practice. Stringed instruments have an advantage here, because you can play as softly as you like in every register. That said, sometimes people get mad, so you have to pick the right session at the right time.
The (probably great) majority of my repertoire I learned like this. It's so much easier to get a tune in your head if you can watch someone play it in front of you!
If someone is new - they need to find the repeated patterns. They need to try to hold the tune in their head as long as possible after learning it. They need to consider singing the tune in the car on the way home. If the tune is in G, try to find every G in the tune, then every D, then the notes in those chords. Find someone who plays your instrument, finger along, then brush the bow on the string lightly when you think you've got something right. Don't worry about mistakes made, just keep an active, listening ear. Write down tune names, then find them in your recordings later, sing along, get the tune in your head, then play along with the tune that is now in your head.
KML, yes genetics always has its thumb on the scales, but this is stuff that can be learned; I learned it, and I watch my students learn it every day. I was inspired to learn it by a friend whose ear is so developed she basically just plays everything slightly late, and people assume she knows tunes she's never heard. A neat trick, that, if you can remember the tune afterwards
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
For me, learning tunes by ear on the fly at our session is a very inefficent way to learn. We'll do each tune three times, usually going right into another, and only once each session, so that means I'll hear the new tune three times on one week. That just isn't enough time for me. Maybe for you, but not for me. At that rate, I'd never get out of the noodling stage.
I'll make a recording, or, (and I know this will certainly push a few buttons) I will consult the dots.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Give it time, Greg. With your musical background and no doubt good ear, you only need a few more years of immersion in this music for tunes to start leaping onto your fingers.
Picking up tunes on the fly is easier to do unobtrusively on fiddle than flute or whistle. Don't give up.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
If the session repertoire is large then that tune might only be repeated occasionally. so a tune might only be played once or twice in a year!. ...gulp....And if you get dirty looks when you noodle what hope have ye?!
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
At our session, we handle this several different ways. First off, if someone wants to learn a tune, they can always ask whoever knows it to teach it to them. I get such requests all the time. We'll get together another day of the week and go over the tune. We've also done informal tune-learning sessions between the regular weekly sessions.
For people who can pick up tunes quickly, somtimes we just go over the tune right there, at the session. Maybe there's just one tricky bit to slow down and show. It can be part of the craic.
If you're picking up a tune by ear at a session, and you don't hear it played next week, just ask for it. And ask for it every week until you learn it.
If none of this comes easily for you, then you just need to keep working at learning by ear. Use recordings, ask other players to teach you tunes face to face, take lessons, etc. Eventually it'll fall into place and you'll only need to hear a tune three times to get it.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
"We'll do each tune three times, usually going right into another, and only once each session, so that means I'll hear the new tune three times on one week. That just isn't enough time for me."
I've never learned an entire tune after hearing it three times at 110 bpm, but I've actually learned a handful after hearing them three times *every single week, for months*, at 110 bpm. Three times at warp speed is enough for me to grab onto a few notes here and there. There's this one reel played at my session, an original written by my teacher, that I learned by ear at the session. Took my six months to get it, but I did, each week at the session playing the notes I knew and trying to nail down some adjacent bits. Each week at home, I'd practice the version that I had in my head. I know enough about music that even at the beginning I was always able to play a recognizable variation of the tune, and sometimes, a bar or so that I'd guessed at serendipitously turned out to match what we played at the session, so I got that bar or so "for free", as it were.
I know a number of classically-trained folks, all far more skilled with their instruments than I, who are sheet-music-bound and who marvel at my ability to learn by ear. It's not a magical skill, and I point out that everyone learns to *sing* by ear. Heck, we *all* do that at the session every single week, during choruses of new songs. Most of us, even the middling singers among us, are more comfortable with our voices than with our instruments, and we don't think twice about learning to sing by ear. Sometimes, during a new song, someone will hit a bum note. The more experienced the singer is at learning songs on the fly, the less likely they are to come up with a clashing harmony - and when they do, they're generally pretty quiet about it as they try to feel out something that works. And if they're not immediately successful? Sun'll still rise in the east the next morning. But you won't learn if you don't try.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
"Eventually it'll fall into place and you'll only need to hear a tune three times to get it."
Ah, well on ye...... !
I'm not convinced that even the most experienced players can always manage this and certainly not the majority of us.
Of course, some tunes I will pick on the second or third time around but it's probably because I've heard them before at one time or other so, perhaps, your own memory is the best recording device.
There doesn't seem to be as many sessions nowadays where good experienced players have time to "go over a tune" at a slighter slower pace so that others might learn it. It tends to be fast and furious from the start even in sessions with mediocre players.
Perhaps, this is because payment is involved?
I prefer a more relaxed type of session which will also include fast sets of tunes but with breaks for a blether and the opportunity to try out or listen to different things. However, there seems to be an expectation these days that the music will start at a specific time...the musicians play "hell for leather" for two or three hours and then they all simultaneously pack their instruments away "on the dot".
In the old days(showing my age), sessions would seem to go on for several hours with various musicians coming and going "in shifts" depending on how quickly they got drunk or sobered up. Happy days.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Johnny J, your old days are alive and well here in Montana (of all places).
I think most musicians can learn to pick up by ear and at speed 70 or 80 percent of the tunes in the Irish trad body of music. Whether most musicians do this or not is, of course, up to them.
Sadly, lots of people convince themselves that it's beyond their abilities, instead of diving in and developing those abilities. It just takes attentive practice, like anything else. Neuroscience backs this up--have a gander at Oliver Sacks latest book, Musicophilia. He talks at length about our ability to store and retrieve thousands of melodies over our lifetimes. Even people who don't play an instrument do this.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Will, that's exactly what I tell the kids, and it's wonderful to see the lightbulb go off over their heads.
"Now Mary, I bet you know the words to every Hannah Montana song,. right?"
[giggle]
"See? All that is in your head already,and you learned it all from just listening! Amazing isn't it? Now imagine all that room you have in there! We have so much more room in our brains than we think, it's truly an wondrous thing we have in our heads..."
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Johnny, no doubt that repeated hearing makes a tune "stickier." But I still think most anyone can learn these relatively short, simple, repetitive tunes in one hearing.
First off, don't try to get every new tune that flys by in one evening's session. Just learn one.
Second, start off with the simplest tunes--short, repetitive single reels, jigs, polkas, etc. If you're not confident in your abilities, don't expect to catch all five parts of Kid on the Mountain on the first go round.
