At the 2007 Willie Clancy week in Miltown I was stayin at the same houses as Gary Hastings and he told me that when he was my age he would have learnt of a tape of music by ear in a night or so yet that he he couldn't remember learning one that year
Now my teacher who is , apart from an odd job, is retired and in his early 60's and continues to learn and collect tunes...
There are musicians (although few of them) around south tipp who I know only have a very few tunes yet have been playing for 40 , 50 years and are perfectly happy
So why do people stop learning, not enought time? Would rather be playing in the pub with friend and a pint? Know themselves they could play with most session?
A big part of it for me is being able to play with others but I love learning a knew tune too.
Perhaps I'll look remember this in years to come when Im paying of bills and havent learnt a tune in months and say there you go
I am an old guy, been playing over fifty years and I'm still learning new tunes. And relearning the old ones from many years ago.
I can't imagine a time when I'd have all the tunes I'd want. Maybe it'd be time to die....?
It seems as though you think these folks made a conscious decision to not learn tunes, when I'm sure that's far from the case. It's just how it happens.
For me, I used to learn them in bunches. Over the years, it's slowed. I still pick them up, but I pick them up from friends playing them, by ear, organically, slowly.
Barry Foyle wrote that "Most Irish musicians spend their lives in a low-level state of anxiety over the amount of tunes they don't know." (or something to that effect)
Perhaps it's a higher anxiety at first that gives way to a much lower level of one. Perhaps like many things in life, it's just a function of age. If I pick up a new tune, great, if not, feh. The sun will still come up tomorrow. When I was younger, without a lot of tunes, there was a mania to learn them, like some sort of tune acquisition OCD. Age mellows plenty of things.
Been playing this music about 30 years. I learn more tunes more often now than I used to. But I'm still learning tunes that it seems everyone else already knows. No matter how many you know, there's an endless supply of more good tunes....
Perhaps it has to do with access and exposure? I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that a person of an older generation who has primarily been playing in the same small towns for years would only hear and play a smaller number of tunes. No internet or mustard board, no vast collection of CDs, no quick research of any number of ABC tune web-sites - just the occasional new tunes taught by ear when a friend/stranger passes through town.
There are some people who look on the number of tunes a player knows as a mark of quality musicianship in itself, and speak with praise of those who are supposed to know one or two thousand, not much attention to whether they sound better than anyone else. How does that work then?
It takes all sorts, I suppose.
I find that the older you get the less new tunes you learn or feel like learning. I keep hearing 'Must have tunes' yet I never seem to find the time to sit down and learn them. My head is filled with tunes and in fact I sometimes hear tunes that I used to play and have completely forgotten. I really hate it when that happens. The sad thing is that I can listen to young musicians and not know one of their tunes, on the other hand I played the reel 'The King of the Clan' to a group of good young musicans one night and none of them had ever heard it before. Funny old world!!!!
I agree with all above. The more tunes you know, the easier it is to learn new ones. Once you pass a certain threshold, there is nothing stopping you....
Mind you I also keep exploring and reinvening new subtle ways of playing old favourites like the Kesh jig.. add another decade along that path I'll probably be stunned by the beauty of the plain old version.
My bet is that people that stop learning tunes just haven't got into the wonderful habit of revitalization, which is a key to life and music itself to me.
Rereading all the posts I see that it is a clear contradiction to agree with all above.... I actually disagree with Free Reed that the older I get the less tunes I want to learn....but I totally agree with Will and have put King of the Clan on my to-do-list ....
Having a head full of tunes is the whole point, I thought. And there's always room for more--you just have to actively quit remembering all the useless stuff like people's names, where you put the car keys, your home address, and what your spouse looks like....
There's the Midas rush for mere acquisition ...
And there's philately ...
Then there's the "duh" that all that glisters is not gold ...
And the plateau ...
Then there's the glory period where a conscious effort is made to reduce the amount of tunes you play ...
And yet still ... you continue learn more?
It's much much rarer these days that I find tunes I want to learn. Most of the new tunes I hear are merely variations of better tunes I already play. However, I just adore that moment when you hear a tune that completely surprises you. That feeling, a consequence of knowing more tunes, has to become more infrequent. However, it will never end.
As an old-timer, perhaps I might be allowed to make an observation.
