I'm sure this has been posted before, but I'm a newer member. I'm curious to see what opinions ye ol fiddlers have on reading music vs. playing by ear. Personally, I read music (was classically trained) and have a wierd by ear system. I have a poor memory (problems with short term memory) so I listen to a CD, etc., write out the sheet music as I learn it, and then, if I have time, I'll memorize it later. I also, taboo...... often use a stand with music at gigs. No one seems to mind, except, one or two Tradies over the years who think this is breaking a cardinal rule.
What got me thinking about the question, was an old time fiddling contest at a local arts and crafts festival... I didn't enter, but stopped to listen. Afterwards, I asked, "hey, can someone who reads music enter?" To my surprise, they seemed disinclined... as if music readers were not "real fiddlers", no matter how well they can play and interpret/arrange the piece. I found this bias a little insulting. There seemed to be this bias that reading the music would almost be like cheating. However, many of the fiddlers in the contest admitted that they don't read music. If I put a piece in front of them, they wouldn't know what to do... soooo, how is playing by ear somehow seen as "harder" and therefore more authentic? I would make the argument that, if you play strictly be ear, I have the utmost respect and wouldn't presume to be a better or more skilled player because I know all the "technical theory" stuff about both violin and Irish fiddling. So why do some play by ear fiddlers have this reverse bias? Just interested. I'm not picking a fight. I envy play be ear only fiddlers in some respects; but nor would I ever dream of wishing I couldn't read music and not be able to understand the technical side of things that reading music allows. Opinions??
Hi fiddlechick I know an other fiddlechick who is dynamite at both but if I'm honest it's her ability to sight "almost anything' read that impresses me the most TBH.
When I was a kid and I studied classical music, I would do solos. I had to memorize my pieces. Soloists are expected to memorize their music, no matter what the genre.
No entirely so. It depends on what school you come out of. My teacher had a doctorate in music theory. She was not big on memorizing anything, like the Suzuki method, because she wanted students to be able to understand the methodology, not to just copy it from memory.
I just went back and read some post from 2002. Sorry to have reopened the discussion again....
Anyway, after reading some of the older posts, I tend to agree with much of it. However, I don't agree with the not being able to carry a tune without handles... perhaps I misread the intended meaning. I can read a piece of music, at tempo, and still "feel" the music. But I have a sh*tty memory, so if you take the music away, and I haven't recorded it to memory at all, I'm not going to be able to play that tune. However, I'm a good player... and not being able to play tunes from memory doesn't mean I can't carry a tune.
Fiddlechick, the reverse bias isn't based on thinking that "playing by ear is harder." It's more about knowing the tune. If you don't have the music inside you, the reasoning goes, then you really aren't playing it to its full potential. Old Irish trad players used to talk about this as "living inside the tune."
I play by ear and can play at speed from notation (sheet, abc, and tablature). I've done a few gigs where I was asked to play a particular piece and didn't have time to get it by heart, so I had the notation with me as a memory aid. Nothing wrong with that in my book. But otherwise I only play music that I know through and through without notation.
Over the years I've had a few music students who had serious memory impairments. One could not recall more than two or three bars of a tune at a time, and so *needed* notation to play. He really wanted to play music, too, so I did whatever I could to help. But it's been a tough road for him, and I doubt he'll ever be really musically fluent.
The bottom line is that a person can be a totally fluent musician without being able to read, and without understanding music theory. But no one can be a totally fluent musician if they can't use their ears. Music itself has a built-in aural bias, eh?
Fiddlechick, IMO never be envious of ear only players just because they can't read music no matter what you read on this forum. BUT, the tunes are generally only 16 bars long with repeated phrases. You should learn to use your ears even if it means learning one bar at a time until you improve and the tunes are so essentially simple that you should never play in public with sheet music.
Fiddc
One major problem with notation...as has been said many times before is that it simply does not capture, nor can it, all the possible variations for ornamenting and phrasing a tune...I mean, can you imagine notating a reel or jig with all the possible bowings let alone diff possibilities for rolls, single cuts, double cuts, crans, triplets etc. You wouldn't be able to see the dots.
So one good reason for playing be ear and learning by ear is that you are "eternally open" to the whole concept of variation....when you have dots -- even with some variation marked -- inevitably you become somewhat "locked in" to that version as it were. If you did not learn from dots but mostly aurally [with ref to dots as needed for cloudy bits or whatever] you will be much more relaxed about varying the tune...in fact the tune will *invite* (as it should) endless variation and ornament.
The second problem with staring at sheet music is that in the tradition by and large no one else is using it....soooooo why are they not using it? Well, I suspect for one big reason, and that is, if you're staring at dots you're likely not looking around at fellow members and/or listening all that hard...you're instead burrowing away single mindedly at the the dots. The point being this is communal music. People mostly sit in a group forming some kind of circle or other...they are looking at one another. Listening. Dots and music stands are somewhat of an insult to others...but aside from that you are suddenly cut off from that communal music if you are looking not at your fellow music makers but a music stand.
There are many other reasons to not use them....but these are a few biggies that occur to me.
In other words, dots are not the music. The music is the music. What is heard and passed on from other great players. What they play is not notated. You can only "get it" by listening and using a tape recorder or committing it to memory on the spot.
"However, I'm a good player... and not being able to play tunes from memory doesn't mean I can't carry a tune. ".....actually, FiddC, that's *exactly* what it means. Sorry. Not being mean, that's just a fact. You are not carrying a tune if you haven't internalized the tune.
All good, but what is the stigma of "public" and "sheet music". The public never cares. Even my band could care less as long as we sound dynamite. The only people that ever seem to care are other players.
Oh, and I can "feel" music. I can play my own stuff, just making things up and getting that "virtuoso" feeling. I just think there's a misunderstanding on the part of those that weren't classically trained, or didn't learn to play the instrument via theory and music... a stigma that we are stiff and unimaginative, which isn't the case. I've actually spoken to some well know fiddle players that were classically trained.... even some from The Chieftains... even been to a Chieftains concert or two where there were stands with music. My stand has "dropped" a few times at really wild shows, and I kept playing. I like it there. We play so many tunes, that I just can't always remember them. I don't think people should jump to the conclusion that stand and music= beginner or a stiff.
Great stuff, though, enjoying the cascade of varying opinions....
reminds me of grad school!
But Fidd, you're not giving a performance, you're playing music amonst friends FOR friends.In fact, the public [whoever they might be, pub patrons or whomever] -- those who know the difference -- DO care. A session is not a concert.
Like mtodd says! A tune is so much more than what is written on the paper. It has a shape - and not knowing that shape really puts you at a disadvantage if you want to do the tune justice. Variations are numerous - but the overall shape is what dictates whether they will work or not. Same with phrasing and ornamentation.
Not of course that you have to play what is written on the music or that you can't recognise certain patterns in the sheetmusic and know that other patterns could be substituted. But once you get to that point I suppose it's beyond my non-sight-reading grasp to figure out why you would bother with sheetmusic and how you could play something with "feeling" if you have some kind of "permanent transformation" going through your head about sheetmusic.
if you can't play a tune without the music, then you can't play that tune
and while you took it personally, I was talking about the root of the bias against reading not being against reading music per se, but against people who can't play without the crutch or security blanket of the dots in front of them
Interesting opinions there. Couldn't the same argument be made for picking up a tune by ear? Aren't you at the mercy of the arrangment of the other fiddler or CD? Then you go and make it your own. I do the same thing, but I learn via music. I then write out my own sheet music. So although the music is in front of me, it's not less my own, nor no less "felt".
Oh, and I DO perform. I've played at some major festivals. Trust me, the only ones who care, are other generally other players, and the players that are in the audience, not in the other acts.
Fiddlechick
Scenario: you're at a session with your big book of tunes in a 3 ring binder. Someone starts the set. Yes! tune A is in your book. You madly flip through it. But just as you get there halfway through the B part of tune A on the third time through they suddenly switch tunes! Now we're onto Tune B. You recognize it...hm...maybe...I know it's here somewhere. More mad flipping of the 3 ring...aha! But too late FC...they're on full bore to tune C and tune D....
No, not personally... just enjoying the debate here... I teach rhetoric, so it's my nature to be argumentative.
But, there's that "dots" again. When I see the "dots" I don't see dots. I've been reading music since I was 9. It is natural to me. I still learn many tunes, especially cover tunes, by ear. Many of the tunes on those CDs are actually a lot less intricate, etc. and are usually paried down versions. To each his own, though. It's all about loving the music really, isn't it?
Well, I have to go to class and engage in much less lively discussions.
But FC....this music is not an act, it's not for stages, it's not for amps, or mics or any of that. It's made for small intimate spaces with friends and fellow musicians. It's not show biz in other words. I think you're talking about an entirely diff approach to music than most of us here would consider the 'tradition'?
It's not about "money", gigging and all that. But IF that's the only reason you are playing the music then I dunno...I'm not sure you're playing the music.
What?! I had to see if someone replied before logging off.
I never said anything about "tradition". I don't play for money. That's a perk when I'm playing with my Celtic Rock band... oh, I forgot, that's not respected on here.....
I LOVE this music... and I'm talking about traditional music. This is the kind of elitism I was talking about in my very first post: Where has all the fun/passion gone?
If you are a fiddle player surely the opinions of other fiddle players are the most valuable? Other players too, who else do you look to? Myself, I wouldn't go to listen to someone reading trad music. For one I wouldn't understand why they hadn't bothered learning the tune and for two I don't think it would sound as good as it would if they had actually learnt it.
But if no one is bothered and you're not either then go ahead, the opinions of all the most interesting trad fiddle players probably count for very little in this case. Pity really!
oh p.s I don't see it being a lot of fun in a session if everyone was carting about huge volumes of sheet music, and then having to agree in advance what volume number and what page numbers the tunes were going to be on! That would be the end of spontaneity, fun and passion!
I agree with mtodd its about playing . The clue is in the title of this site 'The Session........not ,the Gig , not , the Performance,
but The Session .
er not sure what or where central PA is though
I value the opinions, not the tone. But I don't play for other people. I play for myself. Being in a band, like I said, happens to be perk. I just don't like the "bashing" part of both sides. I have the utmost respect for everyone on here, even those I disagree with to some extent. I don't always feel that "respect back" thing I am used to at workshops and the like.
I actually would put the "pity back" to you, because you might be really missing out by being so snobby about the reading music thing. I still don't understand why it's different if I'm writing my own music or arrangment of a tune. Not everyone has the kind of memory faculty to store things. I'm a poet, and I can't even remember my own poems. This doesn't make me a bad poet. Reading music doesn't make a player less of a musician, either.
All you have to do is make the effort to completely memorize a set of tunes so that you can pick up your fiddle and play it right off. Then you will hear and feel the real difference.
Fiddlechick, if you're interested in traditional Irish music, I'd go study it and how it is played normally in its native habitat, the pub session and the kitchen (house) session. Perhaps even a ceili dance.
Hmmm. It's funny how there's an assumption I can't walk into a session and play tunes. Never said I can't do BOTH. I'm just making a point about the black and white of it all. The best "trad." musicians I've ever heard can do both. I might not be the best at the learning by CD thing, but there are also many who can't read music... seems to be about "wrong or right" not about the passion an individual feels for the music. Sometimes traditions need to be broken to progress and translate to other generations... and thus live on... oh, that was blasphemy, huh?
What are you people doing... now I'm late to class.... lol, thanks, as I said for the lively banter... now I best back to reality here... the old grind....
yep,been to one a while ago. Didn't keep up as well as the old timers that memorize everything. But then again, no one gave me a rough time about it either. Very friendly and inviting. It was about having fun, drinking whiskey, and being around people that loved music. I must not have been to the type of session people are used to on here. Don't think I'd go to one where it's so elitist or "who knows more tunes by memory." Do I have the wrong idea? It's hard to read "tone" on here, admittedly. I apologize if I rub the wrong way. I just like to play devil's advocate. Generates more varied opinions that way....
or study it at university and get a grad degree in it. U of Limmerick for one.
But FC...so you're saying unless we agree with you we're giving you attitude and we're not "fun"?....I don't agree. And just because we state that dots are NOT part of the tradition doesn't mean we disrespect you. Read dots if you want, but if you do, and you do it in a session or otherwise you're actually the one who is showing disrespect to fellow musicians [who ARE carrying the tunes in memory] as well as the tradtion itself.
It's called traditional music for a very good reason. It's traditional. And that's how the tradition does it. If you don't do it that way, no worries. But if you don't you can't really say you understand the tradtion.
mtodd- Let me play the devil's advocate here for a moment. I have been trying to move away from reading and to learn tunes "in situ" rather than on paper, but it's still true that if you put a tune in front of me, I'll be able to play it, strip out whatever ornamentation is written in, and add my own, as I go. In other words, I can use the paper as a sort of auxiliary memory, and manipulate the tune as if I had it in my head. It's not too difficult, among other things, to come up with variations, to put a simple harmony part under it if I'm playing on guitar or accordion, or to figure out what chords would be likely to work with it, just as I would with a tune I've actually learned.
As you say, the written notes are not the tune, but they can convey the essence of the tune, and someone skilled in the music can absorb that and play with it, even if they haven't memorized the tune entirely.
Now I don't want anyone to take this as an argument against learning by ear - certainly you should never play at a session unless you know the tunes - but it's just not true that you can't work with a tune from paper. You just have to be good at reading, that's all.
I stated, I think, that I value your opinions. Is no one reading them? I am a rhetorician. I like engaging debate. I'm trying to pry as deep as I can go to get all these opinions. If I didn't want opinions, I wouldn't post and I certainly wouldn't enter into the debate. What is the definition of tradition anyway? A set of values, beliefs and way of life handed down through generations. The session is just one branch of the "tradition". What about the travelling storyteller, the composers (O Carolon's Comps, etc.). I'm essentially a composer. I take a tune, and then write out my own version. Wasn't going to go there, but I guess I need to in order to clarify the memory problem: it's not voluntary. I wouldn't pick on a fiddler with one arm. I'd be impressed he can play at all!
Fiddlechick says she knows so many tunes that she can't remember them all. I have to wonder how many tunes she knows, how many is "too many to play them all from memory."
I've known session players who could play over a thousand tunes by heart. I'm close to that myself. Plus hundreds and hundreds of other tunes, in other genres, on guitar, banjo, and mandolin.
In her first post, FC says she has a "poor memory." I took it to mean she has some sort of measurable disorder that impairs memory storage or retrieval. But after her later posts, I wonder if she's just another paper trained player who won't wean herself from the dots.
Or maybe this whole thing was just a wind up.
Besides, there are plenty of people on this board who read notation at a high level and who DO understand why the printed page is just silly in a session, or at a trad gig.
I cannot read music much and I certainly dont see my self as an old timer but I have been to more than one session ( to be honest its a poor week when I only go to one session )
Still got no idea where central PA is though .
Maybe I don't understand the sessions then. Why couldn't someone come in that doesn't know the tunes, or hasn't memorized them? Seems like a session would be a really univiting atmosphere.
You have to know the tunes to be able to play them, and not instead play some ad lib, ad hoc noise along side the tunes. Irish trad music is played in unison, and to fit in, you have to know essentially the same melodies everyone else is playing.
Tunes get played in sets (medleys), often slung together on the fly, with no pre-arrangement. You couldn't flip through a collection of sheet music fast enough to follow the tunes. And the sheet music would likely be misleading at best compared to what's being played in front of you.
Most sessions are welcoming, IF you know the tunes.
Jon
For sure. I use paper as an "aide memoire" myself...for the murky bits, to work out *initially* maybe some bowing ideas...but I ONLY do it in concert with a decent recording of the tune....so I'm not 'reading' the dots per se....I'm memorizing the tune aurally but translating what I hear to the dots which in ONLY see as a vague approximation [kind of a ruler/reference guide untilthe tune is under the fingers..something like:.."ok, this interesting bit goes around inch 1 and maybe this is interesting to do at inch 4" etc...sorry bad metaphor but only way I can approximate it].
In other words, I agree with you. Dots have their usefulness but only as a rough guide.
Let's think of another metaphor...if you really wanted to understand Paris say, and you're an American tourist from Pennsylvannia, who would you place your faith in, someone who grew up and lived their entire life in Paris and new every back street and corner and the best and cheapest places to eat....or a "tourist guide" of 30-odd pages say that promised "the best of Paris on $100 a day"....
I know where I'd place my bets.
The tourist guide is the dots, the person who lived there and grew up there and knows Paris like the back of his or her hand is the musician who has spent 20 or 30 odd years learning this music inside and out -- like Gill and Will Harmon and many others on this site -- and from whose music versions of the tune one could dervive endless joy.
FC...you're a poet....remark Henrich Boll's advice where his character [the clown] says "madam, I'm a clown. I collect moments."
I admit it: it was a 1/2 wind up. I knew this post would get lots of hits. I like debate, as I said., plus I do sincerely want to understand the point of view of those that go to sessions on a regular basis. I admit, I'm a little intimidated to even try to go now. I feel that I would be mocked, at least after I left, which isn't what the music is about to me. Central PA refers to Pennsylvania (sorry, if your a "native" you are used to just saying PA, it's a PA thing). So, if someone walked in with music, and played a little off the page, and then tried to play along and maybe messed up your mojo by not knowing the song by rote, you would seriously condescend to them? I must be reading the posts wrong, because I've only met a few musicians that had a "my crap don't stink like yours" attitude. I must be reading these wrong. Please tell me I am.
Ah we may have some light here.
You are more than welcome to come to a session here in Newcastle ,England
Captain Bpart ,Thug ,Bad Santa and myself will make you very welcome
Okay, being a good contrarian I'll now turn to fiddlechick.
I simply don't believe that you're incapable of learning tunes. I spent a long time playing from sheet music, and it would take me months to get a tune off the page and into my head - it was terrible. I finally had to teach myself some tricks to get around the habits I'd developed that were crippling my playing. I think you can learn similar tricks, and when you do, I think you'll probably understand the point of view of those you're dismissing as "snobbish" now.
You won't believe me, but let me assure you, as someone who's done both, that once you start to have the tunes in your head, reading them won't seem like nearly as much fun.
If you want to give it a try, here's some tips:
1) The problem in my case was that the connection from eye to hand movements was too easy for me - I could scan the page, play the tune, and it never really stuck with because it was never really in my head.
2) So, the trick was to detach the music from the page.
3) The single best cure for me was to practice silently. Rather than reading and playing, read and visualize yourself playing. This will force you to make the tune happen in your head, rather than just listening to the sounds coming out of the fiddle.
4) Second thing, with any memorization, repeated short exposure is effective. Picking a few tunes and "playing" them silently, as described above, a few times through, every day, should have you playing those tunes without written music in a few weeks at the outside. You can still play all you want as you do now, just make sure that you have daily practice with a limited set of tunes, and you'll learn those very quickly.
Try that - if that doesn't work for you, I promise I'll believe you when you tell us you can't learn tunes, and I'll even not complain if you bring sheet music to a session. I'll even tell you what I'm going to play, so you can have your book open and play along...
If I find a piece of sheet music I have never seen before (classical or traditional) I don’t have any pre-conceptions about what it should sound like. I can follow the notes and the timing but after that it’s up to me to make the music my own. Classical music can be played with just as much as traditional music. I find that many traditional musicians tend to copy form CDs and teachers instead of getting to know the music with a clean slate.
This argument will never be settled... when people will accept that the aural tradition and notating the music are of equal importance in Irish Traditional music!
Yes, you're reading it wrong. We welcome people. Some of us would be so polite as to let you play us a tune from your dots. Then we'd go back to the regular business of the session, and you'd be more than welcome to sit in with us and play along on the tunes you know.
However, we don't hand out the titles of the tunes prior to playing in them a set so people can pull out their sheet music. Most of the time, we don't even know what's coming next, it just sort of happens, that's quite a bit of the fun right there!
There are beginner's sessions where folks will read music the whole time, play pre-planned sets, etc. however in a traditional session that's not going to happen. People are going to launch into tunes and sets of tunes spontaneously.
FC....I think in fact you reading them wrong. I think people are genuinely trying to help you see how you could approach a session and not crash and burn. That's not to say session don't tolerate sheet music. I know they do. There's a CCE sesion here where people use it frequently, but, generally it's use is discouraged and I can tell you that those who DO use sheet music are missing out in all sorts of ways. That's all. You miss half the experience if you rely too much on the dots. It's fun to do a big of tight rope walking....
so....throw those dots away....become free!
fold up that music stand and put it under the couch with those unread back issue of The New Yorker.
Im sure in most places you'd be more than welcome, Its a social occasion. But as far as actually playing along, how could you if you dont know the tunes.?Its simply not practical any other way. OK with a bunch of learners, with good lighting, etc , but thats a far cry from a grown up session!
I'm no snob, I use sheet music every day for learning tunes. I'm not the best of readers but I can generally get by. I love trawling through old collections of music, especially 19th C . But the idea is to learn the tunes. I mean, even a soloist playing bach will pretty much have everything committed to memory. The dots are there as a reminder .
With this music the longest tunes have only 5 or so parts of 8 bars so how can that be a problem?
IMO you would be advised to learn the tunes as melodies away from an instrument. Presumably you can sight sing? Once thgis is done, then putting them to an instrument is easier.
Bog,
I meant more in terms of actual music making. I have on my desk numerous examples of Padraig O'keeffe's handwritten mss in which he notates bowing and ornaments etc. And there's some from another fiddler whose names escapes me. Point taken.
I meant more in terms of making music, not so much teaching it to students [from masters of the tradtion]. but of course Denis Murphy and Julia also had Padraig around to explain his "code" which wasn't actual musical notes....
mtodd- I think we're more or less in agreement. The hardest thing to keep in mind here is that we generally don't know where each participant in the conversation is coming from, and how they use dots, ear, recordings, etc.
Some people really can't play from a page unless they're playing precisely what's written, others can use it as a guide. Some people need a recording (as you say) others can get a pretty good idea of what it'd sound like by reading - and some of us can even make a pretty good guess how the tune might be played by this player or that other one.
As for the ear, I know people who can listen to a tune a few times and be able to play it without much more than that, while I'm at the other end of that spectrum - if I hear a tune at the pub every week for a month or so, I'll be able to pick out the landmarks, but I still won't be able to really dive in to it.
I guess it goes to show that generalisations are (in general) misleading. But I still think that too much reliance on sheet music cripples the memory in most cases. It did for me, at least...
Fun discussion! No one has addressed "muscle memory." This happens when something is repeated over and over until the fingers are on auto-pilot and allow the emotion and heart to blossom in the tune. When you own a tune, you know it inside and out. You can sing along with it if there are lyrics, smile in the joy of playing it, and even answer questions while playing. (Been there, done it.) Addressing note reading at contests, it made me think of this analogy. If I went to a storytelling festival, I would expect the storyteller to tell the story and not read it to the audience. There is a real connection that is established with the audience and other players when sheet music isn't used. I understand your dilemma, because I teach fiddling to a student who has a classical note reading strength. My student is slowly memorizing tunes successfully, because she is getting positive reinforcement and having fun during her practice. So "Fiddlechick," keep practicing until your muscle memory grabs the tune and use any avenue that works for you.
Niamh,"many traditional musicians tend to copy form CDs and teachers instead of getting to know the music with a clean slate."
The problem with that argument is that in order to become a good traditional musician it's necessary to listen to lots and lots of trad. Most experienced trad players will have heard lots of versions of lots of tunes many times. It would be very unusual to learn a version of a tune from a CD and play it exactly as you've heard it. Just because you learnt a tune from a CD doesn't mean you can't put your own stamp on it.
By the same logic discounting written music is also a flawed idea. Experienced players can use dots to their advantage. They will usually know the tune in their head, and tunes like it, and the possible ornaments and the so called 'twiddly bits. They don't need all that stuff that can't be written down. A very large proportion of the knowledge needed simply comes from listening to enough tunes and getting them into your head.
But at the end of the day NO decent trad players play in public by the dots. It is possible to play trad very well while reading but never as well as when you can bypass your eyes. Blind people usually hear better, deaf people can usually smell better etc
I think by muscle memory you mean activation of muscles by the cerebellum, the crenated bit at the back and bottom of the brain, beneath the occipital lobes: http://www.yourbrainattack.com/brain-functions.htm
Memory CAN be trained. Unless you smoke a really amazing amount of weed or have some sort of disorder, there is absolutely no reason you can't learn to memorize tunes. It just takes practice! You will never play this music as well from a page than you will from your own mind. Never. Yes, some of the best can and do read, but, with the rare exception, they're not performing stuff they have to read.
I have nothing against the notes, but I have enough respect for the music that I don't learn from the notes, don't go into sessions and noodle through a notebook looking just so I can feel good about playing, and don't play when I don't know the tune.
Does that mean I don't have fun playing, or the session I go to isn't fun? Hell no! It's a blast. If you think you have to play at a session to have fun, I somehow think you're missing the point.
O'Neill, Breatnach et al have done us a great favor. But if you think the music is in their books, you're mad. The skeleton's of the music, sure, but not the music. Do I find tunes in them? Sure. Do I learn tunes from them? NO!
This is all rather fascinating to me. I also read music extremely fluently and have been working hard to play without the dots. Over time the memorising has definitely become easier. I mostly practice without the music unless I'm trying to instil a new tune - lovely to not even have to turn the light on to play. I am particularly interested in the idea of muscle memory. I am sure that there is a difference between playing by memory and playing by ear. I am now playing by memory but have a long way to go to play by ear (which is what I would do if I could lift the music straight off a cd and play it that way). The memory comes from learning off the dots and then practicing until I don't need them. It works well but I think the limitation is that if I switch instruments to one with slightly different fingering (I'm a flute/whistle player) I have to re-learn the tune again. If I could play by ear I'm sure I wouldn't have that difficulty. That said, I agree that those of us who read fluently can easily vary the tune and add ornamentation while sightreading, and also adjust to a version heard off a cd.
Returning for a moment to a post way back in this discussion, where someone said that as a classical player they had to memorise pieces for solo performance, the reasoning behind this is to ensure that the player really has all the music in their fingers and head and that the performance is as good as they can make it.
If you work properly on a piece, say a concerto movement, and get it up to performance standard you cannot help but memorise it in the process. It's fair to say that if you haven't memorised a piece by virtue of sheer practice then you haven't been doing the work properly and you're not going to produce the goods.