Third, just listen to the tune on it's first time round. Listen for what musicologists call its contour--the general shape of the melody as it goes up and down. Listen for building blocks that you're already familiar with (phrases like G2 BG dGBG, or BAFA dAFA, etc.). As you're listening lilt along, either aloud (but softly) or in your mind. Let your vocal chords anticipate what's coming next. The more you do this, the better you get at it.
Fourth, start playing along the 2nd and 3rd times through. Focus on the down beat notes--get them right and the rest will follow.
Fifth, don;t beat yourself up over it if you don't catch the whole tune on the first few tries. In most people, learning by ear is a passive, largely dormant ability. We pick up songs off the radio inadvertently. It takes a bit of doing it more actively and intentionally to hone that ability.
So don't be afraid to try it (unless your session doesn't condone such behavior at all), and find a friend who you can swap tunes with, playing them slowly to make it easier to learn them.
Of course all of this is easier if (1) you're totally at home on your instrument, and (2) you're well immersed in the music (not necessarily the specific tune) that you're trying to learn.
With more complicated tunes, I find it helps to have other tools on hand. For instance, I'll try to sort out the key and mode right away, and listen to the chord progression, not just the melody. Sometimes it helps me to be able to put a name to the important notes--"Oh, it goes to a g natural there, instead of a g sharp." This is less about figuring out the tune, more about making it easier to recall by attaching all sorts of associations to the bits.
Eventually, learning to pick up tunes this way helps shape how you play all tunes--instead of regurgitating a static sequence of notes, you follow the tune as it unrolls in front of you. It becomes easier to play fresh variations on the fly, and to think of other tunes to follow with (tunes that you haven't strung together before). It's a much more "in-the-round" and less linear approach to the music.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
P.S. If you want to help other people learn to pick up tunes by ear, I'd highly recommend running a tune-learning session. You'll soon find out whether or not you really know the tunes you think you do. Playing them slowly, sometimes a phrase at a time, is a sure way to trip you up if you haven't really got the tune. And playing this way to a crowd of people, some of whom aren't even close to catching the melody, proves whether you can stay on the tune yourself, no matter what the distractions are. It's excellent practice for playing in noisy sessions, and playing for dancers. And soon you'll be able to play through anything, while helping others learn the music.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I'm not nearly as well traveled as most of you session wise. However, in my humble experience only a gifted few can pick up new tunes on the fly in a session. Their ability is based on having spent a lifetime playing and listening to this music. More often than not, noodlers are disruptive, oblivious to their volume, and clueless to the aggravation they are causing to the rest of the session players. For the vast majority of us average session players, learning the rudimentary phrases of a tune comfortably before trying to play along in a session should be the norm. I know there are many who strongly disagree with me, but my experience with most noddlers has always been bad. More often than not it is based out of ignorance, or an uncontrollable desire to play on every tune. Please stop it. Go learn the tune on your own first as best you can, and then iron out the wrinkly spots by ear at the session or by listening to recordings.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I don't like noodling either. But Will's right. There's no need to noodle. With practice, most can learn to pick tunes up fairly properly on the fly. And I'd go further - if you can play this music at all, a bit of practice will soon have you learning tunes on the fly, on the second or third time through.
Picking up on another point that Will made, if I'm in a session where there are quite a few tunes I don't know, I find it's much easier if I don't *try* to pick up every single tune. If you do that, it can get too tiring. I just let the ones I like filter through.
When travelling, I've lately taken to carrying with me a Moleskine pocket-sized music notebook, so I don't forget tunes later. I was in a sesh in Dub last week and someone played a hornpipe I hadn't heard before. (It's 'well-known', I've since discovered - just not by me, or anyone else at this, otherwise knowledgeable, session. It's 'Tomorrow Morning', on the database here.) I could have played along, but he was playing so nicely that I just wrote it down so I had it for later. Almost a waste of time, since it kept going through my head anyway, and I played it myself (not from the book) as soon as I got home. His version (mine now) is different from the one on the database here, and nicer.
I got 12 new (to me) tunes from my week in Ireland: that hornpipe from writing directly into my book, and the other 11 by just playing along, and finding them still going through my head at the end of the night, so I then put them in my book.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
The difference between picking up tunes on the fly and noodling is straight forward.
When you pick up and play tunes on the fly, just play the notes you know are right. The better you are, the quicker you fill in the gaps.
Noodling is an entirely different thing altogether. It's when you just flannel around with random notes or runs or bits of other tunes hoping you hit it right. It really is a stupid thing to do. You haven't a cat in hell's chance of getting it. How can you listen to the tune and your own god awful racket simultaneously? The two will never in a million years just merge.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Obviously, I'm a "pick up and play tunes on the fly" man, Michael. This is gratifying.
I have experienced what you describe as "noodling" on many an occasion and find it as equally irritating as most people here.
Will,
What you say is very good advice and I obviously wouldn't try to pick up every tune in one night. However, I still think it's more likely I'd be inclined to learn a tune I'd heard somewhere before albeit unconsciously. It would sound more catchy and I'd think to myself "That's a nice tune" and would want to have a go at learning it. It's unlikely that I'd be motivated to learn a tune played at speed which sounded completely unfamiliar to me. The following week, maybe....
I know I'm being a bit pedantic here and your advice is very sound.
Fortunately, I've got "Kid on the Mountain" quite fixed in my repertoire now.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Exactly, Michael.
And for many people, the only reason they "can't" pick up tunes on the fly is because they don't practice doing it.
You can always practice at home along to recordings until you get good enough to do it at sessions. It's really not that big a deal. Yes, easier on fiddle (or mandolin), but I've heard people do this as well on banjo, flute, and even whistle. In fact, we have a whistle player who routinely picks up a couple of new tunes each night. She'll sometimes ask us to play a tune a fourth or fifth time in a set, just so she can get it. But she's learning the tunes, note for note, at real session speed. And she's been playing this music (and whistle) only for 4 years or so.
At least four of us at our small local sesh routinely pick up tunes on the fly like this. And it's entirely different from "noodling."
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Johnny, good on you. Yeah, I agree, it is much easier to learn tunes that you've heard before. Which, when you've been playing and listening to this music for 30 years, ends up being nearly every old tune that ever gets hauled out at a session. Add in the fact that even unfamiliar tunes are made out of familiar building blocks, and most tunes end up being something you've heard before.
