I had a bit of an epiphany the other day, actually a combination of things converging all at once. To start, at our local session, there's one player who carries a dictation recorder, and when there's a tune he doesn't know and wants to learn, he hits the thumb-button and takes a sample. Very cool I thought.
A second component came from a botanist friend who is spending his first years of retirement creating a PDA database of field flowers -- being largely flora-illiterate, I thought this would be a great thing to carry on my walks through these northland woods, but wouldn't it be much better, I suggested, if people could add their own discoveries, and wouldn't it be more practical if the data was served over a wireless connection? We always seek to hold the sky, but we never can ;)
The third component happened when my employer outfitted me with a cellphone; unlike my old brick clunker, this one surfs the internet handily, has a microscopic graphic display, and, most importantly, it can play MIDI files.
Needless to say, within seconds of this discovery, I was knocking at the URL of thesession.org, but sadly the page design here puts all those tabs into the same HTML, and that makes the page too weighty for a cell phone. Still, I thought, sitting at a session, we come to one of those friendly arguments about this tune or that, what was that other name for this, or do you remember such and such, how cool would it be to key in the name, or an ABC fragment, and pull up the name, the notes, the full ABC and playback an example. "Aye, that's the one!"
So I prodded and poked at it a bit, with my limited PHP skills, I cobbled a page to strip down thesession.org's display and got as far as searching for and displaying the ABC for any given tune, only the playback requires a logged in member and that's going to take a bit more work, but nonetheless, it is a functioning proof of concept ... even if I have to learn to sight-read ABC to use it
I'm not in anyways a fan of pagers, cellphones or PDAs but that's probably because I haven't found my killer app yet, and I'm thinking this may be it. I may toy around with my non-playback prototype a bit just to gain some insight into the practical questions -- for example, can I enter a tune name with my thumbs while holding a mandolin? Where else might I want to pull out a tune or a history? (restaurants for example, or waiting on trains) How much of thesession's data would be useful over a mobile with a thumbnail display?
So what do you think? Is there any practical utility in tapping to thesession from your phone? How would you use it?
Impressive use of modern technology, gary. But my gut feeling is, for the same amount of kilowatts of brainpower exerted, learning all the protocols for keying in and all that stuff, wouldn't you be as well just to learn the names of the tunes?
Apart from anything else, I quite enjoy the geeky trainspotter thaing of knowing not just the names of a fair number of tunes, but also a bit of history which might be attached to a particular tune or set - but that's just wierd old me, each to their own. Live and let live.
I think the cellphone etc tech is weeeeee bit too much tech and less music for my tastes but the dictation recorders are really great for picking up tunes. I used to do this, and it is really great way to learn tunes and sets.
I think this is also a great way for beginners to pick up tunes in their local session. Listen to the tape and pick up a few tunes that are played. At least you can play along with a few of their tunes, great way to start.
Fatwah, there is a saying in sessions that if you know the names of the tunes, you don't know enough tunes -- just do a search for all the Gan Ainm (literally 'no name') tunes here on The Session! Then, as we see from irishmusic.info, any given tune can have dozens of names depending on the whim of the players or the slip of the album jacket editor!
Plus, another killer use that I think I would hit most often: "Add this tune to my tunebook!" -- when we all stop (to order a refill, usually) is when we discuss the names of what was just played, where they'd learned it and all, and there's a short margin of time where double-thumb typing might be practical -- my phone has some sort of "predictive text" feature that (I assume) would learn shorthands for common title name components.
Jeremy: I was kinda hopin' you might say something like that I do believe it's a worth while thing, especially as the screen resolution and sound quality of these mobile devices improves. I've already seen phones that will play MP3 downloads and it's only a matter of time before the screen resolution is sufficient to show a score -- until that happens, there's also the opportunity to market dumping TheSession to a palmtop.
I believe all the latest phones accept MIDI for their ring-tones, and those that do will also allow for playback while surfing the net -- I use an AT&T service called mMode, but I don't think that's relevent, I think the capability is in my Nokia phone, although it is the mMode (software) manual where MIDI is discussed, not on the phone manual -- mMode also allows me to keep a local collection of tunes, so I could, for example, collect a few during my dinner and take them to the session so I can say to Will, "How do you play this?" (someone should teach MIDI about reel and jig rhythms ;)
Sheet music is a problem of resolution -- my phone tries to show the entire bitmap scaled to the postage stamp, so you can tell that it's music, but only if you already know it is a score sheet. It's not legible in any practical sense of the word. Until the technology improves, ABC is more practical, and I think most players can figure out reading ABC given the MIDI to hear -- this is kind of like the good old days of the pre-graphic internet when ABC over email/usenet was the standard method of network tune trading.
