OK, here's a funny one. During the many dot v ear discussions it is clear there are people who will only learn by ear, which is fine, and there are those who read and learn by ear, also fine, and those who learn by dot only, which almost unheard of with people brought up with traditional music.
Then you get folk who learn by ear but use slowing down software. Please can someone justify what thats all about? Surely the main benefits of learning tunes by ear are, if not wasted, then seriously lessened by slowing down the music. If it's just to learn the basic notes of the tune then the same info is on paper. One of the most important parts of learning by ear is hearing the detail and rhythm.
Surely if you can't learn reels etc at full speed then you should practice learning slower tunes by ear first until you are up to speed. The daftest thing is folk that are totally anti dot but at the same time use slowing down software. Surely slowing down the tune to learn by ear is only kidding yourself.
It would be good if this discussion was about the merits or drawbacks of the software rather than a dots v ear thing, though I won't hold my breath.
Are you bitter, Bogman? Or jealous? I use ASD a lot. It's like a workshop whenever I want it. If I want to listen to an ornament that I can't figure out at speed I can slow it down and pick up the detail. I also get to play along with musicians who normally I couldn't keep up with when I'm learning the tune. It sure beats slowing down the turntable, which is what Seamus Connolly used to do. But you're right, he was probably kidding himself, thinking he'd ever be good.
Haven't you ever asked a friend to slow it down a bit so you can get a note or two you're missing? That's what the Slowdowner is all about. Of course not everybody is as gifted as you are so for those of us who lack your developed ear we have dots, slow-downers, and other learning aids that are beneath you.
As you said: -- Surely slowing down the tune to learn by ear is only kidding yourself.-- I'm only kidding myself. Don't take me seriously.
One of the merits of modern slow-down software is that it does not lose the detail and the rythm. It gets very close to what you might hear if your teacher said "now I will play this tune slowly so you can pick it up". Which bogman's teacher never did, I suppose.
Hmmm...I'm beginning to get a sense of snobbery here. Personally, I wouldn't spend the money for slow-down software, but that's just me. I think that whatever tecnique one uses to learn the tunes shouldn't matter as much as playing the music and keeping it alive - like carrying the torch for generations to come.
The music circle I ran around in back in the states was quite a mix of genres, but the stricty old-time only music jam held the third Sunday of every month at a micro-brewery downtown was the most fun. Why? Because despite the intolerance for any other kind of music other than old time, newbies were warmly welcomed and encouraged. I found that to be a very good thing - as opposed to those kinds of jams/sessions where a circle of musical snobs gets tighter and tighter - clearly symbolizing that no one else was worthy to join the Holy Circle.
American old time music is one of those wonderful traditional genres that must be passed down to the younger generation in order for it to survive. The moderator of this jam would play through a tune twice at a slower speed for the newbies to catch on - then they'd blast away at full speed. Thanks to this welcoming attitude and willingness to open the circle, several new, young and excellent musicians will now able to continue carrying the torch.
Bitter or jealous of what?
"Learning aids that are beneath you" I didn't say it's beneath me, but I don't think it's beneficial and when I learn tunes by ear I would sooner play a section 10 times than slow it down. At least that way I can hear how it's being played.
Sometimes the music is not available, only the recording. You might not know the name and just want to learn the tune. So tell me Bogman and Benhall, if it is easier to listen to a tune slowly to start with just to get the notes, where's the harm in that? It' so much easier, otherwise you have to play to tune back again and again until you get it. The detail and rhythm will follow afterwards when listening at normal speed. It's just a stepping stone to get there quicker. Incidentally, you don't choose where you're brought up and if you haven’t had the good fortune to grow up in a traditional Irish music playing environment and want to join in the fun and play with others, particularly when your getting on in years, anything you can do to speed things up is a good idea don't you think?
Last time I got involved in this debate (around two years ago) I tried to argue - sensibly, I thought, based on the wide differences between getting a teacher to 'play something slower' and slowing something down using 'slowdown software'.
But people who do use this software got really REALLY upset.
Looks to me like it's happening again. Already. Why do people who rely on these various crutches get so defensive?
IMHO if you can not learn a tune at normal speed by ear then you are not ready for that tune. Unless of course you are learning to learn by ear and in which case learning slower tunes to train your ear is a better idea.
Sandy, I don't think speeding things up with artificial aids is a great idea. The best way to speed things up is to play more. I don't believe shortcuts are the way forward with trad.
If you play everything slow that can be limiting.
If you play everything fast that can be limiting.
I hear players who have difficulty getting up to speed.
I hear players who are able to play quite fast but would struggle if they try to drop the speed even by a few bpm.
I'm confused at the endless debate about the "best" way to learn a tune. It seems to me that the proof is in the playing. If we're playing together, and I'm playing badly, it doesn't really matter if it's because I learned from dots and have no nyah, I learned from a tune slowed down by computer and can't figure out everyone else is playing more quickly, or I was too stubborn to slow the tune down to learn it, and therefore am mangling all the fun bits. I need to be able to listen to what's going on around me and adapt. If I can't do that, I need to step back until I can.
Having said that, I do need to weigh in. I use Audacity to slow tunes down, and, for me, it's been extremely helpful. I don't slow them down to bog speed, but 20-25% slower is a huge help. The inflection is there, and the ornaments are there. When I've got that, I'll redo it at 10% slower, then work up to full speed. I guess the other option would be to figure out the ornaments, then practice them without the recording until I'm up to full speed. But this way I get extra practice at listening to what I'm hearing and getting that sound to come out of my fiddle. I find it's a great tool for me, YMMV.
First of all, I do do a lot of practice. I am giving a concert with a group of children to older folk next month. I have a lot of tunes to learn quickly and I can assure you that slowing them down is much much quicker for me to get the notes first and then get the feel by listening and playing at speed. You say you don't think speeding things up with artificial aids is a great idea but you don't say why. What is it you feel is artificial? If a computer is artificial then so is a CD. You also say that you don't believe shortcuts are the way forward with trad. but again you don't say why. Perhaps you could explain.
There's nothing inherently wrong with slowing down tunes.
If you're only able to learn one way, then it's a crutch and limiting. Why not learn music in as many different ways possible? Being flexible and creative with the way you learn can only improve your musicianship.
"Surely slowing down the tune to learn by ear is only kidding yourself."
Slowing down tunes is nothing new. When a teacher teaches you a tune, do they belt straight into it at full speed? Slowing down software is no a substitute for a teacher, by any means, but in the absence of someone who can play the tune slowly for you, it's a help.
Listening to tunes slowed down, whether naturally or artificially, allows you to acquire the basic skill of transferring what you hear to your instrument. The more you do it, the easier it comes and the quicker you get at it. Before you know it, you hear a tune in a session, at session speed, and you're playing it the next week. Where's the problem?
The reason I don't think speeding up the learning of a tune or taking shortcuts is a good idea is because things get missed. Would you speed up reading a book or use slow down software to learn a language?
By the way, I actually find it easier picking up tunes when they are played at a 'reasonable' pace (i.e. at a speed that they could reasonably be played at in a session, but not excessively fast). When I hear tunes played very slowly, I find it hard to hear the structure of the tune.
"slow down software has not been around that long. "
Yes, but has several of us have already said, people *have* been around a long time, and they have always played tunes slowly on request, for others to learn.
bogman - suffice to say people learn at different speeds and with different skill levels. When I first started learning tunes, it was very difficult for me to hear the complete phrases at speed. Over the years, my ears and my understanding of the music has gotten better, so I can now pick up tunes at speed. I get your point, but I don't see what the fuss is all about. To each their own. Bottom line is - you can either play in a session or you can't yet. How people get there (dots, ears, slow, fast, combination of all schools) neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.
Oh - and I dotn use it for the whole tune - just if there is that little part I just cant get. I maybe use it once every couple of years. But I dont see the harm in people using it all the time if thats what they feel comfortable with. Its better than learning by dots.
"...I did say what's being missed ... the detail and rhythm."
Rhythm, I accept. But someone who learns the notes of a tune at slow speed will surely, at some point, hear the tune played at full speed, and thence pick up the rhythmic nuances.
Can you explain what you mean by 'detail', Bogman? Surely you miss *detail* when the tune is played fast - that's the whole point of slowing it down. I agree that there are aspects of the music which are lost, or obscured, when it is played too slowly - as there are when it is played too fast. It woul;d be good if you could elucidate a little.
I am all for learning tunes any way you can when you know the music, including dots. What I don't get if folk who say they only learn by ear but use slow down software and at the same time slag dot readers. The only way to benefit from learning by ear is at a decent speed and not by a machine that slows down all the ornaments and phrasing.
I think richrua put his finger on something when he said:
"Only some kind of musical genius could just pick up a tune played only at full speed (especially reels!) or mybe i am wrong."
... 'cos that smacks of defeatism to me. I'm no kind of genius at all, but I often pick up new tunes. At speed. Not always the first time I hear it - some of them are difficult. Mostly I learn from real live people, in sessions and stuff. When I learn stuff from CDs, which is rare, well, I just don't see the need for slowing them down. You just play what's on the CD.
Bogman - this is not the first time I have wondered what the heck you are on about. I mean really. Bad session.orgers- how dare you try to learn the tunes by ear like that - there is only one right way - so bogman says. We must stick to it!
Modern musical instruments are machines and they haven’t been around long either but have evolved over thousands of years. So are aids to learning. If you don't like technology why don’t you just stick to singing? It seems to me you wish to live in the past. I really can't understand where you’re coming from as you haven’t given me any reason to. The detail and rhythm obviously is different when slowed down, but later played at the correct speed it returns to what it was . I give up this discussion but not practicing.
That surely depends on who you are learning from? Whatever you play will only be an approximation. its humanly impossible to copy exactly. Especially if there is a number of different instruments.
However say its just a solo fiddler, playing a simple tune; Were you able to copy Frankie Gavin, at pace, then you would have to be at 'least' as good as him, stands to reason. I know thats not the case, so all you can do is approximate.
So I dont see a problem with SDSW, it seems that if you dont need it, you dont use it. If you need it, you use it.....
If anyone reckons they can capture note for note a pipe solo by say , John Burgess, then they would need to be as good as him, If not bette; not happening.
However if you were to slow down a tune, get the bits and work on them for a few years then it is possible that they could eventually play something similar.
I have never used slow down software... however i have just downloaded a program to give it a try.
speaking as a classical guitarist, and an ITM banjo player.
dots is good for classical; lots of notes at once, positioning info written down. you aren't going to pick all this up from just listening, fast or slow.
i learn banjo by ear, there is usually only one note at once so its easy to hear.
also the dots never reflect the spirit of a piece, all those ornaments and weird triplets....if you wrote them down the stave would be a mess.. .. but we can all hear them.
i have deliberately chosen an untechnical approach to the banjo after years of playing and learning classical guitar and the theory with it.
hey! irish music is supposed to be fun, throw those dots in the trash!
finally
if i learned by ear without these cheat slow down tools, i would still be learning the kesh jig.
as it happens, using the fantastic tool "Transcribe!"
i have learned about 80 tunes since starting the banjo
a year ago. and, yes, people tell me i'm quite good.
bogman
i see from your bio that you are the same age as me.....but you have been playing trad since you were a kid. you're very lucky. i have been doing this for a short time and i'm playing catchup- but loving every minute of it.
i dont see why your learning method matters.
the proof if in the pudding.
let me pose a question,
if i put 3 players in front of you,
one who learnt from dots
one who learnt by ear at full speed
one who learnt by ear using a w*nky slow downer.
I can justify it to you, no problem: it makes it easier to learn a tune from a CD. Very, very simple.
Bogman, what are you on about? There's no such thing as a 'slower tune'.
Slower than what? Speed of tunes is a matter of taste, as is the method of learning them. Most people with an ear for music pick up tunes at sessions over time, but it's not the same thing as wanting to learn a particular tune that has taken your fancy.
It seems strange that you should take what appears to be offence at an individual's preferred method of learning from a particular source. If, when I'm listening to a CD, I hear a tune that I would like to learn, I'm unlikely to wait until the next session, ask people to play it at full speed, then hope that I'm going to remember it. That's stupid, no? It's a lot easier to just learn it by listening to the CD right? If the tune happens to be played on, for example, an Eb fiddle, it's easier for me to bend the pitch than to tune up, or to transpose as I'm learning. If the tune is played quite fast, which most dance music is, it's also easier to slow the track to 80-85% or so. That way I can learn the tune without forcing myself through a difficult process simply for the sake of deluding myself into thinking that I'm somehow more talented or gifted if I make life harder for myself.
I could find a written source for the tune, and learn it that way, and I am experienced enough to learn properly from sheet music. I just choose not to because it's boring to me, and because if I have an aural source that I want to learn from I will learn from that. If I want to learn one player's version, I'll learn that, and I'll make it a bit easier for myself by slowing it down a bit. What on earth is wrong with that?
Ideally I'd get Frankie Gavin over to mine for a few tunes and a cup of tea, and I'd get him to teach me the tunes I like from his albums, but I'm a busy man, and he has terrible taste in jumpers, so I won't be inviting him. I'll just slow him down a little bit on my CD player and make life easier for myself.
It's of great importance to realise that when you use your slow down software, the biggest difference between that and getting someone to play slower is that the machine will slow down all the articulations too. A person will play the tunes slower but retain the rhythm in the articulation.
A tap is a tap etc. When it's slowed down, it sounds like you are playing the note on and off. It's very important never to listen to a tap like that. But people do and it makes me cringe.
And Ionannass is wrong with: " if you are able to copy Frankie Gavin, at pace, then you would have to be at 'least' as good as him."
No, I think it's important to be able to copy what a musician is doing. It gives you an understanding of why (how is not important), but it doesn't make you as good as them, that's ridiculous. With some technical skill and some study you can copy very accurately a John Constable painting, but no-one would argue that that makes you as good a painter. It's a hell of a lot easier to copy a Mondrian, Does that make you as good as Mondrian?
The best way to learn this music (Michael Coleman himself told me this) is in person, face to face, with one playing a tune slowly, phrase by phrase, until the other gets it. Then you gradually pick up the pace and tinker with possible articulations.
That's the true and authentic way to get the truckly-how. Seamus Ennis and John Doherty told me the same just last week over rashers and sausages and black pudding.
Second best is to listen to the music however you can get it into your head. These days, that includes recordings. It helps to understand that you're hearing a static snapshot of the music, and that commercial recordings often include stuff you won't likely hear in a session.
NEWS FLASH! This just in! Scully Casey (Bobby's Da, RIP) says that Windows Media Player has a slow down function. No need to buy expensive (or cheap) add-on software!
Hup!
A tip now from Paddy Killoran: "Slowing down a recording to pick up the melody is fine. Just be aware that the rolls and triplets won't sound like they do at tempo. If you get too used to hearing them slow, your ear may play tricks on you at speed, even warping the timing of your own playing."
The issue that you're highlighting Michael seems to me to be identical to the objection many have to the use of sheet music as a learning aid. If you can't hear what the music should sound like in your head, you're not going to learn it from sheet music. If you're going to copy slowed down ornaments and play them the way they sound when they're slowed on a piece of software, then you're probably not experienced enough to learn by either method.
