I have spent the last few years attending fast pace sessions in an attempt to observe proper etiquette, learn a few tunes, met new friends and have decent outing. Now I only go to listen.
Because someone in my area decided to host a weekly slow/learning "Kitchen Session" at their home. Where music stands and sheet music are not allowed but encouraged. Where learning tunes and hearing how they are played at normal pace are main purpose of the session. We have a list of tunes to be played that is updated via an e-mail by our leader.
I have learned more tunes under this type of venue than ever before at any local pub sessions.
I think this is a great idea as well. My experience has been that when a fast paced session is slowed down for a beginner, more beginners show and the session becomes a slow session. The general feel from a beginners viewpoint is that of not being welcomed comes, but Im sure that isnt the case. A similar case might be Pro vs. Amateur sports. Maybe not the best example, but seems relevant to me...
IMHO, beginners like myself will benefit most from a venue that caters to a learning environment and atmosphere. Where sheet music is allowed for those who want it and will learn from it.
Not that learning tunes can not be acquired from listening to fast pace pub music. But that requires a full understanding of the fret board and where each sound can be found. That takes time - dots are faster.
I should add, we have anywhere from 10 to 13 members who show up at our weekly learning "Kitchen Session" with sheet music. We do share music stands to make more room.
I run a weekly tune learning session here in Montana. Sheet music is allowed, but every week I encourage people to learn to trust their ears and wean off the sheet music.
Better than learning a tune while reading it is to simply learn slowly, phrase by phrase, by ear. I teach half the tune, phrase by phrase, and then we play it slowly 20 or 40 times till everyone really has it. Then I teach the second half the same way. (By which time everyone laughs about how they've forgotten the first half. ) Then we play the whole tune for 10 or 15 minutes, slow, over and over, till everyone has it.
I'll provide sheet music for anyone who wants it--it's a good way to jump start the memory later at home. And people are welcome to record the tune, too.
I think it's important--crucial, really--for aspiring musicians to start using their ears right from the outset. Especially for this tradition.
Will
I have even posted the Sheet Music along with my You-tube videos' etc, even taught Kids who use music notation, making them out score's of there first 2 or 3 tune's. But if you don't get then to learn Irish music by ear soon,, It's like that song title -
' Needle and the Damage done '
jim,,,
Kitchen sessions & junkets do not traditionally feature music stands
Thank God for kitchen sessions and slow sessions minus the dots. The dots and stands are, in my experience, better left at home. Yes, you would learn less, but, again in my experience, you'd learn better, and you'd be listening to each other without the dots, paper and stands in the way. Yes, they are 'in the way'. They muffle the experience, dull it... But, if you're all enjoying your moment, great, but see if you can give up the addiction for print. The real connection between musician and music and other musicians happens best without that sensory dulling intermediary.
Accolades earned for making a start, for offering the opportunity to share music together. You can only make it better, with a little gentle nudging and effort to step away from the sheet music. No addiction is easy to kick. Sometimes we percieve more benefits than are real, the nature of addiction...
Best of luck in all you do, and best of health to your event...
As usual, I'm with Will, good examples again. If you can't play the music without the dots, then it isn't yours, you DON'T know it. Learn it, make it your own, be at one with it, and then you'll have the freedom to experience it fully, including how others take it, but listening to what they have to share with you, rather than following the dots like a bouncing ball, quite often out of synch with each other, or dully battered out like doing push ups to the yelps of a military drill sergeant...
We're on the dots again, so I'd better repeat the usual, I love notation, honestly, and I always teach it, including ABC notation, when I'm called to teach, but we leave it in the notebooks and for work at home, not when I'm wanting and expecting full attention - with the ears and the eyes, and not just for me, for everyone present, to pull us together in the weave of music, without the blanket of sheet music over our heads... It has it's place and use, but not in any kind of 'session' where the goal is sharing and being at one with a melody and the other musicians present...
Jim - "if you don't get then to learn Irish music by ear soon -"
Yup! Don't I know, sometimes painfully... It has always been easier to teach an ear musician to read, even when they have an inbuilt taboo or fear of it, than to teach a dot addicted musician to trust their ears and let go of the sheets...
I've run across slow sessions where everyone agrees to learn one tune together to play without dots. Once everyone has that tune, they choose another and so forth. Eventually with the support of the group even the most dot-addicted musicians end up with some tunes by heart and realize they can leave the music stand behind.
It has always concerned me that sheet musicians didn't know how to improvise, or even play a piece without their sheet. It has also concerned me that some ear musicians treat paper and Theory like they are some kindof "creativity killers". Being on both sides, i can confidently say that both have their uses. But when it cripples us, that's when it's bad :/
In my case, I use the DOTS at home for fret board direction as I find it difficult to equate a sound or note in a tune as to where it is found on the fret board. Our "Kitchen Session" is a my place to hear and learn how the tune should be played.