Fiddlechick7-plenty of sessions in central Pa. Garyowen pup in Gettysburg on Sundays, The Ugly Oyster in Reading-A great pub, by the way. There are some in Lancaster and just across the line on Wednesday nights in Westminister Md at O'Lordan's...Baltimore's not far if you're in south central....
Hey! Just remembered one in Frederick Md too. Only went there once. Everyone had music stands, no one smiled, no alcohol, and I didn't feel welcomed at all! Maybe this would be your cup of tea because of the music stand thing....just trying to be helpful....
Don't really have much to add that others haven't already said better than I can, but I want to emphasise the fact that people *aren't* insisting on memorizing tunes to be snobbish and elitist. Rather, the point is that a traditional Irish (or Scottish) session simply cannot flow or really work at all if everyone is reliant on sheet music. People, as has been already explained here, string tunes together on the fly and start whatever jumps into their head at that moment. You *can't* be frantically racing through pages of sheet music to find the tune. It just doesn't work. It's that spontaneity that brings life to a session. I once went to a "session" in the US where everyone was using the Fiddler's Fakebook. The leader would be like, "Okay, everyone turn to page 37 and we are going to play the Star of Munster and Sally Gardens (I totally made up the page number... please don't check the Fakebook )." It was like being in a freakin' class! There was none of the wild energy and spontaneity you get at a session where people play whatever is in their heads.
The reason people would be sceptical if you walked into their sessions with a giant 3-ring binder full of tunes is not that they are being elitist bastards, but it is outside session norms and they are honestly wondering how the hell that can possibly work beyond one or two sets you start. Because it can't.
FC, mtodd is right. No matter how much you argue with your "rhetoric", he's still right. He and others have put a great deal of time and effort into trying to explain this to you, but you still don't get it.
Was your intent to learn or to argue about something you clearly don't understand? Where's llig when we need him?
When you sing a song with true emotion, all these things vanish: the "dots", the memorised tones, all the various interpretations, the variations you've tried. Play as if you were singing. It requires practice, patience, concentration, relaxation and passion. But if you play to digest and express emotions, and not to express the ability to play, you will get more satisfaction from playing one such tune till the end of your life, than from "knowing" a thousand tunes. And you'll prefer to do it with your eyes closed, except when you play with someone and talk to them with your gaze.
There's two different unrelated points to this. The first, as silver spear says, is that coming to a session with rems of paper is, at best, completely impractical.
The second is that being able to learn tune by ear is not merely a handy thing to be able to do, it's a pre-requisite. And I'll tell you why. The amount of information in the written notation is only a very small percentage of what you actually need. The subtleties of the twiddley bits, the variation, the timing, the intonation are not on the page, they have to be heard. And the killer point is, that what is on the page is actually the easiest bit of the tune to learn by ear. So if you are having trouble trying to get that bit by ear, you haven't a cat in hell's chance of getting the rest of it.
I think even if you're playing solo at a gig, apart from any musical considerations, it looks a whole lot better without the music stands and other stuff that literally becomes a barrier between you and the audience.
This is stupid. what happened to having an open mind? This is EXACTLY why I stopped playing bluegrass (there's more ways to play than how bill dun it!!!!!!!). Playing the same genre is understandable, even the same tunes, and sets of instruments-It's a tradition. But what about everything else? Not EVERYBODY can learn and play the same way. Everybody is different. we all have different needs and have to overcome different obstacles..this is why i dont go o sessions hardly ever too..snobophobia
I think the language analogy works well here. You can't be considered fluent in a language until you can speak it effortlessly, on the fly. I know people who have PhDs in Classics, who can read Ancient Greek or Latin really bloody competently. But they would not even consider themselves fluent in those languages. If they got into a time machine and were transported to Athens in 600 BC, they'd struggle.
DeFacto - I do prefer playing with my eyes closed - I just wonder how silly it looks to others. It does help with getting inside the tune though.
And yes - I've been there with the music and scrabbling around to find a tune which finishes just as I have found it - no fun at all. And I probably looked sillier than I do with my eyes shut.
silver spear. You're not fluent in a language unless you can speak, read, and wite it. Really, try getting a god job in a foreign country, where you can speak the language, but can't read or write it. same with music.
I think this is a windup. Fiddlechick teaches English in a University? Seriously? With that grammar and punctuation? I am very skeptical about this.
On the unlikely chance that it is a genuine post, Fiddlechick, I have a question for you---how often do you listen to traditional Irish music when you're not playing it?
Really? Then I guess people in completely oral cultures without a written language or people who, for whatever reasons, are illiterate in their first language are not considered fluent speakers.
You're not fluent in music unless you can read it, write it, and learn it by ear?? Try telling that to someone who plays a type of music that doesn't have written notation or even to someone from Clare who grew up immersed in Irish traditional music but can't read a note.
Irish diddley music doesn't have written notation. It borrows a form of notation from another culture which works out to be kind of OK, provided you can already play the music. But if you learned the notation together with the musical culture it was designed with, all it's gonna do it straight jacket you into playing really really badly.
Sorry, that's the bottom line.
It's like an english speaker trying to learn how to speak chinese from a book of chinese words written out phonetically with english letters. It ain't gonna work, ever.
Ha, and then taking the book to china and sitting in a bar trying to talk to people by catching snippets of their conversation and trying to find them in the book before the conversation moves on.
In passing, Michael, you're touching on a very contentious argument in philosophy of mind, John Searle's "Chinese Room" argument... if you're not familiar with it, it's a fascinating bit of food for thought...
But arguing both sides of the street, as I do, I think that studying enough Chinese to be able to recognize some basic phrases and have reasonable responses to them will give your hypothetical Chinese learner a leg up on his opposite number, who simply plops himself down in a bar in Beijing and listens really really hard and hopes to pick it up on the fly...
A problem some of us have is not enough "chinese speakers"
around. Learning from recordings helps I suppose, but they're all
cleaned up - the mistakes and hesitations and uglier scratchings and
un-commercial intonation edited out. The variations and tune sets
rehearsed.
I've heard enough live recordings from Ireland to know there are
hardly any authentic players around where I am. They are people like
me but a few years further along in experience. I guess we are
developing an indigenous way of playing.
So those of us in the colonies trying to learn by ear might not be much
better off than the sheet music-dependent. I session from memory
but I learn from live playing, dots and recordings in that order.
I made a personal discovery a while back. I was having difficulty learning tunes quickly. I had the notation. Even if I played the tune every day several times, I wasn't able to remember it.
So one day I listed to a few tunes 23 times or so. My iTunes playlist tells me it was 23. I got home and I played the tune. It came easy.
I put the sheet music away. I found that after fumbling a bit, I could reconstruct the whole tune from memory. Once I did that I could play it through slow without mistakes from memory. I didn't really need the sheet music. I could play it anytime I wanted.
I did this for a few tunes and what do you know? A tune I wasn't even trying to memorize just came into my head and I could play it note for note without notation. I had only heard it played a dozen or so times. Amazing. The tunes I liked came easy.
I can see why someone who has a great deal of experience with learning by ear would thing sheet music is a crutch holding you back musically. Your ears do all the heavy lifting. Besides, have you ever heard a classically trained musician's first efforts at ITM? Ouch.
Having started learning with notation, I can see how someone who has never learned by ear would think that they don't have the memory to do it. I could see how they would think that all their musical training must be good for something and that it is part of being a complete musician. After all, learning to read notation is a hard earned skill.
So it isn't all that surprising that this is one of those issues where many of us really don't understand each other.
I would have Fiddlechick7 give up notation for 3 months and try to honestly learn some tunes by ear. It would answer many of her questions. I imagine she would find out that her memory can handle the task. She should listen to tunes 23 times or so before she gives it a go at first. Before you know it she will have to find some other topic to generate arguments.
I admit that I go to a learners session and we read the dots... but, we are learning that it is indeed a straitjacket. My goal is to NOT memorize the tunes, but learn the tunes. I'm trying to not even look at the page, but hear the tune and internalize it, then play it.
Like language, one doesn't read it, "memorize" it, then speak it.
I have been on both sides of the fence, I've been around those that look down their noses at whomever is on the other side of the fence.
But, with this music, as with other styles of fiddle music, it has life that exists on its own. Yes, one can chicken scratch it out, read the dots, memorize those dots, then play from memory those same dots. There is more to it, as most of you know. I just thought it was interesting to see so many folks referring to "memorizing" the tunes. I think it's a bit different than "learning" the tunes.
and quite frankly, I'm still learning how to learn. extremely naive...
Why use the Chinese analogy on an ITM forum? A more appropriate analogy would be the Irish language! There are obviously LOTS of twiddly bits in the spelling and pronunciation!!
Good posts from abuteague and wyogal. I'm particularly taken by the distinction between "memorizing" and "learning" tunes - this also goes back to Bredna's post above, and muscle memory.
I'm pretty sure there's room for another discussion here, about the way we conceptualize "learning" tunes, and "knowing" them.
For example, it seems tautological to me to say "I learned the tune, and now I know it", and I couldn't say "I learned the tune, but I don't know it" - on the other hand, I could imagine saying "I've memorized the tune, but I don't know it yet": "I know the tune", for me, doesn't necessarily follow from "I memorized the tune".
This is quite apart from the practical question, also useful, of how people go about getting tunes into their heads. As I said above, I know people who seem to learn tunes just by hearing them a time or two, and others who (like me) have a much harder time of it.
I wouldn't say I've learned the tunes I've memorized. I'm just beginning to learn to use my ear as a skill.
The tunes I've memorized are just outlines.
The other day I ran into someone who demonstrated for me just how empty my outlines are. I knew he played, but he knew his tunes.
I stopped reading about 40 posts ago as it was getting tiresome....but what the heck is "in sutu"? I learn tunes by ear or from sheet music but don't know about this "in sutu" business.
One thing I can add to the conversation is this: for the last few months I've been learning and memorizing the common session tunes and one thing I've noticed is the more tunes I've learned, the easier it is to learn and memorize new ones. And it gets easier to vary the tunes I've learned as I play them.
it means in it's natural setting - I guess he's talking about sessions, or maybe sessions in Ireland? What's with the latin Kiparsky? Have you talked into grad school?
The last time we had a good "dots vs. ears" discussion was on October 10th, and at that time the session.org membership was 49,996. As of this writing we have 55,121 members. So, 5125 new tradheads have joined us, eager (I hope) to learn the accumulated wisdom of all of us. It's a discussion that won't go away, and it shouldn't.
I can do dots and ears. But I've found that when I learn from the dots, the tunes don't stick as well and the music doesn't flow. The tunes I have picked up by ear come more easily to the fingers and the notes have a lightness to them that I haven't been able to replicate when reading the dots.
You can liken knowing a tune to knowing a person. When you first meet someone, you can have a good old chin wag and after that, if someone asks you if you know that person you can say, yeah. But you can't really know them, not after only one decent chin wag. But even if you've not met them again for years, you can still get on with them fine the next time you do meet. But if you meet them often, share jokes and drink etc, they can then become your friends and you really do start to get to know them. And even if for some reason you don't see them for a long while, they will always be your chums. Know someone for 20 years and they can be you best mates.
Tirno was it you in a previous post who suggested they were married? mr llig and miss spear.
( oh am I going to get hit with a low d whistle this week end)
"Like language, one doesn't read it, "memorize" it, then speak it."
Just picking up on a few items on this long thread. Can't find the post I quoted this from (Kiparsky?) but he states the problem clearly. Because you read music with such ease, you are no longer aware that you took a detour by learning an instrument by the classic method. Those who picked up the instrument first and started playing by ear learned to identify the place where a particular note comes from faster. I know excellent musicians who still keep their sheets in front of them while playing folk music in a group situation. Their reason is that they don't trust themselves to instantly find the note they want. In this sense they are not as close to their instrument as the ear players. As for playing in a session, I seriously doubt that it would be possible to play along by any other method than following the musicians closely. And they are not following the book. Playing for yourself is quite different.
Ahh, a finely crafted wind-up thread from a *professional*! It's nice to see that it has at least been treated with civility...
One thing that stuck out to me was this quote:
>> "If I find a piece of sheet music I have never seen before (classical or traditional) I don’t have any pre-conceptions about what it should sound like. I can follow the notes and the timing but after that it’s up to me to make the music my own."
Well, niamh, it's up to you to make it your own... But ONLY if you DO have a pre-conceived notion of what it should sound like, will your own version even slightly resemble trad (or classical).
That's really one of the critical elements of this debate. You can't learn to play Irish traditional music from the dots, because the dots don't contain anything that makes the tune sound Irish when played. The tune is just a tune. If a Scottish player played the tune, they'd make it sound Scottish, if a bluegrass player played the tune, it would sound more like bluegrass... But very little of what makes a tune sound Irish is the tune itself.
If you are already immersed in the tradition, then you can potentially learn tunes from the dots. And the problem is that if you're not immersed in the tradition, you are probably not savvy enough yet to tell the difference between what you play off of the page, and what an Irish player plays, because you haven't yet learned the nuances of what makes it sound Irish.
So, much of the perceived elitism is because people that aren't immersed in the tradition are basically murdering something that we all love. How we choose to respond in those situations is up to each one of us, individually. For myself, my general inclination is to try to help prod the person toward the proper direction. But sometimes in a session, you don't have time to be arsed with that, and it may come across as snobbishness or elitism.
If your main focus is to play fiddle in a "celtic rock band", then maybe you don't really care about any of this (and most of us wouldn't care to listen to you...) But you probably wouldn't be welcome in trad sessions. So, fiddlechick7, while lively debate can be fun, it might behoove you to listen to what is really being said by the majority of the people on the other side in this debate. And if you did immerse yourself in the tradition and learn to play by ear, you would become a better fiddler, and it probably wouldn't hurt your band either...
I never really analysed that phrase before - "learn by heart"
Something to do with the heart being the symbolic seat of emotions. Strange that I never really got emotional about my 12 times tables as a kid even when I had it off by heart!
By the way Reverend you put it all so very eloquently there.
Approaching traditional music form the "sheet music" angle is filled with many disadvantages for the player wishing to learn traditional music.
I have seen many times, players with sheet music play in a session or with an individual who has learned a tune by tradition and the sheet music player is unable to play along or pick up on the variances or nuances that make the tune what it is. I have also seen the sheet music player insist (at different levels of insistance) that their sheet music version is the "correct" way.
I have worked with many "trained" musicians and they all look at the printed page as the "source" of music. Traditional fiddling is not based on a printed tradition in my opinion. And i think its a valid opinion.
Also I see all to often sheet music in sessions that is just plain skeletal to the point of being a different tune in itself... or it completely avoids the point of the tune... what I wonder is why classically trained musicians will accept such skeletal sheet music for what it is? Because traditional players certainly don't! The same could be said for classical pieces... could you imagine taking simplified skeletal sheet music of mozart into the symphony hall and be taken seriously?
When I am sharing or teaching traditional music to others I would feel like I am doing a disservice by giving the "student" sheet music or encouraging its use.
As an ear player all of my life, who has learned to read music...
I do think that sheet music has a time and purpose...
Well I've done some cartography. Some very simple maps have often been more helpful for me, in the field, than those filled with information. Yes, I do think you can take a lead sheet into a session & come up with some wonderful music. Of course not in traditional music, but you seem to be broadening the field Merry. Even Mozart would have developed his compositions from skeletal themes.
Occasionally I go to band workshops for playing for folk dancers. Because the people at these workshops come from a fairly wide geographical area and have different musical backgrounds printed music is invariably provided. I've long since discovered that if the tune on the stand in front of me is one I already know my playing screws up because the printed version is never quite the same as that in my head and so the old brain get conflicting messages. I now push the music stand away out of focus - that solves the problem.
Well, I can see I definitely stirred up the nest here... haven't been on since yesterday. Once argument I always make, is that is it hard to "hear" tone on a post/email. I want to thank all the helpful, respectful posts, of which there were many. One or two posts at the beginning sort of turned me off, but after reading the other posts, I feel that I've actually gained insight, which is what I wanted in the first place... not preached to about how I'm doing things wrong. As I've stated, I struggle with memorization, and thanks for the tips (you know who you are) for helping with that. The condescending posts I have just ignored or argued with, which isn't what I really wanted in the first place. I was genuinely curious to understand what I perceived as a bias. I've learned that most here aren't biased, but believe strongly in what they've said. Some, however, I still hold as being a bit snobby about it all. Anyway, great discussion, and now I leave it to the birds.....
Michael I'm sure you can prove that so I will withdraw my naive comment. You do have evidence, right?
Lazyhound, yours is one of the best points I have seen on this forum.
Simply put the music aside. The tune's in your head.
Do you mean me as #7? Email me, and I'll let ya know. Oh, thanks for all the session places... but they are all at least 3 or more hours away... any near Blair, Bedford or Cambria counties in Central Pa?
Fiddlechick7, did you read all the posts from other people who said they struggled with memory, but who later found out that the problem sorted itself out once they left the dots aside?
Mozart. Very very few of his surviving manuscripts have corrections in them. It could be that he wrote his ideas on different sheets and destroyed those later, but paper was expensive, and he wasn't that rich. There are many accounts of him just sitting down and writing out full scores. Lazyhound might have some "proof"
My brother lives in Hollidaysburg and I've been trying to find a session in central PA for a while, for when I visit. No luck yet -- why don't you start one?
Yes. I honestly think it's twofold... I do have a legitimate problem that involves moving short term to long term, and it's been a real challenge all my life (this doesn't mean I'm not smart... I teach college, but it's made some things tough over the years), and this is why I probably seemed to take "things personally" at the beginning... any type of disability is a sensitive issue for those that have one, and we don't like to be criticized for hardships.
Anyway, the other thing has a lot to do with a discussion I've had with my guitar/front man in the band.... he's never read music, though he could pick out some notes very painstakingly. He told me he'd never ask me not to use music, because, as he put it, "if you stuck that stuff in front of me and told me to play and expect me to be a virtuoso, I'd look at you like you're insane..... it wouldn't be fair for me to expect the opposite." However, I have managed to memorize a few things, small things, but still struggle with whole sets of tunes. It's like, when you learn to read music from a very young age, in your most formative years, there is a pathway that opens right from your brain to your hands/fingers.... I assume something similar happens to by ear learners. I tend to be a visual learner, vs. aural, in other areas as well. It is a long rode. It gets frustrating, because I'm a decent player... have over 20 years experience on the instrument... but without the music, I feel like I'm 10 playing Twinkle, twinkle again. I imagine some who don't read music would feel the same way if they were told they couldn't use their ears anymore.
Mozart..l remember him. I think I left him in my high school auditorium about 12-13 years ago! Or at the last wedding......
1.) Yes, I listen to both Trad. and Celtic Rock/Punk/Fusion. Every day. The people in my car are ready to pull their hair out... the ones not into either the way I am.
2.) Hollidaysburg... that's the spot.... I've thought of it, but I'm too intimidated after all the "hate posts"... obviously, according the members here, I wouldn't be able to lead a session. However, perhaps an INFORMAL jam session, where anyone can come (trad/folk/bluegrass/etc.) and just get together, learn, have fun, and be openminded. That would be great. Maybe I'll look into that over the summer.
I think the whole problem is the concept of "memorizing". If I stuck the music of a brand new tune in front of you and told you to have it ready to play for me without music by tomorrow, you would have to sit down and memorize it. If I told you that tomorrow I wanted you to play your own fancy version of Happy Birthday, however, you wouldn't need to memorize it---you already know it---but you would have to spend some time getting it into your fingers and experimenting to see what phrases sound best.
This is why I asked if you listen to traditional music. If you listen to it---a lot---it gets inside your head, and after some time you know the tunes, even though you've never played them on your fiddle. After that, it's just a matter of figuring it out. The advantage to doing it that way is that you already know in your head how it should sound, so you're much less likely to sound like a classical player trying to play a fiddle tune.
Something tells me you haven't done a lot of listening.
Cross post. Okay, fine. Refine your listening. Take one or two trad cds (NOT that Celtic rock stuff) and listen to them over and over, until you can hum the tunes to yourself without the music. Then learn one of those tunes---by ear. No sheet music. Then keep playing it for a while. You won't need music after that.
I've done a lot of listening, since I was 9. I'm 30. Do the math. I can often "hear" the song in my head, and can even sing it (well hum)... it's the pathway thing that's stuck. I think there are just those that have more challenges with this type of learning. It doesn't mean they aren't serious, don't have a passion for the music and instrument, or are "clueless" or unintelligent. I will admit,however, that I've never been to many serious irish workshops. I am intimidated after many of these posts. Even if it wasn't their intent, many of the trad players here make me feel like if I'm not up to their standards right away, to stay away. How do those players expect others to learn what they know without a little hit or miss and experimentation... shouldn't be ashamed to enter into the "fail but then learn' stage. Just a thought to think about when another so-called "newby" is lookin for insight or help with a question or other concern.
You've stated repeatedly that you have a lousy memory, you can't do it, some people just have different abilities, etc. etc. etc. Have you ever just tried swearing off sheet music for 6 months? As in---no sheet music at all, only learning by ear?
If you go back to the written version every time your memory fails you, you're only reinforcing the paper dependency.
Fiddlechick7, your last comment reminds me of the time ceolachan posted a thread entitled "noodling 101"
If I remember right it brought a bit of a row before the dust settled (Ouch). I have to go to work (again). & then session tonight. Cheers!
Not for that long, admittedly. My point is not that I CAN'T do it, just that I face some challenges that I know others on this site don't. It's medical. I can't help it. It's not an excuse, it's just very frustrating at times. It's like when someone (well, the gals will get this anyway) who is supermodel thin tells you it's easy to lose weight, or tell you what they do and expect you do be the same. I appreciate your advice. I'm definitely trying hard, to get the wrong idea there. The original post was more on "why" music is frowned upon. I guess I just felt that some people were personally attacking the other things....
I don't really have the time probably necessary, when I need to "learn" things for my band quickly. But I do plan on setting a goal to learn X amount of tunes by the end of the summer, even if it's only 2 or 3.
I'm just curious if any of you experienced musicians and teachers posting (and lurking I suspect) have ever come across someone else in which that particular "pathway thing is stuck". The whole thing has an air of fabrication about it.
That's flat-out ridiculous. You just don't put in the time required (as you said yourself).
Others have given you many good answers about why it's frowned on in trad circles. And yet you call them snobs. You're going to have to adjust your attitude about this and be willing to try new (old) ways of doing things if you want to do it the traditional way. But that's up to you.
Its a windup Kennedy. But they do pull out some good posts. Some people work really hard to express themselves when frustrated. Just like when we had jig around.
I'm not sure how they were "games". They were defending a point of view obviously in minority. And I resent that there are those that ignorantly dismiss another's disabilities so insensitively. I shouldn't, in all respect, have to even bring up such a personal situation on a forum. Something about that just turns me off. I really appreciate most opinions on here, and even ones that are a bit "prickly" at times (Kennedy, i think you have some good things to say and I respect you for it), but if you are going to make fun of someone, then you shouldn't be respresenting this site. It's just plain ingnorant. Sorry if that is "prickly", but those types of posts, in my opinion, cross over into very personal territory. Give me some strategies that haven't already been posted. Offer something CONSTRUCTIVE. That's what I wanted in the original post. I only started "playing" rhetoric when the abuse started. I think I was warranted there. If you can't take it, don't dish it out.
Seriously, it's all good, though. If I met you in person, I would probably actually have liked you. I just don't like your cyber persona.
You've been given lots of constructive advice. But you don't have time to implement any of it. Plus there's that pesky disability of yours. What utter nonsense.
Actually, you want to know about a disability? I play at a session with a 79 year old man who had a stroke last year. He forgot almost every tune he ever knew. So now he has to learn them all over again, and he can only learn about one a month. But he does it and we see him every week. Without sheet music of any kind.
I used to go to Reverend's tune learning session and there was invariably someone who would insist that they simply cannot learn by ear, their brain doesn't work that way, etc. etc. Pete (or Zina) would ask, "Can you sing 'Happy Birthday' or 'Row row row your boat?'" They would be like, "Uh... yeah..." Well, then. There you go. You can learn by ear.
Of course. And it is. But that wasn't my original INTENT. But, when my buttons are pushed, I do tend to move in that general vain. I think, though, if this thread continues, maybe we can settle any differencs via email, etc.? Maybe we should try to move it back a few steps here... I'd be willing to make that first step.
Here goes.... since many tunes are traditionally passed through musician to musician, can anyone share some insight into how some of those tunes make their way into tune books? How are these versions "settled on" in the first place? Such as O'Neill's, etc?
Kennedy: that is a horrible story... but one of hope. Thanks for sharing. I wouldn't presume to have anything like that. Just looking for a little respect, I guess. Feel a little like the fat kid that doens't get picked for volley ball because no one wants to play with someone they feel isn't up to par.....
david_h, I believe Will said something about it up there in regards to one of his students.
Fiddlechick, think of all the tunes you can sing off the top of your head. I don't mean Irish jigs and reels, I mean just songs, pop songs, Celtic rock songs, tv commercials, tv show theme songs, American folk songs, Christmas songs, etc.
People have so much music in their heads already. The ability is there and in all of us. As musicians, we have more of it than other people, but everyone can sing a bunch of songs off their top of their heads, Twinkle Twinkle, Jingle Bells, a million TV commercials and shows from your youth, etc. You’re doing it already. There is no blockage. Go ahead and take a moment to cruise through all the music inside you already, and amaze yourself.
That’s the same thing I tell kids who say “How can you remember all that music?”
“Well, how much music can you remember? Happy Birthday? Twinkle Twinkle? Jingle Bells? The new Hanna Montana song? How about the Pokemon theme song?” and they all laugh and are quite impressed with themselves when they thing of all the songs and tunes they already have inside of them.
Also, sorry if some of us are coming off as intimidating, we're not! Like I said, most of us are very welcoming!
However, you admitted you were looking to stir things up a bit, and naturally some of us less patient mustard board denizens easily and quickly rise to the challenge of anyone who wants to stir or wind things up. You asked for it, you got it! Sort of like don’t kick the hornets’ nest and then wonder why the hornets are mad!