I'm pretty sure you've written similar stuff yourself anyway.
It's just a matter of whether people are experienced enough to learn from sources other than other experienced musicians.
It's a bit sad that people are reduced by circumstances or ignorance (or fear or laziness) to learning ***how to play*** this music from machines.
I want my music to be informed by real people, with personalities and stories and humor and sadness and generosity.
At the risk of championing the obvious, it's important to learn how to play music from another human being. I's one thing to suss out some tunes from recordings, but first immerse yourself in the insights and understanding of a mentor. And even then, you're better off learning tunes from living and breathing people.
I was gonna mention Pollock, but he was a very skilled draftsman. Hidden within his apparent chaos there is a lot of order and choice. It's very very difficult to copy Pollock. John Constable is surprisingly easier.
But thinking on it, Pollock is a good metaphor for some of the more dense of this music by, for example, Matt Molloy. Every corner of it filled with stuff. If you are not familiar with the music it really does just sound like a brick wall of embattled paint splashes. It takes some listening to appreciate it for what it is.
Will, I'm not learning from a machine when I pick up a tune from a CD. I'm learning from my own experience. I'm going to play the tune like I play, not like anyone else, regardless of whether I'm picking it up in person or from a recording.
Living breathing people? like Michael Coleman?... have you been drinking?
Llig says that its possible to be able to copy a masterpiece , yet not be as good as the master? Do explain.... That makes no sense to me. if you can do what a master does, or did, then yes you have to be as good as him. You say you copy exactly, I dont believe you. I think your exaggerating.
You think there is some intangible 'added value' to a painting by a master that is not present in an exact copy? which as we know is impossible anyhow.
What happens with fakes then Michael? a good fake passed on as the work of a master, and accepted as such by Christie's [ sp?]and Sotheby's? Is that artist not as good as the artist who's style was copied?
Back to music. If you can play note for note a piece of music by Frankie, then yes IMO You are every bit as good as him. How coulkd it be otherwise? Explain please.
The difference is that the artist creates something from within his mind, and the forger copies what he creates. It's rather clear to me. One is an act of creation, and the other is simply mechanics.
I think I've said it before somewhere on this website, but it's worth repeating. I remember after first picking up a fiddle, saying to myself, "when I can play toss the feathers like Kevin Burke, I'll be able to say to myself that I can play the fiddle." The thing was though, when I could play toss the feathers like Kevin Burke, it was blindingly obvious that I still couldn't really play the fiddle at all. All I could really do was play the fiddle like Kevin Burke. Kind of epiphany moment, very important.
When I was a kid I thought I was learning tunes from an old Tommy Peoples record, but I was actually mistaken. I was just imitating what I heard. When I came to play the tunes at sessions they'd fall apart because I didn't know the tune, I just knew Tommy Peoples' version. When I heard people playing differently I couldn't accommodate the differences. Now that I know a bit more about the music I can learn the tune from a recording, rather than just copying somebody else's variations, ornaments etc.
I think that might be the objection some people have to this form of learning, but obviously that's only relevant as you're learning how to play the music, rather than learning how to play a particular tune.
This is sort of one of those things I get a wee bit heated up about. You know, I wish I was living under the sort of circumstances that people would teach me tunes and slow down difficult phrases, etc. etc. all the time. That would be fecking brilliant. I agree with Will and whoever else said that that is the best way to learn tunes. Cheers. I'll just ring up Paddy Keenan and see if he'll come around and show me a few tunes. Aye, right.
Some of us are lucky and grow up around the music and spend a lifetime around amazing teachers who can show how it's done. I envy all of you. However, some of us, myself included, would be SOL if it wasn't for slow-down software. I'd have never even gotten as pathetically not far as I *have* on the pipes if stuck with the resources I would have had otherwise -- full-speed CDs and sheet music. I'm sorry, I can't hear every note, every ornament at full speed in every tune (sure, I can pick up the p*ss easy ones sort on the the fly but that's a minute percentage of tunes and I've only slowly learned to do it). I wish I could, really; I'd be like the fella in Oh Brother Where Art Thou and sell my soul to whomever to be able to do that. I think the great pipers, Ennis, Clancy, Keenan, whoever, had teachers who played phrases and ornaments at slower speeds whilst they were learning.
So fair enough, the old boys didn't have or need slow down software to learn the music but then they grew up immersed in it. If you're from freakin' Colorado (and don't have the greatest ear in the world to boot), you do what you can to learn and if that's resorting to contrived slow down software because your other choice is sheet music, you take the lesser of two evils.
I am aware that the slow downer distorts the timing of ornaments, but it gives me the chance to hear what the notes are in a way that a full speed recording or session does not. The real life session in any case does not go over that phrase you're not sure you picked up right, whereas my buddy Amazing Slow Downer does and meanwhile it doesn't roll its eyes at you in despair when you're struggling to figure out a dodgy interval, so less stressful than a workshop! If you listen to enough music in "real time" you should know how the ornament sound and compensate for ASD's failings.
Um, so if anyone wants to teach me tunes in real life, drop me a line. In the meantime, be aware that some of us are faced with a fairly limited choice, lacking in certain resources and therefore compelled to choose less-than-perfectly-ideal manner of learning tunes and the music.
That's a classic post, Robert, and it should be somehow writ large above every session, or something. You've summed up much of what is discussed here on a daily basis.
Yes, interesting, with my playing it was obvious for years which record I had learned certain tunes from. I'm glad to say that's not the case now. But it's all interconnected isn't it. You have to learn tunes off people, and you do, and you have to assimilate not just styles, but masters' personal interpretations. There is no specific point where learning to pay a particular tune can or should be distinguishable from learning to play the music, or even learning to play a particular player's setting of one particular tune.
I've learned a couple of bluegrass tunes on fiddle by reading transcriptions (dots) of recordings that were created by someone using a slowdown device. That's probably a new low you haven't considered yet
The thing I remember most from the experience is that the suggested bowings really sucked. They were completely unusable and certainly wouldn't have matched up to the recording if used up to tempo. It's yet another area for someone to screw up when translating. There's no substitute to listening and learning the fundamentals.
By no means have I reached a point where I feel that I am no longer learning the music, certainly, and every new tune adds to one's knowledge of the music, yes. There is definitely no definitive and absolute division between what constitutes the tune, the style, the degree of personal interpretation, etc. but there is enough of a diffference to be discernible to whose experience of the music is sufficient. I think that's the difference between being able to learn a particular tune, and learning a particular version or personal interpretation. It is all connected, but it's not so indistinct that we can't perceive the differences between these constituents.
As usual - I am with you 100% SS. I do not live in Ireland - and have not the luxury of being surrounded by masses of musicians. In fact at the moment we have 3 (two on at the same time) sessions a week - that's in a population of 5 million people. So trad is a little thin on the ground. Sorry Will - but as much as I like the idea of learning off other musicians. If I relied on that - I'd learn about 4 tunes a year. I have to learn off CDs -we just don't get people coming over here to teach or do workshops. Apparently they make far more money in the USA - so that is where they all go.
I AM a beginner, so the debate about how you best should learn tunes when you are a good player is way out of my league.
But I will say that as a beginner I've found slow downing software has been an aid rather than a crutch to my learning....and keeps me hanging in there when my slow progress as an adult might normally have led me to give up.
My teacher was away for five months, and so I used Amazing Slow Downer to try learn some new tunes myself during her absence.
My ear is getting there - but I'd describe my ear to fiddle 'literacy' as maybe first or second grade level. I'm out of kindergarten, but I've got years of music ahead of me before I go off to musician high school or college and can just hear and then play.
I don't yet automatically identify the right intervals - I'm missing a couple of letters of the musical alphabet - and my teacher has been invaluable for hearing and correcting the 5-10% I take the wrong guesses at. I generally learn a new tune a fortnight - the first week going through phrase by phrase slowly. I go away and practice and come back the next week, and have generally practiced in small errors that we spend the next week undoing, and getting right, and from then on it's building things up to speed - imbedding them in my fingers and brain.
So with my teacher away I used ASD to the extreme. Slowing a couple of tunes down off Maeve Donnelly's CD to 10% on occasions to try hear every single note and sometimes having to play almost every note in a scale to find that one note in a run I could hear I was missing. (Invariably it was steps of just a semitone I was missing).
Once I had the notes of the tunes - I used the ASD to come up to the speed I'm capable of (which is approximately 85% at the moment). Playing at 50% at first, then slowly increasing it once I had the notes and now only had to worry about my bowing.
When my teacher came back she was delighted - because I'd accidentally tackled two much harder tunes than the tunes she'd been teaching me - (we have only been doing lessons by ear) - and although I am still slow - she not only recognised the tunes, she could play along, because I have the right rhythm and notes. NOW she's making me tackle ornaments.
So for me - it was 1000% better than trying to teach myself something off the dots, and though not as fast or efficient as learning directly from a teacher - did give me two new tunes and an amazing sense of achievement. These two tunes I do play slowly - but I am playing them with the right notes and right rhythm even while I still struggle to ensure I'm not bowing inadvertent double stops and to keep my wrist loose etc.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have had the interest or opportunity to learn their instrument of choice as a child or in their teens. I started to play fiddle at 40 - and I do know I'm not ever going to be fantastic - but hold hope that by 50 I'll be able to play in sessions, and not irritate distract or annoy other people....and maybe by 80 be able to convince people I've been playing all my life. And tools like the slow downer really help.
And the USA is BIG! A festival in North Carolina means f* all if you live in Colorado. I don't even think festivals are the end-all-be-all for those of us serious about the music. Five or six tutorials in a class of 6-10 other people in Miltown Malbay for a week once a year will not train you to be fluent in Irish music. Sure, it's better than nothing but it is in fact ridiculously minimal. If you can't get steady, regular teaching and advice, you utilize the best resources you *can* access.
"I've found slow downing software has been an aid rather than a crutch".
As a beginner, how do you know?
When my wee boy was nine months, he could stand, but he couldn't walk. But he had this trolly thing he leant on and pushed about. What better definiton of a crutch do you want?
ShariFiddles, with respect I'd advise you not to slow anything down to 10%: it's just noise at that speed. If you have to slow things down, only go as slow as you need to. If you need to slow to 10%, it's probably not the right tool for you. I'd also suggest that you don't need to hear every note: they're not all part of the tune. Bear in mind what's been posted here on the difference between imitating a player and learning a tune.
You could try learning tunes to sing, rather than play. That way you can avoid the tedious process of learning and unlearning your mistakes. It will help you to identify intervals, and that is probably the most crucial skill a fiddler requires. Best of luck.
To my mind it's not so much about the particular method of learning, but where we think are at the moment in our learning curve & what we need to do to take the next step forward whatever that is!
ie: if your using / relying on slowdowner software after 5/6/7 years of study my question would be are you really listening to the tunes? How are your scales / arpeggios etc are you practising slowly then building up speed?...do you know your keys and time signatures? IOW what exactly have you learned over the last 5-7 years?
If you have been studying / playing for that time and you still reckon you are a beginner.....then you deserve a kick up the arse to wake you up!....a bit
You would think you would have at least some handle on a few trad tunes enough to have some small repertoire that you could perform musically...and be confident that what you would play would be nice to listen to
Right enough, if you only spend 20-30 mins a day doing this it's going to be an incredibly long learning curve...hobby or not
So how often does one evaluate where they are...what are their strengths & weaknesses, how does one know what to practice next and when?
I may not have been clear in that once you've learned the tune, to sing or hum, lilt or whatever, then you can try to execute it on the instrument. If you learn with your fingers rather than your inner ear it will be more difficult and less efficient in the long run.
I do know that I don't yet HEAR all the notes being played when things are going fast.....I'm not just learning to play....I know I'm also learning to hear.
My best approximation if I have to sing back or try play a tune is about 50% of the notes in say a reel at full session speed. I can hear I'm missing things....but don't know quite what it is. I hear the direction, but not the detail. I get the drift but not yet the nuance of the conversation because I don't yet have the vocabulary.
With slow downing software I can at least slow down tunes until I recognise what it is I'm missing. I have to do it less often now (reduce to say 10%) because I now recognise patterns when they are played at speed - and match them to things I know I play in other tunes (like those runs down that happen in 3rds). The difficult phrases and patterns are like new words I then practice slowly to get the pronounciation right....and then try put them in to the sentences....
I understand where bogman and Michael are coming from, I think. I'm not totally unsympathetic to their point of view (just feeling stressed out by it as I'm stuck with the choices I illustrated above, which I know are not brilliant). It all boils down to your constructs, your baggage, the way you process your environment based on those things. For example, I did a hike this summer with a Scottish friend mine on the Munros that make up the Glen Shee ski area. We started by hiking up the slopes underneath the main chairlift. I was oggling the chairlift in amazement and took tons of pictures of it once we got to the top of the mountain, as it was in my mind a rusted out pile of junk; boards tacked to a metal frame, attached to a rusty cable and basically the lift house was a rusty corrugated iron lean-to shed. The oldest, slowest lift in the entire state of Colorado looks high tech compared to this thing. To my friend, whose frame of reference for "ski lift" was totally different from mine, it was just a standard ski lift. To me, it was hilarious and frightening and I'm not sure you could pay me to get on it.
My point -- to draw out a potentially dangerous metaphor -- is that the Glen Shee ski lift is like the Amazing Slow Downer. If it's all you got, you work with it and you understand at some level that yeah, better things exist somewhere in the world but that's not an option you have so you deal. At another level that reality is your only reality because you have no experiences of the thing that people are saying is a much better way to learn something.
Michael, to challenge your metaphor, people are hardwired to learn to walk. Sadly we are not hardwired to learn Irish music.
No. Human beings are not hard wired to walk. This has been shown countless times with children brought up by dogs, or worse, no one. The do not walk. We learn to walk.
I was astonished to learn that human beings do not even have the instinct to suckle. We have to learn it.
I remember this one moment when I was first learning whistle. A mate told me to learn The Silver Spear and The Old Bush. I downloaded the dots from this website and could not figure out how to make the notes I was looking at sound like the tunes I'd heard. I had no teacher or anything. I was about 21 and knew pretty much nothing about Irish music. I'd been listening to recordings of it for years so knew enough to know how utterly clueless I was and that was about it. I'd listen to these recordings and feel bewildered and overwhelmed by how one gets from where I was -- zero negative bupkes -- to even playing something which sounded vaguely like a reel.
Discovering ASD was a great epiphany. It mattered less -- it was still sad but not totally devastating -- that I didn't have access to regular tuition and zillions of sessions a week and all my friends being musos and the whole culture of it. I could get by doing *something* to improve and learn and had a tool that was somewhat useful, as I have always *had* to teach myself to play.
As for the Glenshee lift. Yeah, it's scary. But it has nothing to do with skiing/boarding. All it does it get you to the top of the hill. No amount of travelling on the glenshee lift will help you in the slightest with skiing/snowboarding.
