for a good device that will play my CD's at whatever speed I want. I went to my first-ever session in a pub, and was horribly shocked at how many tunes I had to sit out on. Granted, those guys have been at the music for 30 years or more, but I really just need to learn more tunes fast. Any recommendations for a good brand, how much I should have to pay, and where I should buy the thing? Oh yeah, sorry about the discussion title. I guess it did the trick if you're looking at this right now.
"A good device" - a PC running a program like Amazing Slow-Downer will do what you want. I don't know of any self-contained consumer CD players that will.
I went to a session in chicago and figure out that I only recognized 10% odf the tunes. And I would have had no clue to play them as well. There is amazing slow downer for the Mac as well and it pays off. I can learn a tune in 6 months rathyer the normal year
Emmaline, you can get a cd player/recorder that will playback at any speed without changing pitch. They cost $200 to $500 USD. With one of these, you can play all your favorite commercial cds, and also record your local session and learn tunes at more comfortable speeds.
To get an idea of some of what's available, check out http://www.musiciansfriend.com/ (no personal affiliation and not an endorsement)
RE: "I really just need to learn more tunes fast." Please, please, please be careful going down that road, if you choose to go down it at all. No matter how appealing it is to launch into the seductive world of sessions by learning hundreds of tunes as quickly as possible, take a moment to reconsider what you hope to get out of (and put into) the music. Simply ammassing tunes to crank them out at sessions and join in the craic won't make you a better musician. In fact, in my unasked-for opinion, it's a good way to develop some truly disastrous habits and mindsets.
In short, don't mistake jumping headfirst into an ocean of tunes for a deeper and more meaningful immersion in the music.
Emmaline, ditto what Will says. No matter how many tunes you know, you'll never know enough of them and you'll never know the right ones for every session in the world. Learn to play what you know really really well, and you'll garner more respect than if you know a jillion tunes and don't play them well.
Yes, sooner or later you have to learn more tunes, but let it come, don't force it.
All that said, you'll probably try to force it anyway, because almost all of us do at one point or another, but I'm an optimist. ;)
Of course the upside of knowing more tunes than you can handle is that you get to play a lot more in sessions, and hence develop your playing. This is my experience.
I learned way too many tunes way too fast when I started, and I realize that my playing was definately not up to it. But I got to play a lot. About seven years after I started the fiddle I realized that fancy didn't hack it, so I settled for steadyness and solidity (ref. Will's playing for dancers thread). But I do have a lot of tunes to practice my new skills on, and I pick up tunes quick enough, so I don't think the concept of a million tunes should be totally written of.
If you wish to learn a lot of tunes, then I suggest that you first learn a hard core of "session favourites". Most of these are listed here and there are books available. Some of these might be a bit overplayed but, at least, you'll be able to go to most sessions and play for part of the evening. Of course, if you find a regular session you like, you'll want to learn their tunes too but you won't be tied down to one particular place if you've learned a few of the standards. Having said that, you'll always come accross sessions where you'll hardly know a tune and they won't necessarily have been playing for 30 years-sometimes they might be very young musicians. It just depends where they learned the bulk of their repertoire.
I use Transcribe on my PC to slow down CD tracks but the sort of thing Will mentioned might suit you better.
I think in learning to parachute, the first thing they teach you is how to fall. I'm convinced the first thing a person should learn about playing ITM with a group of musicians is how to sit out and listen to and appreciate an unfamiliar tune without negative feelings. Even a whole nightful of unfamiliar tunes...
I have a CD slower-down that I got for fifteen bucks. It's a hand-held tape recorder with variable speed control.
Drawbacks: having to tape the tracks from the CD onto the audio tape.
Benefits: I have excellent jammin' in the car tapes when I'm through (for those of us who like to "jam" in the car to Tommy Peoples playing Star of Munster seven times in a row). Plus, I can buy loads of albums with the money that I would have spent on a Fancy Computer Thing. In addition, you can tape a session directly (always ask first!) and slow down the session tape itself.
I learned the notes to a lot of tunes in Ireland this way, relatively quickly. I'm still learning the tunes themselves, though; because getting comfortable with a tune takes more than knowing the notes.