Mind you, I'm just talking the 5,000 or so tunes that are most likely to show up at an Irish session. If you've been playing this music for 20 or 30 years, even if you know only 1,000 or 800 or 600, you've probably heard 2k or 3k--more than half--of the existing body of tunes at some point, and probably more than once. This makes it easier to tag along when a vaguely familiar one pops up at a session.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
99% of musicians I know of, when asked to show a tune you've heard them play, will say ""I'll send you the dots" or "I'll bring the dots in next week" or "It's on xxx CD" or "It's in D" (it'll turn out to be in a different key) or - most often these days - "It's called xxx, I think, look it up on thesession.org"
because, like 90% of musicians, they learn as much, probably more, off the dots and CDs than from hearing a tune in passing at a session
I wish we'd stop all this humbug of pretending otherwise
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Oh dear, I'm up too early this morning... Going away for a few days as well and won't be able to reply to any subsequent responses. )
Bren,
I'm sure that with the exception of a few "old hands" like Will, Michael and so on, you are probably correct. Certainly, tunes aren't passed down by older players as much these days. The "young ones" and most other learners seldom learn tunes at an "old fiddler's knee". They are now encouraged to take lessons, go on courses etc and generally part with their money.
However, I still think learning tunes by ear..even at speed is a skill worth having and I still think it's a "bit of both" for most people. Michael and Co will scold me for this but I'll often partly pick up a tune at a session and fill in the gaps at home from a recording or ..dare I say it, the dots!
Of course, I really should wait until next time but I might like the tune so much and just want to play it all next time without too much fuss. There will be others which I 'm not so fussy about but I'll get them "bit by bit" in the end.
It's important to listen, of course, in sessions to ensure that you are playing the tune properly or, at least, in the manner of the session. No one source is likely to be absolutely correct(Whatever that is)..... not even the session athough "the dots" will just be the "bare bones" more often than not.
The general priniciple of "learning the tune live" is good and I have learned many tunes this way. Not as quickly or frequently as has been suggested though.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Do you never sleep either, Will?
"Elsewhere", I'm often accused of "sitting on the fence" but while I do see much merit in what you say, my experience has been that many people will take a variety of routes to learning a tune.
"Old hands", of course, may learn new tunes exclusively from sessions and have no real interest in what goes on outside these. However, I don't believe even most of them have always done it this way. As you say, it's a skill you have to learn like everything else.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
this all reminds me that often there's an inverse awareness to skill relation - often it's beginners who noodle rather than players who could gain something, thus giving noodling it's continued bad name. there's a catch-22 there though (yea, american, sorry - great author though) it takes awhile to learn to listen, and listening sensitivity comes with it. maybe, or just a theory - probably ought to go bed now...
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I still learn the occasional tune off records. Usually because they are tunes that I think me and my mates would like to play down the pub, so I introduce them. In my impatient youth I clamoured for repertoire and was not bothered where I went. But it didn't take long for me to realise that the tunes I liked to play most were the ones I'd learned directly from other people, either one to one or in a session.
The reason I think is because it's much easier to achieve the fluidity of the music if you have fluid music to learn from. When I learn a tune off a record it doesn't take me long to be playing it exactly as recorded, rolls variations and all. But it takes quite a while to escape from this rigidity. But if I ease myself into a tune without really making much of an effort to learn it, just allow it to seep into my consciousness, I find I have a much greater affinity with it. It may take anything between a couple of sessions or even a year or two, depending on the tune and my desire for it. But it's usually shorter than the time it would take to get comfortable with a tune I'd learned off a record.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
It helps to have several different recordings of a tune and then you can work on as many variations as possible (or as many as you like). I have a pretty solid cd collection, but the internet more than doubles what is available to me. And the other advantage to this, I think, is with the older recordings, I'm able to pick up the older styles of playing, which I think is important.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Actually, that doesn't help achieve the fluidity I was referring to. Yes, having different recorded versions does give you more to pick and choose from, but that is really all you are able to do. What you end up with is merely several rigid versions that you either amalgamate (lowest common denominator) and/or chop and change between (create a Frankenstein version that has no cohesion).
The fluidity I'm referring can only come from one person's version, or from a cohesive group of people that have played together for years. You listen over time to how they play it, how different moods etc influence it etc. You ease yourself into it.
This, of course, is best case scenario. Often we make do with less and make up for it later. But if all you have is recordings, don't try to mix and match, choose your favourite and concentrate on that. By all means let other recordings influence you, but before you even attempt to put your own stamp on it, try to stay true to someone else's. Nail that first.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
So If you hear a tune 3 times, then thats enough to learn it? you can play it weeks later, on your own, ? But only one tune a session?
I mean , ok if your session repeats tunes regularly then fair enough but some sessions dont. a tune is played and returned to the memory banks for another year......
I mean, I can pick up tunes on the fly, but after the tune is finished thats it, its gone again. This is ok .For me it takes a regular focus on the tune for a while before I have it firmly fixed in my bones. Even then there are tunes I learnt 20yrs ago I cant remember.
I fins the dots usefull just to remind myself of the starting phrase.
One of the sessions I attend, the lads have been playing professionally for 20,30 yrs. They have a huge repertoire. If I want a tune I am best of recording it or getting the name because I can be sure I wont hear it again till next year!
And the ornamentation and variation are exquisite,They will hardly repeat them selves...
I am fortunate that i can go to recordings and pick up some of their tunes and variations from there.
All in all actually learning tunes from sessions seems to me to be a very slow and inefficient method I can learn a set of tunes quickly from the dots but to try and do this one tune a week/session seems to some extent pointless.
I know we want to train our ears to be able to pick up tunes on the fly, but that is a different matter to learning a tune that way. Are you really saying that only hearing a tune 3 times is enough? Surely that would be a great skill to have, every Cd you have you could just learn the tunes from listening once through the Album......
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Yes, learning tunes from sessions is a very slow and inefficient way of doing it. The alternatives of pouring over artificially slowed down recordings or trying to translate aural sounds from silent scraps of paper is a quick fix. However, I eschewed such clamor long ago in favor of a more creative approach.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
But the dots are notes, and that's what you use to play tunes. If you have the skeleton memorized, you can learn the tune; writing stuff down is how you remember it, so you CAN learn it. I've had Star of Munster memorized for twenty years and I'm still learning it, but I couldn't start to learn it until I could remember it...thus the dots. I don't look at them anymore, but there is a period of time when they help IMMENSELY.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Fair enough but a recording is also a representation, not the actual thing. It is a closer representation fair enough but nonethe less not the thing itself. But does that make it any less usefull?