What I have in my prototype is a start on the searchbox leading to a list of tune name (linked), style and key (date omitted to save space) -- this might also have a button to jump to my tunebook -- for practical limits, this probably has to be restricted to 10 tunes per screen.
on the tune display, I have the ABC and hoped to have a link to the MIDI, but I think it would also be useful to have a button to add it to my tunebook and maybe also a link to a one-comment-per-page display.
Lightweight is the key -- the display is about 5 lines of maybe 20 characters in a single font, and the main constraint appears to be the total file size; I was actually surprised at the limited space this thing accepts for a webpage -- it has no problems downloading a 56k midi file, but balks at even what I'd consider a moderate blog page.
Another important quality of theSession-lite just occurred to me: Whereas theSession itself is a learning and research aid and community communications hub, I think the mobile version would be much more of a mnemonic device, and almost entirely read-only -- new phones have full keyboards, but you'd have to be a teenager with years of Nintendo training to want to carry on any sort of conversation ;)
When the palm pilot was invented, the inventor carried a block of wood with him, with a few sheets of paper stapled to the block; every time he thought of something where he might want to use a hand-held computer, he'd jot it down right there -- that's probably the best way to proceed with TheSession-lite, to actually sit at a session or other mobile-only locations and jot down what and how you figure you might be able to use instant access to a billion tunes ;)
Okay, so I think that'd be pretty damned cool. Great for those sessions when you just can't remember how the damned tune starts. Now I'm going to have to check and see if my cell phone will play midi's...
how the damn tune starts -- oh, Zina, am I ever glad to learn that I'm not the only one who gets their chance to kick off the set only to realize that if I only knew the first three notes ...
I've also just experimented with this phone and discovered it has a voice-recorder, so there's another piece of the puzzle: I can sample the tune during the session, then match this against MIDI confirmations when there's the chance to poke around in the device.
I've also learned another cool side-effect: I knew I could download and save the MIDI, but I've just learned that I can email it too.
"oh, yes, it's that one, can you send me that?"
done, man, no sooner said than already done.
it's a bit clunky on the phone interface (have to download, change modes to email/multimedia, write the message, find the tune, attach it and send) so perhaps that's another action that might be added to theSession? "Email this tune ..." parcels off a multi-part mime of the midi, the GIF, the ABC and of course a detailed instruction on how to join this amazing web resource ;)
Ok, ok. Used, as you say, as a memory prosthesis, especially after a few jars. But I can assure you I do know a shed load of tunes. Not that *that* really matters. What does matter is that using your gizmo might be good, right enough, for prising them out of my hippocampus. What I've seen some people do is have the dots of the first couple of bars of a tune written down, as a memory aid.
I suppose my Luddite take on this, is a sort of thought -experiment: if you had a set of identical twins each with an equal level of proficiency on whatever instrument, say, for argument, the fiddle, but one used his real memory, whereas the other guy used the gizmo. Which one would you respect the most?
(No doubt your answer would be the guy with the gizmo cos he's more up to date! :~} )
Possibly useful to know? "This document provides Web application developers with comprehensive information about creating content for mobile devices that support XHTML Mobile Profile and WAP CSS." -- download the PDF from here
Fatwah, I think I'd respect the one that smiled more when newbies asked for the name of that last tune and they then say, "You got an email address?" or "You got a pen and paper?" as both are the same thing, it's just that only one of them won't work in the rain (or in the sunlight for that matter).
I wouldn't want to judge anyone by the toys they carry, only by the way they carry them.
Where this may also be useful is to the travelling musician; I've only been to four different Irish session locations, but each of those played their own pet virtual-tunebook with only a little overlap, and the old timers (this being a region of deep scots/irish roots) play yet another more indigenous subset quite alien to what the younger players import. Here's a good example where maybe all you need is to glance at those first three ABC letter-notes to know this tune is really that tune, or where someone might be so kind as to beam you their tunebook.