Kennedy: I didn't say I "didn't have time"... I referred to the 6 months thing. Anyway, in all seriousness... if I asked you to stop playing be ear for 6 months, would you. I think not, and I wouldn't put you down for that. I have the utmost respect for you, honestly, but can we quit the personal attacks?
SWFL: point taken. I did say, if you can't take it, don't dish it out. Like I said, I'm willing to stop this nonsense, though... anyone else care to move on.....????
O'Neill wrote his versions down as they were played by the musician in question, the musician that we was transcribing at the time.
That's how fluid and changing it is. I remember recently looking at a tune here, then in a Johnny O'Leary book of his tunes, then in O'Neill's, then I went to play it with the guy at the session I go to who put it in my head in the first place, and sure enough, four different versions!
It can be done. I thought I couldn't learn by ear, but I went to workshops where we learned everything by ear, with the dots on the way out. I could have cried the first week, thought I'd never be able to do it.....but five years later, I can do it. Not wonderfully, but OK. Give it a go!
When I was learning accordion I picked up the tunes by ear and hadn't a clue about things like Keys etc. The same can be said for a good many of my contemporaries. In the early fifties we just didn't have access to teachers or learning music. It was many years later that I bought a Music Tutor and learned about the dots. It was only then that I realised what I was missing over the years. Gary Blair (Band Leader and Accordion Teacher from Scotland) was a firm believer in musicians learning to read music properly, and was quoted as saying ;For every really good busker (who is usually born with a real musical gift and a wonderful ear) there are thousands who churn out the same old monotonous corn with very little idea of phrasing, fingering, or musicianship. In almost every case they could be improved by 100% by learning to read music properly. I agree with that statement. Thankfully I have an excellent memory for tunes but I have a certain amount of pity for players who have no retention and are lost without the dots. Believe me I know many who are good musicians and love to play but need the sheet music in order to do so. That rules them out of the joy of being able to join in with a Session for a start. Sad really!
...and my last post is yet another reason why the tunes must be internalized, 'known', etc.
You have to be able to alter on the fly, jive with who you are playing with at the time, subtle, beautiful, wonderful little variations from everyone you meet and play with.
Fiddlechick7. Do you have an inquiring mind ? Do your really seek answers ? How do you learn what you teach ?
Where would you find the words "More than one lover of Irish music has started out with the laudable purpose of making a complete collection or encyclopedia of Irish melodies..." ?
If I wanted to play in an orchestra and my sight-reading abilities were sub-par, I would certainly give up the fiddling for six months to immerse myself in classical music and learn to play it properly. I certainly wouldn't expect the rest of the orchestra to allow me to show up and try to play along by ear!
It's a matter of time and effort. You're stuck in a paper rut. You will need to do something pretty drastic to get yourself out of it. You're not going to learn to play by ear if you run back to your books every time you get scared. Six months is just a number I picked, but it has to be a substantial period of time, or else you're just going to revert back to your paper-reading ways.
And quit with the disability garbage. You have a weaker memory than some. That's all. It's not a disability.
Forgive me everyone, but FC's posts just don't "add up" [or am I alone in this summation?]. If you read over them in any serious way [and FC..I'm trying really hard here to give you the benefit of the doubt]... it's like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute there's a chink of light, the next FC is accusing anonymous members of "hate" posts [hate posts! good lord].
In the next breath FC is 'agreeing' only to turn around and attack and hide behind the 'rhetoric' schtick. So what is it FC? Is this some kind of game for you? No one's mocked you that I can see, nor posted anything personal or nasty. In fact, people have taken time out to explain from various view points what the tradition means to them and the community at large and what the pro's and con's of using the dots are.
You say you listen to a lot of music, but you clearly are not listening to the advice and insights offered here...some of which is excellent indeed....
Why play games [if you are]? Crack is fair play, games playing is not. If the latter, you're abusing people's talents and gifts by doing so.
Nah, the first ones better. We escaped that over here so the video has 'entertainment' value and the audio for the second part helps stop neural connections forming for the theme.
You know they like you when they post their favourite YouTube.
I'm with fiddlechick7 ~ somehow I have never been able to play "Gilligan's Isle" You now, medical reasons.
Stopped in for lunch. If you see this (professor) it's the very informative & *fun * thread which changed my whole perspective.
"Traditional Noodling 101"
April 25th 2008 by ceolachan http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17549
I am constantly amazed by the brilliance of the folks that post on this website. Take kennedy for example. He doesn't need to even see or hear the patient, that kind of stuff is for lesser mortals, like doctors. From just a few text posts on the internet, he is able to determine that the person posting does NOT have any sort of disability whatsoever, despite her claims to the contrary. And is confident enough in his diagnosis to chastize her for her mistaken ideas. Truly amazing!
That being said, I do think most people sell themselves short these days when faced with memorization. I found it somewhat intimidating when I first came to this music to memorize things. But the more I memorized, the easier I found that it was to memorize. First strumming patterns that fit tunes, then the tunes themselves, and then songs, words and all. And once I learned them, I found that I owned them, or they had become a part of me, I am not sure which. Learned them "by heart' as someone above so aptly put it.
In the latter half of the 20th century, educators stopped emphasizing memorization as a way to learn, 'teach them how to think, not to recite facts,' was the goal I think. But in doing so, they did not force youngsters to flex mental muscles and abilities that could benefit them their whole lives. And make them think that they were incabable of making a poem, or a song or tune, part of themselves, by learning it 'by heart.' A big step backwards in progress, if you ask me......
People learn in different ways. The best musicians use every resource available. Several people here lecture others about how they should learn. Shame on you. You have no right to tell anyone how to learn/play music. No right whatsoever. Ironically, the most vociferous defenders of exclusive 'ear learning' around here are shxt musicians. You only need to listen to their out of tune/time offerings on the internet to work that one out. I'm not a very good musician myself, but my ability to read and write music has helped me to play, perform, record and teach music. I have some recordings of not very good music on Myspace. Some of the tunes were played directly from sheet music, without knowing the music 'by heart', or in fact ever hearing anyone else play them. If anyone here has the patience or inclination to do so, I challenge you to tell me which tunes on my recordings were read directly from sheet music, and which tunes were played from memory or ear learning. Come on: let's see if you're right!
Fiddlechick7, if listening to CDs helps you, not a bad place to start is anything by Ben Lennon - you'll find three if you search his name under Recordings. The older two in particular sound rather like a good session with excellent players (which is what they are) recorded live in a pub. The playing is traditional and straight down the line - no messing around with the tunes. They're good CDs to learn from.
AlBrown, I did a little research on memory disabilities just now, and it seems there is indeed such a thing. If that is what Fiddlechick has, then I was wrong and I owe her an apology. I'm having trouble believing that someone who teaches English at a university could function at that level with such a disability, however. To me, it sounded like so many others we've seen who just have trouble memorizing things. There's nothing wrong with that. It just takes more work achieve. How many times have we seen people on this website who say they have a rotten memory, but then refuse to give up written music?
She doesn't sound like she wants to do much learning by ear, anyway. She started the thread to find out why traditional musicians frown on reading music in sessions, and she didn't like the answers people gave her. The fact is, even if she's a fabulous musician, if she walks into a standard Irish session with a music stand and a book, she's going to feel out of place. Not unwelcome, but not part of the group, because she won't be able to participate the way everyone else does. It's not a judgement on her; it's just the way things are.
Again, if I'm mistaken about the disability thing and she's actually had a medical diagnosis for it, I certainly apologize for doubting what she said.
>I'm not sure how they were "games". They were defending a >point of view obviously in minority. And I resent that there are >those that ignorantly dismiss another's disabilities so >insensitively. etc etc etc.
Sorry Fiddlechick, but that just dosn't wash at all. I think you are being more than a little disingenuous.
Had you said upfront you had a medical problem which prevented you from playing without sheet music then the response would have been completely different. You didn't. You came up with a whole set of alternative justifications that many here regarded as spurious.
Now you claim a medical condition is the real reason.
Fine, that makes your problem understandable (if it is treue) and had you been honest in the first place about your real reasons, then you wouldn't have ended up pretending to be all hurt andwounded when people were not impressed with your other explanations. Other explantions which you have effectively admitted to be untrue by telling us that the real reason is medical.
As it happens I have a friend who needs sheet music to play, due to a memory problem. of course that is acceptable.
If you need sheet music to play for a non-medical reason , then that too is acceptable. It is your life after all do what you want. Don't expect people down the local session to be impressed though.
And more than that don't expect to be taken seriously when the non-medical reasons (excuses?) that you come up with fail to win people over.
- Chris (who can't belive he's taking part in a stupid troll discussion)
kennedy:
>AlBrown, I did a little research on memory disabilities just >now, and it seems there is indeed such a thing. If that is what >Fiddlechick has, then I was wrong and I owe her an apology
My friend has a problem with short term memory. My undertstanding of the situation is that they need the dots to remind themselves of tunes that they know. Other problems include an inability to remember how to spell their name etc.
I'm not saying that fiddlechick has something similar. She may. She also may not. But it is possible to have such a condition.
Fiddlechick7's style of argument tends makes me, and others, think that when she says "Can't" she means "Won't". Kennedy's stern words higher up reflect that.
If she really has got a disability, and has had it for years, why would she come here are stir up a hornets nest ? And why does she not come armed with examples of how people who do things differently (e.g. left handers) or have difficulties with some things (e.g. dislexia) have been treated unreasonably in the past ?
I'm with Reverend and mtodd. What sort of *professional* ? An actor who is familiar with stuff like Transactional Analysis maybe ?
Ha, interesting ramblingpitchfork. I'm not doubting what you say (the devil is always in the detail) but I'm just having a burst of trying to play from dots (not really sight reading, I've seen it a lot before) and have realised that one skill that needs to be built up is processing the bar at the end of one stave whilst flicking my eyes down to the start of the next. Not sure whether that is short term memory or what. I can it to some extent whilst singing but hardly at all whilst playing the flute. Funny things mental pathways.
Hello Joel, good post. It is late & I should be in bed.
All I ever have is patience & inclination so I gave your MySpace a listen, also a little bit of your friends (Rick Payman & Béla Fleck; thank you very much). I sure cannot tell which tunes you read & which you didn't. I like the jigs & would guess you know them well enough by ear. However you're doing it, it's grand.
I'm trying to make the effort to overcome my, "naive desire to save the music from those that would murder it".
I'm turning over a new leaf. OK so fiddlechick wasn't really asking for advice, merely stirring, even though she got lots of good advice. She is what she is. Her playing will be without a doubt tedious and repetitive and her phrasing will be appalling. But hey ho, I don't have to listen too it.
This web site is populated by many people who do things like, "use traditional tunes as platforms for technique development," or purport to, "know all the technical theory stuff about both violin and Irish fiddling," and yet refuse to use their ears.
And you know what, having spent years arguing with them, I'm done with it. They don't care. So neither do I. Murder away. As someone brainier that I said, "The music can and will survive it."
Memory - good for sessions, playing strings of tunes on the fly spontaneously
with others who also know the tunes by memory
Dots - good for learning new tunes and parts of tunes that you have considerable difficulty learning by ear - For example - someone says - Hey can you learn this piece for a performance? - Then you realize that the only available resource for the tune is a version in O'Neill's since there is nothing at session.org, and there are no youtube videos of the same. So, you go to the dots and work your way through until a practice of the tune, when you finally put it all together with others who actually know it.
Also, dots come in handy on twists and turns in tunes that others seem to know beautifully at the session, but somehow you're just not getting that one tricky part, that involves a motion of the fingers that you've never done before in quite that way.
So, you go to the dots to "see" what is happening. If the dots are a reflection of the version of the tune your mates are playing at the session, then this can be a very helpful tool to improve your participation whenever this tune is played again.
I am quite skilled at memory learning, though I tend to learn my own 'versions' or 'variations' of the tunes. I am terrible at dot-learning but I do it when I need to. I'd like to get better at it.
Once I knew a professional pianist who was a master sight-reader. I was in awe of her ability to play something I was familiar with but that she'd never heard before, exactly as I knew the piece from my own aural memory. (Just from listening, I am not a pianist.)
For example, I always admired Billy Joel's piano pieces and I asked her to play "Root Beer Rag" from a book she happened to have in her pile. She'd never heard the tune before. She looked at it for about a minute and then proceeded to play it exactly as I knew it from the album "Streetlife Serenade". She was not even a Billy Joel fan. I was amazed by this. She had every nuance and riff, and
all the swing that I expected.
I always respected sight-reading and playing by the dots, but after this, I have always had the utmost sincere admiration for those that can play something they've never heard before strictly from the dots. I suppose I admire it so much partly because I just can't do it myself and I'd like to be able to. However, this would not be applicable in a session for the many reasons already expressed in this thread.
llig, that's about all you can do, I'm afraid. There will always be wind-up merchants, time wasters and messers, and they're always a pain in the ass to deal with. I suppose the trick is to try and ignore them, lest we encourage them. They don't care, and they never will.
But there are also lots of people on here who genuinely care about the music and want to learn. Those people will look for help and good advice, and they'll listen to it, and learn from it.
Those are the people I want to be here for. I don't want to spend my time arguing with langers who don't give a crap anyway. But I will try my best to help someone who genuinely wants it.
llig, I think you're a source of good advice, and you've shown time and again that you're willing to put the effort into helping people. But arguing with tossers will only frustrate you.
Halfwaythere, you miss an important point. (and this probably shows in your playing), The ammount of information in the dots if pitiful compared to the amount of information you need to be able to play these tunes well. So if you can't get the simple turns of the melody without the dots, how the heck are you gonna get the much more subtle stuff that's not in the dots?
Llig...you're not really arguing with them, you're trying to convince them or persude them to at least consider your view point based on years of experience. However for every tosser that remains unconvinced and who doesn't listen or at least open his/her ears to listening
[aside: isn't it funny how even on this specialty list where you'd think most people WOULD be open to ideas given that they're here in the first place to "learn"...is it no wonder that they probably are not listening to 1. themselves 2. other good players 3. the music]
there are others in the murk who DO listen...albeit somewhat grudingly. For those members, your rants are important.
Keep ranting. Besides it's good for you...as you said yourself in some earlier post, it helps you clarify your ideas about the music in your own mind...if I haven't misquoted you.
Well, that's the crux of the matter, isn't it? The dots are a sketch. Nothing more than a rough outline of how the tune goes.
Someone who understands the music can get the sketch, learn how it goes, fill in the blanks with their own experience and style, and play the tune well. Someone without that understanding will play it as it's written, and it won't sound right.
I can draw up a rough sketch of how I want a new house to look when it's built. If I give the sketch to an architect, he'll be able to fill in what's missing and produce a workable design. If I give it to a block layer, chances are he won't.
I love coming back and reading all the posts. Some good stuff here. I found I got what seems more "sound" advice directly through emails, though. As stated above, it's hard to "get a sense" of someone through these things.
I guess the part with being/sounding "disingenuous" was because I didn't like the idea of having to explain a personal medical condition online for the whole world to know about, which, in reading my previous posts, I can see might have come off that way, since I was trying to "beat around the bush" so to speak. Anyway, to clarify, the "condition" was due to an accident. It sometimes isn't so bad, but in stressful situations or when I get sick, it gets bad: sometimes can't remember what I did an hour ago. But, the good news is, once it's in long term, I won't forget it. It's getting there that's tough.
I AM planning on taking alot of advice here, and I'd still LOVE to meet up with someone whose advice was given, if anyone is around. I think a face to face discussion would be nice, and possibly to start in on some of these suggestions... hard to do anything alone in a "group" mentality tradition.
Oh, I was wondering if I could get some more opinions on the "dot" as sketch thing as well. I understand that what is in a book is only one version. But, if something is in a book, does it automatically become "simple". I have seen some books that are, definitely, simple. I've seen some others that are excellent. I recently purchased a compilation of some Cape Breton tunes... very intricate... and even includes original compositions. The reason I'm asking is, I had a conversation with a banjo player in a local bluegrass (okay, know this is a different genre example) "family" who stated that when he learns at fesitvals, he's still only learning one version. Is the point then, always to make the tune your own, no matter how it is originally learned? I'd just like a few more clarifications on that point. Thanks.
I've been listening (since joining this forum a couple of months ago) . . I now appreciate the dots are just a starting point. Memorising tunes is not that difficult and becomes easier the more you do it.
"Dots versus Ears" debates may be tedious for some but don't forget the newbies. I suppose we should be grateful to the grit that is Fiddlechick for causing more pearls of wisdom from the voices of experience here. (I'll stop now before I get tangled up in my own metaphor.)
You want to make the tune your own, however you need to be able to play it with everyone else on the planet who has also made the tune their own.
There’s no way that this can happen if everyone’s reading different dots, but if they’ve all internalized the tune, and can listen to themselves and their fellow musicians, then the magic happens, and that’s what it’s all about.
As I mentioned on another thread, you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
You will eventually make every tune your own. But you'll do it in such a way that you can play along with everyone else, who have also made the tune their own. The dots provide a framework that everyone can base their interpretation on.
But it's experience and adaptability and sensitivity to the playing of others that ultimately make it all work. You have to get a feel for how much you can vary the tune without messing it up, or making it into something else entirely.
And there shouldn't be a need to "memorize" anything. All you're doing is humming a tune. If you've done enough listening, this should come naturally. If you've put enough work into learning the mechanics of your chosen instrument, playing it should be as natural to you as humming (at least at a basic level - refining variations and ornamentation might take a bit more thought).
FC, you write:
"I have seen some books that are, definitely, simple. I've seen some others that are excellent. I recently purchased a compilation of some Cape Breton tunes... very intricate... and even includes original compositions."
Why buy the book when you can buy the cds of people playing the tunes? Or you can fly there from Penn. in about 2 hours! I suggest Celtic Colours festival...takes place every fall.
You can buy lots of great CB cds from Paul Cranford's site. Listen, find tunes you like, learn by ear. Forget the book. Ask Paul for advice on good cds etc [his day job is as a lighthouse keeper...nice oxymororn that....but he moonlights as a fiddler and champion of CB music and runs a website and cd selling biz]
Once again, why would you learn tunes from a book if you haven't heard CB music as it's played and supposed to be played? It's fruitless. It simply will not sound right.
Pick up Ashley MacIssac's Fiddle 101 for starts....
Fidchick. I'm convinced that trying to learn tunes by ear will help your condition, for a number of reasons. It is something new to you so you will be building new neural pathways. It will give you a sense of achievement. It will make you a better musician.
Try it. Do as many many people here have suggested: Pick a tune you've never played before and listen to a recording of it (by a good, well respected player) 10 or 20 or more times a day for as long as it takes for you to be able to sing/hum it in all it's fine detail. Now you have learned it by ear, congratulations. If you then find you have difficulty transferring that to actually playing the thing on the fiddle, then you can't blame it on your condition.
O.K., I keep seeing "memorization." My goal is to not "memorize" the tunes from the dots, but rather, "learn" the tunes by playing with others that know them.
Yes, I've admitted to using the dots as a sketch, but am learning that it would be best to leave them behind.
I learned to read music at a young age (5), so it comes very natural for me, and handy when I play symphony, quartet, and other similar gigs.
Why do people look down their noses at those who rely on reading the dots for a type of music that isn't contained within those dots? Maybe it's because of the reputation of some of those note-readers who look down their noses at those that can't... and we are humans.
One other thing stands out: I am currently back in school (after a master's degree), at a college. Believe me, one does NOT need to be intelligent to teach at a college.
So FC, here's my question. If you get your face to face meeting and you still get the same message, are you going to come back and keep asking the same question? Do you want answers or do you want to hear what you've already decided you want to hear?
fiddlechick7:
>I guess the part with being/sounding "disingenuous" was >because I didn't like the idea of having to explain a personal >medical condition online for the whole world to know about, >which, in reading my previous posts, I can see might have >come off that way, since I was trying to "beat around the >bush" so to speak. Anyway, to clarify, the "condition" was due >to an accident. It sometimes isn't so bad, but in stressful >situations or when I get sick, it gets bad: sometimes can't >remember what I did an hour ago. But, the good news is, >once it's in long term, I won't forget it. It's getting there that's >tough
Fiddlechick, I do apologize. I wish you had explained your medical situation right at the beginning, though, because we could have avoided all the misunderstanding. I know you feel it’s a sensitive personal issue, but if you don’t tell people about it, it’s only natural that they’re going to assume that you’re too lazy to learn how to learn by ear (there are plenty of those kind of people). Don’t be afraid to tell people---they will understand, and will think more highly of you for trying to deal with it as best you can. You might even try telling that to those people at the fiddle contest---I bet they would let you participate with your music if they knew the real reason for you needing it.
As for tips, you mentioned that you have trouble with sets, following one tune with another. I find it helps to practice the transition itself until it’s smooth and seamless and you can do it without thinking much about it. This is for sets where you know what tune you want to put after another of course, not the ones where you throw it together on the fly. It seems like more planning at this point would help you keep your thoughts together more easily.
Thanks for the replies on the books. To those that still feel the need to say I can't play, well, you've never heard me play, so that is unfair. If I met any of you face to face, I don't think all these back and forth things would have started in the first place. I've admitted I might be interpreting things wrongly somewhere above.... is it fair to assume that you are also making assumptions?
I agree with the buying the CDs to hear how, say, Cape Breton Fiddling sounds. I guess I still am not completely sold on how reading music makes me sound like s-t. I've heard a lot of play by ear folks that sound much worse. But it's not about that for me. I am making the assumption that as much as I love what, for me, was always trad., many here just have a much different life experience. I'm sure I'll learn more hands on than I will from posts, the good and the judgmental. I just don't get why I keep trying to post questions that steer away from the so-called wind up, yet others still keep posting nasty things... in your opinion it might be "harsh words" but lets not play semantics. As you say, it is what it is. Can we please move on. In fact, this is my last post on this thread. Getting out of hand, in my opinion.
Thinking about it, llig's post doesn't cover the whole process. Can you think of a really simple tune, something at the "Twinkle Twinkle" or "Happy Birthday" level, that you can already sing or hum but have never played on the fiddle ?
Try that, 'hunt and peck' (as it would be on a button instrument) until you find the notes, note by note, phrase by phrase. Then find another tune. And bear in mind that this advice is given many times in many discussions on this site, and for those of us who are not at home with their instruments it takes hours and hours and hours to build up the 'pathways'. Could be that despite your skill with the dots t will take you just as long. Or maybe it will turn out to be faster. Then try llig's advice if your have not already jumped to success following it.
Also Natalie Macmaster has some of her own transcriptions on her web site. Compare those with what she actually plays each time through the tune.
1 person, in the flesh, who plays by ear. Have that person teach you a tune, a set of tunes . . . as many as you both care to try. No peekie, no session with additional players. 4 ears, 2 instruments, & a few tunes which one or both of you know.*
It's not so much a challenge (hard to believe now). Once you're finally caught up in it it you realize why they call it playing.
* 1 hint which works for me ~ they are phrase, not a bunch of notes or technique. sweet miniature tunes having a conversation. just happens to be one you can dance to.
Maybe you all haven't convinced Fiddlechick, but your arguments have had some impact on me. I'm going to try learning by ear after years of baroque from sheet music and a couple of years of ITM by the dots. I'll let you know how it goes.
Did you know Microsoft Windows (ok, I know that in the eyes of some that's an invocation of the Devil incarnate) has a Session Manager, one of whose functions is Memory Management. Just thought you'd like to know.
Mozart and composing ... Llig, nearly missed your request for help on this (but CTRL-F "lazyhound" is an invaluable search tool in these long discussions when I've been away from the keyboard for a few hours). A reasonably well thought-out discussion of Mozart's compositional technique is in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_compositional_method, with quite a few references at the end.
Elgar was a bit in the same mould. Apparently, the story goes, he'd go out on long walks on the Malvern Hills working out his music in his head, and then when he got back to his desk he'd write it all down virtually complete, from memory.
At a more advanced level classical players really do have to work their memory cells hard. One of the greatest violin teachers at the end of the 19th century (I think it was Leopold Auer) would give a pupil the solo part of concerto movement (something substantial like the Brahms concerto) and tell him to prepare it for the next lesson in a week's time. This meant the pupil had only a week to get the whole of the solo part into his head and fingers to play at virtually performance speed. The lesson was intended to concentrate on the detail of performance and interpretation of the music and not technique, so woe betide a student who referred to the printed music during the lesson, for the lesson would then come to an abrupt halt. Coming to more recent times, a 13-year old English student at the Suzuki School in Japan was given the first movement of the Bach A-minor concerto on the Friday by her tutor (Shinichi Suzuki himself) and told to prepare it for a performance on the following Monday morning with an orchestra at the School's weekly concert given by the students to an audience of teachers. And of course she had to introduce it in Japanese.
I am truly impressed by such feats of memory, virtuosity and diligence. Truly.
But I have to say I am more impressed....no, much more than just impressed: bowled over, flattened, by hearing much simpler tunes played with maybe equal, maybe even less, "virtuosity", but with all the intimacy and depth that they are capable of, by players like Joe Cooley, Seamus Creagh, Martin Byrnes, Jackie Daly, to mention a handful. That's why I post here about trad music not classical. Sorry to be abrupt.
"O'Neill wrote his versions down as they were played by the musician in question, the musician that we was transcribing at the time." SWFL Fiddler
Sorry about coming in late, but I just got up.
I thought O'Neill couldn't read music. He used to ride the public transport system listening to what people were humming, lilting or whistling to themselves then go back to the station and play it to his sergeant who could transcribe. The greatest player by ear of his generation?
The transcriber was Sergeant James O'Neill. But mtodd is not too far off the mark, as Sgt James Early was also involved in the project and was a source of many of the tunes.
I love the one anectdote about how a councilman was at the session the night before, and is there to meet the Chief as he comes into the station the next day.
The councilman is in a panic: "Chief, I need to see you in private right away, it's an emergency!"
"Well what is it?" the Chief says. "If it's that important, tell me now."
"No no, we've got to go into your office."
They go inside and the Chief asks what the deal is.
"What was that one tune you played last night. I can only remember the A part, it goes like this..." [lilts]
'This web site is populated by many people who do things like, "use traditional tunes as platforms for technique development," or purport to, "know all the technical theory stuff about both violin and Irish fiddling," and yet refuse to use their ears.'