I've said this before, but now's a good time to repeat it:Work at learning tunes at full speed, and then use the slowdown software already in your head. Do what grego suggests and sit at a session just to listen, and listen closely. When you hear a tune you don't know, get over any defensive feelings ('oh aaarrgghhh, another one *I* can't play on!'), and just listen to the tune. Get the meaty bits, the ones that give this tune its particular personality, into your memory. Eventually, after a month of sessions, you'll get the whole tune stored on your internal hard drive. Then you can play it back in your head at any speed you want.
I think it's important to work on catching tunes at tempo, and to gradually rely less and less on slow-down machinery or software. It's one of the best ways of building a deeper understanding of how this music works and is put together.
Will, I've never tried that, and I must have a thousand tunes archived in the mental hard drive from repeated listening to CDs. When I'm walking down the street, the tunes come to me in vivid detail. Now, I just have to see whether the internal slow-downer works or not...
Grego, that's a trick I use all the time, mostly to dream up variations and to imagine sets of tunes to see what might go together well. But you can use it to transfer a tune from your memory to your instrument as well.
I can totally understand Will's point about not relying on the software slow downers, but for some people like myself (newbies to music in general) I find them immensely helpful. I learn most of my tunes by slowing down CD's or recordings from my mini discs. For me I can figure out and hear all the nuances and those subtle ornaments that I may not be able to at full speed. A close friend who plays C#D button accordion gives me a lot of tunes that I bring home on mini disc and it's fun to slow down his playing using my software. I feel that I understand a lot of what's going on with that instrument so much better now....
The good news for me is that the more I use the software (and it gets used a ton) the less I have to slow things down. I used to slow tunes down to 28% but lately the average is more like 40%.... A flute teacher down in Boston had no problems with me slowing down the tunes she gave me on mini disc. But she did want me to occasionally try and learn a tune at full speed, so I could pick up tunes at sessions easier......
Hey everyone is different. But I'm still the number one advocate for the Amazing Slow Downer.......Geez, I should be earning commission for this ; )
Joyce, using the slow-downer stuff to gradually bring yourself up to speed is a great idea, especially for people new to the music or their instruments. And I agree that it makes sense in the beginning, so you can really hear what's going on.
Eventually, you *will* be able to do that in your head, too. Something similar happens when you really start to get a handle on your instrument and the music--time opens up inside the tunes, as you're playing them, even at speed. Where a beginner might feel like s/he's struggling to keep up with a torrent of notes at 120 bpm, an advanced player finds all sorts of time to loiter between phrases and even between notes, at the same tempo. Instead of feeling rushed, the tune becomes an easy stroll, and you find all these intersections where you can make choices about what to play next--which way to go. It's like the super slow-mo sequences in the Matrix--you're neurons are flying at top speed, but your awareness of everything that's happening--and your control of it--is calm, easy, all in good time. The magic is having the time to ponder those choices, to allow time for your mind to wander from the path of playing the same old thing and come up with something new, and still have the room for fingers to put it in action, seamlessly, sounding as relaxed as a well rehearsed plan.
So: I think the slow-downer stuff is great--a terrific tool that will teach you tons about the music. But it's important to get your mind tuned in to working at full pace too, to feel comfortable and relaxed in the maelstrom of notes and beats, and to adjust to recognizing the subatomic bits of rolls, cuts, triplets, crans, etc., at 'normal' speed.
It's encouraging to know that the slow down software is not something I'll need forever. Thanks Will. I totally agree with your post. I like your Matrix reference : )
Grego, I've asked some of the greats how they pick up tunes at sessions, and a lot of them say they don't--that the tunes just go by too fast. That surprised me because I've seen other players do it, and I do it myself. Granted, you're not likely to pick up a multi-part or convoluted tune (like Straway Child, the Gold Ring, Dr. Gilbert's, Farewell to Erin, etc.) in three or four go rounds, but simpler melodies aren't that hard. Just about every every polka I know I learned on the fly, along with lots of jigs and reels. I've had plenty of times where I learned a tune on the spot, at tempo, playing along note for note on the third go round, despite never having heard the tune before. More common is hearing a tune week after week until it finally sinks in and then you're playing it. I recently picked up the Green Gates that way (thanks to Richard and Aimee).