It's like John Cage told me when I asked him about being a composer for modern dance in a world where the Nutcracker still reigns.
He directed my attention to a beautiful church in Winnipeg Manitoba where the ancient 1700's era walls of the original are now nestled in the modern architecture of the larger new structure. John said there was no contradiction, there was plenty of room for both.
I like the John Cage quote. I need a memeory "aid" so I can remember the first three bars from Banish Misfortune and not confuse them with garett barry's. I KNOW THEY AREN"T A LIKE, but my fingers don't
I_Fel: Thanks for that! of course! Banish Misfortune!!! Don't feel bad -- I've spent the past month calling "Return from Fingal" by that name, and calling the Misfortune by "Battle of Aughrim"!
Memory is at best a slippery beast, and a little memory is a truly dangerous thing.
Which, I suppose, is precisely why the wise tune-scholar Alan Ng accepts no second-hand names.
I've been waiting hundreds of years for this -- I'll try it out at the session tonight (great timing Jeremy!) but at first glance it looks great. Took me only a fraction of a minute to get my hands on the 9 Dowd's
only three wishlist enhancements:
- on the query page, it may be useful to have select boxes for the keys and tune type, or at least the tune type as this often distinguishes like-named tunes.
- on the results page, the page titles are getting squished with too much space given to the key and type; perhaps the key could be reduced to 3-chars?
- I love the description on the tune page, but once I can see and hear the tune, I'm expecting the next step would be to add it to my tunebook -- to do that, though, I guess I have to login, so I completely understand that this is not a trivial request ;)
This is great, I can't wait to give it a shot live in the field.
Thanks for the feedback Gary. I've added a select box for the tune type on the first page. I hope I've also got the tune titles displaying a bit better on the results page too.
To start with, live, in the session, it's true, tune search is not practical, the phone interface just isn't fast enough to get to the ABC page, and the MIDI didn't get played because it was obviously too intrusive, even for verifying the identity of a tune search. Instead, what seems to be most useful is just to collect the name-fragments of tunes and to take spot-recordings, both of which are outside of theSession's site and built into the phone itself (although very awkward to use compared to a simple voice recorder -- it takes a good 10 keystrokes to begin a sound-sampling).
One place where it did seem useful: "Other names for this song .." -- there were several instances over the evening where tunes were known by one name by some players, other names by others. The only fragment I could note at the time was "Tuom" which gave no answers from theSession search. Clearly a fuzzy search, phonetic or just forgiving of spelling might also be useful live in the field.
After the session was a bit different. Directly after, during the packing up, this would be a good time to build up the tunebooks by entering in those fragments of tunes, or even just having theSession keep a history of my past 10 searches so I can pick through later, audition the midi or whatever to verify the tune identity and then add it to my tunebook. This seems a fairly useful thing in learning the "frequent" repetoire of a particular crew, although as Will pointed out, you might love the tune, add it to your book, and it could be years before this crew ever plays it again
This is leading me to perhaps another direction in the use of live tunebook building: Learning sessions is largely learning the skill of playing by ear (and by the seat of your pants) and that requires a repetoire of VARIED tunes, tunes that use varying techniques of melody and harmonic development, curious phrasings and clever anomalies, and it's in those situations where it may be useful to ask for the tune name, log it somehow on the device, and then dig it out of theSession later to study just that salient bit.
Wired to the Session
Wired to the Session
I had a bit of an epiphany the other day, actually a combination of things converging all at once. To start, at our local session, there's one player who carries a dictation recorder, and when there's a tune he doesn't know and wants to learn, he hits the thumb-button and takes a sample. Very cool I thought.
A second component came from a botanist friend who is spending his first years of retirement creating a PDA database of field flowers -- being largely flora-illiterate, I thought this would be a great thing to carry on my walks through these northland woods, but wouldn't it be much better, I suggested, if people could add their own discoveries, and wouldn't it be more practical if the data was served over a wireless connection? We always seek to hold the sky, but we never can ;)
The third component happened when my employer outfitted me with a cellphone; unlike my old brick clunker, this one surfs the internet handily, has a microscopic graphic display, and, most importantly, it can play MIDI files.