Leave it out Llig. I was referring to using traditional tunes in my teaching practice. They are indeed a great platform for developing technique. Don't take my words out of context – you often complain when people do that to you.
One of the reasons I wrote that in my biography was to stop people like you slagging me for pretending to be an ITM teacher. I teach the mandolin as an instrument, not as a vehicle for ITM, and I don't promote myself as an ITM teacher.
I use my ears all the time, regardless of whether or not I'm using sheet music to learn or play a tune. Glad to hear you've turned over a new leaf, but I suspect it's not a leaf of manuscript paper. I think you've mentioned before that you can read and write music to an extent, but that you are not a proficient sight reader at speed. Perhaps when you've learnt this valuable skill you will be better qualified to comment on and criticise others who use it regularly. After all, you've bothered to learn something about sheet music, so why not learn a bit more and realise how valuable it can be? Can you not be bothered, or do you find it too difficult? Either way, please stop moaning about those of us who use sheet music as and when we want. You have no right.
ITM will not suffer by people like me messing around with it and using sheet music as and when we like. After all there are plenty of masters like yourself to keep the tradition alive. I love playing ITM and I also love listening to and playing many other types of music. I never describe myself as a 'pure-drop' ITM musician and I believe I am entitled to do whatever I like with the tunes. They belong to us all don't they?
Learning to read and write music is a great liberation. Please don't think that people who can do it use dots as their only source of information/inspiration. You read and write English to learn and to communicate don't you? When you read a book does it not conjure up imagery and emotional/intellectual ideas? Is there really much difference in music? If you met someone who couldn't read and write English would you not encourage them to do so, even if their spoken English was OK? Wouldn't you be tempted to introduce them to great works of literature? Reading and writing music does not constrain a musician's ability for self-expression or understanding. It is just a tool: a written language for sharing and recording ideas. You've often told us that written music can not convey the subtleties of ornamentation in ITM, and you've also given us some expert advice about Mr Mozart recently. How do modern players convey the subtlety of his music when they have no recordings of the great man? They do it because he wrote it down. Yes he wrote it down in all its glory. Sheet music is an advanced medium (and was in the 18th century). I hope you find out some day. It's not too difficult: just takes a bit of patience and study. Me? I taught myself to read and write (with a little help from my dad who was a brilliant classical pianist).
Before you start complaining again about people like me not using my ears: I can learn a tune by ear no problem (but you either have to play it several times at speed, or slow enough a few times). Either way, I'd rather have a pencil and manuscript paper to hand, just to make sure I don't forget it straight away (my memory is not what it used to be).
Random Note: thank you for your kind words. I wasn't fishing for compliments but they are always nice to hear. I'm afraid you are wrong about the jigs!
Random Notes: what I meant to say was that all the melodies in the 'JIgs' were read and played live from sheet music (Rose in the Heather was an arrangement written by myself). All accompaniments were improvised on the spot.
People play Mozart wonderfully today because there is an unbroken tradition of playing Mozart right back to him. Without this, the music gleamed off the page would be very poor music indeed. But the man himself improvised a great deal too, and all of that is sadly lost. All we have left of his music are very specific notes, yes, often played with great variety, but without altering from these hallowed transcriptions.
Irish music is not like this. At its best it is densely packed with rhythmic interjections made up of notes not on the page (you call them ornaments, I call them articulations). And the great skill in playing these tunes is in the phrasing, how you phrase, where you phrase, how and where you paraphrase. All of this is sadly lost on you.
It takes time to develop your playing of each and every tune to be able to do this well. The instant gratification of gleaning skeletons of a page is the miserable equivalent of eating a big mac. Why would I waste my time learning how to do that?
And I can't think of any context where using the skeletons of tunes as a mere platform for developing technique can be excusable.
'People play Mozart wonderfully today because there is an unbroken tradition of playing Mozart right back to him. Without this, the music gleamed off the page would be very poor music indeed.'
Nonsense, and typical of the pseudo-intellectual rubbish written here by people who are totally out of their depth outside ITM. There is no unbroken tradition of playing Mozart that can be traced to him. His music has been interpreted differently by different types of musicians (Italian singers are a good example -- look it up, but please not on Wikipedia). Instruments have also changed, as have fashions. The reason why his music has survived is because he wrote it down. If he had not been famous in his time, and we suddenly discovered his music now, it would be perfectly playable and still wonderful: the melodies, harmonies and counterpoint are beautifully preserved in his manuscripts. To say that his music would be 'poor' without the 'tradition' of playing it since his time is crass, naive and generally ignorant. Shame on you.
You've also totally misinterpreted what I've been trying to say. I'm not an idiot. I'm not into 'instant gratification of gleaning skeletons' from written music. Any decent musician understands phrasing (some of which can be written). I've just been trying to point out that reading and writing music is a useful skill, which can compliment other types of learning and playing. I say again: learn more about it, learn how to do it, and then come and criticise the rest of us.
The sad truth is that some ITM tunes were also lost from the living repertoire and resurrected from 'the book'.
However an oral culture can become very different once its written down. The written version can attain the status of being the 'correct' version. The Performing community can become disenfranchised from their music and it can be controlled by those with the power to print and enforce the standard.
Whats more this printed medium and players trained from this can then supersede a truly traditional oral culture and what was once common throughout that culture can literally die out as a direct result of a 'superior written version'.
Well it seems a bit of what I posted was pulled out and twisted... but still I am drawn again to the lunacy of this...
When someone learns something new, or is presented with learning something new there are different factors involved...
One is pride...
People sometimes have a hard time letting go of what they have spent their entire life learning... so Joe or Sally thinks they should play irish music after studying classical violin for 20 years.... and so they are presented with "sessions" and "tunes"... and then the next step is usuallty "sheet music..." how often are they presented with "tradition..."?
And when they are presented with tradition why is there such a controversy?
Ears first, eyes second, if it all, I think that's all anyone's been saying in regards to the music. Whenever I've used my eyes first I've had to correct myself using my ears. It's easier for me to go use my eyes after my ears know what they are doing, if I have to go use my eyes at all. I've gotten better over the years of just doing it by ear, it's a skill that can be learned.
I think if we recognize what Ionannas is noting, that valuable things can be lost from an oral cultural when the written representation of it becomes more important, then we can at least preserve those things we value from it.
People do this already, at our session, who want to play a tune with us that they don't know yet. "Oh, I learned the dots on that one but here it's a little different, I'll straighten it out for next time." I've always done that, what I mean by correcting my eyes with my ears. Best if I don't have to, obviously, and skip the eyes.
Am I contributing to this thread's extreme length? I should stop.
The reason why some of Mozart's music survives is because he wrote some of it down. The reason why it's playable is because there is a tradition of playing it. If you think that that is a crass, naive and a generally ignorant statement, then run a Mozart music score through a midi sequencer and listen to that. The contribution of the tradition is clear.
Yes, it's true that some traditional Irish tunes have been lost from the living repertoire and resurrected from books. But this has only been possible because the tradition itself has survived. Listen to the midi files here and the contribution of the tradition is clear.
Joel, if you are not into the instant gratification of gleaning skeletons from written music, why do you do it?
Run any score through a midi sequencer and it will sound crap. Are you comparing an orchestra full of great musicians to a midi sequencer? The 'tradition' of playing Maozart as you describe it is a fantasy.
Reading music is not just for instant gratification, just as learning from a CD isn't. Do you think that people who read music just knock out the tune, think they've got it right and then move on to the next one? Written music can convey much more than you suggest. There are hundreds and hundreds of articulation marks, ornaments and phrasing instructions available, all of which take patience and study to understand. Maybe you should learn some of them, instead of dismissing it all out of hand.
Again and again I'm not saying that reading from sheet music is the only way of doing things, or the right way, but it is mighty useful. It's a great skill and a powerful tool, which I'm happy to use, study, improve, teach practice. Can we just leave it at that? It's not your job to tell me how to learn and play music, neither is it any of your business. You do it your way and I do it my way (plus your way as well). That just makes us different doesn't it, but not better or worse than each other surely?
"If you think that that is a crass, naive and a generally ignorant statement, then run a Mozart music score through a midi sequencer and listen to that. The contribution of the tradition is clear."
Possibly a little late to contribute to this discussion, but Michael, admitedly through beer goggles, I'd REALLY love to run YOU through a MIDI sequence to see what your own contribution to the tradition has been...
I can hear it now (in a crappy midi sort of way): 'grumble, moan, insist I'm right, and hide my jealousy for not being able to practice a fundamental of music: i.e the ability to write it down. What a laugh old Wolfgang would have if he were alive today. Do you think he would shun a recording studio? Do you think he would say to his mates, 'Don't write it down lads, for I will teach all the parts to you by ear.'? Course he wouldn't. He would use everything at his disposal to share his music, including writing it down. Jeeez will you lot never tire of slagging a fundamental right of any musician: to write the bleedin' stuff down?
Llig has been active on another recent discussion telling people how to execute some rolls. How did he do it? By writing it down on the old traditional medium that is the Internet! Well done Llig -- you've made your (possibly) first steps in writing down some music to share. The next thing you have to learn is how to do it properly on a stave. Good luck to you sir.
Hey, I've just had another thought (must be the time of year) - maybe if more music were to be published in sheet form (Llig: that's colloquial for sh*te form), then some ignorant b*stards such as just about any professional musician on the planet would be able to use it either to learn or (heaven forbid) perform said music to paying audients...
Why publish music in sheet form for everyone to enjoy, when you can just share share it with locals down the pub by ear? Why assume that everyone in the world should just learn from recordings? Why bother with a beautiful written language developed from generations of brilliant musicians who had nothing better to do than share their ideas on paper? Why bother with Mozart, who didn't have a tape recorder? Why bother to use and develop a universal medium for the propagation of musical ideas? Why bother to argue with anonymous pseudo-intellectuals on the Internet. Am I bovvered?
Joel, I'm gonna try and keep this as simple as possible. The system of written taves and dots etc is a woefully inadequate way of recording/comminicating Irish traditional music to someone, like your self, who is not already versed in the tradition.
Michael, you still consider Joel amongst the strangers.
Those with whom you are careful about sharing written music.
I take it you don't like his playing of the jigs on MySpace?
Random Notes: thanks for the support, but Llig's right in his last post. I really don't care what he thinks about my music. I didn't record it for him, and I have no ambition to please him. I don't play Irish music in his preferred style and I don't have the same attitude to music in general. I'm more interested in doing things my own way, rather than totally immersing/versing myself in this tradition. There are enough people doing that that already (and doing it very well – I'm sure Llig is one of them), and I'm too interested in learning about other types of music as well. I've never been able to dedicate myself to just one type of music. That's one of the reasons why I'm not a particularly good musician. As for Llig not sharing sheet music with me: well that's something I wouldn't ask for anyway – I have enough of the bleedin' stuff to keep me going for a long time. Besides, I would rather share my recordings (good or bad) on the Internet, rather than lecture people as to how to play music.
I'm happy to be 'amongst the strangers'. I came to love ITM for the tunes alone and not the baggage that comes with them. What I choose to do with the tunes is my business, and does nobody any harm. I just want to arrange, play and record stuff that I think sounds nice, including tunes from from other traditions, my own tunes, and ITM tunes. Sometimes I learn thing by ear, sometimes I improvise, and sometimes I use and write sheet music. Is there something wrong with that? Have I hurt anyone by doing so?
I like ITM because I find joy, happiness and humanity in the tunes. That's enough for me. I don't need/want to nail myself down into a particular way of playing or listening to them. I don't claim to be a 'pure drop' traditional musician, and I don't think that the way I play ITM is the right way, or indeed any way. It's just my way. Simple as that. I suspect that Llig thinks I don't play ITM at all. He would say that because my music is not 'the music' it has no relevance to the tradition. That's fine by me, because I don't feel worthy enough to be considered as someone who is continuing the tradition anyway. Music for me is a way of telling stories and communicating from the heart. I discovered that as a teenager, and I've spent many years since trying to learn the skills and artistry involved. It wasn't long before I realised that this would take more time than my life span but I carry on regardless, because I think it's worthwhile and very satisfying. Learning to read and write music has helped me in this journey. It provides a record and reference for ideas and emotional content. I also have a small amateur recording set-up at home. This is a lot of fun and, although frustrating at times, allows me to create a permanent record of my ideas and interpretation of things. I try not to use the technology to enhance or manipulate my music. Rather, I try to use it to record and reflect what I'm doing. We're all lucky to have this relatively cheap technology available to us, just as we're lucky to have pencils, paper and hundreds of years of brilliant musicians to show us the way.
Llig: I admire your tenacity, passion and unrelenting protection of this music. Look forward to hearing your playing some day. Joel
Really?
because I am tending to think the tunes alone are notes.
The tunes in their fullness include, oh I don't know how to put this, distinct rhythms & articulations. Any less & it's simply a series of notes. For me to know the tunes it is never too much too soon. There is always more; given the time. Tradition is not static. Although once I * try * to find the * more * . . . this is where any words fail me. . . I cannot . . .
Hugo, I don't like the baggage either. I keep tossing it out on the front lawn. No one seems to take it though. My mind will never be easy. I like Joel as much as I like Michael.
I'm only at peace when I'm playing.
Cheers
Have I ever written it down? Oh, yes I have.
Thanks all the same Rick. I have to sneak out the back door now.
I cannot seem to open the front door.
Later
Random Notes: by 'baggage' I meant all the whining and emotional problems this music seems to evoke. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Have you and Rick been down the pub?Perhaps the baggage handlers are on strike again?
Joel, Your reply was well thought out, and sounded like it was from the heart. Like you, playing the traditional Irish tunes is only a part of the music I like to play, I like songs, I like music from other traditions. No harm in that. No harm in sheet music either, as long as people use it as a tool rather than a crutch--just like there is no harm in playing by ear, as long as you are doing it for the right reason, and not just out of ignorance of the written 'language' of music. No ones joy of one type of music ever diminished someone else's joy of a different type of music.
A liking for strings of notes is all very well. Joel's jigs and reels are a good example of that. But as Random says, the tunes in their fullness include distinct rhythms & articulations (well said by the way.) And I'd add, phrasing.
Joel accuses me of being lazy because I won't learn to sight read. But he says himself that he's not interested in immersing/versing himself in this tradition, only in doing things his way. He's not interested in how the people who created the music play it. He's not interested in how it actually sounds. He's of the opinion that to play the music without the distinct rhythms, articulations and phrasing that define it is to merely play it in a different style. He says he finds joy, happiness and humanity in the tunes he gleans from lifeless transcriptions of only a tiny percentage of what the music is. Imagine how much humanity he's missing?
Ahh we have little idea how the people who created this music played it.[ apart from modern stuff] We can be pretty sure though that the majority didn't play it in the modern Sligo style!
I do remember a story of one village which played with a simple un-ornamented style that, once it encountered the flashy ornamented style from another area, changed to the flashy style.
This also happened to one extent or other when the recordings of Coleman etc got to be heard in Ireland and was nearly the death of the regional style.
This is seen the world over when a new supposedly superior style or culture supersedes the older traditional style or culture . Its only as backlash by people who care for the traditional style that prevents this and have they ever actually been successful?
Coca cola anyone?
& I can transcribe a tune using abcs.
For the most part I prefer the bare bones of a tune only because I think to much visual information isn't necessary helpful to playing.
There can be more information. I have transcribed tunes with various broken rhythms, articulation, & phrasing. The whole nine yards. I can say many positive things about the paper method.
Instead I would rather say something about how I use my ears. I never ceased to use them with or without the paper. & yet on 9 July 2009, when I decided to not use sheet music, I began to realize the bits I had been struggling to hear. They were always there. So it has been since that time I have heard more. It has been grand. But it only happened because I put aside sheet music for a year. Or so I said. I think it turned out to be about 7 months. I agree with you Joel that each way has it's use. Hope that helps.
Anyone heard from fiddlechick_7?
Are you interested in immersing/versing yourself self in this tradition, or only in doing things your way?
Are you of the opinion that to play the music without the distinct rhythms, articulations and phrasing that define it is to merely play it in a "different" style?
You find humanity in the tunes as written. Would you find more humanity in the tunes as played?
I am interested in both, but I don't have time to do either properly. As I said before: these are the reasons I am not a very good musician. However I do like to think that I do play music with some distinct rhythm, articulation and phrasing. Do you think that I do not? If I didn't do these things there would be no point in continuing. But I'm a musician nonetheless. That's what musicians do.
I never said that I find humanity only in the tunes as written. The beauty of any music is in the playing and listening. Do you not believe that I use my ears as well as other tools?
Yes, you play with some rhythm, articulation and phrasing, But not the distinct rhythms, articulations and phrasing of the music. Either you use your ears and have disgarded the tradition in favour of doing things your way, or you don't use your ears enough.
Thanks for catching that Gary.
It dawned on me a couple of hours ago I had typed the wrong date.
As I did not make it the full year (learning tunes w/out written music) I've decided to take a new pledge. Beginning 9 July 2009 I will play not a single tune with sheet music. All new tunes will be learnt by ear. I wish I could say I will learn all my tunes from live playing.
Some will be learnt from recordings. Some I will even slow down, at 1st. But no MIDI! I've done that & it makes me sound just like the MIDI.
Llig,
Obviously, Joel is a very competent musician who is influenced more by other styles than Irish, and happy to be that way. Pick on his approach to The Music all you want, but don't say he is soulless, or not a good musician.
Some folks want to immerse themselves in The Music, some just want to stick their toes in and see how the water is!
And random, in my mind, if you are trying to learn in a traditional manner, using recordings, especially when you slow them down, is even less authentic than using sheet music. Newfangled crutches are still crutches!
Al, Al, Al ~ new - fangled? People were slowing down tunes long before we had recording devices. It's not like I'm slowing down Micho. Besides, by your standard every last tune would have to be learnt strictly in a full session. I'm sure there is a tradition which extends to learning in other settings. Just 2 people playing in a kitchen for instance. You can learn there. Traditional players do that as well. & if I'm paying with just 1 other person & say, "Would you play it through 1 time slower?" I really do think some of the best players will oblige me.
Maybe I should speed up the recordings just to make you happy. ;) Actually I have. Now that is new - fangled.
Joel ~ door # 1, or you get the donkey. Haven't you seen the show?
What show? What donkey? I still want an Aston Martin. Actually I don't really care about cars and I don't have one. How fast is this donkey of which you speak? Will it carry 5 tonnes of sheet music?
Wasn't going to add any more to the thread, but a few have been wondering where I've been: very, very sick with the flu and scrambling to grade about 100 10-15 page final papers! Whew, talk about brain overload. I saw that this discussion continued without me, and some posts are really insightful. If there are a few things I've learned since I've posted this thread originally, they would be:
1. I love ITM, but wouldn't confine myself to that definition, esp. in light of how defensive people can get about musicians identifying themselves to the "tradition" without having all the necessary qualifications as advocated by the purists. So, I'm with Joel McDermott on that one.
2. I appreciate those who have this almost Barddic tradition of passing on an "oral" culture. I love this idea, esp. as a poet. However, I would also pose the question that isn't a lot of the "original" tradition also lost by "word of mouth"? Take the grade school experiment in a lunch room: a student is told a few phrases by a teacher and told to whisper the phrases to the next student. By the end of the lunch line, those pharses could be totally different that the original intent. Just something interesting to consider in the recent discussion.
3. I plan on trying my best to implement some of the by ear techniques suggested on this thread; however, I refuse to ever feel ashamed at my knowledge of sheet music / "sight reading". As someone stated above, I think.... if you know anything about the tradition, what is written transcends "dots".
4. I need to spend some more time here. I guess I'm offically a "lurker"... is that what they are called? LOL
Passing along stories is an oral tradition.
Passing along tunes ( by ear at least ) is an aural tradition.
As long as the tunes are *alive* & being played the tradition is exactly like your lunchroom example. Individual players will tend to, or try to, fix a particular way of playing the tune. But it's not so rigid. Tunes are quite malleable & fluid.
Do you know a well played tune melts the heart of a curmudgeon?
Just curious.
Just curious.
I'm sure this has been posted before, but I'm a newer member. I'm curious to see what opinions ye ol fiddlers have on reading music vs. playing by ear. Personally, I read music (was classically trained) and have a wierd by ear system. I have a poor memory (problems with short term memory) so I listen to a CD, etc., write out the sheet music as I learn it, and then, if I have time, I'll memorize it later. I also, taboo...... often use a stand with music at gigs. No one seems to mind, except, one or two Tradies over the years who think this is breaking a cardinal rule.
What got me thinking about the question, was an old time fiddling contest at a local arts and crafts festival... I didn't enter, but stopped to listen. Afterwards, I asked, "hey, can someone who reads music enter?" To my surprise, they seemed disinclined... as if music readers were not "real fiddlers", no matter how well they can play and interpret/arrange the piece. I found this bias a little insulting. There seemed to be this bias that reading the music would almost be like cheating. However, many of the fiddlers in the contest admitted that they don't read music. If I put a piece in front of them, they wouldn't know what to do... soooo, how is playing by ear somehow seen as "harder" and therefore more authentic? I would make the argument that, if you play strictly be ear, I have the utmost respect and wouldn't presume to be a better or more skilled player because I know all the "technical theory" stuff about both violin and Irish fiddling. So why do some play by ear fiddlers have this reverse bias? Just interested. I'm not picking a fight. I envy play be ear only fiddlers in some respects; but nor would I ever dream of wishing I couldn't read music and not be able to understand the technical side of things that reading music allows. Opinions??
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
I suspect yes you will get lots of opinions. I would look up the many many previous listings on this topic if I was you.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Just curious.
Oh my. Wait for it.....
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Batlady
Re: Just curious.
the bias isn't against people who read.
the bias seems to be more against the folks who couldn' carry a tune if it had handles without a sheet of paper in front of them
and rightly so
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Nate Ryan
Re: Just curious.
I've said it before and will say again
Good musicians take advantage of any and all ways to learn.
Mary
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Antikhntr
Re: Just curious.
Hi fiddlechick I know an other fiddlechick who is dynamite at both but if I'm honest it's her ability to sight "almost anything' read that impresses me the most TBH.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Solidmahog
Re: Just curious.
When I was a kid and I studied classical music, I would do solos. I had to memorize my pieces. Soloists are expected to memorize their music, no matter what the genre.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
No entirely so. It depends on what school you come out of. My teacher had a doctorate in music theory. She was not big on memorizing anything, like the Suzuki method, because she wanted students to be able to understand the methodology, not to just copy it from memory.
I just went back and read some post from 2002. Sorry to have reopened the discussion again....
Anyway, after reading some of the older posts, I tend to agree with much of it. However, I don't agree with the not being able to carry a tune without handles... perhaps I misread the intended meaning. I can read a piece of music, at tempo, and still "feel" the music. But I have a sh*tty memory, so if you take the music away, and I haven't recorded it to memory at all, I'm not going to be able to play that tune. However, I'm a good player... and not being able to play tunes from memory doesn't mean I can't carry a tune.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick, the reverse bias isn't based on thinking that "playing by ear is harder." It's more about knowing the tune. If you don't have the music inside you, the reasoning goes, then you really aren't playing it to its full potential. Old Irish trad players used to talk about this as "living inside the tune."
I play by ear and can play at speed from notation (sheet, abc, and tablature). I've done a few gigs where I was asked to play a particular piece and didn't have time to get it by heart, so I had the notation with me as a memory aid. Nothing wrong with that in my book. But otherwise I only play music that I know through and through without notation.
Over the years I've had a few music students who had serious memory impairments. One could not recall more than two or three bars of a tune at a time, and so *needed* notation to play. He really wanted to play music, too, so I did whatever I could to help. But it's been a tough road for him, and I doubt he'll ever be really musically fluent.
The bottom line is that a person can be a totally fluent musician without being able to read, and without understanding music theory. But no one can be a totally fluent musician if they can't use their ears. Music itself has a built-in aural bias, eh?
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick, IMO never be envious of ear only players just because they can't read music no matter what you read on this forum. BUT, the tunes are generally only 16 bars long with repeated phrases. You should learn to use your ears even if it means learning one bar at a time until you improve and the tunes are so essentially simple that you should never play in public with sheet music.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bogman
Re: Just curious.
Fiddc
One major problem with notation...as has been said many times before is that it simply does not capture, nor can it, all the possible variations for ornamenting and phrasing a tune...I mean, can you imagine notating a reel or jig with all the possible bowings let alone diff possibilities for rolls, single cuts, double cuts, crans, triplets etc. You wouldn't be able to see the dots.
So one good reason for playing be ear and learning by ear is that you are "eternally open" to the whole concept of variation....when you have dots -- even with some variation marked -- inevitably you become somewhat "locked in" to that version as it were. If you did not learn from dots but mostly aurally [with ref to dots as needed for cloudy bits or whatever] you will be much more relaxed about varying the tune...in fact the tune will *invite* (as it should) endless variation and ornament.
The second problem with staring at sheet music is that in the tradition by and large no one else is using it....soooooo why are they not using it? Well, I suspect for one big reason, and that is, if you're staring at dots you're likely not looking around at fellow members and/or listening all that hard...you're instead burrowing away single mindedly at the the dots. The point being this is communal music. People mostly sit in a group forming some kind of circle or other...they are looking at one another. Listening. Dots and music stands are somewhat of an insult to others...but aside from that you are suddenly cut off from that communal music if you are looking not at your fellow music makers but a music stand.
There are many other reasons to not use them....but these are a few biggies that occur to me.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
In other words, dots are not the music. The music is the music. What is heard and passed on from other great players. What they play is not notated. You can only "get it" by listening and using a tape recorder or committing it to memory on the spot.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
"However, I'm a good player... and not being able to play tunes from memory doesn't mean I can't carry a tune. ".....actually, FiddC, that's *exactly* what it means. Sorry. Not being mean, that's just a fact. You are not carrying a tune if you haven't internalized the tune.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
All good, but what is the stigma of "public" and "sheet music". The public never cares. Even my band could care less as long as we sound dynamite. The only people that ever seem to care are other players.