Mind you, it takes years and years of listening and playing to do this, and you'll still have off days (too many distractions, tunes that seem counter-intuitive, etc.), but it's something to shoot for. I think it's good to know that you *can* do it, and then patiently work toward that potential.
Will, I'm encouraged ("some of the greats...") and impressed ("learned a tune on the spot...") I'm going to choose a tune and see if I can pick it up that way. Should be fun.
For starters, just be sure to pick one that's short (no more than 2 parts) and simple--repetitive--and *don't* play along at all the first time through. Just listen. In particular, listen for any stock phrases that you already know from other tunes, and pay attention to what note each part ends on. Pay attention to the endings--these often repeat, so you get two bits of the tune at once. And try to listen to the tune's vertical range--how far does it go above and below the home note?
Here's an off-beat suggestion: (coming from a strict jazz training) don't worry immediately about learning the tune note for note. You can be a very rpoductive and welcome member of a session by playing complimentary notes. For example, play as a short drone the root note of each accompanying chord that the guitarists would play. Eventually, you can play some more filler, which actually is more of a help from an arrangement standpoint than everyone trying to play the same note at the same time. In this way, you can sit in and get more out of it while you learn the tunes. We often, in our group, will allow two to go off and improvise, while three "stay at hoe" and on tune. We alternate around who stays and who goes. It makes the playing alot more fun, and helps to develop a lightning-fast ear. It may not be learning note-for-note, but you get to be more productive while you're learning individual tunes.
This is in response to what Will said earlier--about not using the slow-downer.
Okay. Apparantly I suck. I can't intuitively hear tunes at sessions. When tunes come that I can't play, I sit back and listen and love it. I could do that for a month of Sundays and not be able to slow it down in my head.
Even CDs that I've had forever and listen to constantly: I can whistle along with the tunes, I know the transitions in my head, I recognise them when they're played in sessions. I personally can't play them. It's something in my brain that doesn't work--yet.
When I slow down the tunes, I can play along with them. I can learn them at geriatric slow-ness and then speed them up once I understand them. I NEVER play them in public until I can play at session speed and I even more emphatically NEVER force people to play them with me slowly before I can play them fast.
Why must I learn tunes at regular speed? I would not understand them. I would not appreciate their intricacies. I would be so frustrated by it that I would end up disliking the tune.
So what is the problem with using the technology I have available to help me do something I otherwise would not be able to do (yet)? Heavens, otherwise I would be learning out of books and isn't learning slow from a tape better than learning straight from a book?
Emmaline, if learning slowly helps you learn then do that. After you've exhausted the learning potential from learning slowly then, by all means, turn esoteric and only learn at top speed. Until then, do what you can to help you learn to learn.
Suky, I neve said "Don't use the tool." In fact, I think I said slow-downer is a terrific tool for beginners. I also pointed out that even some mighty players say they don't try to learn tunes at sessions cuz it's just too hard for them. All of this supports your points above.
All I'm saying is that eventually you should try to learn tunes at speed and train your mental slow-downer to help. I say this because it's a wonderful skill to have, especially for a muso in this particular aural tradition.
Let me distinguish between learning a tune in your head and learning it on your instrument. In my posts above, I'm suggesting that once you get a melody squarely in your head, you can in fact "play it back" in your head at a slower tempo and so make it easier to figure out on your instrument.
Since you say you're having trouble with this sort of thing, try it first with a tune you already know really well. First, think of the tune. Get the first two or three bars going in your mind. Now replay those same notes, but slow them way down, as though you were trying to teach the tune to another player. Notice that you can also change how the tune sounds in your imagination. You can vary the amount of swing, use of dynamics, placement of ornaments, even transpose it into other keys, etc. In short, with a little imagination, you can insert variations--ideas that perhaps you've never actually played, but that you can imagine in your mind.
To me, this is what truly *knowing* a tune means--having every note and every little nuance firmly in your mind's ear, and then being able to play with it in your imagination. Learning a tune is a physiological event--it creates patterns of neurons firing in specific ways. You can teach yourself to activate those patterns even when you're not playing an instrument. In other words, the tune isn't in your fiddle--it's in your brain and all the nerves and muscles that fire up when playing the tune.