Once I have the tune committed to memory, i don't use the sheet music. I know when I make a mistake and play the wrong note. My goal is to play solely by sound and having the the tune in my fingers so to speak.
My reason for starting this post is to state a slow "Kitchen Session" is the place to learn. Not in a fast pace pub session.
Congrats on finding a comfortable place to learn with your friends! Nothing better than to start a journey with like minded folks to help push you along and inspire you. One point of experience to pass on if I may. There was a learner session in our town for many years. The group who started were all rank beginners and all began trying to learn tunes by reading them from various tune books. Those that were able to embrace the idea that this is an aural tradition eventually ditched the sheet music and started forcing themselves to learn tunes by ear. Now 6 years later, those ear learners are able to play in any session they like in town, whereas those that remained anchor to books still are not comfortable playing in "full speed" sessions. I like Elaine T's idea as the basis of a learning session that will quickly speed folks along in learning tunes.
Regardless of what we all say here, I am happy for you - but I would also add that music book learning actually slows your progress in getting up to session speed. If you are like I was, I couldn't wait to get up to the level needed to play with the local hot-shots. I would encourage your group to learn by ear as much as you can. It will help you get where you want to be so much faster.. Good luck!
Good for you, Cape Cod Struggler. Everyone is raising some valid points about the value of using your ear, but as long as it is used sparingly, there is nothing wrong with consulting with sheet music in the early stages of learning. Like training wheels, you will find that you can soon abandon that 'crutch' as you advance.
Every journey starts with a single step, and by sharing that experience with others, you increase your chance of success, and have more fun along the way.
Enjoy!
I've got to admit that we use dots at my slow session. There are (or were) two reasons - firstly we have a piano accordion, autoharp, guitar and two bouzoukis. Each is fairly capable of providing accompaniment on their own, but they would all use different chords. Sheet music with the chords written in gets them all singing from the same hymn sheet. The second reason for giving out dots is that without them, if people forget the tune on the way home from the session (as they inevitably do) then they can't practice it until the next session. The dots serve as a reminder to kick start their practice.
What I do these days is now and again, when we have enough new tunes to make it worth while, I record a session and dish out CDs for people to practice at home with. That seems to be working very well, although we still have a couple who refuse to even attempt to play without paper. I don't know what to do about them.
I've played in a couple of slow sessions. The dots were very helpful learning the tunes; an experienced musician who could show us how the tunes were supposed to sound helped too.
I've also played in some wonderful house sessions with musicians I knew well. We played both from sheet music and without. Great fun. I particularly remember the blizzard session with two good musicians from down the street after we got so much snow that classes were canceled and the streets were closed. Good music.
The method of learning a tune by playing it in fragments 20 or more times and then going on to the B music for another 20 fragments sounds awful to me. I'd much rather learn a tune by a combination of dots and good play at speed. If I'm going to pick up a tune completely by ear I want to hear it several weeks in a row at speed, not in tiny fragments.
That [ear learning] takes time - dots are faster."
This isn't really true, or it is true only in a very limited sense.
It may be true that dots allow one to *play* some version (one version) of a tune quickly. But. . .
1) It takes a good deal of time to learn how notation works. Like, a LOT of time. That needs to be factored in.
2) Sight reading is in no sense the same thing as "knowing" a tune. Pulling a tune out of the dark vaults of memory, that ya haven't played for five years, because a stranger plays it in yer local pub - and nailing it - THAT'S knowing a tune.
I've run into a common misconception - that ear learning is innate and "you can do it" or "you can't." People do not realize that ear learning is itself a learned skill, just like learning to read dots. It isn't magic - it just takes practice.
dots are slower in this way; a couple of people here who came to play relied so thoroughly on the dots that we all had to sit and wait while they shuffles through their papers; eventually the impatient among us would start off a tune anyway and the ear-learners would follow, but the dot players were still seeking. they stopped coming after a while. of course, maybe they just got too fast for the rest of us.
and one place i liked an outline of dots was for picking up and remembering bowing patterns. i could mark them, and then remember them, when i couldn't "hear" the bow directions in the recordings.
that used to be hard for me in workshops, i'd be so focused on getting the notes i'd miss the bowing niceties. still don't know how to deal with that one. any advice? those guys on youtube play so fast....my eyes get way behind.
The guy who runs our learner's session has made cds for us to use for practice at home; he plays at a slower tempo than session speed so we stumbling beginners can figure it out. He also teaches us tunes by ear, and won't tell us the names so we can't look up the dots.
Skreech, maybe you ought to try that with your dot-readers. Don't tell them the name of the next new tune! Encourage them to get one of those little digital recorders as a memory aid instead of taking away sheet music.