Can you cite those claims, Michael? I'd be curious to have a wee look at the evidence. I was being lazy in saying "hardwired" since it is difficult to determine hardwired from learned behaviour, but my point is that we have more of a natural, instinctual, inclination to learn walk than play music.
If it's true, horses are clearly much better designed than we are.
A healthy foal can gallop soon after it's born. It just can't play a reel.
people who teach themselves to play end up sounding like the sounds they have in their heads, not their ears. Don't teach yourself. Let your ears teach you
I know, but the Glen Shee lift was far more shocking to me than to my mate, since I'm accustomed to fancy, high speed express lifts and the Glen Shee lift isn't that unusual for lifts here. If Scottish chairlifts are all you know of chairlifts, than you won't find it that weird. That was my argument. It's not the greatest metaphor in the world, but Ive had half a bottle of wine and two whiskies.
Maybe the closer metaphor is learning to ski at the Midlothian Ski Centre. Learning to ski on astroturf sucks but if your other choice -- and you are absolutely desperate to learn to ski and can't afford lots and lots of trips to the US or Europe -- is to simply not learn how to ski, ever, than you deal with the bloody astroturf.
Sporting/music metaphors never work. I was told that if I could board at Hillend, snow would be a piece of p*ss. So I did. And it was. But that's the opposite of learning music.
"Letting your ears" is still teaching yourself. I am differentiating between being around people who will be like, "This tune or this ornament goes this way" or not. I agree with you -- at the end of the day, you have to listen, you have to let your ears guide you, but when you are first learning I just don't see that can happen if you don't have someone slowing things down and showing you how they are structured. You can't learn how to ski double blacks without learning how to ski blues.
You'll be relieved to know, Donough, at least that if it is described on this site as "lame" to use a crutch, then in that case it certainly *doesn't* mean you're disabled.
Heaven help a disabled player who has learned from dots though, who wanders in here!
Thanks DD
This was supposed to be about the merits or drawback of software rather than the dots versus ears debate.
When you use the software you do alter the sound. I would assume that someone listening with slowdown software is also listening at normal speed as well - or at least they should be.
But if you use it wisely it can be a stepping stone to being able to pick tunes up on the fly at sessions.
...or a disabled player who uses the slow down software, maybe.
I wasn't going to get into this thread, plenty of people are already going at it.
*But*, if it helps...I like the sort of dissection of the learning process that ShariFiddles, and others, go into, I think it is helpful to be able to identify what steps you are taking in the learning process. I think that actually helps the learning.
I think that those players who can, for example, pick up tunes by ear only from a fairly fast speed, and then play them, might have been learning from a young age, and been playing for a long time - in that they have highly developed listening skills.
(Or maybe they were born like that!, but I doubt all, or even most of them were.) I would have thought that even players with a classical background have developed listening skills.
From the posts above, it seems to me that a lot of new players coming to Irish trad from an older age have quite a bit of doubt and trouble about what they think is their ability to develop those listening skills any time soon, at least to be able to play at sessions. They will likely use the slowdowner software to help their learning by ear.
From my observation of acquisition of other aural skills with perhaps a parallel to learning Irish trad by ear, (and my own experience learning tunes) one starts slow for accuracy and gradually increases speed - until you can play at speed *with* accuracy. I would think it's the same for Irish trad. That's probably what the vast majority of players who learned by ear from a young age did, even though the development of the listening skill might have been a lot faster when they were young than some decades older.
I think it is quite possible to develop a listening skill at a certain speed, which you may not necessarily apply at a higher speed unless you have trained at that speed.
I don't think most players are using slowdown software primarily to learn ornamentation, although at some point they might be, I think they are trying to identify the individual notes of the tune. Learners may think it easier to do that, than try to pick out the *bones* of the tune from the fast version of the tune - or believe that they won't be able to develop that skill, any time soon.
What a storm in a teacup! IMHO slowing down tunes by use of digital, analogue or by a homo sapiens specimen would appear to be a perfectly logical and sensible aid to learning any sort of music. I don't understand why anyone should get their knickers in such a twist over this. It's simply a useful tool, nothing more.
Being taught by what you hear is very different to teaching yourself. If you teach yourself, you are making it up as you go along. You absolutely have to be more humble than this. There are various levels to it, but the very first and most important is to be able to listen accurately ... not just to the sounds made the by best musicians, but to your self also. If you are not listening accurately, if you think you need/require artificial machinery, then you simply haven't learned to listen well enough to be able to play.
A simple string of notes should not be eluding you. You should be able to hear them. If you find you are unable to get the order right, then you are not able to hear it. Listen to the phrase you are having trouble with, sing it back to yourself. Leave your instrument alone, you are not ready for it yet. Listen to the phrase, sing it back until you get it right. Keep doing it over and over until you get it right. Can you hear that you've got it right? This is what I mean by being taught by what you hear. People who teach themselves just pick any old sound that they think is right and obliviously go with that.
And the simple strings of notes is only a part of it. So many people learn now with the use of technical short cuts that they think they a progressing fine when the actual sound they are making is dreadful. They have the notes in the right order, but because they have omitted to learn to listen well enough. They simply can't hear the subtleties of the timing and the phrasing and the articulations.
For example, you are no nearer to learning to play a slow/long roll just because you've slowed one down and found out that it's a note, a note above, the note again, a note below and back to the note. The notes aren't important, it's all in the timing. And you are no nearer to being able to play a couple of bars of a simple jig because you've learned the correct order of 12 notes. You have to hear where the phrasing is. Artificially slowing it down destroys the phrasing.
The phrasing is harder to learn than the correct order of the notes. And if you struggle with hearing the correct order of the notes, you will have no chance at all with the phrasing.
Certainly some food for thought there. I like Donoughs imput of ..."But if you use it wisely it can be a stepping stone to being able to pick tunes up on the fly at sessions."
I have never used slow down software and never slowed down a CD or recording of any type to learn a tune so I'm not qualified to judge slow down software. I DO think that if you're struggling with a section you would be better looping a few bars and playing it over and over till you have it. It's amazing what you hear if you listen to 4 bars 10 times in a row. I think that is putting more demand on your ears than slowing down the tune. Maybe if you're still struggling and need to get the tune learnt quickly then slow down the tricky bit but at least give your ears a chance to learn it at full speed.
Robert, I do have to take issue with this.... "Bogman, what are you on about? There's no such thing as a 'slower tune'.
Slower than what? Speed of tunes is a matter of taste, as is the method of learning them. "
Sorry, but IMO you are completely wrong there. Of course there are slower tunes. Waltzes and marches for a start. Slides and polkas are sparse and relatively easy to pick up. Many players play jigs at a lovely relaxed pace. Surely that would be a good place for anyone wishing to improve their ears to start learning at full speed? It's only a small step to learn slow jigs at full tempo to learning faster jigs at full tempo. OK, reels will take longer but Rome wasn't built in a day.
From the above replies I would say there is maybe a case for slow down in some cases but if it's used without an effort to improve learning at normal speed then it will promote laziness and is no better than listening to a tune and picking it up from the dots. With any crutch surely it should be used less and less till you don't need it at all?
I don't disagree with anything you've said there Michael. In a nutshell, all I said was "It's simply a useful tool, nothing more." I think that still stands. Granted many learning and teaching methods/tools have limitations - but if slowing down tunes by use of some software helps someone for a bit, why not? Even if they have to always use it to learn new tunes, why not? It may be that they simply aren't capable of learning tunes at speed - it may be a crutch, but some people can't get about without a crutch. Personally, I rarely slow down tunes to learn them now - it's too much bother, but I certainly found previously that doing so was useful.
Yes, it can be a useful tool. But my advice is the same as for the dots. Only use it if you don't need to. If you feel you require it, then your ears are not trained well enough and you should be trying to sort that out in preference to amassing a repertoire.
Don't be fooled into thinking that merely knowing the correct order of the notes gets you any where near actually being able to play them.
" If you feel you require it, then your ears are not trained well enough and you should be trying to sort that out in preference to amassing a repertoire."
Ah...but I find that it is by trying to figure out new tunes that I test my ears.
Tunes I have already learned....I get right...I've no trouble getting the right sequence of notes once I've learned a tune.
It's tunes I don't yet know where I get to test if I can play what I hear and sing. (And where I discover gaps in my aural landscape). I can't quite yet play what I easily sing....and since I'm not referring to the dots.....I recognise the sequence is going...or down...but not always by how far. My voice does it naturally....but I can't yet put my fingers in the right spot to match my voice first go. Sometimes it takes two goes....and sometimes (like recently)....it took playing almost a whole scale to realise I was failing to hear the interval I was looking for was only a semitone.
Ear training surely is about intervals and sequences...and hasn't previous advice been 'don't bother with scales'....learn tunes? How else do you train ears if you aren't testing them against the sound you are producing?
Myself, my slowdown software consists of notes on a page which are fed into my head. Michael's Platonic ideal of learning everything entirely by ear is great, but in the real world with my real abilities, I find that learning to play each note slowly is part of the learning process that allows me to get a tune in my head, and on my accordion, to work out the best fingerings to get the notes (it is difficult to keep up by ear on an instrument whose mechanics still give you fits). I get the basics of a tune by listening, then drill on it at home slowly with sheet music for a few weeks, then roll it out at the session and polish it up based on ear. Not perfect, but it works for me.
I like the idea of slow down software, but am an old dog, and that is one new trick that eludes me.
And finally, we all learn in different ways, and the most important point is that too few people in this world learn that one of the most beautiful ways to enjoy music is to make it. So regardless of your abilities, how you learn, how you wish to learn, what is important is that people learn to make music and to enjoy making it!
Nice stuff, sharifiddles, imo. We need more *empiricism* on learning to learn by ear.
"...but I can't yet put my fingers in the right spot to match my voice first go." Imo, this is the skill we are trying to learn...sounds simple, but not always obvious; *and*, I would add, "where to put the fingers in the right spot" *at increasing speed* (and with the added considerations of producing the right rhythm, lift, etc. *but*, first things first, I say.
"Yet", "first go" "interval was on a semitone" all very definitive and pivotal in the learning-by-ear phase (whether slowed down or not)
Do you use increase in beats per minute to measure how you're going in terms of learning the sound to finger placement transposition?
Me thinks that not being able to hear extends to not not listening to what you read here:
"I've no trouble getting the right sequence of notes once I've learned a tune.... Ear training surely is about intervals and sequences"
"I get the basics of a tune by listening, then drill on it at home slowly with sheet music for a few weeks"
Don't be fooled into thinking that merely knowing the correct order of the notes gets you any where near actually being able to play them. Only a very small amount of ear training is about intervals and sequences. The phrasing and articulation is harder to learn than the correct order of the notes. And if you struggle with hearing the correct order of the notes, you will have no chance at all with the phrasing.
So what options when "one of the most important parts of learning by ear is hearing the detail and rhythm" (bogman) but "your ears are not trained well enough and you should be trying to sort that out" (llig) ?
Is slowing down one of them ? If not why not ? Is it just that there are better ways ? Or like dots for a beginner can it be considered harmful ?
(almost crossed with llig but not going to re-type)
"The phrasing and articulation is harder to learn than the correct order of the notes."
Maybe that's why people leave (if they do) learning that until after they learn the notes of the tune (by ear) (if they do).
"...And if you struggle with hearing the correct order of the notes..."
Most people do when they are learning, I would have thought.
Struggle and struggle on and you will improve, I think is what they say, or in other words, "practise".
Listen for the correct order of the notes in conjunction with the rhythms and articulations. Get it right in your head first. Leave your instrument alone until you have right it in your head. Then you can slow it down in your head and try it on the instrument.
One can't be too empirical on this, Michael, so don't worry about that! (if you are). You could be more *empirical* on "articulations" too, perhaps. Then we can all be more articulate on it.
It's weird cos it is the struggle that makes learning the fiddle so frustrating AND so worthwhile. Having taken it up at age 40 - there's the struggle with tone, intonation, even holding the bow, let alone getting it to hit the strings at the right angle and speed........and then of course articulation, rhythm and all that......I wish I had picked it up at 10 or 20 or 30.....cos I wonder if it comes together so slowly because I left it so late.......BUT....on those odd occasions when it all seems to come together and the sound that comes out of the vibrating box on my shoulder does match the music in head, heart and soul...what I've heard....and what's in me......it's a thrill like no almost no other.
"...cos I wonder if it comes together so slowly because I left it so late..."
Definitely, yes, I'd say - especially if learning by ear without any previous experience of doing so.
Having been through the same thing at a later age.
We all learn motor skills best at young ages, especially up to around 23 years old, I suspect. It's more difficult and slower as you get older, then we're trying to learn to learn by ear as well as the motor skill.
Ah, well, life wasn't meant to be easy, as someone famous said.
Have been misreading all this ? Surely at least some posts above were from people like me who slow it down to get it *into* their heads ? Whether or not the instrument is in hand at the time?
But you are not getting it, the tune, the way it goes, into your head if you slow it down. All you are getting is the order of the notes. You are ruining the rythmn the phrasing and the articulation
" you are ruining the rhythm the phrasing and the articulation"...
yes, but when you speed it up again it comes back, and then you can learn it. Can't you?
Michael, by the time I have decided to learn a tune I have heard it dozens of times at speed and have the overall melody, phrasing and rhythm roughly sorted out. Thats why I want to learnt it. But I am aware that there are places where something is happening for which I don't yet have structures in my head to automatically fit it into at that speed and I am just glossing over them. Slowing them down often allows them to get slotted into place. Sometimes 'being told the answer' is a valid way of learning to get it right next time.
No. I am not bad at learning to sing a simple melody line by ear, phrase by phrase. Usually I know the wrong notes straight away and am told that my intotation is OK once I have them. But stop me and ask if one note is higher or lower than the next and I will often get it wrong. Never had to do that when singing at primary school. Have to whistle it with my lips the hear the intervals. Ask me to name an interval and I will have to play it on the whistle and watch my fingers.
Notes hard, rhythm and phrasing still hard, but less so.
I'm not convinced you are right. Maybe you think the phrasing is easier than the order of the notes, but how do you know how well you are getting it?
It's a dificult thing to proove. The only thing I can cite in defence of my argument is that there are truck loads of players who have all the right notes in the right order, but whose playing stinks. Awful phrasing, timing etc. No joy to their music. Stilted ignorance. I'm not acusing you, I've not heard you.
But I don't think I've ever heard a really good player, someone whose rythmn, phrasing and articulation is a joy, have trouble with the order of the notes.
Yeah, I have amazing slowdowner. I don't use it much, I never use it to slow down stuff. It's useful for compressing files and converting from mp4 to mp3 etc. On the rare occasions I'm in a rush to learn a tune I usually just use the pitch shift - usually fro Ed to D and the repeat feature. It's useful to have the tune repeating over and over, if you are in a rush. (I've never tried speeding a tune up, but that might be useful is you really are in a hurry)
Michael, I am still at the 'adult beginner' stage on a melody instrument. Nothing I am doing is a joy to anyone other than me.
But, and you may doubt the relevance, I did in the past spent hundreds of hours playing bodhran at sessions. Listening very, very hard. To the rhythm and phrasing but not so much the pitch of the notes.