Oh, and I can "feel" music. I can play my own stuff, just making things up and getting that "virtuoso" feeling. I just think there's a misunderstanding on the part of those that weren't classically trained, or didn't learn to play the instrument via theory and music... a stigma that we are stiff and unimaginative, which isn't the case. I've actually spoken to some well know fiddle players that were classically trained.... even some from The Chieftains... even been to a Chieftains concert or two where there were stands with music. My stand has "dropped" a few times at really wild shows, and I kept playing. I like it there. We play so many tunes, that I just can't always remember them. I don't think people should jump to the conclusion that stand and music= beginner or a stiff.
Great stuff, though, enjoying the cascade of varying opinions....
reminds me of grad school!
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
But Fidd, you're not giving a performance, you're playing music amonst friends FOR friends.In fact, the public [whoever they might be, pub patrons or whomever] -- those who know the difference -- DO care. A session is not a concert.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
Like mtodd says! A tune is so much more than what is written on the paper. It has a shape - and not knowing that shape really puts you at a disadvantage if you want to do the tune justice. Variations are numerous - but the overall shape is what dictates whether they will work or not. Same with phrasing and ornamentation.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Tirno
Re: Just curious.
Not of course that you have to play what is written on the music or that you can't recognise certain patterns in the sheetmusic and know that other patterns could be substituted. But once you get to that point I suppose it's beyond my non-sight-reading grasp to figure out why you would bother with sheetmusic and how you could play something with "feeling" if you have some kind of "permanent transformation" going through your head about sheetmusic.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Tirno
Re: Just curious.
I beg to differ...
if you can't play a tune without the music, then you can't play that tune
and while you took it personally, I was talking about the root of the bias against reading not being against reading music per se, but against people who can't play without the crutch or security blanket of the dots in front of them
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Nate Ryan
Re: Just curious.
Interesting opinions there. Couldn't the same argument be made for picking up a tune by ear? Aren't you at the mercy of the arrangment of the other fiddler or CD? Then you go and make it your own. I do the same thing, but I learn via music. I then write out my own sheet music. So although the music is in front of me, it's not less my own, nor no less "felt".
Oh, and I DO perform. I've played at some major festivals. Trust me, the only ones who care, are other generally other players, and the players that are in the audience, not in the other acts.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick
Scenario: you're at a session with your big book of tunes in a 3 ring binder. Someone starts the set. Yes! tune A is in your book. You madly flip through it. But just as you get there halfway through the B part of tune A on the third time through they suddenly switch tunes! Now we're onto Tune B. You recognize it...hm...maybe...I know it's here somewhere. More mad flipping of the 3 ring...aha! But too late FC...they're on full bore to tune C and tune D....
sadly neither are in the 3 ring.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
No, not personally... just enjoying the debate here... I teach rhetoric, so it's my nature to be argumentative.
But, there's that "dots" again. When I see the "dots" I don't see dots. I've been reading music since I was 9. It is natural to me. I still learn many tunes, especially cover tunes, by ear. Many of the tunes on those CDs are actually a lot less intricate, etc. and are usually paried down versions. To each his own, though. It's all about loving the music really, isn't it?
Well, I have to go to class and engage in much less lively discussions.
Thanks for the brain stimulation!
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Oh, and there are no sessions around here. What's up with that, anyway? Central PA people where you at?
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
But FC....this music is not an act, it's not for stages, it's not for amps, or mics or any of that. It's made for small intimate spaces with friends and fellow musicians. It's not show biz in other words. I think you're talking about an entirely diff approach to music than most of us here would consider the 'tradition'?
It's not about "money", gigging and all that. But IF that's the only reason you are playing the music then I dunno...I'm not sure you're playing the music.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
What?! I had to see if someone replied before logging off.
I never said anything about "tradition". I don't play for money. That's a perk when I'm playing with my Celtic Rock band... oh, I forgot, that's not respected on here.....
I LOVE this music... and I'm talking about traditional music. This is the kind of elitism I was talking about in my very first post: Where has all the fun/passion gone?
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
If you are a fiddle player surely the opinions of other fiddle players are the most valuable? Other players too, who else do you look to? Myself, I wouldn't go to listen to someone reading trad music. For one I wouldn't understand why they hadn't bothered learning the tune and for two I don't think it would sound as good as it would if they had actually learnt it.
But if no one is bothered and you're not either then go ahead, the opinions of all the most interesting trad fiddle players probably count for very little in this case. Pity really!
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by pavlf
Re: Just curious.
oh p.s I don't see it being a lot of fun in a session if everyone was carting about huge volumes of sheet music, and then having to agree in advance what volume number and what page numbers the tunes were going to be on! That would be the end of spontaneity, fun and passion!
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by pavlf
Re: Just curious.
I agree with mtodd its about playing . The clue is in the title of this site 'The Session........not ,the Gig , not , the Performance,
but The Session .
er not sure what or where central PA is though
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Just curious.
I value the opinions, not the tone. But I don't play for other people. I play for myself. Being in a band, like I said, happens to be perk. I just don't like the "bashing" part of both sides. I have the utmost respect for everyone on here, even those I disagree with to some extent. I don't always feel that "respect back" thing I am used to at workshops and the like.
I actually would put the "pity back" to you, because you might be really missing out by being so snobby about the reading music thing. I still don't understand why it's different if I'm writing my own music or arrangment of a tune. Not everyone has the kind of memory faculty to store things. I'm a poet, and I can't even remember my own poems. This doesn't make me a bad poet. Reading music doesn't make a player less of a musician, either.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
All you have to do is make the effort to completely memorize a set of tunes so that you can pick up your fiddle and play it right off. Then you will hear and feel the real difference.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by leoj
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick, if you're interested in traditional Irish music, I'd go study it and how it is played normally in its native habitat, the pub session and the kitchen (house) session. Perhaps even a ceili dance.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
Hmmm. It's funny how there's an assumption I can't walk into a session and play tunes. Never said I can't do BOTH. I'm just making a point about the black and white of it all. The best "trad." musicians I've ever heard can do both. I might not be the best at the learning by CD thing, but there are also many who can't read music... seems to be about "wrong or right" not about the passion an individual feels for the music. Sometimes traditions need to be broken to progress and translate to other generations... and thus live on... oh, that was blasphemy, huh?
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Like SWFL says and I wondered myself have you been to a session yourself?
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Just curious.
What are you people doing... now I'm late to class.... lol, thanks, as I said for the lively banter... now I best back to reality here... the old grind....
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
yep,been to one a while ago. Didn't keep up as well as the old timers that memorize everything. But then again, no one gave me a rough time about it either. Very friendly and inviting. It was about having fun, drinking whiskey, and being around people that loved music. I must not have been to the type of session people are used to on here. Don't think I'd go to one where it's so elitist or "who knows more tunes by memory." Do I have the wrong idea? It's hard to read "tone" on here, admittedly. I apologize if I rub the wrong way. I just like to play devil's advocate. Generates more varied opinions that way....
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
or study it at university and get a grad degree in it. U of Limmerick for one.
But FC...so you're saying unless we agree with you we're giving you attitude and we're not "fun"?....I don't agree. And just because we state that dots are NOT part of the tradition doesn't mean we disrespect you. Read dots if you want, but if you do, and you do it in a session or otherwise you're actually the one who is showing disrespect to fellow musicians [who ARE carrying the tunes in memory] as well as the tradtion itself.
It's called traditional music for a very good reason. It's traditional. And that's how the tradition does it. If you don't do it that way, no worries. But if you don't you can't really say you understand the tradtion.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
mtodd- Let me play the devil's advocate here for a moment. I have been trying to move away from reading and to learn tunes "in situ" rather than on paper, but it's still true that if you put a tune in front of me, I'll be able to play it, strip out whatever ornamentation is written in, and add my own, as I go. In other words, I can use the paper as a sort of auxiliary memory, and manipulate the tune as if I had it in my head. It's not too difficult, among other things, to come up with variations, to put a simple harmony part under it if I'm playing on guitar or accordion, or to figure out what chords would be likely to work with it, just as I would with a tune I've actually learned.
As you say, the written notes are not the tune, but they can convey the essence of the tune, and someone skilled in the music can absorb that and play with it, even if they haven't memorized the tune entirely.
Now I don't want anyone to take this as an argument against learning by ear - certainly you should never play at a session unless you know the tunes - but it's just not true that you can't work with a tune from paper. You just have to be good at reading, that's all.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Just curious.
I stated, I think, that I value your opinions. Is no one reading them? I am a rhetorician. I like engaging debate. I'm trying to pry as deep as I can go to get all these opinions. If I didn't want opinions, I wouldn't post and I certainly wouldn't enter into the debate. What is the definition of tradition anyway? A set of values, beliefs and way of life handed down through generations. The session is just one branch of the "tradition". What about the travelling storyteller, the composers (O Carolon's Comps, etc.). I'm essentially a composer. I take a tune, and then write out my own version. Wasn't going to go there, but I guess I need to in order to clarify the memory problem: it's not voluntary. I wouldn't pick on a fiddler with one arm. I'd be impressed he can play at all!
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick says she knows so many tunes that she can't remember them all. I have to wonder how many tunes she knows, how many is "too many to play them all from memory."
I've known session players who could play over a thousand tunes by heart. I'm close to that myself. Plus hundreds and hundreds of other tunes, in other genres, on guitar, banjo, and mandolin.
In her first post, FC says she has a "poor memory." I took it to mean she has some sort of measurable disorder that impairs memory storage or retrieval. But after her later posts, I wonder if she's just another paper trained player who won't wean herself from the dots.
Or maybe this whole thing was just a wind up.
Besides, there are plenty of people on this board who read notation at a high level and who DO understand why the printed page is just silly in a session, or at a trad gig.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Just curious.
I cannot read music much and I certainly dont see my self as an old timer but I have been to more than one session ( to be honest its a poor week when I only go to one session )
Still got no idea where central PA is though .
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Just curious.
Maybe I don't understand the sessions then. Why couldn't someone come in that doesn't know the tunes, or hasn't memorized them? Seems like a session would be a really univiting atmosphere.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
You have to know the tunes to be able to play them, and not instead play some ad lib, ad hoc noise along side the tunes. Irish trad music is played in unison, and to fit in, you have to know essentially the same melodies everyone else is playing.
Tunes get played in sets (medleys), often slung together on the fly, with no pre-arrangement. You couldn't flip through a collection of sheet music fast enough to follow the tunes. And the sheet music would likely be misleading at best compared to what's being played in front of you.
Most sessions are welcoming, IF you know the tunes.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Just curious.
Jon
For sure. I use paper as an "aide memoire" myself...for the murky bits, to work out *initially* maybe some bowing ideas...but I ONLY do it in concert with a decent recording of the tune....so I'm not 'reading' the dots per se....I'm memorizing the tune aurally but translating what I hear to the dots which in ONLY see as a vague approximation [kind of a ruler/reference guide untilthe tune is under the fingers..something like:.."ok, this interesting bit goes around inch 1 and maybe this is interesting to do at inch 4" etc...sorry bad metaphor but only way I can approximate it].
In other words, I agree with you. Dots have their usefulness but only as a rough guide.
Let's think of another metaphor...if you really wanted to understand Paris say, and you're an American tourist from Pennsylvannia, who would you place your faith in, someone who grew up and lived their entire life in Paris and new every back street and corner and the best and cheapest places to eat....or a "tourist guide" of 30-odd pages say that promised "the best of Paris on $100 a day"....
I know where I'd place my bets.
The tourist guide is the dots, the person who lived there and grew up there and knows Paris like the back of his or her hand is the musician who has spent 20 or 30 odd years learning this music inside and out -- like Gill and Will Harmon and many others on this site -- and from whose music versions of the tune one could dervive endless joy.
FC...you're a poet....remark Henrich Boll's advice where his character [the clown] says "madam, I'm a clown. I collect moments."
let that resonate.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
I admit it: it was a 1/2 wind up. I knew this post would get lots of hits. I like debate, as I said., plus I do sincerely want to understand the point of view of those that go to sessions on a regular basis. I admit, I'm a little intimidated to even try to go now. I feel that I would be mocked, at least after I left, which isn't what the music is about to me. Central PA refers to Pennsylvania (sorry, if your a "native" you are used to just saying PA, it's a PA thing). So, if someone walked in with music, and played a little off the page, and then tried to play along and maybe messed up your mojo by not knowing the song by rote, you would seriously condescend to them? I must be reading the posts wrong, because I've only met a few musicians that had a "my crap don't stink like yours" attitude. I must be reading these wrong. Please tell me I am.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Ah we may have some light here.
You are more than welcome to come to a session here in Newcastle ,England
Captain Bpart ,Thug ,Bad Santa and myself will make you very welcome
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Just curious.
Mtodd - "we state that dots are NOT part of the tradition"
So who would you say has contributed more to the tradition, the 'we' you talk of or O'Neill, Breathnach and their like?
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bogman
Re: Just curious.
Okay, being a good contrarian I'll now turn to fiddlechick.
I simply don't believe that you're incapable of learning tunes. I spent a long time playing from sheet music, and it would take me months to get a tune off the page and into my head - it was terrible. I finally had to teach myself some tricks to get around the habits I'd developed that were crippling my playing. I think you can learn similar tricks, and when you do, I think you'll probably understand the point of view of those you're dismissing as "snobbish" now.
You won't believe me, but let me assure you, as someone who's done both, that once you start to have the tunes in your head, reading them won't seem like nearly as much fun.
If you want to give it a try, here's some tips:
1) The problem in my case was that the connection from eye to hand movements was too easy for me - I could scan the page, play the tune, and it never really stuck with because it was never really in my head.
2) So, the trick was to detach the music from the page.
3) The single best cure for me was to practice silently. Rather than reading and playing, read and visualize yourself playing. This will force you to make the tune happen in your head, rather than just listening to the sounds coming out of the fiddle.
4) Second thing, with any memorization, repeated short exposure is effective. Picking a few tunes and "playing" them silently, as described above, a few times through, every day, should have you playing those tunes without written music in a few weeks at the outside. You can still play all you want as you do now, just make sure that you have daily practice with a limited set of tunes, and you'll learn those very quickly.
Try that - if that doesn't work for you, I promise I'll believe you when you tell us you can't learn tunes, and I'll even not complain if you bring sheet music to a session. I'll even tell you what I'm going to play, so you can have your book open and play along...
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Just curious.
If I find a piece of sheet music I have never seen before (classical or traditional) I don’t have any pre-conceptions about what it should sound like. I can follow the notes and the timing but after that it’s up to me to make the music my own. Classical music can be played with just as much as traditional music. I find that many traditional musicians tend to copy form CDs and teachers instead of getting to know the music with a clean slate.
This argument will never be settled... when people will accept that the aural tradition and notating the music are of equal importance in Irish Traditional music!
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by harping niamh
Re: Just curious.
Yes, you're reading it wrong. We welcome people. Some of us would be so polite as to let you play us a tune from your dots. Then we'd go back to the regular business of the session, and you'd be more than welcome to sit in with us and play along on the tunes you know.
However, we don't hand out the titles of the tunes prior to playing in them a set so people can pull out their sheet music. Most of the time, we don't even know what's coming next, it just sort of happens, that's quite a bit of the fun right there!
There are beginner's sessions where folks will read music the whole time, play pre-planned sets, etc. however in a traditional session that's not going to happen. People are going to launch into tunes and sets of tunes spontaneously.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
FC....I think in fact you reading them wrong. I think people are genuinely trying to help you see how you could approach a session and not crash and burn. That's not to say session don't tolerate sheet music. I know they do. There's a CCE sesion here where people use it frequently, but, generally it's use is discouraged and I can tell you that those who DO use sheet music are missing out in all sorts of ways. That's all. You miss half the experience if you rely too much on the dots. It's fun to do a big of tight rope walking....
so....throw those dots away....become free!
fold up that music stand and put it under the couch with those unread back issue of The New Yorker.
there. you're almost ready.
Now, get thee to a session.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
niamh, I think most of us do agree that both of them have their place in the music.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
Im sure in most places you'd be more than welcome, Its a social occasion. But as far as actually playing along, how could you if you dont know the tunes.?Its simply not practical any other way. OK with a bunch of learners, with good lighting, etc , but thats a far cry from a grown up session!
I'm no snob, I use sheet music every day for learning tunes. I'm not the best of readers but I can generally get by. I love trawling through old collections of music, especially 19th C . But the idea is to learn the tunes. I mean, even a soloist playing bach will pretty much have everything committed to memory. The dots are there as a reminder .
With this music the longest tunes have only 5 or so parts of 8 bars so how can that be a problem?
IMO you would be advised to learn the tunes as melodies away from an instrument. Presumably you can sight sing? Once thgis is done, then putting them to an instrument is easier.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by the wicked hacker
Re: Just curious.
Bog,
I meant more in terms of actual music making. I have on my desk numerous examples of Padraig O'keeffe's handwritten mss in which he notates bowing and ornaments etc. And there's some from another fiddler whose names escapes me. Point taken.
I meant more in terms of making music, not so much teaching it to students [from masters of the tradtion]. but of course Denis Murphy and Julia also had Padraig around to explain his "code" which wasn't actual musical notes....
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
mtodd- I think we're more or less in agreement. The hardest thing to keep in mind here is that we generally don't know where each participant in the conversation is coming from, and how they use dots, ear, recordings, etc.
Some people really can't play from a page unless they're playing precisely what's written, others can use it as a guide. Some people need a recording (as you say) others can get a pretty good idea of what it'd sound like by reading - and some of us can even make a pretty good guess how the tune might be played by this player or that other one.
As for the ear, I know people who can listen to a tune a few times and be able to play it without much more than that, while I'm at the other end of that spectrum - if I hear a tune at the pub every week for a month or so, I'll be able to pick out the landmarks, but I still won't be able to really dive in to it.
I guess it goes to show that generalisations are (in general) misleading. But I still think that too much reliance on sheet music cripples the memory in most cases. It did for me, at least...
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Just curious.
Jon. Right on.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
Fun discussion! No one has addressed "muscle memory." This happens when something is repeated over and over until the fingers are on auto-pilot and allow the emotion and heart to blossom in the tune. When you own a tune, you know it inside and out. You can sing along with it if there are lyrics, smile in the joy of playing it, and even answer questions while playing. (Been there, done it.) Addressing note reading at contests, it made me think of this analogy. If I went to a storytelling festival, I would expect the storyteller to tell the story and not read it to the audience. There is a real connection that is established with the audience and other players when sheet music isn't used. I understand your dilemma, because I teach fiddling to a student who has a classical note reading strength. My student is slowly memorizing tunes successfully, because she is getting positive reinforcement and having fun during her practice. So "Fiddlechick," keep practicing until your muscle memory grabs the tune and use any avenue that works for you.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Leendah
Re: Just curious.
Niamh,"many traditional musicians tend to copy form CDs and teachers instead of getting to know the music with a clean slate."
The problem with that argument is that in order to become a good traditional musician it's necessary to listen to lots and lots of trad. Most experienced trad players will have heard lots of versions of lots of tunes many times. It would be very unusual to learn a version of a tune from a CD and play it exactly as you've heard it. Just because you learnt a tune from a CD doesn't mean you can't put your own stamp on it.
By the same logic discounting written music is also a flawed idea. Experienced players can use dots to their advantage. They will usually know the tune in their head, and tunes like it, and the possible ornaments and the so called 'twiddly bits. They don't need all that stuff that can't be written down. A very large proportion of the knowledge needed simply comes from listening to enough tunes and getting them into your head.
But at the end of the day NO decent trad players play in public by the dots. It is possible to play trad very well while reading but never as well as when you can bypass your eyes. Blind people usually hear better, deaf people can usually smell better etc
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by bogman
Re: Just curious.
I think by muscle memory you mean activation of muscles by the cerebellum, the crenated bit at the back and bottom of the brain, beneath the occipital lobes:
http://www.yourbrainattack.com/brain-functions.htm
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Nick Splease
Re: Just curious.
I Am Curious (Yellow (Board)).
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Just curious.
Memory CAN be trained. Unless you smoke a really amazing amount of weed or have some sort of disorder, there is absolutely no reason you can't learn to memorize tunes. It just takes practice! You will never play this music as well from a page than you will from your own mind. Never. Yes, some of the best can and do read, but, with the rare exception, they're not performing stuff they have to read.
I have nothing against the notes, but I have enough respect for the music that I don't learn from the notes, don't go into sessions and noodle through a notebook looking just so I can feel good about playing, and don't play when I don't know the tune.
Does that mean I don't have fun playing, or the session I go to isn't fun? Hell no! It's a blast. If you think you have to play at a session to have fun, I somehow think you're missing the point.
O'Neill, Breatnach et al have done us a great favor. But if you think the music is in their books, you're mad. The skeleton's of the music, sure, but not the music. Do I find tunes in them? Sure. Do I learn tunes from them? NO!
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by lastnitesfun
Re: Just curious.
This is all rather fascinating to me. I also read music extremely fluently and have been working hard to play without the dots. Over time the memorising has definitely become easier. I mostly practice without the music unless I'm trying to instil a new tune - lovely to not even have to turn the light on to play. I am particularly interested in the idea of muscle memory. I am sure that there is a difference between playing by memory and playing by ear. I am now playing by memory but have a long way to go to play by ear (which is what I would do if I could lift the music straight off a cd and play it that way). The memory comes from learning off the dots and then practicing until I don't need them. It works well but I think the limitation is that if I switch instruments to one with slightly different fingering (I'm a flute/whistle player) I have to re-learn the tune again. If I could play by ear I'm sure I wouldn't have that difficulty. That said, I agree that those of us who read fluently can easily vary the tune and add ornamentation while sightreading, and also adjust to a version heard off a cd.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Bredna
Re: Just curious.
Returning for a moment to a post way back in this discussion, where someone said that as a classical player they had to memorise pieces for solo performance, the reasoning behind this is to ensure that the player really has all the music in their fingers and head and that the performance is as good as they can make it.
If you work properly on a piece, say a concerto movement, and get it up to performance standard you cannot help but memorise it in the process. It's fair to say that if you haven't memorised a piece by virtue of sheer practice then you haven't been doing the work properly and you're not going to produce the goods.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick7-plenty of sessions in central Pa. Garyowen pup in Gettysburg on Sundays, The Ugly Oyster in Reading-A great pub, by the way. There are some in Lancaster and just across the line on Wednesday nights in Westminister Md at O'Lordan's...Baltimore's not far if you're in south central....
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by shanty
Re: Just curious.
That's Garyowen PUB...not pup...
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by shanty
Re: Just curious.
Hey! Just remembered one in Frederick Md too. Only went there once. Everyone had music stands, no one smiled, no alcohol, and I didn't feel welcomed at all! Maybe this would be your cup of tea because of the music stand thing....just trying to be helpful....
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by shanty
Re: Just curious.
Don't really have much to add that others haven't already said better than I can, but I want to emphasise the fact that people *aren't* insisting on memorizing tunes to be snobbish and elitist. Rather, the point is that a traditional Irish (or Scottish) session simply cannot flow or really work at all if everyone is reliant on sheet music. People, as has been already explained here, string tunes together on the fly and start whatever jumps into their head at that moment. You *can't* be frantically racing through pages of sheet music to find the tune. It just doesn't work. It's that spontaneity that brings life to a session. I once went to a "session" in the US where everyone was using the Fiddler's Fakebook. The leader would be like, "Okay, everyone turn to page 37 and we are going to play the Star of Munster and Sally Gardens (I totally made up the page number... please don't check the Fakebook
)." It was like being in a freakin' class! There was none of the wild energy and spontaneity you get at a session where people play whatever is in their heads.
The reason people would be sceptical if you walked into their sessions with a giant 3-ring binder full of tunes is not that they are being elitist bastards, but it is outside session norms and they are honestly wondering how the hell that can possibly work beyond one or two sets you start. Because it can't.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Just curious.
FC, mtodd is right. No matter how much you argue with your "rhetoric", he's still right. He and others have put a great deal of time and effort into trying to explain this to you, but you still don't get it.
Was your intent to learn or to argue about something you clearly don't understand? Where's llig when we need him?
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by tradshark
Re: Just curious.
When you sing a song with true emotion, all these things vanish: the "dots", the memorised tones, all the various interpretations, the variations you've tried. Play as if you were singing. It requires practice, patience, concentration, relaxation and passion. But if you play to digest and express emotions, and not to express the ability to play, you will get more satisfaction from playing one such tune till the end of your life, than from "knowing" a thousand tunes. And you'll prefer to do it with your eyes closed, except when you play with someone and talk to them with your gaze.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by deFacto
Re: Just curious.
There's two different unrelated points to this. The first, as silver spear says, is that coming to a session with rems of paper is, at best, completely impractical.
The second is that being able to learn tune by ear is not merely a handy thing to be able to do, it's a pre-requisite. And I'll tell you why. The amount of information in the written notation is only a very small percentage of what you actually need. The subtleties of the twiddley bits, the variation, the timing, the intonation are not on the page, they have to be heard. And the killer point is, that what is on the page is actually the easiest bit of the tune to learn by ear. So if you are having trouble trying to get that bit by ear, you haven't a cat in hell's chance of getting the rest of it.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
Give it a try.
You might like it more than you think.
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Michael, my home has two cats. I know cats as well as they can be known. I believe that cats would do extremely well in hell.....
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Just curious.
You're right Will. The only reason cats don't kill us is because they can't.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Robert Ryan
Re: Just curious.
I think even if you're playing solo at a gig, apart from any musical considerations, it looks a whole lot better without the music stands and other stuff that literally becomes a barrier between you and the audience.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Mark Harmer
Re: Just curious.
This is stupid. what happened to having an open mind? This is EXACTLY why I stopped playing bluegrass (there's more ways to play than how bill dun it!!!!!!!). Playing the same genre is understandable, even the same tunes, and sets of instruments-It's a tradition. But what about everything else? Not EVERYBODY can learn and play the same way. Everybody is different. we all have different needs and have to overcome different obstacles..this is why i dont go o sessions hardly ever too..snobophobia
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by steve...r
Re: Just curious.
I think the language analogy works well here. You can't be considered fluent in a language until you can speak it effortlessly, on the fly. I know people who have PhDs in Classics, who can read Ancient Greek or Latin really bloody competently. But they would not even consider themselves fluent in those languages. If they got into a time machine and were transported to Athens in 600 BC, they'd struggle.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Just curious.
DeFacto - I do prefer playing with my eyes closed - I just wonder how silly it looks to others. It does help with getting inside the tune though.