Reading the dots is faster only in the short term. To repeat what others have said above, I don't really have the tune until it just flows from my brain out through my fingers.
At last we seem to be coming to some kind of consensus regarding the ear v dots debate. It is not the written notation that is at fault, but the way it is employed. What is a handy tool for those who know how to use it, can be an encumbrance for others.
Incidentally, I've never had any problem with either approach, because I had to sight-learn pibroch that would last up to twenty minutes, and play purely from memory. You'll never see a pipe band playing from the score, but they all learn from it.
I use dots for research/comparison/source, but really believe that dots never should be at a session.
Sure give new players the dots if you'd like, but tell them to leave them at home. Make them pull the music out of an internal place rather than a mechanical place at a session! So many times people who come from a nontraditional music background refer to "memorizing" the music. Any trad. player will tell you that this is the wrong path because ultimately it is much more than rendering intervals from a piece of sheet music.
Could you imagine a baseball game with players referring to a rulebook in their back pocket during the game? Beginners need to know they are beginners. Sure the communal aspect of the music is fun, but I think that beginners appreciate honesty as well. ANd what they will gain in the process is the process of the tradition itself.
Kitchen sessions - a lovely discussion, enjoyed, but, between the dots -
Jusa Nutter Eejit - great story and example. I also agree with Elain T's way. It shouldn't be about raking through a load of tunes quickly, played mechanically from sheet music.
Transcriptions, whatever the notation, dots to ABCs and tab, are great for memory's sake, but a recording is so much better, and nowadays any recording can also be slowed down while keeping in it in the same key, the magic of modern technology and a plus tool for getting to terms with more than just a run of notes...
Music is communication. Doing it with sheets in the way is like using one of those two cans and a string to talk across a distance, or like a Shakespear play where two lovers try to chat through a hole in a wall, or a knot hole in a high wood fence. It's in the way of direct communication. It dulls the senses and gives us a false sense of security that 'we know the tune', when that's the furthest from the truth. If you need the sheets you ain't got it even for the barest of basics.
But bless Cape Cod Struggler and his group, it's a start, it's an alternative, and, hopefully, it will grow in understanding and appreciation, while, as JNE's tale tells, those that can't kick the habit, well, they won't ever go very far, and they'll not understand full imersion in a tune and into a session where you're listening to others and working that chemistry - of communication, something that isn't just dots or a sequence of notes. And there's the visual contact as well, a shared smile to increase the joy of that sharing, without the damned music stands and sheets in the way.
Value the dots, or whatever notation you enjoy, but keep it aside for that occassional memory jog, or curioisity, at home.
We too had someone local that used to show up with stacks of music books, and it was really off putting when we'd start playing and he'd shuffle through his books and sheets to try to find what we were playing, "What tune is that?" ~ "What tune was that one?" ~ "I know that, what's it's name?" ~ "Just a minute, I've got it here somewhere." ~ "Let's play those polkas, now where did I put those?" And then there were the round table revivalist English sessions I've stumbled into where a tune name would be called and then everyone would shuffle through their paper till they found the dots and a couple minutes later we'd start sawing it off, though I've heard more rhythmic swing from a bow saw. Yes, nice folks, lovely people, but awful music... It just didn't have any life or lift, and any affectations like abusing vibrato, didn't make it any more convincing. I even remember one painful moment where they were all playing a set of Northumbrian variations on an old standard I knew well, something like half a dozen or more variations, getting increasingly more complex and sloppy. I had to just put my instrument down and listen with interest...
But good luck to you, hoping in time things will move beyond dot dependancy and a certain deafness that always comes with it.
hmmm--are there no luddites among us who don't like the use of recording devices? seems like the old ones never had those and sat with players who knew tunes in order to learn them.
in a hundred years will we be arguing whether the new brain implants aren't superior to the old technology of little digital recorders?
for sure, the main point is to get to learn to whip out and instrument and play a tune from the heart.
Absolutely first choice, prime preference - sit with players who know the tunes in order to learn from them...
But what value denying modern options as another alternative, recordings of master players, or merely of friends wanting to share a tune with you. But person-to-person transfer, there's nothing better.
Some 'slow sessions' and the like bring in guest musicians to share a tune and their knowledge and ways with the music. That, in my experience, also works well...
I go to a session like Cape Cod Struggler describes. It is good to go, essential for me, and I appreciate the effort put in by the people leading it.
From a personal, selfish, point of view though the dot readers are a usually waste of *my* time. I sit out the tunes I haven't learned yet - but the dot readers haven't learned them yet either. Those of them who (like me) are still learning their instruments can't play them properly. The best readers can play their instruments but are mainly (though not all) from other genres so sometimes don't play the tunes properly either (I usually appreciate them being in tune and on the beat though).