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Yes, it is possible to hear a tune three times at a session, suss it out on your instrument, and not lose it. To come back to it the next day, at home, and work it up again. To make it stick.
And once you've done that, then you don't have to wait a year to hear your session mates play it again--you simply launch it yourself at the next session.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I agree. I'd also add that it's much easier to learn a tune at a session the way you're describing, Will, than it is to learn it from a CD, where you can't see the player, and, in any case, it's probably at least partially covered up by 'arrangement'.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Interesting, Ben. When I first started learning this music, I got tunes from a teacher, doing the call and response thing with each phrase. But I also started picking tunes off of recordings, with no slow-down technology to help. After a while, it got so I could pick up tunes off of the Thistle and Shamrock radio program. Looking back on those years of hard-won tunes, learned by ear at speed, I'm sure that all made it much easier to pick up tunes at a session where the music is much more "present" than it is on a radio or CD.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I'm sure you're right, Will. And if others put in the effort that you did, to train themselves to learn tunes by ear at speed, they'd be able to do it, too. And then they wouldn't see it as so unusual, just 'normal'. The trick is to put in the effort. Then it just gets easier and easier over time.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Lord knows lots of people (includinjg half my session mates) have more natural talent that I do for this sort of thing. But perseverance can pay off. In fact, picking up tunes on the fly is one area I'm still seeing improvement in, in my own playing. At my age, that reward alone is worth the investment (when everything else seems to be in a steady decline).
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I'm sure it's all about learning how to listen.
I find I can recall and play some tunes that I've listened to passively over and over again (maybe a hundred times each.) I think if I learned to listen more carefully to tunes while they're being played I could get them down after, say, twenty performances.
What Will says above makes a lot of sense in this context, though I'm a million miles away from being a Jedi Master like he is.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
There are some very helpful comments in this thread. I just wanted to add that like Will, I find that my ability to pick up tunes on the fly is increasing steadily with age (51 - years, not tunes). Wish I could say the same for my ability to load and start the tune later...
And to offer an example of what's possible: I remember seeing Derek Hickey do a workshop with a bunch of guys from Québec that specialize in playing "crooked" tunes (missing or having extra beats). I know from experience that these are much harder than normal tunes for me to learn - which is why I don't know any...
But he would listen to the tune the first time through, play a straightforward version the second time through, and a fancier version after that. Who knows if he remembered them the next day, but it was pretty impressive to watch. And that's his day job, as they say.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
That to my mind is the point. Whether he could remember them the next day, and start them off. Copying the music from someone else isnt that hard. It simply takes practice and I might suggest the way in to this is via the traditional route of learning tunes call and response style. Bar/ phrase by bar/phrase.
But remembering them! is another matter all together. If all it took was to play a tune a couple of times life would be a lot easier. But uness you are incredibly gifted with a eidetic memory it isnt.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
"choose your favourite and concentrate on that. . . try to stay true to someone else's. Nail that first." Amen!
I am doing this exactly with Liam O'Flynn's version of 'Cunla'. His is the 1st version I ever heard & it is still my favourite. Someone at our session introduced 'Freize Britches' (an alternate title for Cunla) & I discretely told her I had something better. Anyway the short story is I now have her learning from Liam's recording. She loves it. One by one I am introducing it to everyone else in the session.
Sometimes your session might play something & it works well enough Then you hear a great version & that just lights it all up!
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
It may help to think of having the tune the next day not as a matter of memorizing it the day before, but of a more active recall or retrieval of the tune. This mental ability, too, can be developed with mindful practice. And it's easier to do when you learn the contours of the tune from the outset.
YMMV, but how it seems to work for me is that the next day (or sometimes a week or more later) the tune will pop unbidden into my head and I can then play it. On the other hand, if I intentionally try to recall the tune, I usually can't remember how it starts. So my recall instead begins with some catchy phrase or bit of the tune--some cluster of notes that first caught my ear and made me want to learn it in the first place. Having played the contours of the tune the day before, I can start at the catchy bit, no matter where in the tune it occurs, and gradually retrieve the rest of the tune.
I don't think I have an eidetic memory, and my memory in general used to be much better than it is. But this knack for learning tunes on the fly and retaining them later continues to get better for me, despite aging and no few head injuries (I know--explains a lot, eh?) over the years. All I can figure is that ongoing immersion and obsession with the music pays its dividends.
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
LOL grego. No, we're all tolerant of each other's "noodling."
Sad to say, I've bounced my head off of pavement and bedrock no few times as a cyclist. And another half dozen times playing ice hockey or skiing. The damage from concussions and skull fractures is cumulative, by the way....
''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Interesting quote from Llig, so here it is;
How would you suggest someone learns the tune from you live? does that mean playing along every time you start that tune until they get it? or by taking private lessons ?
Personally If some one can pick up a tune unobtrusively then I have no objection to them joining in to learn the tune. But with some instruments this is very tricky to do.
So for open debate;
How do we learn tunes?what is acceptable? noodling? How many people joining in to learn a tune drags the tune into the dust?
If someone has little experiance picking up tunes by ear, how can we support them and suggest acceptable and effective methods and techniques?
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by jig
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Some people can and some can't. Some try to and still can't. Some tunes are more easily learned and others aren't. And as you say, some tunes lend themselves to some instruments for learning non-prescriptively, on this ad hoc basis, whereas not to all instruments. To ascertain why who can or can't you'd have to do an Affymetrix genotype analysis.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Genetic determinism, KML ? What if the baby had spent half a century overcoming any inherited disadvantage by practising learning tunes 8 hours a day ? Methinks yer Affy whatsit wodna help ye much
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by wolfbird
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Often enough a session is loud and, dare I say it, rhythmically loose enough for a reasonably discreet noodler to make no detrimental impact on it, IOM.
I have a vested interest in pleading for noodlers' rights to live, as I am an inveterate one myself. How often have I sat through a tune waiting for one of its difficult bits to come up, pounced on it to see if I could get it this week, and fluffed it yet again...
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by nicholas
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Bollix wolfbird. Of course there is genetic determinism involved in intellectual or for that matter musical ability. It's just not as simple as Eysenck and Jensen would have had you believe. The environmental factors are enormous of course, AND INCLUDE congenital factors - go figure.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Picking up tunes on the fly gets easier with practice, but you have to practice. Stringed instruments have an advantage here, because you can play as softly as you like in every register. That said, sometimes people get mad, so you have to pick the right session at the right time.