And yes - I've been there with the music and scrabbling around to find a tune which finishes just as I have found it - no fun at all. And I probably looked sillier than I do with my eyes shut.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Bredna
Re: Just curious.
silver spear. You're not fluent in a language unless you can speak, read, and wite it. Really, try getting a god job in a foreign country, where you can speak the language, but can't read or write it. same with music.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by steve...r
Re: Just curious.
You're not 'fluent' in music unless you can read it, write it, and learn by ear...
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by steve...r
Re: Just curious.
I think this is a windup. Fiddlechick teaches English in a University? Seriously? With that grammar and punctuation? I am very skeptical about this.
On the unlikely chance that it is a genuine post, Fiddlechick, I have a question for you---how often do you listen to traditional Irish music when you're not playing it?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Really? Then I guess people in completely oral cultures without a written language or people who, for whatever reasons, are illiterate in their first language are not considered fluent speakers.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Just curious.
You're not fluent in music unless you can read it, write it, and learn it by ear?? Try telling that to someone who plays a type of music that doesn't have written notation or even to someone from Clare who grew up immersed in Irish traditional music but can't read a note.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Just curious.
Touché...
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Robert Ryan
Re: Just curious.
Irish diddley music doesn't have written notation. It borrows a form of notation from another culture which works out to be kind of OK, provided you can already play the music. But if you learned the notation together with the musical culture it was designed with, all it's gonna do it straight jacket you into playing really really badly.
Sorry, that's the bottom line.
It's like an english speaker trying to learn how to speak chinese from a book of chinese words written out phonetically with english letters. It ain't gonna work, ever.
Ha, and then taking the book to china and sitting in a bar trying to talk to people by catching snippets of their conversation and trying to find them in the book before the conversation moves on.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
In passing, Michael, you're touching on a very contentious argument in philosophy of mind, John Searle's "Chinese Room" argument... if you're not familiar with it, it's a fascinating bit of food for thought...
But arguing both sides of the street, as I do, I think that studying enough Chinese to be able to recognize some basic phrases and have reasonable responses to them will give your hypothetical Chinese learner a leg up on his opposite number, who simply plops himself down in a bar in Beijing and listens really really hard and hopes to pick it up on the fly...
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Just curious.
A problem some of us have is not enough "chinese speakers"
around. Learning from recordings helps I suppose, but they're all
cleaned up - the mistakes and hesitations and uglier scratchings and
un-commercial intonation edited out. The variations and tune sets
rehearsed.
I've heard enough live recordings from Ireland to know there are
hardly any authentic players around where I am. They are people like
me but a few years further along in experience. I guess we are
developing an indigenous way of playing.
So those of us in the colonies trying to learn by ear might not be much
better off than the sheet music-dependent. I session from memory
but I learn from live playing, dots and recordings in that order.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Hup
Re: Just curious.
I made a personal discovery a while back. I was having difficulty learning tunes quickly. I had the notation. Even if I played the tune every day several times, I wasn't able to remember it.
So one day I listed to a few tunes 23 times or so. My iTunes playlist tells me it was 23. I got home and I played the tune. It came easy.
I put the sheet music away. I found that after fumbling a bit, I could reconstruct the whole tune from memory. Once I did that I could play it through slow without mistakes from memory. I didn't really need the sheet music. I could play it anytime I wanted.
I did this for a few tunes and what do you know? A tune I wasn't even trying to memorize just came into my head and I could play it note for note without notation. I had only heard it played a dozen or so times. Amazing. The tunes I liked came easy.
I can see why someone who has a great deal of experience with learning by ear would thing sheet music is a crutch holding you back musically. Your ears do all the heavy lifting. Besides, have you ever heard a classically trained musician's first efforts at ITM? Ouch.
Having started learning with notation, I can see how someone who has never learned by ear would think that they don't have the memory to do it. I could see how they would think that all their musical training must be good for something and that it is part of being a complete musician. After all, learning to read notation is a hard earned skill.
So it isn't all that surprising that this is one of those issues where many of us really don't understand each other.
I would have Fiddlechick7 give up notation for 3 months and try to honestly learn some tunes by ear. It would answer many of her questions. I imagine she would find out that her memory can handle the task. She should listen to tunes 23 times or so before she gives it a go at first. Before you know it she will have to find some other topic to generate arguments.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by abuteague
Re: Just curious.
I admit that I go to a learners session and we read the dots... but, we are learning that it is indeed a straitjacket. My goal is to NOT memorize the tunes, but learn the tunes. I'm trying to not even look at the page, but hear the tune and internalize it, then play it.
Like language, one doesn't read it, "memorize" it, then speak it.
I have been on both sides of the fence, I've been around those that look down their noses at whomever is on the other side of the fence.
But, with this music, as with other styles of fiddle music, it has life that exists on its own. Yes, one can chicken scratch it out, read the dots, memorize those dots, then play from memory those same dots. There is more to it, as most of you know. I just thought it was interesting to see so many folks referring to "memorizing" the tunes. I think it's a bit different than "learning" the tunes.
and quite frankly, I'm still learning how to learn. extremely naive...
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by wyogal
Re: Just curious.
Why use the Chinese analogy on an ITM forum? A more appropriate analogy would be the Irish language! There are obviously LOTS of twiddly bits in the spelling and pronunciation!!
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by gw
Re: Just curious.
Good posts from abuteague and wyogal. I'm particularly taken by the distinction between "memorizing" and "learning" tunes - this also goes back to Bredna's post above, and muscle memory.
I'm pretty sure there's room for another discussion here, about the way we conceptualize "learning" tunes, and "knowing" them.
For example, it seems tautological to me to say "I learned the tune, and now I know it", and I couldn't say "I learned the tune, but I don't know it" - on the other hand, I could imagine saying "I've memorized the tune, but I don't know it yet": "I know the tune", for me, doesn't necessarily follow from "I memorized the tune".
This is quite apart from the practical question, also useful, of how people go about getting tunes into their heads. As I said above, I know people who seem to learn tunes just by hearing them a time or two, and others who (like me) have a much harder time of it.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Just curious.
I agree with Jon Kiparsky.
I wouldn't say I've learned the tunes I've memorized. I'm just beginning to learn to use my ear as a skill.
The tunes I've memorized are just outlines.
The other day I ran into someone who demonstrated for me just how empty my outlines are. I knew he played, but he knew his tunes.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by abuteague
Re: Just curious.
I stopped reading about 40 posts ago as it was getting tiresome....but what the heck is "in sutu"? I learn tunes by ear or from sheet music but don't know about this "in sutu" business.
One thing I can add to the conversation is this: for the last few months I've been learning and memorizing the common session tunes and one thing I've noticed is the more tunes I've learned, the easier it is to learn and memorize new ones. And it gets easier to vary the tunes I've learned as I play them.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by wileydog
Re: Just curious.
it means in it's natural setting - I guess he's talking about sessions, or maybe sessions in Ireland? What's with the latin Kiparsky? Have you talked into grad school?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by airport
Re: Just curious.
talked yourself into (and its without the apostrophe)
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by airport
Re: Just curious.
I waited for a good discussion for my 800th post.
The last time we had a good "dots vs. ears" discussion was on October 10th, and at that time the session.org membership was 49,996. As of this writing we have 55,121 members. So, 5125 new tradheads have joined us, eager (I hope) to learn the accumulated wisdom of all of us. It's a discussion that won't go away, and it shouldn't.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Just curious.
I can do dots and ears. But I've found that when I learn from the dots, the tunes don't stick as well and the music doesn't flow. The tunes I have picked up by ear come more easily to the fingers and the notes have a lightness to them that I haven't been able to replicate when reading the dots.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by clogstepping
Re: Just curious.
You can liken knowing a tune to knowing a person. When you first meet someone, you can have a good old chin wag and after that, if someone asks you if you know that person you can say, yeah. But you can't really know them, not after only one decent chin wag. But even if you've not met them again for years, you can still get on with them fine the next time you do meet. But if you meet them often, share jokes and drink etc, they can then become your friends and you really do start to get to know them. And even if for some reason you don't see them for a long while, they will always be your chums. Know someone for 20 years and they can be you best mates.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
As usual, llig and silverspear tell it like it is.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Tirno
Tirno was it you in a previous post who suggested they were married?
mr llig and miss spear.
( oh am I going to get hit with a low d whistle this week end)
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Just curious.
No, Dave, you are the luckiest guy ever because my low whistle went MIA two years ago at Willie Clancy Week and I never replaced it.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Just curious.
>my low whistle went MIA two years ago at Willie Clancy
Experts tell us that happens to everyone once in while, and not to worry about it unduly. Right? (right?)
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Just curious.
Ok, now, let's all open our books to page 37. Ready? Spear, you with me? Dave? Jon? Ok, everyone....
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
A message for Fiddlerchick:
"Like language, one doesn't read it, "memorize" it, then speak it."
Just picking up on a few items on this long thread. Can't find the post I quoted this from (Kiparsky?) but he states the problem clearly. Because you read music with such ease, you are no longer aware that you took a detour by learning an instrument by the classic method. Those who picked up the instrument first and started playing by ear learned to identify the place where a particular note comes from faster. I know excellent musicians who still keep their sheets in front of them while playing folk music in a group situation. Their reason is that they don't trust themselves to instantly find the note they want. In this sense they are not as close to their instrument as the ear players. As for playing in a session, I seriously doubt that it would be possible to play along by any other method than following the musicians closely. And they are not following the book. Playing for yourself is quite different.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by C. Nicolas
Re: Just curious.
Wait mtodd, I'm here, page what now? Page 37? The red book or the green one? The yellow one?!? Aw cripes, I left that in the car, hang on.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
Ahh, a finely crafted wind-up thread from a *professional*! It's nice to see that it has at least been treated with civility...
One thing that stuck out to me was this quote:
>> "If I find a piece of sheet music I have never seen before (classical or traditional) I don’t have any pre-conceptions about what it should sound like. I can follow the notes and the timing but after that it’s up to me to make the music my own."
Well, niamh, it's up to you to make it your own... But ONLY if you DO have a pre-conceived notion of what it should sound like, will your own version even slightly resemble trad (or classical).
That's really one of the critical elements of this debate. You can't learn to play Irish traditional music from the dots, because the dots don't contain anything that makes the tune sound Irish when played. The tune is just a tune. If a Scottish player played the tune, they'd make it sound Scottish, if a bluegrass player played the tune, it would sound more like bluegrass... But very little of what makes a tune sound Irish is the tune itself.
If you are already immersed in the tradition, then you can potentially learn tunes from the dots. And the problem is that if you're not immersed in the tradition, you are probably not savvy enough yet to tell the difference between what you play off of the page, and what an Irish player plays, because you haven't yet learned the nuances of what makes it sound Irish.
So, much of the perceived elitism is because people that aren't immersed in the tradition are basically murdering something that we all love. How we choose to respond in those situations is up to each one of us, individually. For myself, my general inclination is to try to help prod the person toward the proper direction. But sometimes in a session, you don't have time to be arsed with that, and it may come across as snobbishness or elitism.
If your main focus is to play fiddle in a "celtic rock band", then maybe you don't really care about any of this (and most of us wouldn't care to listen to you...) But you probably wouldn't be welcome in trad sessions. So, fiddlechick7, while lively debate can be fun, it might behoove you to listen to what is really being said by the majority of the people on the other side in this debate. And if you did immerse yourself in the tradition and learn to play by ear, you would become a better fiddler, and it probably wouldn't hurt your band either...
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Reverend
Re: Just curious.
A suggestion from an old geezer. We don't really "memorize" our tunes, ideally, we "get them by heart."
Dan
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by curamach
Re: Just curious.
I never really analysed that phrase before - "learn by heart"
Something to do with the heart being the symbolic seat of emotions. Strange that I never really got emotional about my 12 times tables as a kid even when I had it off by heart!
By the way Reverend you put it all so very eloquently there.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Donough
Re: Just curious.
The semantic side discussion reminds me of the simple phrase "Do you know [insert tune name here]?"
Not 'have you learned' or 'have you memorized' but 'do you know', like it's a person.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
after the reverend's comment above there is really little else to be said
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by pavlf
Just curious?
OK, who would be willing to use cue cards when he/she is making love?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Approaching traditional music form the "sheet music" angle is filled with many disadvantages for the player wishing to learn traditional music.
I have seen many times, players with sheet music play in a session or with an individual who has learned a tune by tradition and the sheet music player is unable to play along or pick up on the variances or nuances that make the tune what it is. I have also seen the sheet music player insist (at different levels of insistance) that their sheet music version is the "correct" way.
I have worked with many "trained" musicians and they all look at the printed page as the "source" of music. Traditional fiddling is not based on a printed tradition in my opinion. And i think its a valid opinion.
Also I see all to often sheet music in sessions that is just plain skeletal to the point of being a different tune in itself... or it completely avoids the point of the tune... what I wonder is why classically trained musicians will accept such skeletal sheet music for what it is? Because traditional players certainly don't! The same could be said for classical pieces... could you imagine taking simplified skeletal sheet music of mozart into the symphony hall and be taken seriously?
When I am sharing or teaching traditional music to others I would feel like I am doing a disservice by giving the "student" sheet music or encouraging its use.
As an ear player all of my life, who has learned to read music...
I do think that sheet music has a time and purpose...
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by The Merry Highlander
Re: Just curious.
Well I've done some cartography. Some very simple maps have often been more helpful for me, in the field, than those filled with information. Yes, I do think you can take a lead sheet into a session & come up with some wonderful music. Of course not in traditional music, but you seem to be broadening the field Merry. Even Mozart would have developed his compositions from skeletal themes.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Apparently not ... it was all fully formed in his head.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
Occasionally I go to band workshops for playing for folk dancers. Because the people at these workshops come from a fairly wide geographical area and have different musical backgrounds printed music is invariably provided. I've long since discovered that if the tune on the stand in front of me is one I already know my playing screws up because the printed version is never quite the same as that in my head and so the old brain get conflicting messages. I now push the music stand away out of focus - that solves the problem.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: Just curious.
Well, I can see I definitely stirred up the nest here... haven't been on since yesterday. Once argument I always make, is that is it hard to "hear" tone on a post/email. I want to thank all the helpful, respectful posts, of which there were many. One or two posts at the beginning sort of turned me off, but after reading the other posts, I feel that I've actually gained insight, which is what I wanted in the first place... not preached to about how I'm doing things wrong. As I've stated, I struggle with memorization, and thanks for the tips (you know who you are) for helping with that. The condescending posts I have just ignored or argued with, which isn't what I really wanted in the first place. I was genuinely curious to understand what I perceived as a bias. I've learned that most here aren't biased, but believe strongly in what they've said. Some, however, I still hold as being a bit snobby about it all. Anyway, great discussion, and now I leave it to the birds.....
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Michael I'm sure you can prove that so I will withdraw my naive comment. You do have evidence, right?
Lazyhound, yours is one of the best points I have seen on this forum.
Simply put the music aside. The tune's in your head.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Do yo have a name #7?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Do you mean me as #7? Email me, and I'll let ya know. Oh, thanks for all the session places... but they are all at least 3 or more hours away... any near Blair, Bedford or Cambria counties in Central Pa?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick7, did you read all the posts from other people who said they struggled with memory, but who later found out that the problem sorted itself out once they left the dots aside?
Mozart. Very very few of his surviving manuscripts have corrections in them. It could be that he wrote his ideas on different sheets and destroyed those later, but paper was expensive, and he wasn't that rich. There are many accounts of him just sitting down and writing out full scores. Lazyhound might have some "proof"
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
My brother lives in Hollidaysburg and I've been trying to find a session in central PA for a while, for when I visit. No luck yet -- why don't you start one?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by fidkid
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick, you also didn't say whether you actually listen to this music or not. Do you? And if yes, how often?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Yes. I honestly think it's twofold... I do have a legitimate problem that involves moving short term to long term, and it's been a real challenge all my life (this doesn't mean I'm not smart... I teach college, but it's made some things tough over the years), and this is why I probably seemed to take "things personally" at the beginning... any type of disability is a sensitive issue for those that have one, and we don't like to be criticized for hardships.
Anyway, the other thing has a lot to do with a discussion I've had with my guitar/front man in the band.... he's never read music, though he could pick out some notes very painstakingly. He told me he'd never ask me not to use music, because, as he put it, "if you stuck that stuff in front of me and told me to play and expect me to be a virtuoso, I'd look at you like you're insane..... it wouldn't be fair for me to expect the opposite." However, I have managed to memorize a few things, small things, but still struggle with whole sets of tunes. It's like, when you learn to read music from a very young age, in your most formative years, there is a pathway that opens right from your brain to your hands/fingers.... I assume something similar happens to by ear learners. I tend to be a visual learner, vs. aural, in other areas as well. It is a long rode. It gets frustrating, because I'm a decent player... have over 20 years experience on the instrument... but without the music, I feel like I'm 10 playing Twinkle, twinkle again. I imagine some who don't read music would feel the same way if they were told they couldn't use their ears anymore.
Mozart..l remember him. I think I left him in my high school auditorium about 12-13 years ago! Or at the last wedding......
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Reply to two posts (in one):
1.) Yes, I listen to both Trad. and Celtic Rock/Punk/Fusion. Every day. The people in my car are ready to pull their hair out... the ones not into either the way I am.
2.) Hollidaysburg... that's the spot.... I've thought of it, but I'm too intimidated after all the "hate posts"... obviously, according the members here, I wouldn't be able to lead a session. However, perhaps an INFORMAL jam session, where anyone can come (trad/folk/bluegrass/etc.) and just get together, learn, have fun, and be openminded. That would be great. Maybe I'll look into that over the summer.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
I think the whole problem is the concept of "memorizing". If I stuck the music of a brand new tune in front of you and told you to have it ready to play for me without music by tomorrow, you would have to sit down and memorize it. If I told you that tomorrow I wanted you to play your own fancy version of Happy Birthday, however, you wouldn't need to memorize it---you already know it---but you would have to spend some time getting it into your fingers and experimenting to see what phrases sound best.
This is why I asked if you listen to traditional music. If you listen to it---a lot---it gets inside your head, and after some time you know the tunes, even though you've never played them on your fiddle. After that, it's just a matter of figuring it out. The advantage to doing it that way is that you already know in your head how it should sound, so you're much less likely to sound like a classical player trying to play a fiddle tune.
Something tells me you haven't done a lot of listening.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Holy typos.. Sorry. I'm a teacher... I should pay more attention! That's embarassing!
Hey, any of you live in Hollidaysburg area, look me up. You can teach me your tricks. We can swap ideas face to face. Be fun.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Cross post. Okay, fine. Refine your listening. Take one or two trad cds (NOT that Celtic rock stuff) and listen to them over and over, until you can hum the tunes to yourself without the music. Then learn one of those tunes---by ear. No sheet music. Then keep playing it for a while. You won't need music after that.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
I've done a lot of listening, since I was 9. I'm 30. Do the math. I can often "hear" the song in my head, and can even sing it (well hum)... it's the pathway thing that's stuck. I think there are just those that have more challenges with this type of learning. It doesn't mean they aren't serious, don't have a passion for the music and instrument, or are "clueless" or unintelligent. I will admit,however, that I've never been to many serious irish workshops. I am intimidated after many of these posts. Even if it wasn't their intent, many of the trad players here make me feel like if I'm not up to their standards right away, to stay away. How do those players expect others to learn what they know without a little hit or miss and experimentation... shouldn't be ashamed to enter into the "fail but then learn' stage. Just a thought to think about when another so-called "newby" is lookin for insight or help with a question or other concern.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
nice to know wolfgang may have had *ideas*
thanks llig!
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
You've stated repeatedly that you have a lousy memory, you can't do it, some people just have different abilities, etc. etc. etc. Have you ever just tried swearing off sheet music for 6 months? As in---no sheet music at all, only learning by ear?
If you go back to the written version every time your memory fails you, you're only reinforcing the paper dependency.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick7, your last comment reminds me of the time ceolachan posted a thread entitled "noodling 101"
If I remember right it brought a bit of a row before the dust settled (Ouch). I have to go to work (again). & then session tonight. Cheers!
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
*
I did Kennedy! Really helped my listening abilities.
The pledge.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Not for that long, admittedly. My point is not that I CAN'T do it, just that I face some challenges that I know others on this site don't. It's medical. I can't help it. It's not an excuse, it's just very frustrating at times. It's like when someone (well, the gals will get this anyway) who is supermodel thin tells you it's easy to lose weight, or tell you what they do and expect you do be the same. I appreciate your advice. I'm definitely trying hard, to get the wrong idea there. The original post was more on "why" music is frowned upon. I guess I just felt that some people were personally attacking the other things....
I don't really have the time probably necessary, when I need to "learn" things for my band quickly. But I do plan on setting a goal to learn X amount of tunes by the end of the summer, even if it's only 2 or 3.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
I'm just curious if any of you experienced musicians and teachers posting (and lurking I suspect) have ever come across someone else in which that particular "pathway thing is stuck". The whole thing has an air of fabrication about it.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
Crossed there Fiddlechick7 and sorry if it is medical, but would be more inclined to try to understand if you skipped the rhetoric games.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
"It's medical. I can't help it."
That's flat-out ridiculous. You just don't put in the time required (as you said yourself).
Others have given you many good answers about why it's frowned on in trad circles. And yet you call them snobs. You're going to have to adjust your attitude about this and be willing to try new (old) ways of doing things if you want to do it the traditional way. But that's up to you.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Its a windup Kennedy. But they do pull out some good posts. Some people work really hard to express themselves when frustrated. Just like when we had jig around.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
I'm not sure how they were "games". They were defending a point of view obviously in minority. And I resent that there are those that ignorantly dismiss another's disabilities so insensitively. I shouldn't, in all respect, have to even bring up such a personal situation on a forum. Something about that just turns me off. I really appreciate most opinions on here, and even ones that are a bit "prickly" at times (Kennedy, i think you have some good things to say and I respect you for it), but if you are going to make fun of someone, then you shouldn't be respresenting this site. It's just plain ingnorant. Sorry if that is "prickly", but those types of posts, in my opinion, cross over into very personal territory. Give me some strategies that haven't already been posted. Offer something CONSTRUCTIVE. That's what I wanted in the original post. I only started "playing" rhetoric when the abuse started. I think I was warranted there. If you can't take it, don't dish it out.
Seriously, it's all good, though. If I met you in person, I would probably actually have liked you. I just don't like your cyber persona.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
You've been given lots of constructive advice. But you don't have time to implement any of it. Plus there's that pesky disability of yours. What utter nonsense.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Actually, you want to know about a disability? I play at a session with a 79 year old man who had a stroke last year. He forgot almost every tune he ever knew. So now he has to learn them all over again, and he can only learn about one a month. But he does it and we see him every week. Without sheet music of any kind.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Well it was quite a while back when you said:
"just enjoying the debate here... I teach rhetoric, so it's my nature to be argumentative"
Now you say
"I only started "playing" rhetoric when the abuse started"
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
I used to go to Reverend's tune learning session and there was invariably someone who would insist that they simply cannot learn by ear, their brain doesn't work that way, etc. etc. Pete (or Zina) would ask, "Can you sing 'Happy Birthday' or 'Row row row your boat?'" They would be like, "Uh... yeah..." Well, then. There you go. You can learn by ear.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Just curious.
Of course. And it is. But that wasn't my original INTENT. But, when my buttons are pushed, I do tend to move in that general vain. I think, though, if this thread continues, maybe we can settle any differencs via email, etc.? Maybe we should try to move it back a few steps here... I'd be willing to make that first step.
Here goes.... since many tunes are traditionally passed through musician to musician, can anyone share some insight into how some of those tunes make their way into tune books? How are these versions "settled on" in the first place? Such as O'Neill's, etc?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Kennedy: that is a horrible story... but one of hope. Thanks for sharing. I wouldn't presume to have anything like that. Just looking for a little respect, I guess. Feel a little like the fat kid that doens't get picked for volley ball because no one wants to play with someone they feel isn't up to par.....
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
david_h, I believe Will said something about it up there in regards to one of his students.
Fiddlechick, think of all the tunes you can sing off the top of your head. I don't mean Irish jigs and reels, I mean just songs, pop songs, Celtic rock songs, tv commercials, tv show theme songs, American folk songs, Christmas songs, etc.
People have so much music in their heads already. The ability is there and in all of us. As musicians, we have more of it than other people, but everyone can sing a bunch of songs off their top of their heads, Twinkle Twinkle, Jingle Bells, a million TV commercials and shows from your youth, etc. You’re doing it already. There is no blockage. Go ahead and take a moment to cruise through all the music inside you already, and amaze yourself.
That’s the same thing I tell kids who say “How can you remember all that music?”
“Well, how much music can you remember? Happy Birthday? Twinkle Twinkle? Jingle Bells? The new Hanna Montana song? How about the Pokemon theme song?” and they all laugh and are quite impressed with themselves when they thing of all the songs and tunes they already have inside of them.
Also, sorry if some of us are coming off as intimidating, we're not! Like I said, most of us are very welcoming!
However, you admitted you were looking to stir things up a bit, and naturally some of us less patient mustard board denizens easily and quickly rise to the challenge of anyone who wants to stir or wind things up. You asked for it, you got it! Sort of like don’t kick the hornets’ nest and then wonder why the hornets are mad!
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
Kennedy: I didn't say I "didn't have time"... I referred to the 6 months thing. Anyway, in all seriousness... if I asked you to stop playing be ear for 6 months, would you. I think not, and I wouldn't put you down for that. I have the utmost respect for you, honestly, but can we quit the personal attacks?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Ha ha Silver Spear! Cross post.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
SWFL: point taken. I did say, if you can't take it, don't dish it out. Like I said, I'm willing to stop this nonsense, though... anyone else care to move on.....????
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
O'Neill wrote his versions down as they were played by the musician in question, the musician that we was transcribing at the time.
That's how fluid and changing it is. I remember recently looking at a tune here, then in a Johnny O'Leary book of his tunes, then in O'Neill's, then I went to play it with the guy at the session I go to who put it in my head in the first place, and sure enough, four different versions!
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
It can be done. I thought I couldn't learn by ear, but I went to workshops where we learned everything by ear, with the dots on the way out. I could have cried the first week, thought I'd never be able to do it.....but five years later, I can do it. Not wonderfully, but OK. Give it a go!