However, that it's an "all are welcome" group is more important to me; they let me join when I was just starting so a couple of years on I will do my share of teeth gritting. I haven't asked directly but I think it was set up as a 'buffer zone' around the local pub session.
Dani
< Some 'slow sessions' and the like bring in guest musicians to share a tune and their knowledge and ways with the music. That, in my experience, also works well... >
That is the sort of slow session I had to do, It as you said,
< also works well...>
I enjoyed playing with people who where like myself many years ago, and was chuffed at being able to help some learners along there ITM journey a bit. I enjoyed it,, And would not mind sitting in a slow session with Tommy Peoples playing along with it, and giving me some pointers. ' A good idea '
jim,,,
I thank all of you who submitted a response to my posting.
Perhaps I misnamed our group gathering as a "Kitchen Session" and should have called it a kitchen workshop or kitchen class.
Whatever it is called, it is another way for me to learn tunes. I read the DOTS to identify the notes, play part A over and over again and then move on to part B. I look up the tune on Youtube. I go to pub session on Saturday afternoon to hear tunes.
But the way to learn is to play with others in a learning environment. Where one doesn't get the "Evil eye" because he or she didn't play the properly from regular session player.
Our "Kitchen Session" is about learning. We had 14 players there last night. I noticed many of the players never looked at the sheet music. I never read the DOTS as play. I play or lead only tunes I have in my fingers, not in my eyes.
As I said in the beginning, dots or no dots, a slow "Kitchen Session" is a THE place to learn, not at a pub session. Our "Kitchen Session" woks for me. Not dealing with "No it Alls" at a pub session.
I've been teaching fiddle classes in town for about 10 years now, and I've come up with a policy that I've found works quite well: Students are welcome to learn the tune off of paper at home; I'll even write out note names in class for students to copy down if they want. But it MUST be memorized (or at least played from spotty memory) by the time they come into class the next week. No reading is allowed in class.
Back before I instigated this policy, I found that people were staring at their pages on the table or floor in class, and not even remotely listening to the people on either side of themselves--all their focus was on trying to translate scribblings into fingers, and they had nothing left for paying attention to what was going on around them. If they made a mistake, or dropped a note/beat, they would often not realize it until it was pointed out to them afterwards. What's worse, they wouldn't be practicing the tune properly at home, thinking that they only needed to know it well enough to play off the paper the following saturday.
Asking people to memorize each tune (or at least make a concerted effort to memorize it), has made all the difference in the world to the quality of their collective playing.
Cape Cod Struggler, this is the thread I'd mentioned in the email, it's a good one for showing how inadequate dots and notation are. As repeatedly said by many of us, notation is no more than the bones, no connective tissue, no tendons, no muscle, no veins or arteries, no blood, no organs, no heart, no brain, no life... Where's Doc Frankenstein?
Nice one Georgi. I too have provided and provide notation for any tune I've ever taught, with the usual warning... "Use your ears!" And, generally, a recording is allowed, recommended or provided too...
I find it damned near impossible to read and listen at the same time. That was my experience of being in a band during my French horn days. The band was given the music and expected to sight read competently together. Usually that meant different groups of instruments would be in different parts of the piece at different times.
One way of teaching tunes to a group that I thought was pretty effective was a method Jerry O'Sullivan used at a tionol class I took. He'd teach the phrase of the tune by ear and then write the phrase out on a blackboard. I thought it was great, especially in the context of a group class. After eight people, say, have struggled to varying degrees to play the first phrase of a tune's B part, you have completely forgotten the A part. When the ABCs are written on a blackboard, you can see what you should be playing.
That's a classic Comhaltas approach I've experienced, and also at tionols, Scoil Eigse and The Willie Clancy Week, but using ABC notation. It seemed to work well too...
Kitchen Sessoins
Kitchen Sessoins
I have spent the last few years attending fast pace sessions in an attempt to observe proper etiquette, learn a few tunes, met new friends and have decent outing. Now I only go to listen.
Because someone in my area decided to host a weekly slow/learning "Kitchen Session" at their home. Where music stands and sheet music are not allowed but encouraged. Where learning tunes and hearing how they are played at normal pace are main purpose of the session. We have a list of tunes to be played that is updated via an e-mail by our leader.
I have learned more tunes under this type of venue than ever before at any local pub sessions.
Thank God for "Kitchen Sessions" and our host.
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Cape Cod Struggler
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Sounds like a great idea - thanks
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Cquick
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I think this is a great idea as well. My experience has been that when a fast paced session is slowed down for a beginner, more beginners show and the session becomes a slow session. The general feel from a beginners viewpoint is that of not being welcomed comes, but Im sure that isnt the case. A similar case might be Pro vs. Amateur sports. Maybe not the best example, but seems relevant to me...