Needless to say, within seconds of this discovery, I was knocking at the URL of thesession.org, but sadly the page design here puts all those tabs into the same HTML, and that makes the page too weighty for a cell phone. Still, I thought, sitting at a session, we come to one of those friendly arguments about this tune or that, what was that other name for this, or do you remember such and such, how cool would it be to key in the name, or an ABC fragment, and pull up the name, the notes, the full ABC and playback an example. "Aye, that's the one!"
So I prodded and poked at it a bit, with my limited PHP skills, I cobbled a page to strip down thesession.org's display and got as far as searching for and displaying the ABC for any given tune, only the playback requires a logged in member and that's going to take a bit more work, but nonetheless, it is a functioning proof of concept ... even if I have to learn to sight-read ABC to use it
I'm not in anyways a fan of pagers, cellphones or PDAs but that's probably because I haven't found my killer app yet, and I'm thinking this may be it. I may toy around with my non-playback prototype a bit just to gain some insight into the practical questions -- for example, can I enter a tune name with my thumbs while holding a mandolin? Where else might I want to pull out a tune or a history? (restaurants for example, or waiting on trains) How much of thesession's data would be useful over a mobile with a thumbnail display?
So what do you think? Is there any practical utility in tapping to thesession from your phone? How would you use it?
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
Impressive use of modern technology, gary. But my gut feeling is, for the same amount of kilowatts of brainpower exerted, learning all the protocols for keying in and all that stuff, wouldn't you be as well just to learn the names of the tunes?
Apart from anything else, I quite enjoy the geeky trainspotter thaing of knowing not just the names of a fair number of tunes, but also a bit of history which might be attached to a particular tune or set - but that's just wierd old me, each to their own. Live and let live.
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Wired to the Session
I think the cellphone etc tech is weeeeee bit too much tech and less music for my tastes but the dictation recorders are really great for picking up tunes. I used to do this, and it is really great way to learn tunes and sets.
I think this is also a great way for beginners to pick up tunes in their local session. Listen to the tape and pick up a few tunes that are played. At least you can play along with a few of their tunes, great way to start.
KS
http://www.chinatogalway.com/
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by KS
Re: Wired to the Session
I can't answer your question, but I'm impressed.
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by carolsviolin
Re: Wired to the Session
I think it's GREAT! Absolutely great. If you ever need any PHP or other web/code help, don't hesitate to ask. I know too much, anyway.
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Pontus Adefjord
Re: Wired to the Session
Hmmm... maybe I should cobble together a really, really simple Session-lite.
If it just consisted of:
1) A simple search box to enter the name of a tune.
2) The results of the search.
3) Details and sheetmusic of the tune.
then it should be nice and lightweight.
As for playing back the tunes, can mobiles play midi files?
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Jeremy
Re: Wired to the Session
Fatwah, there is a saying in sessions that if you know the names of the tunes, you don't know enough tunes -- just do a search for all the Gan Ainm (literally 'no name') tunes here on The Session! Then, as we see from irishmusic.info, any given tune can have dozens of names depending on the whim of the players or the slip of the album jacket editor!
Plus, another killer use that I think I would hit most often: "Add this tune to my tunebook!" -- when we all stop (to order a refill, usually) is when we discuss the names of what was just played, where they'd learned it and all, and there's a short margin of time where double-thumb typing might be practical -- my phone has some sort of "predictive text" feature that (I assume) would learn shorthands for common title name components.
Jeremy: I was kinda hopin' you might say something like that
I do believe it's a worth while thing, especially as the screen resolution and sound quality of these mobile devices improves. I've already seen phones that will play MP3 downloads and it's only a matter of time before the screen resolution is sufficient to show a score -- until that happens, there's also the opportunity to market dumping TheSession to a palmtop.
I believe all the latest phones accept MIDI for their ring-tones, and those that do will also allow for playback while surfing the net -- I use an AT&T service called mMode, but I don't think that's relevent, I think the capability is in my Nokia phone, although it is the mMode (software) manual where MIDI is discussed, not on the phone manual -- mMode also allows me to keep a local collection of tunes, so I could, for example, collect a few during my dinner and take them to the session so I can say to Will, "How do you play this?" (someone should teach MIDI about reel and jig rhythms ;)
Sheet music is a problem of resolution -- my phone tries to show the entire bitmap scaled to the postage stamp, so you can tell that it's music, but only if you already know it is a score sheet. It's not legible in any practical sense of the word. Until the technology improves, ABC is more practical, and I think most players can figure out reading ABC given the MIDI to hear -- this is kind of like the good old days of the pre-graphic internet when ABC over email/usenet was the standard method of network tune trading.