Well, I have an open mind, and you may well be the exception to the rule. At the very least, your hundreds of hours on the bloody drum wouldn't have been entirely wasted. And I applaud your decision to move on from it.
But, what you won't have been paying attention to with your drum is the articulation.
yes, you would learn more with the slowdowner than reading about it here. But you won't be able to play it unless you give it much more consistent listening not slowed down. As I said earlier, you can slow a roll down and work out how it's constructed, but that's of no help whatsoever if you can't hear its rhythm
A good recording for you would be Matt Molloy's Heathery Breeze, if you don't already have it. There is a very wide range of tempos on it, including some really really slow jigs. The articulation and phrasing is laid out with real clarity
I think slowdowner software or dpc is good for getting the gist of what's going on...but, since music is a temporal thing and exists "in time" you really need to hear it ultimately "up to speed"...that makes sense.
But as far as learning reels [in particular] at speed? Well, that seems silly to me unless you're very very talented and have spent many years woodshedding.
If that were the case then teachers of traditional music would teach all their classes at 110 or 120 bpm...I haven't met one yet who does that. For obvious reasons....
Well if,as i did last nigh tfor the first time, you take a tune and slow it down 20% it sounds fine, I was taught that the ornamentation should fit the pace of the tune. That a typical error was to play all ornaments at the same fast pace . so a slow tune would have slower ornaments like rolls. So when the tune is slowed down 20.30 % it sounds fine, just a bit slower.
I am sure there is a lot that I don't hear, but there are things I do hear and don't understand or want to know more about. Your example above was tap, not a roll, and I am well aware that it should be just as fast at any speed (and am surprised that it needs saying).
On experience of learning from slowing down (and looking at the audio trace) being better than words was when I spent some time listening to and studying this: http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_254_4_hornpipes/
which came up in an earlier discussion and sparked a side discussion on swing. At that playing speed I did not appreciate just how 'un-dotted' it was. Slowed down I could tap it out on the table top but wondered if it sounded like a hornpipe because it was one. But on closer examination the notes that seemed longer were slightly louder, and the apparently shorter ones were quieter with a less pronounced attack.
This discussion is already very lengthy and I've just browsed through it. So, please forgive me if these following points have been mentioned already.
Full Speed.
What do you mean by that? This will surely vary from session to session and recording to recording. So, while I might well be able to pick up a reel or jig etc from a "steady"(my description) player it might not be so easy if it's some young whizz kid.
I'm not criticising fast young players (at least not for the purposes of this discussion) but not everyone will be either able to (or necessarily want to) emulate every player they hear. At least, not straight away.
Real life "Slowdowners"
As Will has already mentioned, experienced players will often teach a tune by breaking it up into phrases and slowing it down a little. This happens in sessions too although, mostly, it is expected that the recipient of this very brief "lesson" will already have "a good ear" and pick it up very quickly.
Use of Slowdowner/Transcribe etc
The implication here seems to be that persons who use these aid are learning and playing tunes at a much slower speed than they are normally heard. Although a few beginners may do this or even experienced players might slow a tune down a fair bit just to "catch a note" on certain occasions, many people(including myself) will also just slow the recording down slightly. That's often all it needs. On many occasions, this might even be the same speed as it actually gets played in some sessions!
However, it doesn't take long to get up to speed and I will reset the recording to the "normal"(whatever that is) speed as soon as possible.
To sum up, I don't see what the problem is with using aids such as Slowdowner or even the "dots" . It's HOW they are used which is important.
DD, Actually I just downloaded a program called 12 keys last night to try as I have never used a slow downer before, that was my first try. I think its a great idea.
To suggest that beginners should try and learn tunes by ear , at full pace, is to my mind ridiculous. When I learnt tunes by ear, it was person to person, bar by bar. now many decades later I can sit in sessions and pick up tunes by ear, thats because I spent all my life at it. I can a do this not because I can pick up everything that is done, but because I can filter out enough to get the basic tune.
30 years ago, I learned some tunes one-on-one with a mentor who played them slowly, phrase by phrase. But the phrasing and articulations had the right feel to them (as opposed to how they sound with slow-down software). At the same time, I was learning tunes off the radio--Thistle and Shamrock. I didn't have any way to record the program, so I'd sit with my fiddle, listen once, then suss out the tune.
Yes, this included reels, at full speed, as Fiona played the then popular Bothy Band and DeDanann albums.
I also learned tunes like this at my local session.
I think that experience was crucial. It taught me to listen to the music ***as it really sounds.***
The first time I heard a tune slowed down by software, it sounded totally alien. I couldn't recognize the articulations I was so familiar with. It was all mush. To make sense of it, I had to practice listening at 20% or 50% (going over the same phrase at 100%) to learn to recognize the bits I could hear just fine at full speed.
Personally, I find an ear trained in real time is more useful than an ear trained at artificially slower tempos.
Nobody has stated what "full speed" is yet. I've also had another look since Michael scolded me.
I believe that the "metronome speed" for a fast reel is around 120 but the actual speed obviously varies from player to player, session to session, recording to recording.
However, are we rather talking about "full speed" in terms of the actual speed it was originally played, i.e before the attempts to slow it down rather than an actual number of beats per minute?
30 years ago, Will. So that made you age....? (It's a rhetorical question.) But you were young presumably, and even then it took some time to develop the listening skills?
I think a lot of people who have started later will find the same job a lot slower. Maybe you would too?
My personal mantra is, 'trust my ears.'
I am convinced anyone is capable of discerning note intervals & note order. However. there is more to getting the tune in your head.
Bear with me, as I set rhythm & phrasing aside, for the moment. I know these are important. But, am curious about articulation . . .
I am not certain what my problem is with hearing articulation. I have not yet tried a slow - downer. My articulation disorder seems most acute when I am learning from a fiddle recording. With a flute recording the articulation is more distinct for my ear. I suppose it will just take time.
But I don't think age matters as much as conventional wisdom says. If you approach anything with an open, "beginner's" mind, even old dogs can learn new tricks quickly. And recent neuro-research shows that our brains can form new synapses rapidly at any age.
Besides, it felt like hard work and a slow slog when I was a sub-adult. The concentration of picking up tunes at speed wore me right out. And I got better because of it. Yes, it can be hard work. The best things in life are rarely easy.
"old dogs can learn new tricks quickly".
Absolutely, but probably not as quick as young dogs.
Trouble is, if you learned something as a young dog, I think we tend to forget, or maybe don't even know what the difference is for an old dog - or an older dog, I should say, not to be ageist!
I learned a motor skill ery quickly when I was in my teens and can still perform at the same or even better level now, more than 30 years later. It wouldn't be anywhere near so easy or quick to pick it up to that level at my age now, and even if I could pick it up that quickly, while I practise to improve over the next ensuing years - I'm getting older at the same time for chrissakes! Ya just can't win. Ah well, I'm glad I have an interesting hobby while I age - gracefully. Hopefully..
I'll continue to respectfully disagree, Dubh. I learned to juggle when I was a teenage. Took me two days to finally be able to keep three balls in the air. (Ended up being able to do 7, but that was years of hard work.) I've taught 50 yearolds to juggle 3 balls in 15 minutes.
<<Ionannas, do you think it's ridiculous for a beginner to play an air or waltz at full speed?>>
Depends on the tune. many airs as fiddle tunes have a lot happening, I find them the hardest to get actually. Waltzes?Why would anyone want to learn a waltz?
Yes of course the goal is to be able to pick up tunes at pace.
But at 80% the tunes can sound normal. It all depends on who you are slowing down. Martin Hayes or Frankie Gavin? Some reel fast players, at 80% sound ok.
If there is a particular bar that you cant suss at 80 then go on down...Whatever works for you.
I will try & redirect my post. Perhaps I might be able to locate a recording (YouTube,SoundLantern . . . ) of a few tunes with flute & fiddle duet. I am having difficulties getting the ornamentation from fiddle (recording) alone.
I have flute mentors. Would be nice to find a fiddle mentor with a good ear for flute articulation. Will I just have to learn fiddle before I can hear what the instrument is doing?
Cheers!
Bogman, sorry for the delay...
Slides and polkas are relatively easy to pick up? Oh dear. How wrong you are. The worst examples of terrible playing are usually made by people who believe this. The phrasing, ornamentation and drive of these types of tunes are some of the most elusive elements of the music. Just because they get played very, very badly by inexperienced musicians, it doesn't mean that they're easy to pick up. You can learn the notes, sure, but play them? Not easy, at all.
In reference to waltzes and marches, yeah sure, there are fewer bpm in these than in reels and jigs. That doesn't mean they're slower in the sense I intended. A sparsely played tune has fewer notes, ornaments, percussive elements etc. than a tune played in a highly ornate style. Think of Matt Molloy, for example. Even when he plays slowly he plays fast. If you don't know what I mean, I'll try to explain it better, but I guess you'll have an idea. I still think that what you've said about these tunes being 'slower' is largely irrelevant: learning how to play a waltz has little directly to do with learning how to play a reel, and learning how to play a reel at high speed doesn't necessarily allow you to groove the same reel at half the speed, right?
I' m quite aware of that Robert. So you think slowing down slides and polkas is a good way to learn the ornamentation and drive of these tunes. Good luck to you.
I don't think that you can learn the drive of any type of tune from a slowed-down recording and I didn't write that, did I? If you're going to post discussions at least have the decency to pay attention to what other people post in response.
Also, you can't expect me to know what it is 'that' you're aware of without some explanation - the post I responded to showed that you are clearly lacking awareness of any of the points I made above: you argued the opposite.
I'm happy to continue this discussion, but only if you're aware that what you're doing is simply arguing; it's not the same thing.
With all due respect to bogman & Robert I have tried my best to grasp each perspective.
If this helps either of you (& us) I am focusing of these 2 sets of comments.
The 1st is by bogman ~ Robert, I do have to take issue with this.... ". . . Speed of tunes is a matter of taste, as is the method of learning them. " . . . Slides and polkas are sparse and relatively easy to pick up. Many players play jigs at a lovely relaxed pace. Surely that would be a good place for anyone wishing to improve their ears to start learning at full speed? It's only a small step to learn slow jigs at full tempo to learning faster jigs at full tempo. OK, reels will take longer but Rome wasn't built in a day. (the above is bogman)
A later response was given by Robert ~
The phrasing, ornamentation and drive of these types of tunes (slides and polkas) are some of the most elusive elements of the music. . . You can learn the notes, sure, but play them? Not easy, at all. (the above is from Robert)
Again with all respect to members & the music I copy & paste each of these because I feel there is merit (though obscured) in each viewpoint. Now I am going to take a few deep breathes.
"It would be good if this discussion was about the merits or drawbacks of the software . . . '
Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Soon I am off to session. I considered beginning a related discussion. I won't. I think it only fair of me to mention my experience. In the past I purchased a Superscope PSD 230 CD player for reducing the tempo . . . etc. It may be just a machine, but so is my laptop. I wouldn't be here without my Dell nspirion B130. & yes I am deluding myself in thinking it helps my playing.
For anyone interested in the merits of slow - down hardware here is a brief write - up; http://www.superscope-marantzpro.com/applications/musicians/kynchokaine.shtml
Now, I am off to session. Cheers!
In learning things, it is best to break them down into pieces. Learn a tune phrase by phrase, learn an ornament by repeating it, play the tune slowly, play it fast, try fingering it one way on your accordion, and then another. And that is where dots and slow down programs fit. Nothing wrong with being part of a balanced program of learning tunes, and learning your instruments. But llig's point is that those who depend exclusively on crutches, only end up learning the order of the notes, and lose so much in the process. Somewhere in the middle is probably the right answer.
The other day, someone wanted to accompany Haste to the Wedding, so I played it on my whistle. I had accompanied it myself many times, and danced to it (what is that dance that goes with it, Seige of Ennis maybe?). But never played the melody. It was ragged at first, but by the end I was doing OK. That was the first time I had ever played a tune that I hadn't deliberately learned, so I imagine I have made some progress in my playing over the past few years.....
<<Dale Russ is one of the greatest fiddlers I know in Irish traditional music >>.. Martin Hayes.
<<There was Paddy on one side and Brendan McGlinchey on the other, so I took those from the cassette player and put them on reel to reel and slowed them down to half speed. >> Dale Russ
Slow down or not slow down?
Slow down or not slow down?
OK, here's a funny one. During the many dot v ear discussions it is clear there are people who will only learn by ear, which is fine, and there are those who read and learn by ear, also fine, and those who learn by dot only, which almost unheard of with people brought up with traditional music.
Then you get folk who learn by ear but use slowing down software. Please can someone justify what thats all about? Surely the main benefits of learning tunes by ear are, if not wasted, then seriously lessened by slowing down the music. If it's just to learn the basic notes of the tune then the same info is on paper. One of the most important parts of learning by ear is hearing the detail and rhythm.
Surely if you can't learn reels etc at full speed then you should practice learning slower tunes by ear first until you are up to speed. The daftest thing is folk that are totally anti dot but at the same time use slowing down software. Surely slowing down the tune to learn by ear is only kidding yourself.
It would be good if this discussion was about the merits or drawbacks of the software rather than a dots v ear thing, though I won't hold my breath.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I probably can't add to the debate, bogman. Except to say that I completely agree with you.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Are you bitter, Bogman? Or jealous? I use ASD a lot. It's like a workshop whenever I want it. If I want to listen to an ornament that I can't figure out at speed I can slow it down and pick up the detail. I also get to play along with musicians who normally I couldn't keep up with when I'm learning the tune. It sure beats slowing down the turntable, which is what Seamus Connolly used to do. But you're right, he was probably kidding himself, thinking he'd ever be good.
Haven't you ever asked a friend to slow it down a bit so you can get a note or two you're missing? That's what the Slowdowner is all about. Of course not everybody is as gifted as you are so for those of us who lack your developed ear we have dots, slow-downers, and other learning aids that are beneath you.
As you said: -- Surely slowing down the tune to learn by ear is only kidding yourself.-- I'm only kidding myself. Don't take me seriously.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by cocus
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
One of the merits of modern slow-down software is that it does not lose the detail and the rythm. It gets very close to what you might hear if your teacher said "now I will play this tune slowly so you can pick it up". Which bogman's teacher never did, I suppose.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by sixholes
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Hmmm...I'm beginning to get a sense of snobbery here. Personally, I wouldn't spend the money for slow-down software, but that's just me. I think that whatever tecnique one uses to learn the tunes shouldn't matter as much as playing the music and keeping it alive - like carrying the torch for generations to come.
The music circle I ran around in back in the states was quite a mix of genres, but the stricty old-time only music jam held the third Sunday of every month at a micro-brewery downtown was the most fun. Why? Because despite the intolerance for any other kind of music other than old time, newbies were warmly welcomed and encouraged. I found that to be a very good thing - as opposed to those kinds of jams/sessions where a circle of musical snobs gets tighter and tighter - clearly symbolizing that no one else was worthy to join the Holy Circle.