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by celticturntable
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Kitchen SESSIONS - correction - "Where music stands and sheet music are not ONLY allowed but encouraged"....... sorry for typo and word omission.
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Cape Cod Struggler
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
IMHO, beginners like myself will benefit most from a venue that caters to a learning environment and atmosphere. Where sheet music is allowed for those who want it and will learn from it.
Not that learning tunes can not be acquired from listening to fast pace pub music. But that requires a full understanding of the fret board and where each sound can be found. That takes time - dots are faster.
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Cape Cod Struggler
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I should add, we have anywhere from 10 to 13 members who show up at our weekly learning "Kitchen Session" with sheet music. We do share music stands to make more room.
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Cape Cod Struggler
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I think Kitchen session's and even more so Slow session are a great thing. But, once you introduce Dots on music stand's..
Well its Irish Traditional Music, minus the ' Irish ' part.
Example,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-IOm0soIMA&playnext=1&list=PLF89B92D63244EA51
How Irish Traditional should be played.
Example,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qAH2ravRrU
Sorry but True -
jim,,,
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I run a weekly tune learning session here in Montana. Sheet music is allowed, but every week I encourage people to learn to trust their ears and wean off the sheet music.
) Then we play the whole tune for 10 or 15 minutes, slow, over and over, till everyone has it.
Better than learning a tune while reading it is to simply learn slowly, phrase by phrase, by ear. I teach half the tune, phrase by phrase, and then we play it slowly 20 or 40 times till everyone really has it. Then I teach the second half the same way. (By which time everyone laughs about how they've forgotten the first half.
I'll provide sheet music for anyone who wants it--it's a good way to jump start the memory later at home. And people are welcome to record the tune, too.
I think it's important--crucial, really--for aspiring musicians to start using their ears right from the outset. Especially for this tradition.
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
It should be called a "Kitchen Workshop".
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by saltcast
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Will
I have even posted the Sheet Music along with my You-tube videos' etc, even taught Kids who use music notation, making them out score's of there first 2 or 3 tune's. But if you don't get then to learn Irish music by ear soon,, It's like that song title -
' Needle and the Damage done '
jim,,,
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by FIDDLE4
Kitchen sessions & junkets do not traditionally feature music stands
Thank God for kitchen sessions and slow sessions minus the dots. The dots and stands are, in my experience, better left at home. Yes, you would learn less, but, again in my experience, you'd learn better, and you'd be listening to each other without the dots, paper and stands in the way. Yes, they are 'in the way'. They muffle the experience, dull it... But, if you're all enjoying your moment, great, but see if you can give up the addiction for print. The real connection between musician and music and other musicians happens best without that sensory dulling intermediary.
Accolades earned for making a start, for offering the opportunity to share music together. You can only make it better, with a little gentle nudging and effort to step away from the sheet music. No addiction is easy to kick. Sometimes we percieve more benefits than are real, the nature of addiction...
Best of luck in all you do, and best of health to your event...
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Jim, agreed!
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Will Harmon
As usual, I'm with Will, good examples again. If you can't play the music without the dots, then it isn't yours, you DON'T know it. Learn it, make it your own, be at one with it, and then you'll have the freedom to experience it fully, including how others take it, but listening to what they have to share with you, rather than following the dots like a bouncing ball, quite often out of synch with each other, or dully battered out like doing push ups to the yelps of a military drill sergeant...
We're on the dots again, so I'd better repeat the usual, I love notation, honestly, and I always teach it, including ABC notation, when I'm called to teach, but we leave it in the notebooks and for work at home, not when I'm wanting and expecting full attention - with the ears and the eyes, and not just for me, for everyone present, to pull us together in the weave of music, without the blanket of sheet music over our heads... It has it's place and use, but not in any kind of 'session' where the goal is sharing and being at one with a melody and the other musicians present...
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Jim - "if you don't get then to learn Irish music by ear soon -"
Yup! Don't I know, sometimes painfully... It has always been easier to teach an ear musician to read, even when they have an inbuilt taboo or fear of it, than to teach a dot addicted musician to trust their ears and let go of the sheets...
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I've run across slow sessions where everyone agrees to learn one tune together to play without dots. Once everyone has that tune, they choose another and so forth. Eventually with the support of the group even the most dot-addicted musicians end up with some tunes by heart and realize they can leave the music stand behind.
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by ElaineT
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
It has always concerned me that sheet musicians didn't know how to improvise, or even play a piece without their sheet. It has also concerned me that some ear musicians treat paper and Theory like they are some kindof "creativity killers". Being on both sides, i can confidently say that both have their uses. But when it cripples us, that's when it's bad :/
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
In my case, I use the DOTS at home for fret board direction as I find it difficult to equate a sound or note in a tune as to where it is found on the fret board. Our "Kitchen Session" is a my place to hear and learn how the tune should be played.