Is this an innate skill? I don't know. But I do believe anyone who can play a tune from memory (that is, without relying on sheet music or another player or recording to lead the way) can learn to replay the tune in their head without an instrument at hand. And once you can do that, you'll be able to learn to mentall slow the tune down or do anything else with it your imagination can conjure up.
Practice doing that with tunes you already play on your instrument, and then give it a try with a new tune. Pick a simple tune (it doesn't have to be Irish trad; it could as easily be some top 40 pop tune off the radio) and listen to it at full speed over and over and over, say, 100 times a day if you can stand it, every day for a week. Just let it seep into your subconscious. At some point, you'll find that you can hum the tune. Then try "playing" the tune just in your head. Chances are, it will play in your head at the same pitch and tempo as the real-world source you've been listening to. So now, change it. Slow it down. Keep the pitch the same, but play it mentally one note at a time. See how far into the tune you can go before you lose it. Once you can mentally replay the whole tune, get out your fiddle and find the notes.
With practice, this all becomes second nature, and then you can learn tunes at speed during a session.
I do that. But I still need the extra edge of hearing it slowed down before I can really pick it apart mentally. I hear more that way. I usually do this with tunes I've listened to up-tempo seven kajillion times.
That pleases me. I'll keep doing it.
Single and Looking-
Single and Looking-
for a good device that will play my CD's at whatever speed I want. I went to my first-ever session in a pub, and was horribly shocked at how many tunes I had to sit out on. Granted, those guys have been at the music for 30 years or more, but I really just need to learn more tunes fast. Any recommendations for a good brand, how much I should have to pay, and where I should buy the thing? Oh yeah, sorry about the discussion title. I guess it did the trick if you're looking at this right now.
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by Emmaline
Re: Single and Looking-
"A good device" - a PC running a program like Amazing Slow-Downer will do what you want. I don't know of any self-contained consumer CD players that will.
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by HighlandSun
Re: Single and Looking- (to slow down)
I went to a session in chicago and figure out that I only recognized 10% odf the tunes. And I would have had no clue to play them as well. There is amazing slow downer for the Mac as well and it pays off. I can learn a tune in 6 months rathyer the normal year
Good luck
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by I_Fel
Re: Single and Looking-
Emmaline, you can get a cd player/recorder that will playback at any speed without changing pitch. They cost $200 to $500 USD. With one of these, you can play all your favorite commercial cds, and also record your local session and learn tunes at more comfortable speeds.
To get an idea of some of what's available, check out http://www.musiciansfriend.com/ (no personal affiliation and not an endorsement)
RE: "I really just need to learn more tunes fast." Please, please, please be careful going down that road, if you choose to go down it at all. No matter how appealing it is to launch into the seductive world of sessions by learning hundreds of tunes as quickly as possible, take a moment to reconsider what you hope to get out of (and put into) the music. Simply ammassing tunes to crank them out at sessions and join in the craic won't make you a better musician. In fact, in my unasked-for opinion, it's a good way to develop some truly disastrous habits and mindsets.
In short, don't mistake jumping headfirst into an ocean of tunes for a deeper and more meaningful immersion in the music.
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Single and Looking-
Emmaline, ditto what Will says. No matter how many tunes you know, you'll never know enough of them and you'll never know the right ones for every session in the world. Learn to play what you know really really well, and you'll garner more respect than if you know a jillion tunes and don't play them well.
Yes, sooner or later you have to learn more tunes, but let it come, don't force it.
All that said, you'll probably try to force it anyway, because almost all of us do at one point or another, but I'm an optimist. ;)
Good luck!
Zina
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Single and Looking-
Of course the upside of knowing more tunes than you can handle is that you get to play a lot more in sessions, and hence develop your playing. This is my experience.
I learned way too many tunes way too fast when I started, and I realize that my playing was definately not up to it. But I got to play a lot. About seven years after I started the fiddle I realized that fancy didn't hack it, so I settled for steadyness and solidity (ref. Will's playing for dancers thread). But I do have a lot of tunes to practice my new skills on, and I pick up tunes quick enough, so I don't think the concept of a million tunes should be totally written of.