The (probably great) majority of my repertoire I learned like this. It's so much easier to get a tune in your head if you can watch someone play it in front of you!
If someone is new - they need to find the repeated patterns. They need to try to hold the tune in their head as long as possible after learning it. They need to consider singing the tune in the car on the way home. If the tune is in G, try to find every G in the tune, then every D, then the notes in those chords. Find someone who plays your instrument, finger along, then brush the bow on the string lightly when you think you've got something right. Don't worry about mistakes made, just keep an active, listening ear. Write down tune names, then find them in your recordings later, sing along, get the tune in your head, then play along with the tune that is now in your head.
KML, yes genetics always has its thumb on the scales, but this is stuff that can be learned; I learned it, and I watch my students learn it every day. I was inspired to learn it by a friend whose ear is so developed she basically just plays everything slightly late, and people assume she knows tunes she's never heard. A neat trick, that, if you can remember the tune afterwards
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by reenactor
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
For me, learning tunes by ear on the fly at our session is a very inefficent way to learn. We'll do each tune three times, usually going right into another, and only once each session, so that means I'll hear the new tune three times on one week. That just isn't enough time for me. Maybe for you, but not for me. At that rate, I'd never get out of the noodling stage.
I'll make a recording, or, (and I know this will certainly push a few buttons) I will consult the dots.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Give it time, Greg. With your musical background and no doubt good ear, you only need a few more years of immersion in this music for tunes to start leaping onto your fingers.
Picking up tunes on the fly is easier to do unobtrusively on fiddle than flute or whistle. Don't give up.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
If the session repertoire is large then that tune might only be repeated occasionally. so a tune might only be played once or twice in a year!. ...gulp....And if you get dirty looks when you noodle what hope have ye?!
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by jig
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
At our session, we handle this several different ways. First off, if someone wants to learn a tune, they can always ask whoever knows it to teach it to them. I get such requests all the time. We'll get together another day of the week and go over the tune. We've also done informal tune-learning sessions between the regular weekly sessions.
For people who can pick up tunes quickly, somtimes we just go over the tune right there, at the session. Maybe there's just one tricky bit to slow down and show. It can be part of the craic.
If you're picking up a tune by ear at a session, and you don't hear it played next week, just ask for it. And ask for it every week until you learn it.
If none of this comes easily for you, then you just need to keep working at learning by ear. Use recordings, ask other players to teach you tunes face to face, take lessons, etc. Eventually it'll fall into place and you'll only need to hear a tune three times to get it.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
"We'll do each tune three times, usually going right into another, and only once each session, so that means I'll hear the new tune three times on one week. That just isn't enough time for me."
I've never learned an entire tune after hearing it three times at 110 bpm, but I've actually learned a handful after hearing them three times *every single week, for months*, at 110 bpm. Three times at warp speed is enough for me to grab onto a few notes here and there. There's this one reel played at my session, an original written by my teacher, that I learned by ear at the session. Took my six months to get it, but I did, each week at the session playing the notes I knew and trying to nail down some adjacent bits. Each week at home, I'd practice the version that I had in my head. I know enough about music that even at the beginning I was always able to play a recognizable variation of the tune, and sometimes, a bar or so that I'd guessed at serendipitously turned out to match what we played at the session, so I got that bar or so "for free", as it were.
I know a number of classically-trained folks, all far more skilled with their instruments than I, who are sheet-music-bound and who marvel at my ability to learn by ear. It's not a magical skill, and I point out that everyone learns to *sing* by ear. Heck, we *all* do that at the session every single week, during choruses of new songs. Most of us, even the middling singers among us, are more comfortable with our voices than with our instruments, and we don't think twice about learning to sing by ear. Sometimes, during a new song, someone will hit a bum note. The more experienced the singer is at learning songs on the fly, the less likely they are to come up with a clashing harmony - and when they do, they're generally pretty quiet about it as they try to feel out something that works. And if they're not immediately successful? Sun'll still rise in the east the next morning. But you won't learn if you don't try.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
"Eventually it'll fall into place and you'll only need to hear a tune three times to get it."
Ah, well on ye...... !
I'm not convinced that even the most experienced players can always manage this and certainly not the majority of us.
Of course, some tunes I will pick on the second or third time around but it's probably because I've heard them before at one time or other so, perhaps, your own memory is the best recording device.
There doesn't seem to be as many sessions nowadays where good experienced players have time to "go over a tune" at a slighter slower pace so that others might learn it. It tends to be fast and furious from the start even in sessions with mediocre players.
Perhaps, this is because payment is involved?
I prefer a more relaxed type of session which will also include fast sets of tunes but with breaks for a blether and the opportunity to try out or listen to different things. However, there seems to be an expectation these days that the music will start at a specific time...the musicians play "hell for leather" for two or three hours and then they all simultaneously pack their instruments away "on the dot".
In the old days(showing my age), sessions would seem to go on for several hours with various musicians coming and going "in shifts" depending on how quickly they got drunk or sobered up. Happy days.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Johannes J
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Johnny J, your old days are alive and well here in Montana (of all places).
I think most musicians can learn to pick up by ear and at speed 70 or 80 percent of the tunes in the Irish trad body of music. Whether most musicians do this or not is, of course, up to them.
Sadly, lots of people convince themselves that it's beyond their abilities, instead of diving in and developing those abilities. It just takes attentive practice, like anything else. Neuroscience backs this up--have a gander at Oliver Sacks latest book, Musicophilia. He talks at length about our ability to store and retrieve thousands of melodies over our lifetimes. Even people who don't play an instrument do this.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Yes, do you think they can always manage it on the first hearing of a tune though?
As I say, there's many tunes I can pick up this way but i've probably heard them before.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Johannes J
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Will, that's exactly what I tell the kids, and it's wonderful to see the lightbulb go off over their heads.
"Now Mary, I bet you know the words to every Hannah Montana song,. right?"
[giggle]
"See? All that is in your head already,and you learned it all from just listening! Amazing isn't it? Now imagine all that room you have in there! We have so much more room in our brains than we think, it's truly an wondrous thing we have in our heads..."
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Johnny, no doubt that repeated hearing makes a tune "stickier." But I still think most anyone can learn these relatively short, simple, repetitive tunes in one hearing.
First off, don't try to get every new tune that flys by in one evening's session. Just learn one.