Once I have the tune committed to memory, i don't use the sheet music. I know when I make a mistake and play the wrong note. My goal is to play solely by sound and having the the tune in my fingers so to speak.
My reason for starting this post is to state a slow "Kitchen Session" is the place to learn. Not in a fast pace pub session.
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Cape Cod Struggler
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Speaking of, isn't that how older family members taught younger family member? In the comfort of their own home? That's tradition right?
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Congrats on finding a comfortable place to learn with your friends! Nothing better than to start a journey with like minded folks to help push you along and inspire you. One point of experience to pass on if I may. There was a learner session in our town for many years. The group who started were all rank beginners and all began trying to learn tunes by reading them from various tune books. Those that were able to embrace the idea that this is an aural tradition eventually ditched the sheet music and started forcing themselves to learn tunes by ear. Now 6 years later, those ear learners are able to play in any session they like in town, whereas those that remained anchor to books still are not comfortable playing in "full speed" sessions. I like Elaine T's idea as the basis of a learning session that will quickly speed folks along in learning tunes.
Regardless of what we all say here, I am happy for you - but I would also add that music book learning actually slows your progress in getting up to session speed. If you are like I was, I couldn't wait to get up to the level needed to play with the local hot-shots. I would encourage your group to learn by ear as much as you can. It will help you get where you want to be so much faster.. Good luck!
# Posted on May 23rd 2011 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Good for you, Cape Cod Struggler. Everyone is raising some valid points about the value of using your ear, but as long as it is used sparingly, there is nothing wrong with consulting with sheet music in the early stages of learning. Like training wheels, you will find that you can soon abandon that 'crutch' as you advance.
Every journey starts with a single step, and by sharing that experience with others, you increase your chance of success, and have more fun along the way.
Enjoy!
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I've got to admit that we use dots at my slow session. There are (or were) two reasons - firstly we have a piano accordion, autoharp, guitar and two bouzoukis. Each is fairly capable of providing accompaniment on their own, but they would all use different chords. Sheet music with the chords written in gets them all singing from the same hymn sheet. The second reason for giving out dots is that without them, if people forget the tune on the way home from the session (as they inevitably do) then they can't practice it until the next session. The dots serve as a reminder to kick start their practice.
What I do these days is now and again, when we have enough new tunes to make it worth while, I record a session and dish out CDs for people to practice at home with. That seems to be working very well, although we still have a couple who refuse to even attempt to play without paper. I don't know what to do about them.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by skreech
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I've played in a couple of slow sessions. The dots were very helpful learning the tunes; an experienced musician who could show us how the tunes were supposed to sound helped too.
I've also played in some wonderful house sessions with musicians I knew well. We played both from sheet music and without. Great fun. I particularly remember the blizzard session with two good musicians from down the street after we got so much snow that classes were canceled and the streets were closed. Good music.
The method of learning a tune by playing it in fragments 20 or more times and then going on to the B music for another 20 fragments sounds awful to me. I'd much rather learn a tune by a combination of dots and good play at speed. If I'm going to pick up a tune completely by ear I want to hear it several weeks in a row at speed, not in tiny fragments.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by fiddlentina
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
That [ear learning] takes time - dots are faster."
This isn't really true, or it is true only in a very limited sense.
It may be true that dots allow one to *play* some version (one version) of a tune quickly. But. . .
1) It takes a good deal of time to learn how notation works. Like, a LOT of time. That needs to be factored in.
2) Sight reading is in no sense the same thing as "knowing" a tune. Pulling a tune out of the dark vaults of memory, that ya haven't played for five years, because a stranger plays it in yer local pub - and nailing it - THAT'S knowing a tune.
I've run into a common misconception - that ear learning is innate and "you can do it" or "you can't." People do not realize that ear learning is itself a learned skill, just like learning to read dots. It isn't magic - it just takes practice.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by wormdiet
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
dots are slower in this way; a couple of people here who came to play relied so thoroughly on the dots that we all had to sit and wait while they shuffles through their papers; eventually the impatient among us would start off a tune anyway and the ear-learners would follow, but the dot players were still seeking. they stopped coming after a while. of course, maybe they just got too fast for the rest of us.
and one place i liked an outline of dots was for picking up and remembering bowing patterns. i could mark them, and then remember them, when i couldn't "hear" the bow directions in the recordings.
that used to be hard for me in workshops, i'd be so focused on getting the notes i'd miss the bowing niceties. still don't know how to deal with that one. any advice? those guys on youtube play so fast....my eyes get way behind.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by full measure
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
The guy who runs our learner's session has made cds for us to use for practice at home; he plays at a slower tempo than session speed so we stumbling beginners can figure it out. He also teaches us tunes by ear, and won't tell us the names so we can't look up the dots.