With all due respect
Snorre
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by snorre
Re: Single and Looking-
If you wish to learn a lot of tunes, then I suggest that you first learn a hard core of "session favourites". Most of these are listed here and there are books available. Some of these might be a bit overplayed but, at least, you'll be able to go to most sessions and play for part of the evening. Of course, if you find a regular session you like, you'll want to learn their tunes too but you won't be tied down to one particular place if you've learned a few of the standards. Having said that, you'll always come accross sessions where you'll hardly know a tune and they won't necessarily have been playing for 30 years-sometimes they might be very young musicians. It just depends where they learned the bulk of their repertoire.
I use Transcribe on my PC to slow down CD tracks but the sort of thing Will mentioned might suit you better.
John
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by Johnny Jay
Re: Single and Looking-
When you're single and looking, you rarely meet anyone fast. Same with the tunes; take your time courting 'em.
# Posted on February 8th 2004 by Joe Quinn
Re: Single and Looking-
I think in learning to parachute, the first thing they teach you is how to fall. I'm convinced the first thing a person should learn about playing ITM with a group of musicians is how to sit out and listen to and appreciate an unfamiliar tune without negative feelings. Even a whole nightful of unfamiliar tunes...
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by grego
Re: Single and Looking-
Good observation, too little observed.
chris smith
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by coyotebanjo
A Proponent for the 80's
I have a CD slower-down that I got for fifteen bucks. It's a hand-held tape recorder with variable speed control.
Drawbacks: having to tape the tracks from the CD onto the audio tape.
Benefits: I have excellent jammin' in the car tapes when I'm through (for those of us who like to "jam" in the car to Tommy Peoples playing Star of Munster seven times in a row). Plus, I can buy loads of albums with the money that I would have spent on a Fancy Computer Thing. In addition, you can tape a session directly (always ask first!) and slow down the session tape itself.
I learned the notes to a lot of tunes in Ireland this way, relatively quickly. I'm still learning the tunes themselves, though; because getting comfortable with a tune takes more than knowing the notes.
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by suky
Re: Single and Looking-
I've said this before, but now's a good time to repeat it:Work at learning tunes at full speed, and then use the slowdown software already in your head. Do what grego suggests and sit at a session just to listen, and listen closely. When you hear a tune you don't know, get over any defensive feelings ('oh aaarrgghhh, another one *I* can't play on!'), and just listen to the tune. Get the meaty bits, the ones that give this tune its particular personality, into your memory. Eventually, after a month of sessions, you'll get the whole tune stored on your internal hard drive. Then you can play it back in your head at any speed you want.
I think it's important to work on catching tunes at tempo, and to gradually rely less and less on slow-down machinery or software. It's one of the best ways of building a deeper understanding of how this music works and is put together.
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Single and Looking-
Will, I've never tried that, and I must have a thousand tunes archived in the mental hard drive from repeated listening to CDs. When I'm walking down the street, the tunes come to me in vivid detail. Now, I just have to see whether the internal slow-downer works or not...
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by grego
Re: Single and Looking-
Grego, that's a trick I use all the time, mostly to dream up variations and to imagine sets of tunes to see what might go together well. But you can use it to transfer a tune from your memory to your instrument as well.
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Single and Looking-
I can totally understand Will's point about not relying on the software slow downers, but for some people like myself (newbies to music in general) I find them immensely helpful. I learn most of my tunes by slowing down CD's or recordings from my mini discs. For me I can figure out and hear all the nuances and those subtle ornaments that I may not be able to at full speed. A close friend who plays C#D button accordion gives me a lot of tunes that I bring home on mini disc and it's fun to slow down his playing using my software. I feel that I understand a lot of what's going on with that instrument so much better now....
The good news for me is that the more I use the software (and it gets used a ton) the less I have to slow things down. I used to slow tunes down to 28% but lately the average is more like 40%.... A flute teacher down in Boston had no problems with me slowing down the tunes she gave me on mini disc. But she did want me to occasionally try and learn a tune at full speed, so I could pick up tunes at sessions easier......