Second, start off with the simplest tunes--short, repetitive single reels, jigs, polkas, etc. If you're not confident in your abilities, don't expect to catch all five parts of Kid on the Mountain on the first go round.
Third, just listen to the tune on it's first time round. Listen for what musicologists call its contour--the general shape of the melody as it goes up and down. Listen for building blocks that you're already familiar with (phrases like G2 BG dGBG, or BAFA dAFA, etc.). As you're listening lilt along, either aloud (but softly) or in your mind. Let your vocal chords anticipate what's coming next. The more you do this, the better you get at it.
Fourth, start playing along the 2nd and 3rd times through. Focus on the down beat notes--get them right and the rest will follow.
Fifth, don;t beat yourself up over it if you don't catch the whole tune on the first few tries. In most people, learning by ear is a passive, largely dormant ability. We pick up songs off the radio inadvertently. It takes a bit of doing it more actively and intentionally to hone that ability.
So don't be afraid to try it (unless your session doesn't condone such behavior at all), and find a friend who you can swap tunes with, playing them slowly to make it easier to learn them.
Of course all of this is easier if (1) you're totally at home on your instrument, and (2) you're well immersed in the music (not necessarily the specific tune) that you're trying to learn.
With more complicated tunes, I find it helps to have other tools on hand. For instance, I'll try to sort out the key and mode right away, and listen to the chord progression, not just the melody. Sometimes it helps me to be able to put a name to the important notes--"Oh, it goes to a g natural there, instead of a g sharp." This is less about figuring out the tune, more about making it easier to recall by attaching all sorts of associations to the bits.
Eventually, learning to pick up tunes this way helps shape how you play all tunes--instead of regurgitating a static sequence of notes, you follow the tune as it unrolls in front of you. It becomes easier to play fresh variations on the fly, and to think of other tunes to follow with (tunes that you haven't strung together before). It's a much more "in-the-round" and less linear approach to the music.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
P.S. If you want to help other people learn to pick up tunes by ear, I'd highly recommend running a tune-learning session. You'll soon find out whether or not you really know the tunes you think you do. Playing them slowly, sometimes a phrase at a time, is a sure way to trip you up if you haven't really got the tune. And playing this way to a crowd of people, some of whom aren't even close to catching the melody, proves whether you can stay on the tune yourself, no matter what the distractions are. It's excellent practice for playing in noisy sessions, and playing for dancers. And soon you'll be able to play through anything, while helping others learn the music.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I'm not nearly as well traveled as most of you session wise. However, in my humble experience only a gifted few can pick up new tunes on the fly in a session. Their ability is based on having spent a lifetime playing and listening to this music. More often than not, noodlers are disruptive, oblivious to their volume, and clueless to the aggravation they are causing to the rest of the session players. For the vast majority of us average session players, learning the rudimentary phrases of a tune comfortably before trying to play along in a session should be the norm. I know there are many who strongly disagree with me, but my experience with most noddlers has always been bad. More often than not it is based out of ignorance, or an uncontrollable desire to play on every tune. Please stop it. Go learn the tune on your own first as best you can, and then iron out the wrinkly spots by ear at the session or by listening to recordings.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I don't like noodling either. But Will's right. There's no need to noodle. With practice, most can learn to pick tunes up fairly properly on the fly. And I'd go further - if you can play this music at all, a bit of practice will soon have you learning tunes on the fly, on the second or third time through.
Picking up on another point that Will made, if I'm in a session where there are quite a few tunes I don't know, I find it's much easier if I don't *try* to pick up every single tune. If you do that, it can get too tiring. I just let the ones I like filter through.
When travelling, I've lately taken to carrying with me a Moleskine pocket-sized music notebook, so I don't forget tunes later. I was in a sesh in Dub last week and someone played a hornpipe I hadn't heard before. (It's 'well-known', I've since discovered - just not by me, or anyone else at this, otherwise knowledgeable, session. It's 'Tomorrow Morning', on the database here.) I could have played along, but he was playing so nicely that I just wrote it down so I had it for later. Almost a waste of time, since it kept going through my head anyway, and I played it myself (not from the book) as soon as I got home. His version (mine now) is different from the one on the database here, and nicer.
I got 12 new (to me) tunes from my week in Ireland: that hornpipe from writing directly into my book, and the other 11 by just playing along, and finding them still going through my head at the end of the night, so I then put them in my book.
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by benhall.1
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
By the way, I think I've heard that person:
"whose ear is so developed she basically just plays everything slightly late"
Horrible effect. Eugh [shudder]
# Posted on February 21st 2008 by benhall.1
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
The difference between picking up tunes on the fly and noodling is straight forward.
When you pick up and play tunes on the fly, just play the notes you know are right. The better you are, the quicker you fill in the gaps.
Noodling is an entirely different thing altogether. It's when you just flannel around with random notes or runs or bits of other tunes hoping you hit it right. It really is a stupid thing to do. You haven't a cat in hell's chance of getting it. How can you listen to the tune and your own god awful racket simultaneously? The two will never in a million years just merge.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Obviously, I'm a "pick up and play tunes on the fly" man, Michael. This is gratifying.
I have experienced what you describe as "noodling" on many an occasion and find it as equally irritating as most people here.
Will,
What you say is very good advice and I obviously wouldn't try to pick up every tune in one night. However, I still think it's more likely I'd be inclined to learn a tune I'd heard somewhere before albeit unconsciously. It would sound more catchy and I'd think to myself "That's a nice tune" and would want to have a go at learning it. It's unlikely that I'd be motivated to learn a tune played at speed which sounded completely unfamiliar to me. The following week, maybe....
I know I'm being a bit pedantic here and your advice is very sound.
Fortunately, I've got "Kid on the Mountain" quite fixed in my repertoire now.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Johannes J
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Exactly, Michael.
And for many people, the only reason they "can't" pick up tunes on the fly is because they don't practice doing it.
You can always practice at home along to recordings until you get good enough to do it at sessions. It's really not that big a deal. Yes, easier on fiddle (or mandolin), but I've heard people do this as well on banjo, flute, and even whistle. In fact, we have a whistle player who routinely picks up a couple of new tunes each night. She'll sometimes ask us to play a tune a fourth or fifth time in a set, just so she can get it. But she's learning the tunes, note for note, at real session speed. And she's been playing this music (and whistle) only for 4 years or so.