Skreech, maybe you ought to try that with your dot-readers. Don't tell them the name of the next new tune! Encourage them to get one of those little digital recorders as a memory aid instead of taking away sheet music.
Reading the dots is faster only in the short term. To repeat what others have said above, I don't really have the tune until it just flows from my brain out through my fingers.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by Ann M.
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
At last we seem to be coming to some kind of consensus regarding the ear v dots debate. It is not the written notation that is at fault, but the way it is employed. What is a handy tool for those who know how to use it, can be an encumbrance for others.
Incidentally, I've never had any problem with either approach, because I had to sight-learn pibroch that would last up to twenty minutes, and play purely from memory. You'll never see a pipe band playing from the score, but they all learn from it.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by gam
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I use dots for research/comparison/source, but really believe that dots never should be at a session.
Sure give new players the dots if you'd like, but tell them to leave them at home. Make them pull the music out of an internal place rather than a mechanical place at a session! So many times people who come from a nontraditional music background refer to "memorizing" the music. Any trad. player will tell you that this is the wrong path because ultimately it is much more than rendering intervals from a piece of sheet music.
Could you imagine a baseball game with players referring to a rulebook in their back pocket during the game? Beginners need to know they are beginners. Sure the communal aspect of the music is fun, but I think that beginners appreciate honesty as well. ANd what they will gain in the process is the process of the tradition itself.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by horatio spens the blademan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
We were never allowed sheet music at the tune learning session I used to attend. The "Reverend" is a hard taskmaster!
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Kitchen sessions - a lovely discussion, enjoyed, but, between the dots -
Jusa Nutter Eejit - great story and example. I also agree with Elain T's way. It shouldn't be about raking through a load of tunes quickly, played mechanically from sheet music.
Transcriptions, whatever the notation, dots to ABCs and tab, are great for memory's sake, but a recording is so much better, and nowadays any recording can also be slowed down while keeping in it in the same key, the magic of modern technology and a plus tool for getting to terms with more than just a run of notes...
Music is communication. Doing it with sheets in the way is like using one of those two cans and a string to talk across a distance, or like a Shakespear play where two lovers try to chat through a hole in a wall, or a knot hole in a high wood fence. It's in the way of direct communication. It dulls the senses and gives us a false sense of security that 'we know the tune', when that's the furthest from the truth. If you need the sheets you ain't got it even for the barest of basics.
But bless Cape Cod Struggler and his group, it's a start, it's an alternative, and, hopefully, it will grow in understanding and appreciation, while, as JNE's tale tells, those that can't kick the habit, well, they won't ever go very far, and they'll not understand full imersion in a tune and into a session where you're listening to others and working that chemistry - of communication, something that isn't just dots or a sequence of notes. And there's the visual contact as well, a shared smile to increase the joy of that sharing, without the damned music stands and sheets in the way.
Value the dots, or whatever notation you enjoy, but keep it aside for that occassional memory jog, or curioisity, at home.
We too had someone local that used to show up with stacks of music books, and it was really off putting when we'd start playing and he'd shuffle through his books and sheets to try to find what we were playing, "What tune is that?" ~ "What tune was that one?" ~ "I know that, what's it's name?" ~ "Just a minute, I've got it here somewhere." ~ "Let's play those polkas, now where did I put those?" And then there were the round table revivalist English sessions I've stumbled into where a tune name would be called and then everyone would shuffle through their paper till they found the dots and a couple minutes later we'd start sawing it off, though I've heard more rhythmic swing from a bow saw. Yes, nice folks, lovely people, but awful music... It just didn't have any life or lift, and any affectations like abusing vibrato, didn't make it any more convincing. I even remember one painful moment where they were all playing a set of Northumbrian variations on an old standard I knew well, something like half a dozen or more variations, getting increasingly more complex and sloppy. I had to just put my instrument down and listen with interest...
But good luck to you, hoping in time things will move beyond dot dependancy and a certain deafness that always comes with it.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
hmmm--are there no luddites among us who don't like the use of recording devices? seems like the old ones never had those and sat with players who knew tunes in order to learn them.
in a hundred years will we be arguing whether the new brain implants aren't superior to the old technology of little digital recorders?
for sure, the main point is to get to learn to whip out and instrument and play a tune from the heart.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by full measure
Tradition!!!
Absolutely first choice, prime preference - sit with players who know the tunes in order to learn from them...
But what value denying modern options as another alternative, recordings of master players, or merely of friends wanting to share a tune with you. But person-to-person transfer, there's nothing better.
Some 'slow sessions' and the like bring in guest musicians to share a tune and their knowledge and ways with the music. That, in my experience, also works well...
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I go to a session like Cape Cod Struggler describes. It is good to go, essential for me, and I appreciate the effort put in by the people leading it.