American old time music is one of those wonderful traditional genres that must be passed down to the younger generation in order for it to survive. The moderator of this jam would play through a tune twice at a slower speed for the newbies to catch on - then they'd blast away at full speed. Thanks to this welcoming attitude and willingness to open the circle, several new, young and excellent musicians will now able to continue carrying the torch.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Quarter Irish
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Bitter or jealous of what?
"Learning aids that are beneath you" I didn't say it's beneath me, but I don't think it's beneficial and when I learn tunes by ear I would sooner play a section 10 times than slow it down. At least that way I can hear how it's being played.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Funny that any time people have their way of learning tunes questioned they play the snobbery card.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Sometimes the music is not available, only the recording. You might not know the name and just want to learn the tune. So tell me Bogman and Benhall, if it is easier to listen to a tune slowly to start with just to get the notes, where's the harm in that? It' so much easier, otherwise you have to play to tune back again and again until you get it. The detail and rhythm will follow afterwards when listening at normal speed. It's just a stepping stone to get there quicker. Incidentally, you don't choose where you're brought up and if you haven’t had the good fortune to grow up in a traditional Irish music playing environment and want to join in the fun and play with others, particularly when your getting on in years, anything you can do to speed things up is a good idea don't you think?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Sandy Holdom
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"Bitter"? "Jealous"? "Snobbery"?
Crumbs!
Last time I got involved in this debate (around two years ago) I tried to argue - sensibly, I thought, based on the wide differences between getting a teacher to 'play something slower' and slowing something down using 'slowdown software'.
But people who do use this software got really REALLY upset.
Looks to me like it's happening again. Already. Why do people who rely on these various crutches get so defensive?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Sorry, Sandy, that wasn't aimed at you. Debate's fine. I could try to give the answers I gave last time round. But I doubt it'll help.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
IMHO if you can not learn a tune at normal speed by ear then you are not ready for that tune. Unless of course you are learning to learn by ear and in which case learning slower tunes to train your ear is a better idea.
Sandy, I don't think speeding things up with artificial aids is a great idea. The best way to speed things up is to play more. I don't believe shortcuts are the way forward with trad.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Unless, of course you are perfectly capable of learning at normal speed but need to learn a tune in a hurry for some reason. Similar to dots really
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
If you play everything slow that can be limiting.
If you play everything fast that can be limiting.
I hear players who have difficulty getting up to speed.
I hear players who are able to play quite fast but would struggle if they try to drop the speed even by a few bpm.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I'm confused at the endless debate about the "best" way to learn a tune. It seems to me that the proof is in the playing. If we're playing together, and I'm playing badly, it doesn't really matter if it's because I learned from dots and have no nyah, I learned from a tune slowed down by computer and can't figure out everyone else is playing more quickly, or I was too stubborn to slow the tune down to learn it, and therefore am mangling all the fun bits. I need to be able to listen to what's going on around me and adapt. If I can't do that, I need to step back until I can.
Having said that, I do need to weigh in. I use Audacity to slow tunes down, and, for me, it's been extremely helpful. I don't slow them down to bog speed, but 20-25% slower is a huge help. The inflection is there, and the ornaments are there. When I've got that, I'll redo it at 10% slower, then work up to full speed. I guess the other option would be to figure out the ornaments, then practice them without the recording until I'm up to full speed. But this way I get extra practice at listening to what I'm hearing and getting that sound to come out of my fiddle. I find it's a great tool for me, YMMV.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by aikifiddler
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
First of all, I do do a lot of practice. I am giving a concert with a group of children to older folk next month. I have a lot of tunes to learn quickly and I can assure you that slowing them down is much much quicker for me to get the notes first and then get the feel by listening and playing at speed. You say you don't think speeding things up with artificial aids is a great idea but you don't say why. What is it you feel is artificial? If a computer is artificial then so is a CD. You also say that you don't believe shortcuts are the way forward with trad. but again you don't say why. Perhaps you could explain.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Sandy Holdom
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Slowing down tunes is one way of learning.
There's nothing inherently wrong with slowing down tunes.
If you're only able to learn one way, then it's a crutch and limiting. Why not learn music in as many different ways possible? Being flexible and creative with the way you learn can only improve your musicianship.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by iTrad
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"Surely slowing down the tune to learn by ear is only kidding yourself."
Slowing down tunes is nothing new. When a teacher teaches you a tune, do they belt straight into it at full speed? Slowing down software is no a substitute for a teacher, by any means, but in the absence of someone who can play the tune slowly for you, it's a help.
Listening to tunes slowed down, whether naturally or artificially, allows you to acquire the basic skill of transferring what you hear to your instrument. The more you do it, the easier it comes and the quicker you get at it. Before you know it, you hear a tune in a session, at session speed, and you're playing it the next week. Where's the problem?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
The reason I don't think speeding up the learning of a tune or taking shortcuts is a good idea is because things get missed. Would you speed up reading a book or use slow down software to learn a language?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
bogman, have you learned tunes, in the past, at a slower tempo but no longer do. In other words; all your tunes are learned & played 'at speed'?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Any teacher who ever taught me a tune by ear slowed it down and broke it up, repeated sections.
I dont see the difference in this and slowing down using a program.
Only some kind of musical genius could just pick up a tune played only at full speed (especially reels!) or mybe i am wrong.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by richrua
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Again, you don't say what's getting missed. I think you're loosing the argument.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Sandy Holdom
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
A teacher is a human not a machine. And of course people learn reels at full speed - slow down software has not been around that long.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
By the way, I actually find it easier picking up tunes when they are played at a 'reasonable' pace (i.e. at a speed that they could reasonably be played at in a session, but not excessively fast). When I hear tunes played very slowly, I find it hard to hear the structure of the tune.
But each to his/her own.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Sandy I did say what's being missed - right at the beginning - the detail and rhythm. I don't think you have an arguement
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I use it very rarely, but sometimes there are tunes that are just really difficult. Little Cascades springs to mind.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"slow down software has not been around that long. "
Yes, but has several of us have already said, people *have* been around a long time, and they have always played tunes slowly on request, for others to learn.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
bogman - suffice to say people learn at different speeds and with different skill levels. When I first started learning tunes, it was very difficult for me to hear the complete phrases at speed. Over the years, my ears and my understanding of the music has gotten better, so I can now pick up tunes at speed. I get your point, but I don't see what the fuss is all about. To each their own. Bottom line is - you can either play in a session or you can't yet. How people get there (dots, ears, slow, fast, combination of all schools) neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Oh - and I dotn use it for the whole tune - just if there is that little part I just cant get. I maybe use it once every couple of years. But I dont see the harm in people using it all the time if thats what they feel comfortable with. Its better than learning by dots.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"...I did say what's being missed ... the detail and rhythm."
Rhythm, I accept. But someone who learns the notes of a tune at slow speed will surely, at some point, hear the tune played at full speed, and thence pick up the rhythmic nuances.
Can you explain what you mean by 'detail', Bogman? Surely you miss *detail* when the tune is played fast - that's the whole point of slowing it down. I agree that there are aspects of the music which are lost, or obscured, when it is played too slowly - as there are when it is played too fast. It woul;d be good if you could elucidate a little.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I am all for learning tunes any way you can when you know the music, including dots. What I don't get if folk who say they only learn by ear but use slow down software and at the same time slag dot readers. The only way to benefit from learning by ear is at a decent speed and not by a machine that slows down all the ornaments and phrasing.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I think richrua put his finger on something when he said:
"Only some kind of musical genius could just pick up a tune played only at full speed (especially reels!) or mybe i am wrong."
... 'cos that smacks of defeatism to me. I'm no kind of genius at all, but I often pick up new tunes. At speed. Not always the first time I hear it - some of them are difficult. Mostly I learn from real live people, in sessions and stuff. When I learn stuff from CDs, which is rare, well, I just don't see the need for slowing them down. You just play what's on the CD.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Change pitch or not change pitch?
we've been passing around an entire CD re-tuned to session-friendly keys. Is that worse than just slowing tunes down?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by airport
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Jeez Ben, you were right, this ones off like a hare. I can't keep up with the questions. I better watch telly for a while and see how it develops
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
It's your baby.
;)
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Bogman - this is not the first time I have wondered what the heck you are on about. I mean really. Bad session.orgers- how dare you try to learn the tunes by ear like that - there is only one right way - so bogman says. We must stick to it!
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I got the ASD - I think it works really well.
Its the only piece of software I've ever paid for!
I don't use it often though.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Modern musical instruments are machines and they haven’t been around long either but have evolved over thousands of years. So are aids to learning. If you don't like technology why don’t you just stick to singing? It seems to me you wish to live in the past. I really can't understand where you’re coming from as you haven’t given me any reason to. The detail and rhythm obviously is different when slowed down, but later played at the correct speed it returns to what it was . I give up this discussion but not practicing.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Sandy Holdom
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
<,You just play what's on the CD.>>
That surely depends on who you are learning from? Whatever you play will only be an approximation. its humanly impossible to copy exactly. Especially if there is a number of different instruments.
However say its just a solo fiddler, playing a simple tune; Were you able to copy Frankie Gavin, at pace, then you would have to be at 'least' as good as him, stands to reason. I know thats not the case, so all you can do is approximate.
So I dont see a problem with SDSW, it seems that if you dont need it, you dont use it. If you need it, you use it.....
If anyone reckons they can capture note for note a pipe solo by say , John Burgess, then they would need to be as good as him, If not bette; not happening.
However if you were to slow down a tune, get the bits and work on them for a few years then it is possible that they could eventually play something similar.
I have never used slow down software... however i have just downloaded a program to give it a try.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
speaking as a classical guitarist, and an ITM banjo player.
dots is good for classical; lots of notes at once, positioning info written down. you aren't going to pick all this up from just listening, fast or slow.
i learn banjo by ear, there is usually only one note at once so its easy to hear.
also the dots never reflect the spirit of a piece, all those ornaments and weird triplets....if you wrote them down the stave would be a mess.. .. but we can all hear them.
i have deliberately chosen an untechnical approach to the banjo after years of playing and learning classical guitar and the theory with it.
hey! irish music is supposed to be fun, throw those dots in the trash!
finally
if i learned by ear without these cheat slow down tools, i would still be learning the kesh jig.
as it happens, using the fantastic tool "Transcribe!"
i have learned about 80 tunes since starting the banjo
a year ago. and, yes, people tell me i'm quite good.
bogman
i see from your bio that you are the same age as me.....but you have been playing trad since you were a kid. you're very lucky. i have been doing this for a short time and i'm playing catchup- but loving every minute of it.
i dont see why your learning method matters.
the proof if in the pudding.
let me pose a question,
if i put 3 players in front of you,
one who learnt from dots
one who learnt by ear at full speed
one who learnt by ear using a w*nky slow downer.
who could tell the difference?
or who would care?
its all it the playing, not the learnng method.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by martin luthier schlong
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I can justify it to you, no problem: it makes it easier to learn a tune from a CD. Very, very simple.
Bogman, what are you on about? There's no such thing as a 'slower tune'.
Slower than what? Speed of tunes is a matter of taste, as is the method of learning them. Most people with an ear for music pick up tunes at sessions over time, but it's not the same thing as wanting to learn a particular tune that has taken your fancy.
It seems strange that you should take what appears to be offence at an individual's preferred method of learning from a particular source. If, when I'm listening to a CD, I hear a tune that I would like to learn, I'm unlikely to wait until the next session, ask people to play it at full speed, then hope that I'm going to remember it. That's stupid, no? It's a lot easier to just learn it by listening to the CD right? If the tune happens to be played on, for example, an Eb fiddle, it's easier for me to bend the pitch than to tune up, or to transpose as I'm learning. If the tune is played quite fast, which most dance music is, it's also easier to slow the track to 80-85% or so. That way I can learn the tune without forcing myself through a difficult process simply for the sake of deluding myself into thinking that I'm somehow more talented or gifted if I make life harder for myself.
I could find a written source for the tune, and learn it that way, and I am experienced enough to learn properly from sheet music. I just choose not to because it's boring to me, and because if I have an aural source that I want to learn from I will learn from that. If I want to learn one player's version, I'll learn that, and I'll make it a bit easier for myself by slowing it down a bit. What on earth is wrong with that?
Ideally I'd get Frankie Gavin over to mine for a few tunes and a cup of tea, and I'd get him to teach me the tunes I like from his albums, but I'm a busy man, and he has terrible taste in jumpers, so I won't be inviting him. I'll just slow him down a little bit on my CD player and make life easier for myself.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Not that Frankie Gavin's ever played obscure tunes at really high speed on an Eb fiddle on any of his CDs.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
It's of great importance to realise that when you use your slow down software, the biggest difference between that and getting someone to play slower is that the machine will slow down all the articulations too. A person will play the tunes slower but retain the rhythm in the articulation.
A tap is a tap etc. When it's slowed down, it sounds like you are playing the note on and off. It's very important never to listen to a tap like that. But people do and it makes me cringe.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
And Ionannass is wrong with: " if you are able to copy Frankie Gavin, at pace, then you would have to be at 'least' as good as him."
No, I think it's important to be able to copy what a musician is doing. It gives you an understanding of why (how is not important), but it doesn't make you as good as them, that's ridiculous. With some technical skill and some study you can copy very accurately a John Constable painting, but no-one would argue that that makes you as good a painter. It's a hell of a lot easier to copy a Mondrian, Does that make you as good as Mondrian?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
The best way to learn this music (Michael Coleman himself told me this) is in person, face to face, with one playing a tune slowly, phrase by phrase, until the other gets it. Then you gradually pick up the pace and tinker with possible articulations.
That's the true and authentic way to get the truckly-how. Seamus Ennis and John Doherty told me the same just last week over rashers and sausages and black pudding.
Second best is to listen to the music however you can get it into your head. These days, that includes recordings. It helps to understand that you're hearing a static snapshot of the music, and that commercial recordings often include stuff you won't likely hear in a session.
NEWS FLASH! This just in! Scully Casey (Bobby's Da, RIP) says that Windows Media Player has a slow down function. No need to buy expensive (or cheap) add-on software!
Hup!
A tip now from Paddy Killoran: "Slowing down a recording to pick up the melody is fine. Just be aware that the rolls and triplets won't sound like they do at tempo. If you get too used to hearing them slow, your ear may play tricks on you at speed, even warping the timing of your own playing."
And now a word from our sponsors.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Mondrian? Heck I'd go for Duchamp (that's the urinal guy right?)
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by airport
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Heh, cross posting with llig. If you don't like his advice, you can take it from Paddy Killoran....
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Every time I paint a room in my house, I imitate Jackson Pollock.....
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
The issue that you're highlighting Michael seems to me to be identical to the objection many have to the use of sheet music as a learning aid. If you can't hear what the music should sound like in your head, you're not going to learn it from sheet music. If you're going to copy slowed down ornaments and play them the way they sound when they're slowed on a piece of software, then you're probably not experienced enough to learn by either method.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
that's impressive Will - when do you get to the walls?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by airport
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
You should see the ceiling....
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I'm pretty sure you've written similar stuff yourself anyway.