At least four of us at our small local sesh routinely pick up tunes on the fly like this. And it's entirely different from "noodling."
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Johnny, good on you. Yeah, I agree, it is much easier to learn tunes that you've heard before. Which, when you've been playing and listening to this music for 30 years, ends up being nearly every old tune that ever gets hauled out at a session. Add in the fact that even unfamiliar tunes are made out of familiar building blocks, and most tunes end up being something you've heard before.
Mind you, I'm just talking the 5,000 or so tunes that are most likely to show up at an Irish session. If you've been playing this music for 20 or 30 years, even if you know only 1,000 or 800 or 600, you've probably heard 2k or 3k--more than half--of the existing body of tunes at some point, and probably more than once. This makes it easier to tag along when a vaguely familiar one pops up at a session.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
99% of musicians I know of, when asked to show a tune you've heard them play, will say ""I'll send you the dots" or "I'll bring the dots in next week" or "It's on xxx CD" or "It's in D" (it'll turn out to be in a different key) or - most often these days - "It's called xxx, I think, look it up on thesession.org"
because, like 90% of musicians, they learn as much, probably more, off the dots and CDs than from hearing a tune in passing at a session
I wish we'd stop all this humbug of pretending otherwise
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Bren
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Oh dear, I'm up too early this morning... Going away for a few days as well and won't be able to reply to any subsequent responses.
)
Bren,
I'm sure that with the exception of a few "old hands" like Will, Michael and so on, you are probably correct. Certainly, tunes aren't passed down by older players as much these days. The "young ones" and most other learners seldom learn tunes at an "old fiddler's knee". They are now encouraged to take lessons, go on courses etc and generally part with their money.
However, I still think learning tunes by ear..even at speed is a skill worth having and I still think it's a "bit of both" for most people. Michael and Co will scold me for this but I'll often partly pick up a tune at a session and fill in the gaps at home from a recording or ..dare I say it, the dots!
Of course, I really should wait until next time but I might like the tune so much and just want to play it all next time without too much fuss. There will be others which I 'm not so fussy about but I'll get them "bit by bit" in the end.
It's important to listen, of course, in sessions to ensure that you are playing the tune properly or, at least, in the manner of the session. No one source is likely to be absolutely correct(Whatever that is)..... not even the session
athough "the dots" will just be the "bare bones" more often than not.
The general priniciple of "learning the tune live" is good and I have learned many tunes this way. Not as quickly or frequently as has been suggested though.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Johannes J
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Glad your experience, Bren, doesn't speak for all of us.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Do you never sleep either, Will?
"Elsewhere", I'm often accused of "sitting on the fence" but while I do see much merit in what you say, my experience has been that many people will take a variety of routes to learning a tune.
"Old hands", of course, may learn new tunes exclusively from sessions and have no real interest in what goes on outside these. However, I don't believe even most of them have always done it this way. As you say, it's a skill you have to learn like everything else.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Johannes J
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
My point about the dots is that it comes *after* you've heard the tune live and already have some idea. But there's no question that it does come..
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Bren
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
this all reminds me that often there's an inverse awareness to skill relation - often it's beginners who noodle rather than players who could gain something, thus giving noodling it's continued bad name. there's a catch-22 there though (yea, american, sorry - great author though) it takes awhile to learn to listen, and listening sensitivity comes with it. maybe, or just a theory - probably ought to go bed now...
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by airport
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
oh wait, that's not an inverse relation at all - definitely go to bed now...
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by airport
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I still learn the occasional tune off records. Usually because they are tunes that I think me and my mates would like to play down the pub, so I introduce them. In my impatient youth I clamoured for repertoire and was not bothered where I went. But it didn't take long for me to realise that the tunes I liked to play most were the ones I'd learned directly from other people, either one to one or in a session.
The reason I think is because it's much easier to achieve the fluidity of the music if you have fluid music to learn from. When I learn a tune off a record it doesn't take me long to be playing it exactly as recorded, rolls variations and all. But it takes quite a while to escape from this rigidity. But if I ease myself into a tune without really making much of an effort to learn it, just allow it to seep into my consciousness, I find I have a much greater affinity with it. It may take anything between a couple of sessions or even a year or two, depending on the tune and my desire for it. But it's usually shorter than the time it would take to get comfortable with a tune I'd learned off a record.
There are so many levels to nailing a tune
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
It helps to have several different recordings of a tune and then you can work on as many variations as possible (or as many as you like). I have a pretty solid cd collection, but the internet more than doubles what is available to me. And the other advantage to this, I think, is with the older recordings, I'm able to pick up the older styles of playing, which I think is important.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by kennedy
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Actually, that doesn't help achieve the fluidity I was referring to. Yes, having different recorded versions does give you more to pick and choose from, but that is really all you are able to do. What you end up with is merely several rigid versions that you either amalgamate (lowest common denominator) and/or chop and change between (create a Frankenstein version that has no cohesion).
The fluidity I'm referring can only come from one person's version, or from a cohesive group of people that have played together for years. You listen over time to how they play it, how different moods etc influence it etc. You ease yourself into it.
This, of course, is best case scenario. Often we make do with less and make up for it later. But if all you have is recordings, don't try to mix and match, choose your favourite and concentrate on that. By all means let other recordings influence you, but before you even attempt to put your own stamp on it, try to stay true to someone else's. Nail that first.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
So If you hear a tune 3 times, then thats enough to learn it? you can play it weeks later, on your own, ? But only one tune a session?
I mean , ok if your session repeats tunes regularly then fair enough but some sessions dont. a tune is played and returned to the memory banks for another year......
I mean, I can pick up tunes on the fly, but after the tune is finished thats it, its gone again. This is ok .For me it takes a regular focus on the tune for a while before I have it firmly fixed in my bones. Even then there are tunes I learnt 20yrs ago I cant remember.
I fins the dots usefull just to remind myself of the starting phrase.
One of the sessions I attend, the lads have been playing professionally for 20,30 yrs. They have a huge repertoire. If I want a tune I am best of recording it or getting the name because I can be sure I wont hear it again till next year!
And the ornamentation and variation are exquisite,They will hardly repeat them selves...
I am fortunate that i can go to recordings and pick up some of their tunes and variations from there.
All in all actually learning tunes from sessions seems to me to be a very slow and inefficient method I can learn a set of tunes quickly from the dots but to try and do this one tune a week/session seems to some extent pointless.