From a personal, selfish, point of view though the dot readers are a usually waste of *my* time. I sit out the tunes I haven't learned yet - but the dot readers haven't learned them yet either. Those of them who (like me) are still learning their instruments can't play them properly. The best readers can play their instruments but are mainly (though not all) from other genres so sometimes don't play the tunes properly either (I usually appreciate them being in tune and on the beat though).
However, that it's an "all are welcome" group is more important to me; they let me join when I was just starting so a couple of years on I will do my share of teeth gritting. I haven't asked directly but I think it was set up as a 'buffer zone' around the local pub session.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by David50
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
Dani
< Some 'slow sessions' and the like bring in guest musicians to share a tune and their knowledge and ways with the music. That, in my experience, also works well... >
That is the sort of slow session I had to do, It as you said,
< also works well...>
I enjoyed playing with people who where like myself many years ago, and was chuffed at being able to help some learners along there ITM journey a bit. I enjoyed it,, And would not mind sitting in a slow session with Tommy Peoples playing along with it, and giving me some pointers. ' A good idea '
jim,,,
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I thank all of you who submitted a response to my posting.
Perhaps I misnamed our group gathering as a "Kitchen Session" and should have called it a kitchen workshop or kitchen class.
Whatever it is called, it is another way for me to learn tunes. I read the DOTS to identify the notes, play part A over and over again and then move on to part B. I look up the tune on Youtube. I go to pub session on Saturday afternoon to hear tunes.
But the way to learn is to play with others in a learning environment. Where one doesn't get the "Evil eye" because he or she didn't play the properly from regular session player.
Our "Kitchen Session" is about learning. We had 14 players there last night. I noticed many of the players never looked at the sheet music. I never read the DOTS as play. I play or lead only tunes I have in my fingers, not in my eyes.
As I said in the beginning, dots or no dots, a slow "Kitchen Session" is a THE place to learn, not at a pub session. Our "Kitchen Session" woks for me. Not dealing with "No it Alls" at a pub session.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by Cape Cod Struggler
Re: Kitchen Sessions / workshops / classes
May it increasingly be about listening... Without doubt, you have all our best wishes for success and a growing understanding and appreciation...
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I've been teaching fiddle classes in town for about 10 years now, and I've come up with a policy that I've found works quite well: Students are welcome to learn the tune off of paper at home; I'll even write out note names in class for students to copy down if they want. But it MUST be memorized (or at least played from spotty memory) by the time they come into class the next week. No reading is allowed in class.
Back before I instigated this policy, I found that people were staring at their pages on the table or floor in class, and not even remotely listening to the people on either side of themselves--all their focus was on trying to translate scribblings into fingers, and they had nothing left for paying attention to what was going on around them. If they made a mistake, or dropped a note/beat, they would often not realize it until it was pointed out to them afterwards. What's worse, they wouldn't be practicing the tune properly at home, thinking that they only needed to know it well enough to play off the paper the following saturday.
Asking people to memorize each tune (or at least make a concerted effort to memorize it), has made all the difference in the world to the quality of their collective playing.
# Posted on May 24th 2011 by Georgi
Discussion: How to improve your Jigs
# Posted on May 20th 2011 by celticturntable
"Use your ears!" And, generally, a recording is allowed, recommended or provided too...
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/27586
Cape Cod Struggler, this is the thread I'd mentioned in the email, it's a good one for showing how inadequate dots and notation are. As repeatedly said by many of us, notation is no more than the bones, no connective tissue, no tendons, no muscle, no veins or arteries, no blood, no organs, no heart, no brain, no life... Where's Doc Frankenstein?
Nice one Georgi. I too have provided and provide notation for any tune I've ever taught, with the usual warning...
# Posted on May 25th 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
I find it damned near impossible to read and listen at the same time. That was my experience of being in a band during my French horn days. The band was given the music and expected to sight read competently together. Usually that meant different groups of instruments would be in different parts of the piece at different times.
# Posted on May 25th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Kitchen Sessoins
One way of teaching tunes to a group that I thought was pretty effective was a method Jerry O'Sullivan used at a tionol class I took. He'd teach the phrase of the tune by ear and then write the phrase out on a blackboard. I thought it was great, especially in the context of a group class. After eight people, say, have struggled to varying degrees to play the first phrase of a tune's B part, you have completely forgotten the A part. When the ABCs are written on a blackboard, you can see what you should be playing.
# Posted on May 25th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Workshop Sessions - classes
That's a classic Comhaltas approach I've experienced, and also at tionols, Scoil Eigse and The Willie Clancy Week, but using ABC notation. It seemed to work well too...
# Posted on May 25th 2011 by ceolachan
Doing what we can ~
And often we'd all retire afterwards to a session and to wet our whistles...
# Posted on May 25th 2011 by ceolachan