When I began learning the tunes, well over 50 years ago now, they came thick and fast. I learned the tunes that my granda played and then began playing with a few other local musicians and, out of necessity, began to pick up some of their tunes.
Then we all started listening to recordings and started to pick tunes up from those. Fleadhs exposed us to loads of new tunes.
And then I left Ireland, settling first in London, where we swapped tunes from here and there.
But as time goes by, you hear less and less new stuff. And some of what we do hear is, quite frankly, a bit strange to my ears. Fair play to the boys who like to play Scottish tunes or Canadian tunes or Breton tunes in sessions. But they do nothing for me. so I've found that the rate at which I pick up tunes is much slower than when I was a boy or a young man.
I think that's a fairly natural thing, though. This music is learnt via the tunes. Sure, there's all the stuff about ornaments and timing and grace and flow and pulse. But we only learn these through playing the tunes. And so we have a real need to build up our stock of tunes when we're starting out. After a point we've heard enough to work out what tunes work for us and the need to add to the stock gets less and less as we have got the tunes that do it for us.
As llig leahcim says above, though, it's great when, even after many years of playing, a tune comes along which you've just GOT to learn. (Seanamhac Tube Station and Sport are two tunes which grabbed me in recent years.)
Funny you should mention that tune Sport. I only heard that faily recently also. what a breath of fresh air it is. Just when you think that you've sorted every possible combination of notes into neat little groups of tune types, along comes a tune like Sport to sink your jaded theories. Great.
At 57, I have forgotten more tunes than I can remember, but if you learn them properly, even if you do put them aside for a decade, they come back to you easily, once someone else starts the tune.
I am still an avid tune-learner, but I must admit, I learn tunes to be able to regurgitate them when someone else starts, or when I peep into my crib book of forgotten tunes I should be playing.
I could never be playing the same 30 tunes as last year.
Why stop learning tunes?
Why stop learning tunes?
At the 2007 Willie Clancy week in Miltown I was stayin at the same houses as Gary Hastings and he told me that when he was my age he would have learnt of a tape of music by ear in a night or so yet that he he couldn't remember learning one that year
Now my teacher who is , apart from an odd job, is retired and in his early 60's and continues to learn and collect tunes...
There are musicians (although few of them) around south tipp who I know only have a very few tunes yet have been playing for 40 , 50 years and are perfectly happy
So why do people stop learning, not enought time? Would rather be playing in the pub with friend and a pint? Know themselves they could play with most session?
A big part of it for me is being able to play with others but I love learning a knew tune too.
Perhaps I'll look remember this in years to come when Im paying of bills and havent learnt a tune in months and say there you go
# Posted on January 6th 2010 by premier
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
I am an old guy, been playing over fifty years and I'm still learning new tunes. And relearning the old ones from many years ago.
I can't imagine a time when I'd have all the tunes I'd want. Maybe it'd be time to die....?
# Posted on January 6th 2010 by David Levine
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
You probably will!
It seems as though you think these folks made a conscious decision to not learn tunes, when I'm sure that's far from the case. It's just how it happens.
For me, I used to learn them in bunches. Over the years, it's slowed. I still pick them up, but I pick them up from friends playing them, by ear, organically, slowly.
Barry Foyle wrote that "Most Irish musicians spend their lives in a low-level state of anxiety over the amount of tunes they don't know." (or something to that effect)
Perhaps it's a higher anxiety at first that gives way to a much lower level of one. Perhaps like many things in life, it's just a function of age. If I pick up a new tune, great, if not, feh. The sun will still come up tomorrow. When I was younger, without a lot of tunes, there was a mania to learn them, like some sort of tune acquisition OCD. Age mellows plenty of things.
# Posted on January 6th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
Been playing this music about 30 years. I learn more tunes more often now than I used to. But I'm still learning tunes that it seems everyone else already knows. No matter how many you know, there's an endless supply of more good tunes....
# Posted on January 6th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
Perhaps it has to do with access and exposure? I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that a person of an older generation who has primarily been playing in the same small towns for years would only hear and play a smaller number of tunes. No internet or mustard board, no vast collection of CDs, no quick research of any number of ABC tune web-sites - just the occasional new tunes taught by ear when a friend/stranger passes through town.
# Posted on January 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
There are some people who look on the number of tunes a player knows as a mark of quality musicianship in itself, and speak with praise of those who are supposed to know one or two thousand, not much attention to whether they sound better than anyone else. How does that work then?