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by disillusioned
Re: Just curious.
When I was learning accordion I picked up the tunes by ear and hadn't a clue about things like Keys etc. The same can be said for a good many of my contemporaries. In the early fifties we just didn't have access to teachers or learning music. It was many years later that I bought a Music Tutor and learned about the dots. It was only then that I realised what I was missing over the years. Gary Blair (Band Leader and Accordion Teacher from Scotland) was a firm believer in musicians learning to read music properly, and was quoted as saying ;For every really good busker (who is usually born with a real musical gift and a wonderful ear) there are thousands who churn out the same old monotonous corn with very little idea of phrasing, fingering, or musicianship. In almost every case they could be improved by 100% by learning to read music properly. I agree with that statement. Thankfully I have an excellent memory for tunes but I have a certain amount of pity for players who have no retention and are lost without the dots. Believe me I know many who are good musicians and love to play but need the sheet music in order to do so. That rules them out of the joy of being able to join in with a Session for a start. Sad really!
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Just curious.
Sure!
...and my last post is yet another reason why the tunes must be internalized, 'known', etc.
You have to be able to alter on the fly, jive with who you are playing with at the time, subtle, beautiful, wonderful little variations from everyone you meet and play with.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick7. Do you have an inquiring mind ? Do your really seek answers ? How do you learn what you teach ?
Where would you find the words "More than one lover of Irish music has started out with the laudable purpose of making a complete collection or encyclopedia of Irish melodies..." ?
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
If I wanted to play in an orchestra and my sight-reading abilities were sub-par, I would certainly give up the fiddling for six months to immerse myself in classical music and learn to play it properly. I certainly wouldn't expect the rest of the orchestra to allow me to show up and try to play along by ear!
It's a matter of time and effort. You're stuck in a paper rut. You will need to do something pretty drastic to get yourself out of it. You're not going to learn to play by ear if you run back to your books every time you get scared. Six months is just a number I picked, but it has to be a substantial period of time, or else you're just going to revert back to your paper-reading ways.
And quit with the disability garbage. You have a weaker memory than some. That's all. It's not a disability.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Forgive me everyone, but FC's posts just don't "add up" [or am I alone in this summation?]. If you read over them in any serious way [and FC..I'm trying really hard here to give you the benefit of the doubt]... it's like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute there's a chink of light, the next FC is accusing anonymous members of "hate" posts [hate posts! good lord].
In the next breath FC is 'agreeing' only to turn around and attack and hide behind the 'rhetoric' schtick. So what is it FC? Is this some kind of game for you? No one's mocked you that I can see, nor posted anything personal or nasty. In fact, people have taken time out to explain from various view points what the tradition means to them and the community at large and what the pro's and con's of using the dots are.
You say you listen to a lot of music, but you clearly are not listening to the advice and insights offered here...some of which is excellent indeed....
Why play games [if you are]? Crack is fair play, games playing is not. If the latter, you're abusing people's talents and gifts by doing so.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
SWFL Fiddler - I noticed Willis post but sort of assumed his student could not remember a song and sing it, which Fiddlechick7 can.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
And Fiddlechick7 the quote was the start of the preface in O'Niells. Want to find out how he came by the tunes - read it.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
Right on david, ahyup. Now that's a disability, I can't imagine not even to be able to remember the theme song to Gilligan's Island.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZ05-CucFs
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
Oh, that one was awful, much better version here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qycmb7_LvsA
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
Nah, the first ones better. We escaped that over here so the video has 'entertainment' value and the audio for the second part helps stop neural connections forming for the theme.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by david_h
Luckyseven
You know they like you when they post their favourite YouTube.
I'm with fiddlechick7 ~ somehow I have never been able to play "Gilligan's Isle" You now, medical reasons.
Stopped in for lunch. If you see this (professor) it's the very informative & *fun * thread which changed my whole perspective.
"Traditional Noodling 101"
April 25th 2008 by ceolachan
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17549
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Damn. I misread the post. I thought it said "Bi-curious" turns out it's just another 160+ argument about "dots v ear." - sigh -
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Just curious.
lol JNE
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Reverend
Re: Just curious.
I am constantly amazed by the brilliance of the folks that post on this website. Take kennedy for example. He doesn't need to even see or hear the patient, that kind of stuff is for lesser mortals, like doctors. From just a few text posts on the internet, he is able to determine that the person posting does NOT have any sort of disability whatsoever, despite her claims to the contrary. And is confident enough in his diagnosis to chastize her for her mistaken ideas. Truly amazing!
That being said, I do think most people sell themselves short these days when faced with memorization. I found it somewhat intimidating when I first came to this music to memorize things. But the more I memorized, the easier I found that it was to memorize. First strumming patterns that fit tunes, then the tunes themselves, and then songs, words and all. And once I learned them, I found that I owned them, or they had become a part of me, I am not sure which. Learned them "by heart' as someone above so aptly put it.
In the latter half of the 20th century, educators stopped emphasizing memorization as a way to learn, 'teach them how to think, not to recite facts,' was the goal I think. But in doing so, they did not force youngsters to flex mental muscles and abilities that could benefit them their whole lives. And make them think that they were incabable of making a poem, or a song or tune, part of themselves, by learning it 'by heart.' A big step backwards in progress, if you ask me......
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Just curious.
People learn in different ways. The best musicians use every resource available. Several people here lecture others about how they should learn. Shame on you. You have no right to tell anyone how to learn/play music. No right whatsoever. Ironically, the most vociferous defenders of exclusive 'ear learning' around here are shxt musicians. You only need to listen to their out of tune/time offerings on the internet to work that one out. I'm not a very good musician myself, but my ability to read and write music has helped me to play, perform, record and teach music. I have some recordings of not very good music on Myspace. Some of the tunes were played directly from sheet music, without knowing the music 'by heart', or in fact ever hearing anyone else play them. If anyone here has the patience or inclination to do so, I challenge you to tell me which tunes on my recordings were read directly from sheet music, and which tunes were played from memory or ear learning. Come on: let's see if you're right!
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick7, if listening to CDs helps you, not a bad place to start is anything by Ben Lennon - you'll find three if you search his name under Recordings. The older two in particular sound rather like a good session with excellent players (which is what they are) recorded live in a pub. The playing is traditional and straight down the line - no messing around with the tunes. They're good CDs to learn from.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: Just curious.
AlBrown, I did a little research on memory disabilities just now, and it seems there is indeed such a thing. If that is what Fiddlechick has, then I was wrong and I owe her an apology. I'm having trouble believing that someone who teaches English at a university could function at that level with such a disability, however. To me, it sounded like so many others we've seen who just have trouble memorizing things. There's nothing wrong with that. It just takes more work achieve. How many times have we seen people on this website who say they have a rotten memory, but then refuse to give up written music?
She doesn't sound like she wants to do much learning by ear, anyway. She started the thread to find out why traditional musicians frown on reading music in sessions, and she didn't like the answers people gave her. The fact is, even if she's a fabulous musician, if she walks into a standard Irish session with a music stand and a book, she's going to feel out of place. Not unwelcome, but not part of the group, because she won't be able to participate the way everyone else does. It's not a judgement on her; it's just the way things are.
Again, if I'm mistaken about the disability thing and she's actually had a medical diagnosis for it, I certainly apologize for doubting what she said.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Still, the training wheels must eventually come off...
It's only after you are free of them you realize how much they were in the way!
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by leoj
Re: Just curious.
>I'm not sure how they were "games". They were defending a >point of view obviously in minority. And I resent that there are >those that ignorantly dismiss another's disabilities so >insensitively. etc etc etc.
Sorry Fiddlechick, but that just dosn't wash at all. I think you are being more than a little disingenuous.
Had you said upfront you had a medical problem which prevented you from playing without sheet music then the response would have been completely different. You didn't. You came up with a whole set of alternative justifications that many here regarded as spurious.
Now you claim a medical condition is the real reason.
Fine, that makes your problem understandable (if it is treue) and had you been honest in the first place about your real reasons, then you wouldn't have ended up pretending to be all hurt andwounded when people were not impressed with your other explanations. Other explantions which you have effectively admitted to be untrue by telling us that the real reason is medical.
As it happens I have a friend who needs sheet music to play, due to a memory problem. of course that is acceptable.
If you need sheet music to play for a non-medical reason , then that too is acceptable. It is your life after all do what you want. Don't expect people down the local session to be impressed though.
And more than that don't expect to be taken seriously when the non-medical reasons (excuses?) that you come up with fail to win people over.
- Chris (who can't belive he's taking part in a stupid troll discussion)
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Just curious.
kennedy:
>AlBrown, I did a little research on memory disabilities just >now, and it seems there is indeed such a thing. If that is what >Fiddlechick has, then I was wrong and I owe her an apology
My friend has a problem with short term memory. My undertstanding of the situation is that they need the dots to remind themselves of tunes that they know. Other problems include an inability to remember how to spell their name etc.
I'm not saying that fiddlechick has something similar. She may. She also may not. But it is possible to have such a condition.
- chris
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick7's style of argument tends makes me, and others, think that when she says "Can't" she means "Won't". Kennedy's stern words higher up reflect that.
If she really has got a disability, and has had it for years, why would she come here are stir up a hornets nest ? And why does she not come armed with examples of how people who do things differently (e.g. left handers) or have difficulties with some things (e.g. dislexia) have been treated unreasonably in the past ?
I'm with Reverend and mtodd. What sort of *professional* ? An actor who is familiar with stuff like Transactional Analysis maybe ?
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
Ha, interesting ramblingpitchfork. I'm not doubting what you say (the devil is always in the detail) but I'm just having a burst of trying to play from dots (not really sight reading, I've seen it a lot before) and have realised that one skill that needs to be built up is processing the bar at the end of one stave whilst flicking my eyes down to the start of the next. Not sure whether that is short term memory or what. I can it to some extent whilst singing but hardly at all whilst playing the flute. Funny things mental pathways.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
And sometimes I do wonder about the typos.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
Hello Joel, good post. It is late & I should be in bed.
All I ever have is patience & inclination so I gave your MySpace a listen, also a little bit of your friends (Rick Payman & Béla Fleck; thank you very much). I sure cannot tell which tunes you read & which you didn't. I like the jigs & would guess you know them well enough by ear. However you're doing it, it's grand.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just winding down.
'I admit it: it was a 1/2 wind up. '
# Posted on April 27th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Even so,Fc7 has received many constructive replies and various opinions which did her the courtesy of taking the original post seriously.
People can be hard to please,lol.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by biggus dave
Re: Just curious.
I'm trying to make the effort to overcome my, "naive desire to save the music from those that would murder it".
I'm turning over a new leaf. OK so fiddlechick wasn't really asking for advice, merely stirring, even though she got lots of good advice. She is what she is. Her playing will be without a doubt tedious and repetitive and her phrasing will be appalling. But hey ho, I don't have to listen too it.
This web site is populated by many people who do things like, "use traditional tunes as platforms for technique development," or purport to, "know all the technical theory stuff about both violin and Irish fiddling," and yet refuse to use their ears.
And you know what, having spent years arguing with them, I'm done with it. They don't care. So neither do I. Murder away. As someone brainier that I said, "The music can and will survive it."
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
Memory - good for sessions, playing strings of tunes on the fly spontaneously
with others who also know the tunes by memory
Dots - good for learning new tunes and parts of tunes that you have considerable difficulty learning by ear - For example - someone says - Hey can you learn this piece for a performance? - Then you realize that the only available resource for the tune is a version in O'Neill's since there is nothing at session.org, and there are no youtube videos of the same. So, you go to the dots and work your way through until a practice of the tune, when you finally put it all together with others who actually know it.
Also, dots come in handy on twists and turns in tunes that others seem to know beautifully at the session, but somehow you're just not getting that one tricky part, that involves a motion of the fingers that you've never done before in quite that way.
So, you go to the dots to "see" what is happening. If the dots are a reflection of the version of the tune your mates are playing at the session, then this can be a very helpful tool to improve your participation whenever this tune is played again.
I am quite skilled at memory learning, though I tend to learn my own 'versions' or 'variations' of the tunes. I am terrible at dot-learning but I do it when I need to. I'd like to get better at it.
Once I knew a professional pianist who was a master sight-reader. I was in awe of her ability to play something I was familiar with but that she'd never heard before, exactly as I knew the piece from my own aural memory. (Just from listening, I am not a pianist.)
For example, I always admired Billy Joel's piano pieces and I asked her to play "Root Beer Rag" from a book she happened to have in her pile. She'd never heard the tune before. She looked at it for about a minute and then proceeded to play it exactly as I knew it from the album "Streetlife Serenade". She was not even a Billy Joel fan. I was amazed by this. She had every nuance and riff, and
all the swing that I expected.
I always respected sight-reading and playing by the dots, but after this, I have always had the utmost sincere admiration for those that can play something they've never heard before strictly from the dots. I suppose I admire it so much partly because I just can't do it myself and I'd like to be able to. However, this would not be applicable in a session for the many reasons already expressed in this thread.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by halfwaythere
Re: Just curious.
llig, that's about all you can do, I'm afraid. There will always be wind-up merchants, time wasters and messers, and they're always a pain in the ass to deal with. I suppose the trick is to try and ignore them, lest we encourage them. They don't care, and they never will.
But there are also lots of people on here who genuinely care about the music and want to learn. Those people will look for help and good advice, and they'll listen to it, and learn from it.
Those are the people I want to be here for. I don't want to spend my time arguing with langers who don't give a crap anyway. But I will try my best to help someone who genuinely wants it.
llig, I think you're a source of good advice, and you've shown time and again that you're willing to put the effort into helping people. But arguing with tossers will only frustrate you.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by tradshark
Re: Just curious.
Its weird that It took you this long to figure that out llig.
Kind of scary. A little depressing.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Just curious.
Halfwaythere, you miss an important point. (and this probably shows in your playing), The ammount of information in the dots if pitiful compared to the amount of information you need to be able to play these tunes well. So if you can't get the simple turns of the melody without the dots, how the heck are you gonna get the much more subtle stuff that's not in the dots?
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
Yes Hugo, I'm a little bit depressed about it too. But that's naivety for you.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
I feel a bit like Buzz Lightyear when he finds out he's not a space ranger after all.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
But Llig you are a *TOY*!
(actually teddy bear comes to mind)
- chris
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Just curious.
Llig...you're not really arguing with them, you're trying to convince them or persude them to at least consider your view point based on years of experience. However for every tosser that remains unconvinced and who doesn't listen or at least open his/her ears to listening
[aside: isn't it funny how even on this specialty list where you'd think most people WOULD be open to ideas given that they're here in the first place to "learn"...is it no wonder that they probably are not listening to 1. themselves 2. other good players 3. the music]
there are others in the murk who DO listen...albeit somewhat grudingly. For those members, your rants are important.
Keep ranting. Besides it's good for you...as you said yourself in some earlier post, it helps you clarify your ideas about the music in your own mind...if I haven't misquoted you.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
Well, that's the crux of the matter, isn't it? The dots are a sketch. Nothing more than a rough outline of how the tune goes.
Someone who understands the music can get the sketch, learn how it goes, fill in the blanks with their own experience and style, and play the tune well. Someone without that understanding will play it as it's written, and it won't sound right.
I can draw up a rough sketch of how I want a new house to look when it's built. If I give the sketch to an architect, he'll be able to fill in what's missing and produce a workable design. If I give it to a block layer, chances are he won't.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by tradshark
Re: Just curious.
I love coming back and reading all the posts. Some good stuff here. I found I got what seems more "sound" advice directly through emails, though. As stated above, it's hard to "get a sense" of someone through these things.
I guess the part with being/sounding "disingenuous" was because I didn't like the idea of having to explain a personal medical condition online for the whole world to know about, which, in reading my previous posts, I can see might have come off that way, since I was trying to "beat around the bush" so to speak. Anyway, to clarify, the "condition" was due to an accident. It sometimes isn't so bad, but in stressful situations or when I get sick, it gets bad: sometimes can't remember what I did an hour ago. But, the good news is, once it's in long term, I won't forget it. It's getting there that's tough.
I AM planning on taking alot of advice here, and I'd still LOVE to meet up with someone whose advice was given, if anyone is around. I think a face to face discussion would be nice, and possibly to start in on some of these suggestions... hard to do anything alone in a "group" mentality tradition.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Oh, I was wondering if I could get some more opinions on the "dot" as sketch thing as well. I understand that what is in a book is only one version. But, if something is in a book, does it automatically become "simple". I have seen some books that are, definitely, simple. I've seen some others that are excellent. I recently purchased a compilation of some Cape Breton tunes... very intricate... and even includes original compositions. The reason I'm asking is, I had a conversation with a banjo player in a local bluegrass (okay, know this is a different genre example) "family" who stated that when he learns at fesitvals, he's still only learning one version. Is the point then, always to make the tune your own, no matter how it is originally learned? I'd just like a few more clarifications on that point. Thanks.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
a small voice from the "Murk" -
I've been listening (since joining this forum a couple of months ago) . . I now appreciate the dots are just a starting point. Memorising tunes is not that difficult and becomes easier the more you do it.
"Dots versus Ears" debates may be tedious for some but don't forget the newbies. I suppose we should be grateful to the grit that is Fiddlechick for causing more pearls of wisdom from the voices of experience here. (I'll stop now before I get tangled up in my own metaphor.)
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by sashiko calico
Re: Just curious.
Well llig, here's a cheerful thought.
Imagine how bad it would be on here if you DIDN'T do what you do?
So please, keep on keepin' on.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
re: making the tune your own
You want to make the tune your own, however you need to be able to play it with everyone else on the planet who has also made the tune their own.
There’s no way that this can happen if everyone’s reading different dots, but if they’ve all internalized the tune, and can listen to themselves and their fellow musicians, then the magic happens, and that’s what it’s all about.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
As I mentioned on another thread, you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
You will eventually make every tune your own. But you'll do it in such a way that you can play along with everyone else, who have also made the tune their own. The dots provide a framework that everyone can base their interpretation on.
But it's experience and adaptability and sensitivity to the playing of others that ultimately make it all work. You have to get a feel for how much you can vary the tune without messing it up, or making it into something else entirely.
And there shouldn't be a need to "memorize" anything. All you're doing is humming a tune. If you've done enough listening, this should come naturally. If you've put enough work into learning the mechanics of your chosen instrument, playing it should be as natural to you as humming (at least at a basic level - refining variations and ornamentation might take a bit more thought).
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by tradshark
Re: Just curious.
FC, you write:
"I have seen some books that are, definitely, simple. I've seen some others that are excellent. I recently purchased a compilation of some Cape Breton tunes... very intricate... and even includes original compositions."
Why buy the book when you can buy the cds of people playing the tunes? Or you can fly there from Penn. in about 2 hours! I suggest Celtic Colours festival...takes place every fall.
You can buy lots of great CB cds from Paul Cranford's site. Listen, find tunes you like, learn by ear. Forget the book. Ask Paul for advice on good cds etc [his day job is as a lighthouse keeper...nice oxymororn that....but he moonlights as a fiddler and champion of CB music and runs a website and cd selling biz]
http://www.cranfordpub.com/
Once again, why would you learn tunes from a book if you haven't heard CB music as it's played and supposed to be played? It's fruitless. It simply will not sound right.
Pick up Ashley MacIssac's Fiddle 101 for starts....
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
Fidchick. I'm convinced that trying to learn tunes by ear will help your condition, for a number of reasons. It is something new to you so you will be building new neural pathways. It will give you a sense of achievement. It will make you a better musician.
Try it. Do as many many people here have suggested: Pick a tune you've never played before and listen to a recording of it (by a good, well respected player) 10 or 20 or more times a day for as long as it takes for you to be able to sing/hum it in all it's fine detail. Now you have learned it by ear, congratulations. If you then find you have difficulty transferring that to actually playing the thing on the fiddle, then you can't blame it on your condition.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
O.K., I keep seeing "memorization." My goal is to not "memorize" the tunes from the dots, but rather, "learn" the tunes by playing with others that know them.
Yes, I've admitted to using the dots as a sketch, but am learning that it would be best to leave them behind.
I learned to read music at a young age (5), so it comes very natural for me, and handy when I play symphony, quartet, and other similar gigs.
Why do people look down their noses at those who rely on reading the dots for a type of music that isn't contained within those dots? Maybe it's because of the reputation of some of those note-readers who look down their noses at those that can't... and we are humans.
One other thing stands out: I am currently back in school (after a master's degree), at a college. Believe me, one does NOT need to be intelligent to teach at a college.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by wyogal
Re: Just curious.
So FC, here's my question. If you get your face to face meeting and you still get the same message, are you going to come back and keep asking the same question? Do you want answers or do you want to hear what you've already decided you want to hear?
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by lastnitesfun
Re: Just curious.
forget IQ...how about LQ? ( listening quotient...)
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
fiddlechick7:
>I guess the part with being/sounding "disingenuous" was >because I didn't like the idea of having to explain a personal >medical condition online for the whole world to know about, >which, in reading my previous posts, I can see might have >come off that way, since I was trying to "beat around the >bush" so to speak. Anyway, to clarify, the "condition" was due >to an accident. It sometimes isn't so bad, but in stressful >situations or when I get sick, it gets bad: sometimes can't >remember what I did an hour ago. But, the good news is, >once it's in long term, I won't forget it. It's getting there that's >tough
Fair enough and well said.
I hope your condition improves.
- chris
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick7: Please try what llig suggests in his last post.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by david_h
Re: Just curious.
Fiddlechick, I do apologize. I wish you had explained your medical situation right at the beginning, though, because we could have avoided all the misunderstanding. I know you feel it’s a sensitive personal issue, but if you don’t tell people about it, it’s only natural that they’re going to assume that you’re too lazy to learn how to learn by ear (there are plenty of those kind of people). Don’t be afraid to tell people---they will understand, and will think more highly of you for trying to deal with it as best you can. You might even try telling that to those people at the fiddle contest---I bet they would let you participate with your music if they knew the real reason for you needing it.
As for tips, you mentioned that you have trouble with sets, following one tune with another. I find it helps to practice the transition itself until it’s smooth and seamless and you can do it without thinking much about it. This is for sets where you know what tune you want to put after another of course, not the ones where you throw it together on the fly. It seems like more planning at this point would help you keep your thoughts together more easily.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Just curious.
Thanks for the replies on the books. To those that still feel the need to say I can't play, well, you've never heard me play, so that is unfair. If I met any of you face to face, I don't think all these back and forth things would have started in the first place. I've admitted I might be interpreting things wrongly somewhere above.... is it fair to assume that you are also making assumptions?
I agree with the buying the CDs to hear how, say, Cape Breton Fiddling sounds. I guess I still am not completely sold on how reading music makes me sound like s-t. I've heard a lot of play by ear folks that sound much worse. But it's not about that for me. I am making the assumption that as much as I love what, for me, was always trad., many here just have a much different life experience. I'm sure I'll learn more hands on than I will from posts, the good and the judgmental. I just don't get why I keep trying to post questions that steer away from the so-called wind up, yet others still keep posting nasty things... in your opinion it might be "harsh words" but lets not play semantics. As you say, it is what it is. Can we please move on. In fact, this is my last post on this thread. Getting out of hand, in my opinion.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Kennedy: thanks for the suggestion. I think I just need to get over the fear of failure as well. That's where a lot comes from.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Just curious.
Thinking about it, llig's post doesn't cover the whole process. Can you think of a really simple tune, something at the "Twinkle Twinkle" or "Happy Birthday" level, that you can already sing or hum but have never played on the fiddle ?
Try that, 'hunt and peck' (as it would be on a button instrument) until you find the notes, note by note, phrase by phrase. Then find another tune. And bear in mind that this advice is given many times in many discussions on this site, and for those of us who are not at home with their instruments it takes hours and hours and hours to build up the 'pathways'. Could be that despite your skill with the dots t will take you just as long. Or maybe it will turn out to be faster. Then try llig's advice if your have not already jumped to success following it.
Also Natalie Macmaster has some of her own transcriptions on her web site. Compare those with what she actually plays each time through the tune.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by david_h
~
1 person, in the flesh, who plays by ear. Have that person teach you a tune, a set of tunes . . . as many as you both care to try. No peekie, no session with additional players. 4 ears, 2 instruments, & a few tunes which one or both of you know.*
It's not so much a challenge (hard to believe now). Once you're finally caught up in it it you realize why they call it playing.
* 1 hint which works for me ~ they are phrase, not a bunch of notes or technique. sweet miniature tunes having a conversation. just happens to be one you can dance to.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Random_notes
*
. . . there are phrases . . .
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Maybe you all haven't convinced Fiddlechick, but your arguments have had some impact on me. I'm going to try learning by ear after years of baroque from sheet music and a couple of years of ITM by the dots. I'll let you know how it goes.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by bigpalooka
Re: Just curious.
that's great!
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
Fair play to you, bigpalooka!
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by lastnitesfun
Re: Just curious.
Did you know Microsoft Windows (ok, I know that in the eyes of some that's an invocation of the Devil incarnate) has a Session Manager, one of whose functions is Memory Management. Just thought you'd like to know.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: Just curious.
Mozart and composing ... Llig, nearly missed your request for help on this (but CTRL-F "lazyhound" is an invaluable search tool in these long discussions when I've been away from the keyboard for a few hours). A reasonably well thought-out discussion of Mozart's compositional technique is in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_compositional_method, with quite a few references at the end.
Elgar was a bit in the same mould. Apparently, the story goes, he'd go out on long walks on the Malvern Hills working out his music in his head, and then when he got back to his desk he'd write it all down virtually complete, from memory.
At a more advanced level classical players really do have to work their memory cells hard. One of the greatest violin teachers at the end of the 19th century (I think it was Leopold Auer) would give a pupil the solo part of concerto movement (something substantial like the Brahms concerto) and tell him to prepare it for the next lesson in a week's time. This meant the pupil had only a week to get the whole of the solo part into his head and fingers to play at virtually performance speed. The lesson was intended to concentrate on the detail of performance and interpretation of the music and not technique, so woe betide a student who referred to the printed music during the lesson, for the lesson would then come to an abrupt halt. Coming to more recent times, a 13-year old English student at the Suzuki School in Japan was given the first movement of the Bach A-minor concerto on the Friday by her tutor (Shinichi Suzuki himself) and told to prepare it for a performance on the following Monday morning with an orchestra at the School's weekly concert given by the students to an audience of teachers. And of course she had to introduce it in Japanese.