It's just a matter of whether people are experienced enough to learn from sources other than other experienced musicians.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
It's a bit sad that people are reduced by circumstances or ignorance (or fear or laziness) to learning ***how to play*** this music from machines.
I want my music to be informed by real people, with personalities and stories and humor and sadness and generosity.
At the risk of championing the obvious, it's important to learn how to play music from another human being. I's one thing to suss out some tunes from recordings, but first immerse yourself in the insights and understanding of a mentor. And even then, you're better off learning tunes from living and breathing people.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I was gonna mention Pollock, but he was a very skilled draftsman. Hidden within his apparent chaos there is a lot of order and choice. It's very very difficult to copy Pollock. John Constable is surprisingly easier.
But thinking on it, Pollock is a good metaphor for some of the more dense of this music by, for example, Matt Molloy. Every corner of it filled with stuff. If you are not familiar with the music it really does just sound like a brick wall of embattled paint splashes. It takes some listening to appreciate it for what it is.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Will, I'm not learning from a machine when I pick up a tune from a CD. I'm learning from my own experience. I'm going to play the tune like I play, not like anyone else, regardless of whether I'm picking it up in person or from a recording.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Living breathing people? like Michael Coleman?... have you been drinking?
Llig says that its possible to be able to copy a masterpiece , yet not be as good as the master? Do explain.... That makes no sense to me. if you can do what a master does, or did, then yes you have to be as good as him. You say you copy exactly, I dont believe you. I think your exaggerating.
You think there is some intangible 'added value' to a painting by a master that is not present in an exact copy? which as we know is impossible anyhow.
What happens with fakes then Michael? a good fake passed on as the work of a master, and accepted as such by Christie's [ sp?]and Sotheby's? Is that artist not as good as the artist who's style was copied?
Back to music. If you can play note for note a piece of music by Frankie, then yes IMO You are every bit as good as him. How coulkd it be otherwise? Explain please.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
The difference is that the artist creates something from within his mind, and the forger copies what he creates. It's rather clear to me. One is an act of creation, and the other is simply mechanics.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Robert, I agree. But your own experience is shaped in large part by learning *how to play* the music from other people, eh?
I'm not saying "don't learn tunes from recordings." I'm saying first learn how to play the music from a person, in person.
And even then, learning tunes directly from other people is still better than picking them off cds. Recognize cds as second best.
Just my brain talking.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
x-posted. But ooooh. Good answer on the create vs. copy debate.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Yep Robert. I don't see what's not to get?
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
x-posted. good abreviation will
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Nick Splease
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I totally agree. It all boils down to whether you can play the music or not.
# Posted on October 20th 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I think I've said it before somewhere on this website, but it's worth repeating. I remember after first picking up a fiddle, saying to myself, "when I can play toss the feathers like Kevin Burke, I'll be able to say to myself that I can play the fiddle." The thing was though, when I could play toss the feathers like Kevin Burke, it was blindingly obvious that I still couldn't really play the fiddle at all. All I could really do was play the fiddle like Kevin Burke. Kind of epiphany moment, very important.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
When I was a kid I thought I was learning tunes from an old Tommy Peoples record, but I was actually mistaken. I was just imitating what I heard. When I came to play the tunes at sessions they'd fall apart because I didn't know the tune, I just knew Tommy Peoples' version. When I heard people playing differently I couldn't accommodate the differences. Now that I know a bit more about the music I can learn the tune from a recording, rather than just copying somebody else's variations, ornaments etc.
I think that might be the objection some people have to this form of learning, but obviously that's only relevant as you're learning how to play the music, rather than learning how to play a particular tune.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I am a bit tipsy... just a warning...
This is sort of one of those things I get a wee bit heated up about. You know, I wish I was living under the sort of circumstances that people would teach me tunes and slow down difficult phrases, etc. etc. all the time. That would be fecking brilliant. I agree with Will and whoever else said that that is the best way to learn tunes. Cheers. I'll just ring up Paddy Keenan and see if he'll come around and show me a few tunes. Aye, right.
Some of us are lucky and grow up around the music and spend a lifetime around amazing teachers who can show how it's done. I envy all of you. However, some of us, myself included, would be SOL if it wasn't for slow-down software. I'd have never even gotten as pathetically not far as I *have* on the pipes if stuck with the resources I would have had otherwise -- full-speed CDs and sheet music. I'm sorry, I can't hear every note, every ornament at full speed in every tune (sure, I can pick up the p*ss easy ones sort on the the fly but that's a minute percentage of tunes and I've only slowly learned to do it). I wish I could, really; I'd be like the fella in Oh Brother Where Art Thou and sell my soul to whomever to be able to do that. I think the great pipers, Ennis, Clancy, Keenan, whoever, had teachers who played phrases and ornaments at slower speeds whilst they were learning.
So fair enough, the old boys didn't have or need slow down software to learn the music but then they grew up immersed in it. If you're from freakin' Colorado (and don't have the greatest ear in the world to boot), you do what you can to learn and if that's resorting to contrived slow down software because your other choice is sheet music, you take the lesser of two evils.
I am aware that the slow downer distorts the timing of ornaments, but it gives me the chance to hear what the notes are in a way that a full speed recording or session does not. The real life session in any case does not go over that phrase you're not sure you picked up right, whereas my buddy Amazing Slow Downer does and meanwhile it doesn't roll its eyes at you in despair when you're struggling to figure out a dodgy interval, so less stressful than a workshop! If you listen to enough music in "real time" you should know how the ornament sound and compensate for ASD's failings.
Um, so if anyone wants to teach me tunes in real life, drop me a line. In the meantime, be aware that some of us are faced with a fairly limited choice, lacking in certain resources and therefore compelled to choose less-than-perfectly-ideal manner of learning tunes and the music.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
That's a classic post, Robert, and it should be somehow writ large above every session, or something. You've summed up much of what is discussed here on a daily basis.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Nick Splease
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Yes, interesting, with my playing it was obvious for years which record I had learned certain tunes from. I'm glad to say that's not the case now. But it's all interconnected isn't it. You have to learn tunes off people, and you do, and you have to assimilate not just styles, but masters' personal interpretations. There is no specific point where learning to pay a particular tune can or should be distinguishable from learning to play the music, or even learning to play a particular player's setting of one particular tune.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I've learned a couple of bluegrass tunes on fiddle by reading transcriptions (dots) of recordings that were created by someone using a slowdown device. That's probably a new low you haven't considered yet
The thing I remember most from the experience is that the suggested bowings really sucked. They were completely unusable and certainly wouldn't have matched up to the recording if used up to tempo. It's yet another area for someone to screw up when translating. There's no substitute to listening and learning the fundamentals.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by monkey440
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
By no means have I reached a point where I feel that I am no longer learning the music, certainly, and every new tune adds to one's knowledge of the music, yes. There is definitely no definitive and absolute division between what constitutes the tune, the style, the degree of personal interpretation, etc. but there is enough of a diffference to be discernible to whose experience of the music is sufficient. I think that's the difference between being able to learn a particular tune, and learning a particular version or personal interpretation. It is all connected, but it's not so indistinct that we can't perceive the differences between these constituents.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
As usual - I am with you 100% SS. I do not live in Ireland - and have not the luxury of being surrounded by masses of musicians. In fact at the moment we have 3 (two on at the same time) sessions a week - that's in a population of 5 million people. So trad is a little thin on the ground. Sorry Will - but as much as I like the idea of learning off other musicians. If I relied on that - I'd learn about 4 tunes a year. I have to learn off CDs -we just don't get people coming over here to teach or do workshops. Apparently they make far more money in the USA - so that is where they all go.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by shoddy fiddle player
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I AM a beginner, so the debate about how you best should learn tunes when you are a good player is way out of my league.
But I will say that as a beginner I've found slow downing software has been an aid rather than a crutch to my learning....and keeps me hanging in there when my slow progress as an adult might normally have led me to give up.
My teacher was away for five months, and so I used Amazing Slow Downer to try learn some new tunes myself during her absence.
My ear is getting there - but I'd describe my ear to fiddle 'literacy' as maybe first or second grade level. I'm out of kindergarten, but I've got years of music ahead of me before I go off to musician high school or college and can just hear and then play.
I don't yet automatically identify the right intervals - I'm missing a couple of letters of the musical alphabet - and my teacher has been invaluable for hearing and correcting the 5-10% I take the wrong guesses at. I generally learn a new tune a fortnight - the first week going through phrase by phrase slowly. I go away and practice and come back the next week, and have generally practiced in small errors that we spend the next week undoing, and getting right, and from then on it's building things up to speed - imbedding them in my fingers and brain.
So with my teacher away I used ASD to the extreme. Slowing a couple of tunes down off Maeve Donnelly's CD to 10% on occasions to try hear every single note and sometimes having to play almost every note in a scale to find that one note in a run I could hear I was missing. (Invariably it was steps of just a semitone I was missing).
Once I had the notes of the tunes - I used the ASD to come up to the speed I'm capable of (which is approximately 85% at the moment). Playing at 50% at first, then slowly increasing it once I had the notes and now only had to worry about my bowing.
When my teacher came back she was delighted - because I'd accidentally tackled two much harder tunes than the tunes she'd been teaching me - (we have only been doing lessons by ear) - and although I am still slow - she not only recognised the tunes, she could play along, because I have the right rhythm and notes. NOW she's making me tackle ornaments.
So for me - it was 1000% better than trying to teach myself something off the dots, and though not as fast or efficient as learning directly from a teacher - did give me two new tunes and an amazing sense of achievement. These two tunes I do play slowly - but I am playing them with the right notes and right rhythm even while I still struggle to ensure I'm not bowing inadvertent double stops and to keep my wrist loose etc.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have had the interest or opportunity to learn their instrument of choice as a child or in their teens. I started to play fiddle at 40 - and I do know I'm not ever going to be fantastic - but hold hope that by 50 I'll be able to play in sessions, and not irritate distract or annoy other people....and maybe by 80 be able to convince people I've been playing all my life. And tools like the slow downer really help.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by ShariFiddles
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
And the USA is BIG! A festival in North Carolina means f* all if you live in Colorado. I don't even think festivals are the end-all-be-all for those of us serious about the music. Five or six tutorials in a class of 6-10 other people in Miltown Malbay for a week once a year will not train you to be fluent in Irish music. Sure, it's better than nothing but it is in fact ridiculously minimal. If you can't get steady, regular teaching and advice, you utilize the best resources you *can* access.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"I've found slow downing software has been an aid rather than a crutch".
As a beginner, how do you know?
When my wee boy was nine months, he could stand, but he couldn't walk. But he had this trolly thing he leant on and pushed about. What better definiton of a crutch do you want?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
ShariFiddles, with respect I'd advise you not to slow anything down to 10%: it's just noise at that speed. If you have to slow things down, only go as slow as you need to. If you need to slow to 10%, it's probably not the right tool for you. I'd also suggest that you don't need to hear every note: they're not all part of the tune. Bear in mind what's been posted here on the difference between imitating a player and learning a tune.
You could try learning tunes to sing, rather than play. That way you can avoid the tedious process of learning and unlearning your mistakes. It will help you to identify intervals, and that is probably the most crucial skill a fiddler requires. Best of luck.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Hi
To my mind it's not so much about the particular method of learning, but where we think are at the moment in our learning curve & what we need to do to take the next step forward whatever that is!
ie: if your using / relying on slowdowner software after 5/6/7 years of study my question would be are you really listening to the tunes? How are your scales / arpeggios etc are you practising slowly then building up speed?...do you know your keys and time signatures? IOW what exactly have you learned over the last 5-7 years?
If you have been studying / playing for that time and you still reckon you are a beginner.....then you deserve a kick up the arse to wake you up!....a bit
You would think you would have at least some handle on a few trad tunes enough to have some small repertoire that you could perform musically...and be confident that what you would play would be nice to listen to
Right enough, if you only spend 20-30 mins a day doing this it's going to be an incredibly long learning curve...hobby or not
So how often does one evaluate where they are...what are their strengths & weaknesses, how does one know what to practice next and when?
Just my 2 cents
pkev
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by pkev
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I may not have been clear in that once you've learned the tune, to sing or hum, lilt or whatever, then you can try to execute it on the instrument. If you learn with your fingers rather than your inner ear it will be more difficult and less efficient in the long run.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Good point llig....I don't know....but
I do know that I don't yet HEAR all the notes being played when things are going fast.....I'm not just learning to play....I know I'm also learning to hear.
My best approximation if I have to sing back or try play a tune is about 50% of the notes in say a reel at full session speed. I can hear I'm missing things....but don't know quite what it is. I hear the direction, but not the detail. I get the drift but not yet the nuance of the conversation because I don't yet have the vocabulary.
With slow downing software I can at least slow down tunes until I recognise what it is I'm missing. I have to do it less often now (reduce to say 10%) because I now recognise patterns when they are played at speed - and match them to things I know I play in other tunes (like those runs down that happen in 3rds). The difficult phrases and patterns are like new words I then practice slowly to get the pronounciation right....and then try put them in to the sentences....
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by ShariFiddles
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I understand where bogman and Michael are coming from, I think. I'm not totally unsympathetic to their point of view (just feeling stressed out by it as I'm stuck with the choices I illustrated above, which I know are not brilliant). It all boils down to your constructs, your baggage, the way you process your environment based on those things. For example, I did a hike this summer with a Scottish friend mine on the Munros that make up the Glen Shee ski area. We started by hiking up the slopes underneath the main chairlift. I was oggling the chairlift in amazement and took tons of pictures of it once we got to the top of the mountain, as it was in my mind a rusted out pile of junk; boards tacked to a metal frame, attached to a rusty cable and basically the lift house was a rusty corrugated iron lean-to shed. The oldest, slowest lift in the entire state of Colorado looks high tech compared to this thing. To my friend, whose frame of reference for "ski lift" was totally different from mine, it was just a standard ski lift. To me, it was hilarious and frightening and I'm not sure you could pay me to get on it.
My point -- to draw out a potentially dangerous metaphor -- is that the Glen Shee ski lift is like the Amazing Slow Downer. If it's all you got, you work with it and you understand at some level that yeah, better things exist somewhere in the world but that's not an option you have so you deal. At another level that reality is your only reality because you have no experiences of the thing that people are saying is a much better way to learn something.
Michael, to challenge your metaphor, people are hardwired to learn to walk. Sadly we are not hardwired to learn Irish music.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
No. Human beings are not hard wired to walk. This has been shown countless times with children brought up by dogs, or worse, no one. The do not walk. We learn to walk.
I was astonished to learn that human beings do not even have the instinct to suckle. We have to learn it.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I remember this one moment when I was first learning whistle. A mate told me to learn The Silver Spear and The Old Bush. I downloaded the dots from this website and could not figure out how to make the notes I was looking at sound like the tunes I'd heard. I had no teacher or anything. I was about 21 and knew pretty much nothing about Irish music. I'd been listening to recordings of it for years so knew enough to know how utterly clueless I was and that was about it. I'd listen to these recordings and feel bewildered and overwhelmed by how one gets from where I was -- zero negative bupkes -- to even playing something which sounded vaguely like a reel.