It takes all sorts, I suppose.
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by lestow
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
I find that the older you get the less new tunes you learn or feel like learning. I keep hearing 'Must have tunes' yet I never seem to find the time to sit down and learn them. My head is filled with tunes and in fact I sometimes hear tunes that I used to play and have completely forgotten. I really hate it when that happens. The sad thing is that I can listen to young musicians and not know one of their tunes, on the other hand I played the reel 'The King of the Clan' to a group of good young musicans one night and none of them had ever heard it before. Funny old world!!!!
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by Free Reed
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
I agree with all above. The more tunes you know, the easier it is to learn new ones. Once you pass a certain threshold, there is nothing stopping you....
Mind you I also keep exploring and reinvening new subtle ways of playing old favourites like the Kesh jig.. add another decade along that path I'll probably be stunned by the beauty of the plain old version.
My bet is that people that stop learning tunes just haven't got into the wonderful habit of revitalization, which is a key to life and music itself to me.
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by FiddleTramp
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
Perhaps you have taken the quote wrongly...
"couldn't remember learning one that year"
Hastings, being a fabulous musician, although a priest, could be alluding to something else here! He didn't sday he hadn't learned any that year...
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by horatio spens the blademan
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
Rereading all the posts I see that it is a clear contradiction to agree with all above.... I actually disagree with Free Reed that the older I get the less tunes I want to learn....but I totally agree with Will and have put King of the Clan on my to-do-list ....
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by FiddleTramp
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
Having a head full of tunes is the whole point, I thought. And there's always room for more--you just have to actively quit remembering all the useless stuff like people's names, where you put the car keys, your home address, and what your spouse looks like....
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
There's the Midas rush for mere acquisition ...
And there's philately ...
Then there's the "duh" that all that glisters is not gold ...
And the plateau ...
Then there's the glory period where a conscious effort is made to reduce the amount of tunes you play ...
And yet still ... you continue learn more?
It's much much rarer these days that I find tunes I want to learn. Most of the new tunes I hear are merely variations of better tunes I already play. However, I just adore that moment when you hear a tune that completely surprises you. That feeling, a consequence of knowing more tunes, has to become more infrequent. However, it will never end.
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by ...
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
As an old-timer, perhaps I might be allowed to make an observation.
When I began learning the tunes, well over 50 years ago now, they came thick and fast. I learned the tunes that my granda played and then began playing with a few other local musicians and, out of necessity, began to pick up some of their tunes.
Then we all started listening to recordings and started to pick tunes up from those. Fleadhs exposed us to loads of new tunes.
And then I left Ireland, settling first in London, where we swapped tunes from here and there.
But as time goes by, you hear less and less new stuff. And some of what we do hear is, quite frankly, a bit strange to my ears. Fair play to the boys who like to play Scottish tunes or Canadian tunes or Breton tunes in sessions. But they do nothing for me. so I've found that the rate at which I pick up tunes is much slower than when I was a boy or a young man.
I think that's a fairly natural thing, though. This music is learnt via the tunes. Sure, there's all the stuff about ornaments and timing and grace and flow and pulse. But we only learn these through playing the tunes. And so we have a real need to build up our stock of tunes when we're starting out. After a point we've heard enough to work out what tunes work for us and the need to add to the stock gets less and less as we have got the tunes that do it for us.
As llig leahcim says above, though, it's great when, even after many years of playing, a tune comes along which you've just GOT to learn. (Seanamhac Tube Station and Sport are two tunes which grabbed me in recent years.)
Just my thoughts.
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by Seamie Lyons
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
Funny you should mention that tune Sport. I only heard that faily recently also. what a breath of fresh air it is. Just when you think that you've sorted every possible combination of notes into neat little groups of tune types, along comes a tune like Sport to sink your jaded theories. Great.
# Posted on January 7th 2010 by ...
Re: Why stop learning tunes?
At 57, I have forgotten more tunes than I can remember, but if you learn them properly, even if you do put them aside for a decade, they come back to you easily, once someone else starts the tune.
I am still an avid tune-learner, but I must admit, I learn tunes to be able to regurgitate them when someone else starts, or when I peep into my crib book of forgotten tunes I should be playing.
I could never be playing the same 30 tunes as last year.
# Posted on January 8th 2010 by geoffwright