# Posted on April 29th 2009 by lazyhound
Re: Just curious.
I am truly impressed by such feats of memory, virtuosity and diligence. Truly.
But I have to say I am more impressed....no, much more than just impressed: bowled over, flattened, by hearing much simpler tunes played with maybe equal, maybe even less, "virtuosity", but with all the intimacy and depth that they are capable of, by players like Joe Cooley, Seamus Creagh, Martin Byrnes, Jackie Daly, to mention a handful. That's why I post here about trad music not classical. Sorry to be abrupt.
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by Nick Splease
& in the end . . .
Well said Danny.
Yet I enjoyed an essay which lazyhound helped me find;
http://www.aproposmozart.com/Zaslaw,%20Neal%20--%20M.as%20working%20stiff.pdf
"Mozart as a working stiff"
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
"O'Neill wrote his versions down as they were played by the musician in question, the musician that we was transcribing at the time." SWFL Fiddler
Sorry about coming in late, but I just got up.
I thought O'Neill couldn't read music. He used to ride the public transport system listening to what people were humming, lilting or whistling to themselves then go back to the station and play it to his sergeant who could transcribe. The greatest player by ear of his generation?
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by greg n'sheils
Re: Just curious.
Seargeant Early, I believe...hence the tune name.
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
The transcriber was Sergeant James O'Neill. But mtodd is not too far off the mark, as Sgt James Early was also involved in the project and was a source of many of the tunes.
This book is an interesting read on the subject:
http://celticgrooves.homestead.com/CG_Book_Scribe_James_ONeill.html
I think I picked up my copy in Custy's in Ennis.
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by DaveL35
Re: Just curious.
Thanks for that link Dave. It's added to my birthday list!
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by greg n'sheils
Re: Just curious.
thanks Dave. TDH...depending on where you are OssianUSA also carries it.cheers
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by mtodd
Re: Just curious.
Very interesting, thanks!
I love the one anectdote about how a councilman was at the session the night before, and is there to meet the Chief as he comes into the station the next day.
The councilman is in a panic: "Chief, I need to see you in private right away, it's an emergency!"
"Well what is it?" the Chief says. "If it's that important, tell me now."
"No no, we've got to go into your office."
They go inside and the Chief asks what the deal is.
"What was that one tune you played last night. I can only remember the A part, it goes like this..." [lilts]
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
'This web site is populated by many people who do things like, "use traditional tunes as platforms for technique development," or purport to, "know all the technical theory stuff about both violin and Irish fiddling," and yet refuse to use their ears.'
Leave it out Llig. I was referring to using traditional tunes in my teaching practice. They are indeed a great platform for developing technique. Don't take my words out of context – you often complain when people do that to you.
One of the reasons I wrote that in my biography was to stop people like you slagging me for pretending to be an ITM teacher. I teach the mandolin as an instrument, not as a vehicle for ITM, and I don't promote myself as an ITM teacher.
I use my ears all the time, regardless of whether or not I'm using sheet music to learn or play a tune. Glad to hear you've turned over a new leaf, but I suspect it's not a leaf of manuscript paper. I think you've mentioned before that you can read and write music to an extent, but that you are not a proficient sight reader at speed. Perhaps when you've learnt this valuable skill you will be better qualified to comment on and criticise others who use it regularly. After all, you've bothered to learn something about sheet music, so why not learn a bit more and realise how valuable it can be? Can you not be bothered, or do you find it too difficult? Either way, please stop moaning about those of us who use sheet music as and when we want. You have no right.
ITM will not suffer by people like me messing around with it and using sheet music as and when we like. After all there are plenty of masters like yourself to keep the tradition alive. I love playing ITM and I also love listening to and playing many other types of music. I never describe myself as a 'pure-drop' ITM musician and I believe I am entitled to do whatever I like with the tunes. They belong to us all don't they?
Learning to read and write music is a great liberation. Please don't think that people who can do it use dots as their only source of information/inspiration. You read and write English to learn and to communicate don't you? When you read a book does it not conjure up imagery and emotional/intellectual ideas? Is there really much difference in music? If you met someone who couldn't read and write English would you not encourage them to do so, even if their spoken English was OK? Wouldn't you be tempted to introduce them to great works of literature? Reading and writing music does not constrain a musician's ability for self-expression or understanding. It is just a tool: a written language for sharing and recording ideas. You've often told us that written music can not convey the subtleties of ornamentation in ITM, and you've also given us some expert advice about Mr Mozart recently. How do modern players convey the subtlety of his music when they have no recordings of the great man? They do it because he wrote it down. Yes he wrote it down in all its glory. Sheet music is an advanced medium (and was in the 18th century). I hope you find out some day. It's not too difficult: just takes a bit of patience and study. Me? I taught myself to read and write (with a little help from my dad who was a brilliant classical pianist).
Before you start complaining again about people like me not using my ears: I can learn a tune by ear no problem (but you either have to play it several times at speed, or slow enough a few times). Either way, I'd rather have a pencil and manuscript paper to hand, just to make sure I don't forget it straight away (my memory is not what it used to be).
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Random Note: thank you for your kind words. I wasn't fishing for compliments but they are always nice to hear. I'm afraid you are wrong about the jigs!
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Random Notes: what I meant to say was that all the melodies in the 'JIgs' were read and played live from sheet music (Rose in the Heather was an arrangement written by myself). All accompaniments were improvised on the spot.
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Joel, very clearly put
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by greg n'sheils
Re: Just curious.
People play Mozart wonderfully today because there is an unbroken tradition of playing Mozart right back to him. Without this, the music gleamed off the page would be very poor music indeed. But the man himself improvised a great deal too, and all of that is sadly lost. All we have left of his music are very specific notes, yes, often played with great variety, but without altering from these hallowed transcriptions.
Irish music is not like this. At its best it is densely packed with rhythmic interjections made up of notes not on the page (you call them ornaments, I call them articulations). And the great skill in playing these tunes is in the phrasing, how you phrase, where you phrase, how and where you paraphrase. All of this is sadly lost on you.
It takes time to develop your playing of each and every tune to be able to do this well. The instant gratification of gleaning skeletons of a page is the miserable equivalent of eating a big mac. Why would I waste my time learning how to do that?
And I can't think of any context where using the skeletons of tunes as a mere platform for developing technique can be excusable.
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
big mac? but what if you're vegetarin?
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by Nick Splease
Re: Just curious.
-- probably a bag of horrid dry bombay mix from Holland and Barrett
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
'People play Mozart wonderfully today because there is an unbroken tradition of playing Mozart right back to him. Without this, the music gleamed off the page would be very poor music indeed.'
Nonsense, and typical of the pseudo-intellectual rubbish written here by people who are totally out of their depth outside ITM. There is no unbroken tradition of playing Mozart that can be traced to him. His music has been interpreted differently by different types of musicians (Italian singers are a good example -- look it up, but please not on Wikipedia). Instruments have also changed, as have fashions. The reason why his music has survived is because he wrote it down. If he had not been famous in his time, and we suddenly discovered his music now, it would be perfectly playable and still wonderful: the melodies, harmonies and counterpoint are beautifully preserved in his manuscripts. To say that his music would be 'poor' without the 'tradition' of playing it since his time is crass, naive and generally ignorant. Shame on you.
You've also totally misinterpreted what I've been trying to say. I'm not an idiot. I'm not into 'instant gratification of gleaning skeletons' from written music. Any decent musician understands phrasing (some of which can be written). I've just been trying to point out that reading and writing music is a useful skill, which can compliment other types of learning and playing. I say again: learn more about it, learn how to do it, and then come and criticise the rest of us.
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
The sad truth is that some ITM tunes were also lost from the living repertoire and resurrected from 'the book'.
However an oral culture can become very different once its written down. The written version can attain the status of being the 'correct' version. The Performing community can become disenfranchised from their music and it can be controlled by those with the power to print and enforce the standard.
Whats more this printed medium and players trained from this can then supersede a truly traditional oral culture and what was once common throughout that culture can literally die out as a direct result of a 'superior written version'.
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by the wicked hacker
Re: Just curious.
Well it seems a bit of what I posted was pulled out and twisted... but still I am drawn again to the lunacy of this...
When someone learns something new, or is presented with learning something new there are different factors involved...
One is pride...
People sometimes have a hard time letting go of what they have spent their entire life learning... so Joe or Sally thinks they should play irish music after studying classical violin for 20 years.... and so they are presented with "sessions" and "tunes"... and then the next step is usuallty "sheet music..." how often are they presented with "tradition..."?
And when they are presented with tradition why is there such a controversy?
Is everyone deaf?
Let's get realistic here.
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by The Merry Highlander
Re: Just curious.
Well, this got nasty, didn't it?.
Ears first, eyes second, if it all, I think that's all anyone's been saying in regards to the music. Whenever I've used my eyes first I've had to correct myself using my ears. It's easier for me to go use my eyes after my ears know what they are doing, if I have to go use my eyes at all. I've gotten better over the years of just doing it by ear, it's a skill that can be learned.
I think if we recognize what Ionannas is noting, that valuable things can be lost from an oral cultural when the written representation of it becomes more important, then we can at least preserve those things we value from it.
People do this already, at our session, who want to play a tune with us that they don't know yet. "Oh, I learned the dots on that one but here it's a little different, I'll straighten it out for next time." I've always done that, what I mean by correcting my eyes with my ears. Best if I don't have to, obviously, and skip the eyes.
Am I contributing to this thread's extreme length? I should stop.
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Just curious.
The reason why some of Mozart's music survives is because he wrote some of it down. The reason why it's playable is because there is a tradition of playing it. If you think that that is a crass, naive and a generally ignorant statement, then run a Mozart music score through a midi sequencer and listen to that. The contribution of the tradition is clear.
Yes, it's true that some traditional Irish tunes have been lost from the living repertoire and resurrected from books. But this has only been possible because the tradition itself has survived. Listen to the midi files here and the contribution of the tradition is clear.
Joel, if you are not into the instant gratification of gleaning skeletons from written music, why do you do it?
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
Sigh . . .
Run any score through a midi sequencer and it will sound crap. Are you comparing an orchestra full of great musicians to a midi sequencer? The 'tradition' of playing Maozart as you describe it is a fantasy.
Reading music is not just for instant gratification, just as learning from a CD isn't. Do you think that people who read music just knock out the tune, think they've got it right and then move on to the next one? Written music can convey much more than you suggest. There are hundreds and hundreds of articulation marks, ornaments and phrasing instructions available, all of which take patience and study to understand. Maybe you should learn some of them, instead of dismissing it all out of hand.
Again and again I'm not saying that reading from sheet music is the only way of doing things, or the right way, but it is mighty useful. It's a great skill and a powerful tool, which I'm happy to use, study, improve, teach practice. Can we just leave it at that? It's not your job to tell me how to learn and play music, neither is it any of your business. You do it your way and I do it my way (plus your way as well). That just makes us different doesn't it, but not better or worse than each other surely?
Have a lovely weekend Llig.
# Posted on May 1st 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
"If you think that that is a crass, naive and a generally ignorant statement, then run a Mozart music score through a midi sequencer and listen to that. The contribution of the tradition is clear."
Possibly a little late to contribute to this discussion, but Michael, admitedly through beer goggles, I'd REALLY love to run YOU through a MIDI sequence to see what your own contribution to the tradition has been...
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Rick Payman
Re: Just curious.
I can hear it now (in a crappy midi sort of way): 'grumble, moan, insist I'm right, and hide my jealousy for not being able to practice a fundamental of music: i.e the ability to write it down. What a laugh old Wolfgang would have if he were alive today. Do you think he would shun a recording studio? Do you think he would say to his mates, 'Don't write it down lads, for I will teach all the parts to you by ear.'? Course he wouldn't. He would use everything at his disposal to share his music, including writing it down. Jeeez will you lot never tire of slagging a fundamental right of any musician: to write the bleedin' stuff down?
Llig has been active on another recent discussion telling people how to execute some rolls. How did he do it? By writing it down on the old traditional medium that is the Internet! Well done Llig -- you've made your (possibly) first steps in writing down some music to share. The next thing you have to learn is how to do it properly on a stave. Good luck to you sir.
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
And Rick: let's not be too hard on pub musicians eh? They have after all given us some merry entertainment over the years . . .
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Hey, I've just had another thought (must be the time of year) - maybe if more music were to be published in sheet form (Llig: that's colloquial for sh*te form), then some ignorant b*stards such as just about any professional musician on the planet would be able to use it either to learn or (heaven forbid) perform said music to paying audients...
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Rick Payman
Re: Just curious.
"And Rick: let's not be too hard on pub musicians eh? They have after all given us some merry entertainment over the years . . ."
Yes indeed Joel, but I though we were discussing music here?
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Rick Payman
Re: Just curious.
Why publish music in sheet form for everyone to enjoy, when you can just share share it with locals down the pub by ear? Why assume that everyone in the world should just learn from recordings? Why bother with a beautiful written language developed from generations of brilliant musicians who had nothing better to do than share their ideas on paper? Why bother with Mozart, who didn't have a tape recorder? Why bother to use and develop a universal medium for the propagation of musical ideas? Why bother to argue with anonymous pseudo-intellectuals on the Internet. Am I bovvered?
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Why indeed argue on the Internet? Have ye no homes to go to?
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Just curious.
Joel, I'm gonna try and keep this as simple as possible. The system of written taves and dots etc is a woefully inadequate way of recording/comminicating Irish traditional music to someone, like your self, who is not already versed in the tradition.
That's the bottom line.
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by llig leahcim
Not versed in traditon
Michael, you still consider Joel amongst the strangers.
Those with whom you are careful about sharing written music.
I take it you don't like his playing of the jigs on MySpace?
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Random, I*'m certain that Joel will at least agree with me on this ... What I think of his jigs is utterly irrelevant.
And no, unlike with many people I've met here, I won't be sharing sheet music with Joel.
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by llig leahcim
*
right ~ irrelevant
give me a break
# Posted on May 2nd 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Random Notes: thanks for the support, but Llig's right in his last post. I really don't care what he thinks about my music. I didn't record it for him, and I have no ambition to please him. I don't play Irish music in his preferred style and I don't have the same attitude to music in general. I'm more interested in doing things my own way, rather than totally immersing/versing myself in this tradition. There are enough people doing that that already (and doing it very well – I'm sure Llig is one of them), and I'm too interested in learning about other types of music as well. I've never been able to dedicate myself to just one type of music. That's one of the reasons why I'm not a particularly good musician. As for Llig not sharing sheet music with me: well that's something I wouldn't ask for anyway – I have enough of the bleedin' stuff to keep me going for a long time. Besides, I would rather share my recordings (good or bad) on the Internet, rather than lecture people as to how to play music.
I'm happy to be 'amongst the strangers'. I came to love ITM for the tunes alone and not the baggage that comes with them. What I choose to do with the tunes is my business, and does nobody any harm. I just want to arrange, play and record stuff that I think sounds nice, including tunes from from other traditions, my own tunes, and ITM tunes. Sometimes I learn thing by ear, sometimes I improvise, and sometimes I use and write sheet music. Is there something wrong with that? Have I hurt anyone by doing so?
I like ITM because I find joy, happiness and humanity in the tunes. That's enough for me. I don't need/want to nail myself down into a particular way of playing or listening to them. I don't claim to be a 'pure drop' traditional musician, and I don't think that the way I play ITM is the right way, or indeed any way. It's just my way. Simple as that. I suspect that Llig thinks I don't play ITM at all. He would say that because my music is not 'the music' it has no relevance to the tradition. That's fine by me, because I don't feel worthy enough to be considered as someone who is continuing the tradition anyway. Music for me is a way of telling stories and communicating from the heart. I discovered that as a teenager, and I've spent many years since trying to learn the skills and artistry involved. It wasn't long before I realised that this would take more time than my life span but I carry on regardless, because I think it's worthwhile and very satisfying. Learning to read and write music has helped me in this journey. It provides a record and reference for ideas and emotional content. I also have a small amateur recording set-up at home. This is a lot of fun and, although frustrating at times, allows me to create a permanent record of my ideas and interpretation of things. I try not to use the technology to enhance or manipulate my music. Rather, I try to use it to record and reflect what I'm doing. We're all lucky to have this relatively cheap technology available to us, just as we're lucky to have pencils, paper and hundreds of years of brilliant musicians to show us the way.
Llig: I admire your tenacity, passion and unrelenting protection of this music. Look forward to hearing your playing some day. Joel
# Posted on May 3rd 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
keep writing music
# Posted on May 3rd 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
"I came to love ITM for the tunes alone and not the baggage that comes with them."
Well put. I like that.
# Posted on May 3rd 2009 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Just curious.
Really?
because I am tending to think the tunes alone are notes.
The tunes in their fullness include, oh I don't know how to put this, distinct rhythms & articulations. Any less & it's simply a series of notes. For me to know the tunes it is never too much too soon. There is always more; given the time. Tradition is not static. Although once I * try * to find the * more * . . . this is where any words fail me. . . I cannot . . .
Hugo, I don't like the baggage either. I keep tossing it out on the front lawn. No one seems to take it though. My mind will never be easy. I like Joel as much as I like Michael.
I'm only at peace when I'm playing.
Cheers
# Posted on May 3rd 2009 by Random_notes
~
& when I am listening.
# Posted on May 3rd 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
"The tunes in their fullness include, oh I don't know how to put this..."
Try writing it down - a picture is worth a 1000 words...
# Posted on May 3rd 2009 by Rick Payman
Re: Just curious.
Have I ever written it down? Oh, yes I have.
Thanks all the same Rick. I have to sneak out the back door now.
I cannot seem to open the front door.
Later
# Posted on May 3rd 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Random Notes: by 'baggage' I meant all the whining and emotional problems this music seems to evoke. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Have you and Rick been down the pub?Perhaps the baggage handlers are on strike again?
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
I got your meaning Joel.
No worries.
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Joel, Your reply was well thought out, and sounded like it was from the heart. Like you, playing the traditional Irish tunes is only a part of the music I like to play, I like songs, I like music from other traditions. No harm in that. No harm in sheet music either, as long as people use it as a tool rather than a crutch--just like there is no harm in playing by ear, as long as you are doing it for the right reason, and not just out of ignorance of the written 'language' of music. No ones joy of one type of music ever diminished someone else's joy of a different type of music.
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Just curious.
A liking for strings of notes is all very well. Joel's jigs and reels are a good example of that. But as Random says, the tunes in their fullness include distinct rhythms & articulations (well said by the way.) And I'd add, phrasing.
Joel accuses me of being lazy because I won't learn to sight read. But he says himself that he's not interested in immersing/versing himself in this tradition, only in doing things his way. He's not interested in how the people who created the music play it. He's not interested in how it actually sounds. He's of the opinion that to play the music without the distinct rhythms, articulations and phrasing that define it is to merely play it in a different style. He says he finds joy, happiness and humanity in the tunes he gleans from lifeless transcriptions of only a tiny percentage of what the music is. Imagine how much humanity he's missing?
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
Have you ever thought of becoming a politician Llig? You certainly have a knack for twisting words around quite delicately.
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Ahh we have little idea how the people who created this music played it.[ apart from modern stuff] We can be pretty sure though that the majority didn't play it in the modern Sligo style!
I do remember a story of one village which played with a simple un-ornamented style that, once it encountered the flashy ornamented style from another area, changed to the flashy style.
This also happened to one extent or other when the recordings of Coleman etc got to be heard in Ireland and was nearly the death of the regional style.
This is seen the world over when a new supposedly superior style or culture supersedes the older traditional style or culture . Its only as backlash by people who care for the traditional style that prevents this and have they ever actually been successful?
Coca cola anyone?
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by the wicked hacker
I'm a good sight - reader
& I can transcribe a tune using abcs.
For the most part I prefer the bare bones of a tune only because I think to much visual information isn't necessary helpful to playing.
There can be more information. I have transcribed tunes with various broken rhythms, articulation, & phrasing. The whole nine yards. I can say many positive things about the paper method.
Instead I would rather say something about how I use my ears. I never ceased to use them with or without the paper. & yet on 9 July 2009, when I decided to not use sheet music, I began to realize the bits I had been struggling to hear. They were always there. So it has been since that time I have heard more. It has been grand. But it only happened because I put aside sheet music for a year. Or so I said. I think it turned out to be about 7 months. I agree with you Joel that each way has it's use. Hope that helps.
Anyone heard from fiddlechick_7?
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by Random_notes
*
sorry for all the typos. I didn't have time to edit.
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
You've got plenty of time to edit. 9 July 2009 is a full two months from now.
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by GaryAMartin
Re: Just curious.
Joel, I did not mean to misrepresent.
Are you interested in immersing/versing yourself self in this tradition, or only in doing things your way?
Are you of the opinion that to play the music without the distinct rhythms, articulations and phrasing that define it is to merely play it in a "different" style?
You find humanity in the tunes as written. Would you find more humanity in the tunes as played?
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: Just curious.
Llig
I'm sure you didn't.
I am interested in both, but I don't have time to do either properly. As I said before: these are the reasons I am not a very good musician. However I do like to think that I do play music with some distinct rhythm, articulation and phrasing. Do you think that I do not? If I didn't do these things there would be no point in continuing. But I'm a musician nonetheless. That's what musicians do.
I never said that I find humanity only in the tunes as written. The beauty of any music is in the playing and listening. Do you not believe that I use my ears as well as other tools?
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Yes, you play with some rhythm, articulation and phrasing, But not the distinct rhythms, articulations and phrasing of the music. Either you use your ears and have disgarded the tradition in favour of doing things your way, or you don't use your ears enough.
# Posted on May 4th 2009 by llig leahcim
A pledge
Thanks for catching that Gary.
It dawned on me a couple of hours ago I had typed the wrong date.
As I did not make it the full year (learning tunes w/out written music) I've decided to take a new pledge. Beginning 9 July 2009 I will play not a single tune with sheet music. All new tunes will be learnt by ear. I wish I could say I will learn all my tunes from live playing.
Some will be learnt from recordings. Some I will even slow down, at 1st. But no MIDI! I've done that & it makes me sound just like the MIDI.
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Llig
Hmmm. I like to think that I've taken your first option, but I could be wrong. Now where's my hearing aid? Pardon?
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
How are you going to find out?
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by llig leahcim
Reconciliation
nice!
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes
X - post
psst . . . Joel
Door # 1! You can do this.
It's the Ferrari!!!
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Llig,
Obviously, Joel is a very competent musician who is influenced more by other styles than Irish, and happy to be that way. Pick on his approach to The Music all you want, but don't say he is soulless, or not a good musician.
Some folks want to immerse themselves in The Music, some just want to stick their toes in and see how the water is!
And random, in my mind, if you are trying to learn in a traditional manner, using recordings, especially when you slow them down, is even less authentic than using sheet music. Newfangled crutches are still crutches!
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Just curious.
Thanks Albrown. I appreciate that. I think the water in Llig's pond may be a little cold. It doesn't really encourage me to dive in . . .
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Random Notes: could I have an Aston Martin instead please?
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Slow session
Al, Al, Al ~ new - fangled? People were slowing down tunes long before we had recording devices. It's not like I'm slowing down Micho. Besides, by your standard every last tune would have to be learnt strictly in a full session. I'm sure there is a tradition which extends to learning in other settings. Just 2 people playing in a kitchen for instance. You can learn there. Traditional players do that as well. & if I'm paying with just 1 other person & say, "Would you play it through 1 time slower?" I really do think some of the best players will oblige me.
Maybe I should speed up the recordings just to make you happy. ;) Actually I have. Now that is new - fangled.
Joel ~ door # 1, or you get the donkey. Haven't you seen the show?
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes
*
only found 1 typo
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes
**
The reason I use recordings at all is because there is a limit to how much traditional music I am able to hear locally.
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
What show? What donkey? I still want an Aston Martin. Actually I don't really care about cars and I don't have one. How fast is this donkey of which you speak? Will it carry 5 tonnes of sheet music?
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Joel McDermott
How come I know where to find you?
It was an old game show; 'Let's Make a Deal'. Doesn't matter.
What does was a brief, fleeting, rare moment.
Michael: " Either you use your ears and have disgarded (sic) the tradition in favour of doing things your way, or . . . "
Joel: " . . . I've taken your first option . . . "
Auburn: " nice! "
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: Just curious.
Isn't everything 'disgarded' (sic) (hic)?
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Just curious.
Wasn't going to add any more to the thread, but a few have been wondering where I've been: very, very sick with the flu and scrambling to grade about 100 10-15 page final papers! Whew, talk about brain overload. I saw that this discussion continued without me, and some posts are really insightful. If there are a few things I've learned since I've posted this thread originally, they would be:
1. I love ITM, but wouldn't confine myself to that definition, esp. in light of how defensive people can get about musicians identifying themselves to the "tradition" without having all the necessary qualifications as advocated by the purists. So, I'm with Joel McDermott on that one.
2. I appreciate those who have this almost Barddic tradition of passing on an "oral" culture. I love this idea, esp. as a poet. However, I would also pose the question that isn't a lot of the "original" tradition also lost by "word of mouth"? Take the grade school experiment in a lunch room: a student is told a few phrases by a teacher and told to whisper the phrases to the next student. By the end of the lunch line, those pharses could be totally different that the original intent. Just something interesting to consider in the recent discussion.
3. I plan on trying my best to implement some of the by ear techniques suggested on this thread; however, I refuse to ever feel ashamed at my knowledge of sheet music / "sight reading". As someone stated above, I think.... if you know anything about the tradition, what is written transcends "dots".
4. I need to spend some more time here. I guess I'm offically a "lurker"... is that what they are called? LOL
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Aural, BTW
Passing along stories is an oral tradition.
Passing along tunes ( by ear at least ) is an aural tradition.
As long as the tunes are *alive* & being played the tradition is exactly like your lunchroom example. Individual players will tend to, or try to, fix a particular way of playing the tune. But it's not so rigid. Tunes are quite malleable & fluid.
Do you know a well played tune melts the heart of a curmudgeon?
# Posted on May 5th 2009 by Random_notes