Discovering ASD was a great epiphany. It mattered less -- it was still sad but not totally devastating -- that I didn't have access to regular tuition and zillions of sessions a week and all my friends being musos and the whole culture of it. I could get by doing *something* to improve and learn and had a tool that was somewhat useful, as I have always *had* to teach myself to play.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
As for the Glenshee lift. Yeah, it's scary. But it has nothing to do with skiing/boarding. All it does it get you to the top of the hill. No amount of travelling on the glenshee lift will help you in the slightest with skiing/snowboarding.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Can you cite those claims, Michael? I'd be curious to have a wee look at the evidence. I was being lazy in saying "hardwired" since it is difficult to determine hardwired from learned behaviour, but my point is that we have more of a natural, instinctual, inclination to learn walk than play music.
If it's true, horses are clearly much better designed than we are.
A healthy foal can gallop soon after it's born. It just can't play a reel.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
people who teach themselves to play end up sounding like the sounds they have in their heads, not their ears. Don't teach yourself. Let your ears teach you
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I know, but the Glen Shee lift was far more shocking to me than to my mate, since I'm accustomed to fancy, high speed express lifts and the Glen Shee lift isn't that unusual for lifts here. If Scottish chairlifts are all you know of chairlifts, than you won't find it that weird. That was my argument. It's not the greatest metaphor in the world, but Ive had half a bottle of wine and two whiskies.
Maybe the closer metaphor is learning to ski at the Midlothian Ski Centre. Learning to ski on astroturf sucks but if your other choice -- and you are absolutely desperate to learn to ski and can't afford lots and lots of trips to the US or Europe -- is to simply not learn how to ski, ever, than you deal with the bloody astroturf.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Sporting/music metaphors never work. I was told that if I could board at Hillend, snow would be a piece of p*ss. So I did. And it was. But that's the opposite of learning music.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"Letting your ears" is still teaching yourself. I am differentiating between being around people who will be like, "This tune or this ornament goes this way" or not. I agree with you -- at the end of the day, you have to listen, you have to let your ears guide you, but when you are first learning I just don't see that can happen if you don't have someone slowing things down and showing you how they are structured. You can't learn how to ski double blacks without learning how to ski blues.
In the absence of someone, I'll take software.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
To be honest, I'm pretty good on steep corries but was struggling to not wipe out on the astroturf at the base of some of the lifts at Nevis.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
If I use something as a crutch then it infers that I am disabled. Or am I disabled because I use the crutch?? Hmmmmm
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Donough
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
You'll be relieved to know, Donough, at least that if it is described on this site as "lame" to use a crutch, then in that case it certainly *doesn't* mean you're disabled.
Heaven help a disabled player who has learned from dots though, who wanders in here!
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Thanks DD
This was supposed to be about the merits or drawback of software rather than the dots versus ears debate.
When you use the software you do alter the sound. I would assume that someone listening with slowdown software is also listening at normal speed as well - or at least they should be.
But if you use it wisely it can be a stepping stone to being able to pick tunes up on the fly at sessions.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Donough
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
...or a disabled player who uses the slow down software, maybe.
I wasn't going to get into this thread, plenty of people are already going at it.
*But*, if it helps...I like the sort of dissection of the learning process that ShariFiddles, and others, go into, I think it is helpful to be able to identify what steps you are taking in the learning process. I think that actually helps the learning.
I think that those players who can, for example, pick up tunes by ear only from a fairly fast speed, and then play them, might have been learning from a young age, and been playing for a long time - in that they have highly developed listening skills.
(Or maybe they were born like that!, but I doubt all, or even most of them were.) I would have thought that even players with a classical background have developed listening skills.
From the posts above, it seems to me that a lot of new players coming to Irish trad from an older age have quite a bit of doubt and trouble about what they think is their ability to develop those listening skills any time soon, at least to be able to play at sessions. They will likely use the slowdowner software to help their learning by ear.
From my observation of acquisition of other aural skills with perhaps a parallel to learning Irish trad by ear, (and my own experience learning tunes) one starts slow for accuracy and gradually increases speed - until you can play at speed *with* accuracy. I would think it's the same for Irish trad. That's probably what the vast majority of players who learned by ear from a young age did, even though the development of the listening skill might have been a lot faster when they were young than some decades older.
I think it is quite possible to develop a listening skill at a certain speed, which you may not necessarily apply at a higher speed unless you have trained at that speed.
I don't think most players are using slowdown software primarily to learn ornamentation, although at some point they might be, I think they are trying to identify the individual notes of the tune. Learners may think it easier to do that, than try to pick out the *bones* of the tune from the fast version of the tune - or believe that they won't be able to develop that skill, any time soon.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
What a storm in a teacup! IMHO slowing down tunes by use of digital, analogue or by a homo sapiens specimen would appear to be a perfectly logical and sensible aid to learning any sort of music. I don't understand why anyone should get their knickers in such a twist over this. It's simply a useful tool, nothing more.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Ron P
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Being taught by what you hear is very different to teaching yourself. If you teach yourself, you are making it up as you go along. You absolutely have to be more humble than this. There are various levels to it, but the very first and most important is to be able to listen accurately ... not just to the sounds made the by best musicians, but to your self also. If you are not listening accurately, if you think you need/require artificial machinery, then you simply haven't learned to listen well enough to be able to play.
A simple string of notes should not be eluding you. You should be able to hear them. If you find you are unable to get the order right, then you are not able to hear it. Listen to the phrase you are having trouble with, sing it back to yourself. Leave your instrument alone, you are not ready for it yet. Listen to the phrase, sing it back until you get it right. Keep doing it over and over until you get it right. Can you hear that you've got it right? This is what I mean by being taught by what you hear. People who teach themselves just pick any old sound that they think is right and obliviously go with that.
And the simple strings of notes is only a part of it. So many people learn now with the use of technical short cuts that they think they a progressing fine when the actual sound they are making is dreadful. They have the notes in the right order, but because they have omitted to learn to listen well enough. They simply can't hear the subtleties of the timing and the phrasing and the articulations.
For example, you are no nearer to learning to play a slow/long roll just because you've slowed one down and found out that it's a note, a note above, the note again, a note below and back to the note. The notes aren't important, it's all in the timing. And you are no nearer to being able to play a couple of bars of a simple jig because you've learned the correct order of 12 notes. You have to hear where the phrasing is. Artificially slowing it down destroys the phrasing.
The phrasing is harder to learn than the correct order of the notes. And if you struggle with hearing the correct order of the notes, you will have no chance at all with the phrasing.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Certainly some food for thought there. I like Donoughs imput of ..."But if you use it wisely it can be a stepping stone to being able to pick tunes up on the fly at sessions."
I have never used slow down software and never slowed down a CD or recording of any type to learn a tune so I'm not qualified to judge slow down software. I DO think that if you're struggling with a section you would be better looping a few bars and playing it over and over till you have it. It's amazing what you hear if you listen to 4 bars 10 times in a row. I think that is putting more demand on your ears than slowing down the tune. Maybe if you're still struggling and need to get the tune learnt quickly then slow down the tricky bit but at least give your ears a chance to learn it at full speed.
Robert, I do have to take issue with this.... "Bogman, what are you on about? There's no such thing as a 'slower tune'.
Slower than what? Speed of tunes is a matter of taste, as is the method of learning them. "
Sorry, but IMO you are completely wrong there. Of course there are slower tunes. Waltzes and marches for a start. Slides and polkas are sparse and relatively easy to pick up. Many players play jigs at a lovely relaxed pace. Surely that would be a good place for anyone wishing to improve their ears to start learning at full speed? It's only a small step to learn slow jigs at full tempo to learning faster jigs at full tempo. OK, reels will take longer but Rome wasn't built in a day.
From the above replies I would say there is maybe a case for slow down in some cases but if it's used without an effort to improve learning at normal speed then it will promote laziness and is no better than listening to a tune and picking it up from the dots. With any crutch surely it should be used less and less till you don't need it at all?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I don't disagree with anything you've said there Michael. In a nutshell, all I said was "It's simply a useful tool, nothing more." I think that still stands. Granted many learning and teaching methods/tools have limitations - but if slowing down tunes by use of some software helps someone for a bit, why not? Even if they have to always use it to learn new tunes, why not? It may be that they simply aren't capable of learning tunes at speed - it may be a crutch, but some people can't get about without a crutch. Personally, I rarely slow down tunes to learn them now - it's too much bother, but I certainly found previously that doing so was useful.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Ron P
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Yes, it can be a useful tool. But my advice is the same as for the dots. Only use it if you don't need to. If you feel you require it, then your ears are not trained well enough and you should be trying to sort that out in preference to amassing a repertoire.
Don't be fooled into thinking that merely knowing the correct order of the notes gets you any where near actually being able to play them.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
" If you feel you require it, then your ears are not trained well enough and you should be trying to sort that out in preference to amassing a repertoire."
Yes, good advice.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Ron P
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Ah...but I find that it is by trying to figure out new tunes that I test my ears.
Tunes I have already learned....I get right...I've no trouble getting the right sequence of notes once I've learned a tune.
It's tunes I don't yet know where I get to test if I can play what I hear and sing. (And where I discover gaps in my aural landscape). I can't quite yet play what I easily sing....and since I'm not referring to the dots.....I recognise the sequence is going...or down...but not always by how far. My voice does it naturally....but I can't yet put my fingers in the right spot to match my voice first go. Sometimes it takes two goes....and sometimes (like recently)....it took playing almost a whole scale to realise I was failing to hear the interval I was looking for was only a semitone.
Ear training surely is about intervals and sequences...and hasn't previous advice been 'don't bother with scales'....learn tunes? How else do you train ears if you aren't testing them against the sound you are producing?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by ShariFiddles
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Myself, my slowdown software consists of notes on a page which are fed into my head. Michael's Platonic ideal of learning everything entirely by ear is great, but in the real world with my real abilities, I find that learning to play each note slowly is part of the learning process that allows me to get a tune in my head, and on my accordion, to work out the best fingerings to get the notes (it is difficult to keep up by ear on an instrument whose mechanics still give you fits). I get the basics of a tune by listening, then drill on it at home slowly with sheet music for a few weeks, then roll it out at the session and polish it up based on ear. Not perfect, but it works for me.
I like the idea of slow down software, but am an old dog, and that is one new trick that eludes me.
And finally, we all learn in different ways, and the most important point is that too few people in this world learn that one of the most beautiful ways to enjoy music is to make it. So regardless of your abilities, how you learn, how you wish to learn, what is important is that people learn to make music and to enjoy making it!
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Nice stuff, sharifiddles, imo. We need more *empiricism* on learning to learn by ear.
"...but I can't yet put my fingers in the right spot to match my voice first go." Imo, this is the skill we are trying to learn...sounds simple, but not always obvious; *and*, I would add, "where to put the fingers in the right spot" *at increasing speed* (and with the added considerations of producing the right rhythm, lift, etc. *but*, first things first, I say.
"Yet", "first go" "interval was on a semitone" all very definitive and pivotal in the learning-by-ear phase (whether slowed down or not)
Do you use increase in beats per minute to measure how you're going in terms of learning the sound to finger placement transposition?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Me thinks that not being able to hear extends to not not listening to what you read here:
"I've no trouble getting the right sequence of notes once I've learned a tune.... Ear training surely is about intervals and sequences"
"I get the basics of a tune by listening, then drill on it at home slowly with sheet music for a few weeks"
Don't be fooled into thinking that merely knowing the correct order of the notes gets you any where near actually being able to play them. Only a very small amount of ear training is about intervals and sequences. The phrasing and articulation is harder to learn than the correct order of the notes. And if you struggle with hearing the correct order of the notes, you will have no chance at all with the phrasing.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
So what options when "one of the most important parts of learning by ear is hearing the detail and rhythm" (bogman) but "your ears are not trained well enough and you should be trying to sort that out" (llig) ?
Is slowing down one of them ? If not why not ? Is it just that there are better ways ? Or like dots for a beginner can it be considered harmful ?
(almost crossed with llig but not going to re-type)
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"The phrasing and articulation is harder to learn than the correct order of the notes."
Maybe that's why people leave (if they do) learning that until after they learn the notes of the tune (by ear) (if they do).
"...And if you struggle with hearing the correct order of the notes..."
Most people do when they are learning, I would have thought.
Struggle and struggle on and you will improve, I think is what they say, or in other words, "practise".
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Listen for the correct order of the notes in conjunction with the rhythms and articulations. Get it right in your head first. Leave your instrument alone until you have right it in your head. Then you can slow it down in your head and try it on the instrument.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
One can't be too empirical on this, Michael, so don't worry about that! (if you are). You could be more *empirical* on "articulations" too, perhaps. Then we can all be more articulate on it.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
It's weird cos it is the struggle that makes learning the fiddle so frustrating AND so worthwhile. Having taken it up at age 40 - there's the struggle with tone, intonation, even holding the bow, let alone getting it to hit the strings at the right angle and speed........and then of course articulation, rhythm and all that......I wish I had picked it up at 10 or 20 or 30.....cos I wonder if it comes together so slowly because I left it so late.......BUT....on those odd occasions when it all seems to come together and the sound that comes out of the vibrating box on my shoulder does match the music in head, heart and soul...what I've heard....and what's in me......it's a thrill like no almost no other.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by TheCurvyFiddle
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"...cos I wonder if it comes together so slowly because I left it so late..."
Definitely, yes, I'd say - especially if learning by ear without any previous experience of doing so.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Having been through the same thing at a later age.
We all learn motor skills best at young ages, especially up to around 23 years old, I suspect. It's more difficult and slower as you get older, then we're trying to learn to learn by ear as well as the motor skill.
Ah, well, life wasn't meant to be easy, as someone famous said.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Have been misreading all this ? Surely at least some posts above were from people like me who slow it down to get it *into* their heads ? Whether or not the instrument is in hand at the time?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
But you are not getting it, the tune, the way it goes, into your head if you slow it down. All you are getting is the order of the notes. You are ruining the rythmn the phrasing and the articulation
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
" you are ruining the rhythm the phrasing and the articulation"...
yes, but when you speed it up again it comes back, and then you can learn it. Can't you?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
if you are capable of learning the rhythm, the phrasing and the articulation. The order of the notes is a doddle, you shouldn't need to slow it down.
This is the point.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Like to see a vote on that!
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Michael, by the time I have decided to learn a tune I have heard it dozens of times at speed and have the overall melody, phrasing and rhythm roughly sorted out. Thats why I want to learnt it. But I am aware that there are places where something is happening for which I don't yet have structures in my head to automatically fit it into at that speed and I am just glossing over them. Slowing them down often allows them to get slotted into place. Sometimes 'being told the answer' is a valid way of learning to get it right next time.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Are you saying that the phrasing and articulations are easier than the order of the notes?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Ah, crossed with lligs response to DD.
No. I am not bad at learning to sing a simple melody line by ear, phrase by phrase. Usually I know the wrong notes straight away and am told that my intotation is OK once I have them. But stop me and ask if one note is higher or lower than the next and I will often get it wrong. Never had to do that when singing at primary school. Have to whistle it with my lips the hear the intervals. Ask me to name an interval and I will have to play it on the whistle and watch my fingers.