Hey everyone is different. But I'm still the number one advocate for the Amazing Slow Downer.......Geez, I should be earning commission for this ; )
www.ronimusic.com
Joyce
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by JMH
Re: Single and Looking-
Joyce, using the slow-downer stuff to gradually bring yourself up to speed is a great idea, especially for people new to the music or their instruments. And I agree that it makes sense in the beginning, so you can really hear what's going on.
Eventually, you *will* be able to do that in your head, too. Something similar happens when you really start to get a handle on your instrument and the music--time opens up inside the tunes, as you're playing them, even at speed. Where a beginner might feel like s/he's struggling to keep up with a torrent of notes at 120 bpm, an advanced player finds all sorts of time to loiter between phrases and even between notes, at the same tempo. Instead of feeling rushed, the tune becomes an easy stroll, and you find all these intersections where you can make choices about what to play next--which way to go. It's like the super slow-mo sequences in the Matrix--you're neurons are flying at top speed, but your awareness of everything that's happening--and your control of it--is calm, easy, all in good time. The magic is having the time to ponder those choices, to allow time for your mind to wander from the path of playing the same old thing and come up with something new, and still have the room for fingers to put it in action, seamlessly, sounding as relaxed as a well rehearsed plan.
So: I think the slow-downer stuff is great--a terrific tool that will teach you tons about the music. But it's important to get your mind tuned in to working at full pace too, to feel comfortable and relaxed in the maelstrom of notes and beats, and to adjust to recognizing the subatomic bits of rolls, cuts, triplets, crans, etc., at 'normal' speed.
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Single and Looking-
"pick up tunes at sessions..." I take it you're talking about after many listenings to the tune?
To put it another way, how many times do you have to listen to a tune before it's burned into your memory?
Me - I'd be embarrased to say..,
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by grego
Re: Single and Looking-
It's encouraging to know that the slow down software is not something I'll need forever. Thanks Will. I totally agree with your post. I like your Matrix reference : )
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by JMH
Re: Single and Looking-
Grego, I've asked some of the greats how they pick up tunes at sessions, and a lot of them say they don't--that the tunes just go by too fast. That surprised me because I've seen other players do it, and I do it myself. Granted, you're not likely to pick up a multi-part or convoluted tune (like Straway Child, the Gold Ring, Dr. Gilbert's, Farewell to Erin, etc.) in three or four go rounds, but simpler melodies aren't that hard. Just about every every polka I know I learned on the fly, along with lots of jigs and reels. I've had plenty of times where I learned a tune on the spot, at tempo, playing along note for note on the third go round, despite never having heard the tune before. More common is hearing a tune week after week until it finally sinks in and then you're playing it. I recently picked up the Green Gates that way (thanks to Richard and Aimee).
Mind you, it takes years and years of listening and playing to do this, and you'll still have off days (too many distractions, tunes that seem counter-intuitive, etc.), but it's something to shoot for. I think it's good to know that you *can* do it, and then patiently work toward that potential.
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Single and Looking-
Will, I'm encouraged ("some of the greats...") and impressed ("learned a tune on the spot...") I'm going to choose a tune and see if I can pick it up that way. Should be fun.
Greg
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by grego
Re: Single and Looking-
For starters, just be sure to pick one that's short (no more than 2 parts) and simple--repetitive--and *don't* play along at all the first time through. Just listen. In particular, listen for any stock phrases that you already know from other tunes, and pay attention to what note each part ends on. Pay attention to the endings--these often repeat, so you get two bits of the tune at once. And try to listen to the tune's vertical range--how far does it go above and below the home note?
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Single and Looking-
Here's an off-beat suggestion: (coming from a strict jazz training) don't worry immediately about learning the tune note for note. You can be a very rpoductive and welcome member of a session by playing complimentary notes. For example, play as a short drone the root note of each accompanying chord that the guitarists would play. Eventually, you can play some more filler, which actually is more of a help from an arrangement standpoint than everyone trying to play the same note at the same time. In this way, you can sit in and get more out of it while you learn the tunes. We often, in our group, will allow two to go off and improvise, while three "stay at hoe" and on tune. We alternate around who stays and who goes. It makes the playing alot more fun, and helps to develop a lightning-fast ear. It may not be learning note-for-note, but you get to be more productive while you're learning individual tunes.