What I have in my prototype is a start on the searchbox leading to a list of tune name (linked), style and key (date omitted to save space) -- this might also have a button to jump to my tunebook -- for practical limits, this probably has to be restricted to 10 tunes per screen.
on the tune display, I have the ABC and hoped to have a link to the MIDI, but I think it would also be useful to have a button to add it to my tunebook and maybe also a link to a one-comment-per-page display.
Lightweight is the key -- the display is about 5 lines of maybe 20 characters in a single font, and the main constraint appears to be the total file size; I was actually surprised at the limited space this thing accepts for a webpage -- it has no problems downloading a 56k midi file, but balks at even what I'd consider a moderate blog page.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
Another important quality of theSession-lite just occurred to me: Whereas theSession itself is a learning and research aid and community communications hub, I think the mobile version would be much more of a mnemonic device, and almost entirely read-only -- new phones have full keyboards, but you'd have to be a teenager with years of Nintendo training to want to carry on any sort of conversation ;)
When the palm pilot was invented, the inventor carried a block of wood with him, with a few sheets of paper stapled to the block; every time he thought of something where he might want to use a hand-held computer, he'd jot it down right there -- that's probably the best way to proceed with TheSession-lite, to actually sit at a session or other mobile-only locations and jot down what and how you figure you might be able to use instant access to a billion tunes ;)
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
Okay, so I think that'd be pretty damned cool. Great for those sessions when you just can't remember how the damned tune starts. Now I'm going to have to check and see if my cell phone will play midi's...
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: irishTUNE.info
ack -- there, you see, there's my proof that I need a memory prosthetic ;)
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
how the damn tune starts -- oh, Zina, am I ever glad to learn that I'm not the only one who gets their chance to kick off the set only to realize that if I only knew the first three notes ...
I've also just experimented with this phone and discovered it has a voice-recorder, so there's another piece of the puzzle: I can sample the tune during the session, then match this against MIDI confirmations when there's the chance to poke around in the device.
I've also learned another cool side-effect: I knew I could download and save the MIDI, but I've just learned that I can email it too.
"oh, yes, it's that one, can you send me that?"
done, man, no sooner said than already done.
it's a bit clunky on the phone interface (have to download, change modes to email/multimedia, write the message, find the tune, attach it and send) so perhaps that's another action that might be added to theSession? "Email this tune ..." parcels off a multi-part mime of the midi, the GIF, the ABC and of course a detailed instruction on how to join this amazing web resource ;)
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
Are you kidding? Gary, that's almost everybody. Don't let 'em fool you, we all have that problem.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Wired to the Session
Ok, ok. Used, as you say, as a memory prosthesis, especially after a few jars. But I can assure you I do know a shed load of tunes. Not that *that* really matters. What does matter is that using your gizmo might be good, right enough, for prising them out of my hippocampus. What I've seen some people do is have the dots of the first couple of bars of a tune written down, as a memory aid.
I suppose my Luddite take on this, is a sort of thought -experiment: if you had a set of identical twins each with an equal level of proficiency on whatever instrument, say, for argument, the fiddle, but one used his real memory, whereas the other guy used the gizmo. Which one would you respect the most?
(No doubt your answer would be the guy with the gizmo cos he's more up to date! :~} )
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Session to the Wire
Possibly useful to know? "This document provides Web application developers with comprehensive information about creating content for mobile devices that support XHTML Mobile Profile and WAP CSS." -- download the PDF from here
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session (the link)
http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/1,6566,040,00.html?fsrParam=2-3-/main.html&fileID=4833
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Respect
Fatwah, I think I'd respect the one that smiled more when newbies asked for the name of that last tune and they then say, "You got an email address?" or "You got a pen and paper?" as both are the same thing, it's just that only one of them won't work in the rain (or in the sunlight for that matter).
I wouldn't want to judge anyone by the toys they carry, only by the way they carry them.