Notes hard, rhythm and phrasing still hard, but less so.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Have you ever used slow down software llig? if so why? if not, then how do you know what you are talking about?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Crossed. Yes, I think I am. Phrasing certainly. Easier to *hear* harder to *execute*
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I'm not convinced you are right. Maybe you think the phrasing is easier than the order of the notes, but how do you know how well you are getting it?
It's a dificult thing to proove. The only thing I can cite in defence of my argument is that there are truck loads of players who have all the right notes in the right order, but whose playing stinks. Awful phrasing, timing etc. No joy to their music. Stilted ignorance. I'm not acusing you, I've not heard you.
But I don't think I've ever heard a really good player, someone whose rythmn, phrasing and articulation is a joy, have trouble with the order of the notes.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Yeah, I have amazing slowdowner. I don't use it much, I never use it to slow down stuff. It's useful for compressing files and converting from mp4 to mp3 etc. On the rare occasions I'm in a rush to learn a tune I usually just use the pitch shift - usually fro Ed to D and the repeat feature. It's useful to have the tune repeating over and over, if you are in a rush. (I've never tried speeding a tune up, but that might be useful is you really are in a hurry)
But I prefer not to be in a hurry
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Michael, I am still at the 'adult beginner' stage on a melody instrument. Nothing I am doing is a joy to anyone other than me.
But, and you may doubt the relevance, I did in the past spent hundreds of hours playing bodhran at sessions. Listening very, very hard. To the rhythm and phrasing but not so much the pitch of the notes.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Well, I have an open mind, and you may well be the exception to the rule. At the very least, your hundreds of hours on the bloody drum wouldn't have been entirely wasted. And I applaud your decision to move on from it.
But, what you won't have been paying attention to with your drum is the articulation.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
True, but I think I was hearing the effect and that would give some guide as to 'sounds right' or 'sounds wrong'.
And I have learnt a lot more about articulation from slow down software than have from words on this board.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
yes, you would learn more with the slowdowner than reading about it here. But you won't be able to play it unless you give it much more consistent listening not slowed down. As I said earlier, you can slow a roll down and work out how it's constructed, but that's of no help whatsoever if you can't hear its rhythm
A good recording for you would be Matt Molloy's Heathery Breeze, if you don't already have it. There is a very wide range of tempos on it, including some really really slow jigs. The articulation and phrasing is laid out with real clarity
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I think slowdowner software or dpc is good for getting the gist of what's going on...but, since music is a temporal thing and exists "in time" you really need to hear it ultimately "up to speed"...that makes sense.
But as far as learning reels [in particular] at speed? Well, that seems silly to me unless you're very very talented and have spent many years woodshedding.
If that were the case then teachers of traditional music would teach all their classes at 110 or 120 bpm...I haven't met one yet who does that. For obvious reasons....
Get over it.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by mtodd
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Well if,as i did last nigh tfor the first time, you take a tune and slow it down 20% it sounds fine, I was taught that the ornamentation should fit the pace of the tune. That a typical error was to play all ornaments at the same fast pace . so a slow tune would have slower ornaments like rolls. So when the tune is slowed down 20.30 % it sounds fine, just a bit slower.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
OK its on the list to get.
I am sure there is a lot that I don't hear, but there are things I do hear and don't understand or want to know more about. Your example above was tap, not a roll, and I am well aware that it should be just as fast at any speed (and am surprised that it needs saying).
On experience of learning from slowing down (and looking at the audio trace) being better than words was when I spent some time listening to and studying this: http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_254_4_hornpipes/
which came up in an earlier discussion and sparked a side discussion on swing. At that playing speed I did not appreciate just how 'un-dotted' it was. Slowed down I could tap it out on the table top but wondered if it sounded like a hornpipe because it was one. But on closer examination the notes that seemed longer were slightly louder, and the apparently shorter ones were quieter with a less pronounced attack.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
What slow downer do you use, Ionannas?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
This discussion is already very lengthy and I've just browsed through it. So, please forgive me if these following points have been mentioned already.
Full Speed.
What do you mean by that? This will surely vary from session to session and recording to recording. So, while I might well be able to pick up a reel or jig etc from a "steady"(my description) player it might not be so easy if it's some young whizz kid.
I'm not criticising fast young players (at least not for the purposes of this discussion) but not everyone will be either able to (or necessarily want to) emulate every player they hear. At least, not straight away.
Real life "Slowdowners"
As Will has already mentioned, experienced players will often teach a tune by breaking it up into phrases and slowing it down a little. This happens in sessions too although, mostly, it is expected that the recipient of this very brief "lesson" will already have "a good ear" and pick it up very quickly.
Use of Slowdowner/Transcribe etc
The implication here seems to be that persons who use these aid are learning and playing tunes at a much slower speed than they are normally heard. Although a few beginners may do this or even experienced players might slow a tune down a fair bit just to "catch a note" on certain occasions, many people(including myself) will also just slow the recording down slightly. That's often all it needs. On many occasions, this might even be the same speed as it actually gets played in some sessions!
However, it doesn't take long to get up to speed and I will reset the recording to the "normal"(whatever that is) speed as soon as possible.
To sum up, I don't see what the problem is with using aids such as Slowdowner or even the "dots"
. It's HOW they are used which is important.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Back for a while
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
That was to llig. And Ionannas has made the point about rolls (as opposed to taps).
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by david_h
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
When a person slows a tune down for you to learn, they keep good phrasing, thythm and articulation.
But what the feckin point explaining all this if people skim it just repaet stuff without knowing
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
DD, Actually I just downloaded a program called 12 keys last night to try as I have never used a slow downer before, that was my first try. I think its a great idea.
To suggest that beginners should try and learn tunes by ear , at full pace, is to my mind ridiculous. When I learnt tunes by ear, it was person to person, bar by bar. now many decades later I can sit in sessions and pick up tunes by ear, thats because I spent all my life at it. I can a do this not because I can pick up everything that is done, but because I can filter out enough to get the basic tune.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Ionannas, do you think it's ridiculous for a beginner to play an air or waltz at full speed?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
By ear obviously
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
30 years ago, I learned some tunes one-on-one with a mentor who played them slowly, phrase by phrase. But the phrasing and articulations had the right feel to them (as opposed to how they sound with slow-down software). At the same time, I was learning tunes off the radio--Thistle and Shamrock. I didn't have any way to record the program, so I'd sit with my fiddle, listen once, then suss out the tune.
Yes, this included reels, at full speed, as Fiona played the then popular Bothy Band and DeDanann albums.
I also learned tunes like this at my local session.
I think that experience was crucial. It taught me to listen to the music ***as it really sounds.***
The first time I heard a tune slowed down by software, it sounded totally alien. I couldn't recognize the articulations I was so familiar with. It was all mush. To make sense of it, I had to practice listening at 20% or 50% (going over the same phrase at 100%) to learn to recognize the bits I could hear just fine at full speed.
Personally, I find an ear trained in real time is more useful than an ear trained at artificially slower tempos.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Nobody has stated what "full speed" is yet. I've also had another look since Michael scolded me.
I believe that the "metronome speed" for a fast reel is around 120 but the actual speed obviously varies from player to player, session to session, recording to recording.
However, are we rather talking about "full speed" in terms of the actual speed it was originally played, i.e before the attempts to slow it down rather than an actual number of beats per minute?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Back for a while
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Or does the actual speed of a tune not really matter as long as it's played in "real time" ?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Back for a while
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
30 years ago, Will. So that made you age....? (It's a rhetorical question.) But you were young presumably, and even then it took some time to develop the listening skills?
I think a lot of people who have started later will find the same job a lot slower. Maybe you would too?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
My personal mantra is, 'trust my ears.'
I am convinced anyone is capable of discerning note intervals & note order. However. there is more to getting the tune in your head.
Bear with me, as I set rhythm & phrasing aside, for the moment. I know these are important. But, am curious about articulation . . .
I am not certain what my problem is with hearing articulation. I have not yet tried a slow - downer. My articulation disorder seems most acute when I am learning from a fiddle recording. With a flute recording the articulation is more distinct for my ear. I suppose it will just take time.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
JJ, from my point of view full speed just means the speed it's played at at source - CD or whatever.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
LOL, DD, yeah, I'm 49 now...do the math.
But I don't think age matters as much as conventional wisdom says. If you approach anything with an open, "beginner's" mind, even old dogs can learn new tricks quickly. And recent neuro-research shows that our brains can form new synapses rapidly at any age.
Besides, it felt like hard work and a slow slog when I was a sub-adult. The concentration of picking up tunes at speed wore me right out. And I got better because of it. Yes, it can be hard work. The best things in life are rarely easy.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
"old dogs can learn new tricks quickly".
Absolutely, but probably not as quick as young dogs.
Trouble is, if you learned something as a young dog, I think we tend to forget, or maybe don't even know what the difference is for an old dog - or an older dog, I should say, not to be ageist!
I learned a motor skill ery quickly when I was in my teens and can still perform at the same or even better level now, more than 30 years later. It wouldn't be anywhere near so easy or quick to pick it up to that level at my age now, and even if I could pick it up that quickly, while I practise to improve over the next ensuing years - I'm getting older at the same time for chrissakes! Ya just can't win. Ah well, I'm glad I have an interesting hobby while I age - gracefully. Hopefully..
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I'll continue to respectfully disagree, Dubh. I learned to juggle when I was a teenage. Took me two days to finally be able to keep three balls in the air. (Ended up being able to do 7, but that was years of hard work.) I've taught 50 yearolds to juggle 3 balls in 15 minutes.
Age matters less than mindset and a good mentor.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
<<Ionannas, do you think it's ridiculous for a beginner to play an air or waltz at full speed?>>
Depends on the tune. many airs as fiddle tunes have a lot happening, I find them the hardest to get actually. Waltzes?Why would anyone want to learn a waltz?
Yes of course the goal is to be able to pick up tunes at pace.
But at 80% the tunes can sound normal. It all depends on who you are slowing down. Martin Hayes or Frankie Gavin? Some reel fast players, at 80% sound ok.
If there is a particular bar that you cant suss at 80 then go on down...Whatever works for you.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by the wicked hacker
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I will try & redirect my post. Perhaps I might be able to locate a recording (YouTube,SoundLantern . . . ) of a few tunes with flute & fiddle duet. I am having difficulties getting the ornamentation from fiddle (recording) alone.
I have flute mentors. Would be nice to find a fiddle mentor with a good ear for flute articulation. Will I just have to learn fiddle before I can hear what the instrument is doing?
Cheers!
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Bogman, sorry for the delay...
Slides and polkas are relatively easy to pick up? Oh dear. How wrong you are. The worst examples of terrible playing are usually made by people who believe this. The phrasing, ornamentation and drive of these types of tunes are some of the most elusive elements of the music. Just because they get played very, very badly by inexperienced musicians, it doesn't mean that they're easy to pick up. You can learn the notes, sure, but play them? Not easy, at all.
In reference to waltzes and marches, yeah sure, there are fewer bpm in these than in reels and jigs. That doesn't mean they're slower in the sense I intended. A sparsely played tune has fewer notes, ornaments, percussive elements etc. than a tune played in a highly ornate style. Think of Matt Molloy, for example. Even when he plays slowly he plays fast. If you don't know what I mean, I'll try to explain it better, but I guess you'll have an idea. I still think that what you've said about these tunes being 'slower' is largely irrelevant: learning how to play a waltz has little directly to do with learning how to play a reel, and learning how to play a reel at high speed doesn't necessarily allow you to groove the same reel at half the speed, right?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
That's good post robert
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I' m quite aware of that Robert. So you think slowing down slides and polkas is a good way to learn the ornamentation and drive of these tunes. Good luck to you.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
I don't think that you can learn the drive of any type of tune from a slowed-down recording and I didn't write that, did I? If you're going to post discussions at least have the decency to pay attention to what other people post in response.
Also, you can't expect me to know what it is 'that' you're aware of without some explanation - the post I responded to showed that you are clearly lacking awareness of any of the points I made above: you argued the opposite.
I'm happy to continue this discussion, but only if you're aware that what you're doing is simply arguing; it's not the same thing.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
Doesn't deserve an answer
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by bogman
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
:'-(
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Robert Ryan
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
With all due respect to bogman & Robert I have tried my best to grasp each perspective.
If this helps either of you (& us) I am focusing of these 2 sets of comments.
The 1st is by bogman ~ Robert, I do have to take issue with this.... ". . . Speed of tunes is a matter of taste, as is the method of learning them. " . . . Slides and polkas are sparse and relatively easy to pick up. Many players play jigs at a lovely relaxed pace. Surely that would be a good place for anyone wishing to improve their ears to start learning at full speed? It's only a small step to learn slow jigs at full tempo to learning faster jigs at full tempo. OK, reels will take longer but Rome wasn't built in a day. (the above is bogman)
A later response was given by Robert ~
The phrasing, ornamentation and drive of these types of tunes (slides and polkas) are some of the most elusive elements of the music. . . You can learn the notes, sure, but play them? Not easy, at all. (the above is from Robert)
Again with all respect to members & the music I copy & paste each of these because I feel there is merit (though obscured) in each viewpoint. Now I am going to take a few deep breathes.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Random_notes
. . .
"It would be good if this discussion was about the merits or drawbacks of the software . . . '
Posted on October 20th 2008 by bogman
Soon I am off to session. I considered beginning a related discussion. I won't. I think it only fair of me to mention my experience. In the past I purchased a Superscope PSD 230 CD player for reducing the tempo . . . etc. It may be just a machine, but so is my laptop. I wouldn't be here without my Dell nspirion B130. & yes I am deluding myself in thinking it helps my playing.
For anyone interested in the merits of slow - down hardware here is a brief write - up;
http://www.superscope-marantzpro.com/applications/musicians/kynchokaine.shtml
Now, I am off to session. Cheers!
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
In learning things, it is best to break them down into pieces. Learn a tune phrase by phrase, learn an ornament by repeating it, play the tune slowly, play it fast, try fingering it one way on your accordion, and then another. And that is where dots and slow down programs fit. Nothing wrong with being part of a balanced program of learning tunes, and learning your instruments. But llig's point is that those who depend exclusively on crutches, only end up learning the order of the notes, and lose so much in the process. Somewhere in the middle is probably the right answer.
The other day, someone wanted to accompany Haste to the Wedding, so I played it on my whistle. I had accompanied it myself many times, and danced to it (what is that dance that goes with it, Seige of Ennis maybe?). But never played the melody. It was ragged at first, but by the end I was doing OK. That was the first time I had ever played a tune that I hadn't deliberately learned, so I imagine I have made some progress in my playing over the past few years.....
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Slow down or not slow down?
<<Dale Russ is one of the greatest fiddlers I know in Irish traditional music >>.. Martin Hayes.
<<There was Paddy on one side and Brendan McGlinchey on the other, so I took those from the cassette player and put them on reel to reel and slowed them down to half speed. >> Dale Russ
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by the wicked hacker