I know we want to train our ears to be able to pick up tunes on the fly, but that is a different matter to learning a tune that way. Are you really saying that only hearing a tune 3 times is enough? Surely that would be a great skill to have, every Cd you have you could just learn the tunes from listening once through the Album......
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by jig
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Yes, learning tunes from sessions is a very slow and inefficient way of doing it. The alternatives of pouring over artificially slowed down recordings or trying to translate aural sounds from silent scraps of paper is a quick fix. However, I eschewed such clamor long ago in favor of a more creative approach.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Fair enough, but in the situation I describe you would learn nothing. Unless you really can learn a tune from hearing it 3 times.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by jig
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
But the dots are notes, and that's what you use to play tunes. If you have the skeleton memorized, you can learn the tune; writing stuff down is how you remember it, so you CAN learn it. I've had Star of Munster memorized for twenty years and I'm still learning it, but I couldn't start to learn it until I could remember it...thus the dots. I don't look at them anymore, but there is a period of time when they help IMMENSELY.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by justjim
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Oh bloody hell, not that tired old bloody thing again.
Q exaggerated exhalation and comedy slumping of shoulders:
The dots are not notes. they represent notes.
http://mazzaroth.ca/images/MagrittePipe2.jpg
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Fair enough but a recording is also a representation, not the actual thing. It is a closer representation fair enough but nonethe less not the thing itself. But does that make it any less usefull?
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by jig
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Yes, it is possible to hear a tune three times at a session, suss it out on your instrument, and not lose it. To come back to it the next day, at home, and work it up again. To make it stick.
And once you've done that, then you don't have to wait a year to hear your session mates play it again--you simply launch it yourself at the next session.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I agree. I'd also add that it's much easier to learn a tune at a session the way you're describing, Will, than it is to learn it from a CD, where you can't see the player, and, in any case, it's probably at least partially covered up by 'arrangement'.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by benhall.1
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Interesting, Ben. When I first started learning this music, I got tunes from a teacher, doing the call and response thing with each phrase. But I also started picking tunes off of recordings, with no slow-down technology to help. After a while, it got so I could pick up tunes off of the Thistle and Shamrock radio program. Looking back on those years of hard-won tunes, learned by ear at speed, I'm sure that all made it much easier to pick up tunes at a session where the music is much more "present" than it is on a radio or CD.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I'm sure you're right, Will. And if others put in the effort that you did, to train themselves to learn tunes by ear at speed, they'd be able to do it, too. And then they wouldn't see it as so unusual, just 'normal'. The trick is to put in the effort. Then it just gets easier and easier over time.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by benhall.1
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Lord knows lots of people (includinjg half my session mates) have more natural talent that I do for this sort of thing. But perseverance can pay off. In fact, picking up tunes on the fly is one area I'm still seeing improvement in, in my own playing. At my age, that reward alone is worth the investment (when everything else seems to be in a steady decline).
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
How old are you Will?
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
I'm sure it's all about learning how to listen.
I find I can recall and play some tunes that I've listened to passively over and over again (maybe a hundred times each.) I think if I learned to listen more carefully to tunes while they're being played I could get them down after, say, twenty performances.
What Will says above makes a lot of sense in this context, though I'm a million miles away from being a Jedi Master like he is.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by grego
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Michael, I'm only 49, but my doctor tells me my back and joints are much older. I'm falling apart at an alarming rate.
No Jedi master here, grego, still very much an apprentice.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
There are some very helpful comments in this thread. I just wanted to add that like Will, I find that my ability to pick up tunes on the fly is increasing steadily with age (51 - years, not tunes). Wish I could say the same for my ability to load and start the tune later...
And to offer an example of what's possible: I remember seeing Derek Hickey do a workshop with a bunch of guys from Québec that specialize in playing "crooked" tunes (missing or having extra beats). I know from experience that these are much harder than normal tunes for me to learn - which is why I don't know any...
But he would listen to the tune the first time through, play a straightforward version the second time through, and a fancier version after that. Who knows if he remembered them the next day, but it was pretty impressive to watch. And that's his day job, as they say.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Gzeg
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
That to my mind is the point. Whether he could remember them the next day, and start them off. Copying the music from someone else isnt that hard. It simply takes practice and I might suggest the way in to this is via the traditional route of learning tunes call and response style. Bar/ phrase by bar/phrase.
But remembering them! is another matter all together. If all it took was to play a tune a couple of times life would be a lot easier. But uness you are incredibly gifted with a eidetic memory it isnt.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by jig
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
"choose your favourite and concentrate on that. . . try to stay true to someone else's. Nail that first." Amen!
I am doing this exactly with Liam O'Flynn's version of 'Cunla'. His is the 1st version I ever heard & it is still my favourite. Someone at our session introduced 'Freize Britches' (an alternate title for Cunla) & I discretely told her I had something better. Anyway the short story is I now have her learning from Liam's recording. She loves it. One by one I am introducing it to everyone else in the session.
Sometimes your session might play something & it works well enough Then you hear a great version & that just lights it all up!
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Random_notes
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
It may help to think of having the tune the next day not as a matter of memorizing it the day before, but of a more active recall or retrieval of the tune. This mental ability, too, can be developed with mindful practice. And it's easier to do when you learn the contours of the tune from the outset.
YMMV, but how it seems to work for me is that the next day (or sometimes a week or more later) the tune will pop unbidden into my head and I can then play it. On the other hand, if I intentionally try to recall the tune, I usually can't remember how it starts. So my recall instead begins with some catchy phrase or bit of the tune--some cluster of notes that first caught my ear and made me want to learn it in the first place. Having played the contours of the tune the day before, I can start at the catchy bit, no matter where in the tune it occurs, and gradually retrieve the rest of the tune.
I don't think I have an eidetic memory, and my memory in general used to be much better than it is. But this knack for learning tunes on the fly and retaining them later continues to get better for me, despite aging and no few head injuries (I know--explains a lot, eh?) over the years. All I can figure is that ongoing immersion and obsession with the music pays its dividends.
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
Will, did you receive those head injuries from session mates who didn't agree with your assessment of how well you remembered certain tunes?
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by grego
Re: ''(I'd rather they learned it from me live, but that's another discussion)''
LOL grego. No, we're all tolerant of each other's "noodling."
Sad to say, I've bounced my head off of pavement and bedrock no few times as a cyclist. And another half dozen times playing ice hockey or skiing. The damage from concussions and skull fractures is cumulative, by the way....
# Posted on February 22nd 2008 by Will CPT