Where this may also be useful is to the travelling musician; I've only been to four different Irish session locations, but each of those played their own pet virtual-tunebook with only a little overlap, and the old timers (this being a region of deep scots/irish roots) play yet another more indigenous subset quite alien to what the younger players import. Here's a good example where maybe all you need is to glance at those first three ABC letter-notes to know this tune is really that tune, or where someone might be so kind as to beam you their tunebook.
It's like John Cage told me when I asked him about being a composer for modern dance in a world where the Nutcracker still reigns.
He directed my attention to a beautiful church in Winnipeg Manitoba where the ancient 1700's era walls of the original are now nestled in the modern architecture of the larger new structure. John said there was no contradiction, there was plenty of room for both.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
I like the John Cage quote. I need a memeory "aid" so I can remember the first three bars from Banish Misfortune and not confuse them with garett barry's. I KNOW THEY AREN"T A LIKE, but my fingers don't
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by I_Fel
Re: Cognitive Misfortune
I_Fel: Thanks for that! of course! Banish Misfortune!!! Don't feel bad -- I've spent the past month calling "Return from Fingal" by that name, and calling the Misfortune by "Battle of Aughrim"!
Memory is at best a slippery beast, and a little memory is a truly dangerous thing.
Which, I suppose, is precisely why the wise tune-scholar Alan Ng accepts no second-hand names.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
I've put together a mobile version of the tune search at The Session. Now I need people to test it.
Garym, and any others with the right equipment, could you do me a big favour and point your mobile to:
http://www.thesession.org/lite/
Let me know:
1) if it works
2) if anything needs to be added
3) if anything needs to be taken out
Thanks
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Jeremy
Re: Wired to the Session
Ooooo, way cool, Jeremy, now I really have to figure out if my cell will play midis....!
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by Zina Lee
Awesome
I believe the technical expression is "w00t!!!"
I've been waiting hundreds of years for this -- I'll try it out at the session tonight (great timing Jeremy!) but at first glance it looks great. Took me only a fraction of a minute to get my hands on the 9 Dowd's
only three wishlist enhancements:
- on the query page, it may be useful to have select boxes for the keys and tune type, or at least the tune type as this often distinguishes like-named tunes.
- on the results page, the page titles are getting squished with too much space given to the key and type; perhaps the key could be reduced to 3-chars?
- I love the description on the tune page, but once I can see and hear the tune, I'm expecting the next step would be to add it to my tunebook -- to do that, though, I guess I have to login, so I completely understand that this is not a trivial request ;)
This is great, I can't wait to give it a shot live in the field.
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by garym
Re: Wired to the Session
Thanks for the feedback Gary. I've added a select box for the tune type on the first page. I hope I've also got the tune titles displaying a bit better on the results page too.
Let me know how it works out at the session
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by Jeremy
First Impressions
Ok, a first report from the field
...
To start with, live, in the session, it's true, tune search is not practical, the phone interface just isn't fast enough to get to the ABC page, and the MIDI didn't get played because it was obviously too intrusive, even for verifying the identity of a tune search. Instead, what seems to be most useful is just to collect the name-fragments of tunes and to take spot-recordings, both of which are outside of theSession's site and built into the phone itself (although very awkward to use compared to a simple voice recorder -- it takes a good 10 keystrokes to begin a sound-sampling).
One place where it did seem useful: "Other names for this song .." -- there were several instances over the evening where tunes were known by one name by some players, other names by others. The only fragment I could note at the time was "Tuom" which gave no answers from theSession search. Clearly a fuzzy search, phonetic or just forgiving of spelling might also be useful live in the field.
After the session was a bit different. Directly after, during the packing up, this would be a good time to build up the tunebooks by entering in those fragments of tunes, or even just having theSession keep a history of my past 10 searches so I can pick through later, audition the midi or whatever to verify the tune identity and then add it to my tunebook. This seems a fairly useful thing in learning the "frequent" repetoire of a particular crew, although as Will pointed out, you might love the tune, add it to your book, and it could be years before this crew ever plays it again
This is leading me to perhaps another direction in the use of live tunebook building: Learning sessions is largely learning the skill of playing by ear (and by the seat of your pants) and that requires a repetoire of VARIED tunes, tunes that use varying techniques of melody and harmonic development, curious phrasings and clever anomalies, and it's in those situations where it may be useful to ask for the tune name, log it somehow on the device, and then dig it out of theSession later to study just that salient bit.
# Posted on May 2nd 2004 by garym