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by Dust Lad
Self gets a bit defensive
This is in response to what Will said earlier--about not using the slow-downer.
Okay. Apparantly I suck. I can't intuitively hear tunes at sessions. When tunes come that I can't play, I sit back and listen and love it. I could do that for a month of Sundays and not be able to slow it down in my head.
Even CDs that I've had forever and listen to constantly: I can whistle along with the tunes, I know the transitions in my head, I recognise them when they're played in sessions. I personally can't play them. It's something in my brain that doesn't work--yet.
When I slow down the tunes, I can play along with them. I can learn them at geriatric slow-ness and then speed them up once I understand them. I NEVER play them in public until I can play at session speed and I even more emphatically NEVER force people to play them with me slowly before I can play them fast.
Why must I learn tunes at regular speed? I would not understand them. I would not appreciate their intricacies. I would be so frustrated by it that I would end up disliking the tune.
So what is the problem with using the technology I have available to help me do something I otherwise would not be able to do (yet)? Heavens, otherwise I would be learning out of books and isn't learning slow from a tape better than learning straight from a book?
Emmaline, if learning slowly helps you learn then do that. After you've exhausted the learning potential from learning slowly then, by all means, turn esoteric and only learn at top speed. Until then, do what you can to help you learn to learn.
# Posted on February 9th 2004 by suky
Re: Single and Looking-
Suky, I neve said "Don't use the tool." In fact, I think I said slow-downer is a terrific tool for beginners. I also pointed out that even some mighty players say they don't try to learn tunes at sessions cuz it's just too hard for them. All of this supports your points above.
All I'm saying is that eventually you should try to learn tunes at speed and train your mental slow-downer to help. I say this because it's a wonderful skill to have, especially for a muso in this particular aural tradition.
Let me distinguish between learning a tune in your head and learning it on your instrument. In my posts above, I'm suggesting that once you get a melody squarely in your head, you can in fact "play it back" in your head at a slower tempo and so make it easier to figure out on your instrument.
Since you say you're having trouble with this sort of thing, try it first with a tune you already know really well. First, think of the tune. Get the first two or three bars going in your mind. Now replay those same notes, but slow them way down, as though you were trying to teach the tune to another player. Notice that you can also change how the tune sounds in your imagination. You can vary the amount of swing, use of dynamics, placement of ornaments, even transpose it into other keys, etc. In short, with a little imagination, you can insert variations--ideas that perhaps you've never actually played, but that you can imagine in your mind.
To me, this is what truly *knowing* a tune means--having every note and every little nuance firmly in your mind's ear, and then being able to play with it in your imagination. Learning a tune is a physiological event--it creates patterns of neurons firing in specific ways. You can teach yourself to activate those patterns even when you're not playing an instrument. In other words, the tune isn't in your fiddle--it's in your brain and all the nerves and muscles that fire up when playing the tune.
Is this an innate skill? I don't know. But I do believe anyone who can play a tune from memory (that is, without relying on sheet music or another player or recording to lead the way) can learn to replay the tune in their head without an instrument at hand. And once you can do that, you'll be able to learn to mentall slow the tune down or do anything else with it your imagination can conjure up.
Practice doing that with tunes you already play on your instrument, and then give it a try with a new tune. Pick a simple tune (it doesn't have to be Irish trad; it could as easily be some top 40 pop tune off the radio) and listen to it at full speed over and over and over, say, 100 times a day if you can stand it, every day for a week. Just let it seep into your subconscious. At some point, you'll find that you can hum the tune. Then try "playing" the tune just in your head. Chances are, it will play in your head at the same pitch and tempo as the real-world source you've been listening to. So now, change it. Slow it down. Keep the pitch the same, but play it mentally one note at a time. See how far into the tune you can go before you lose it. Once you can mentally replay the whole tune, get out your fiddle and find the notes.
With practice, this all becomes second nature, and then you can learn tunes at speed during a session.
# Posted on February 10th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: Single and Looking-
I do that. But I still need the extra edge of hearing it slowed down before I can really pick it apart mentally. I hear more that way. I usually do this with tunes I've listened to up-tempo seven kajillion times.
That pleases me. I'll keep doing it.
# Posted on February 10th 2004 by suky