Well, I can sight read well--at least for our kind of music but I've still never had any formal musical training. I taught myself. Before that(and still to this day), I learn(ed) tunes by ear.
Learning by ear is best I think it's good (not all will agree here)when you can do both.
It's a bit embarrassing, because I'm the only member of my band who can't sightread on the spot - doesn't matter in the band where I'm the bass-player, but I learn my tunes slowly from the dots then take them out afterwards. I am also so old that I have hundreds of tunes embedded deep in the grey matter, and when someone plays something I sometimes find I have most of it if called upon to play along. It's all those years of a misspent youth in folk clubs, irish sessions, and barn-dance bands.
It's ABC I find confusing, perhaps I shoud learn it to keep the brain active ?
I can learn by the dots the best as I started out as a Bassoon player. I find it hard to learn tunes from recordings but not from live people. I am slowly making the trasition to learning mostly by ear, but I learn fin eif I here the tune a lot then get the dots I can pick it up in no time.
I can sightread really well (that's rather important in classical violin) but I don't like to use music. I learn by ear whenever possible, I find that if I learn from the dots, it's harder to add ornaments and variations.
I have a high school music theory background. I was indoctrinated with Walter Piston at an impressionable age. My fiddle teacher had been classically trained, so I had lessons that included five octave scales in all the keys and all the modes (even locrian). We would play music from O'Carolan to Tommy Jarrell to Bela Bartok. My more formal training, however, was in folklore--I learned to sightread by researching things like the Sacred Harp, Edward Bunting, and George Petrie. But I did learn by ear first. Both are useful skills, I think. You can't learn style by reading a score, but I discovered that I could get more tunes for the money by buying books.
I'm classically trained and can certainly read and sight read the dots with little problem. However, since getting into Irish music I've forced myself to go the route of learning by ear, and now I prefer to learn a tune by ear. Tunes I learn from the dots never stick as well and take much longer to make my own stylistically. I've also taught myself to read and write the ABCs, and while it's still a bit of a second language to me, it's getting there. Much easier to scribble ABCs than the dots on a bar napkin.
As a teenager, I learned from my girlfriend and from a book what the dots mean. Later in life I learned a fair bit of classical guitar music from the dots and I occasionally use them to help shorten the task of learning a fiddle or guitar tune. Even then, I verify it by ear.
I can sort of sight sing, but I've never been proficient at sight reading for an istrument - certainly not at first sight.
I doubt if I would ever learn a trad tune from dots without hearing it played "in the tradition". But I might. I flatter myself that after several decades of immersion, I would probably know how to interpret a tune well enough.
I can read the dots. I learned this from classical violin lessons. I still read them but not to learn tunes. I do spend a Saturday afternoon now and then "reading" tune. When I find a tune I like, I either find a recording of it and learn it from the recording or record it myself and learn it from my own playing. People have said this before, but I will repeat it: I don't seem to be able to remember tunes that I learn from the dots. I need to learn them by hearing them. (So, relating to an earlier thread, I guess I'm pretty ignorant.)
Dot reader, here, for sure. Classical training and all that. I consider it essential for a musician's education to be complete. Here in the USA, some degree of fluency in reading music is one of the national standards for music in grades 5-12
Every day, all day, I teach 6th graders how to read music. In a large group, it doesn't stick, but one-on-one, I can get a child to identify the names of the lines and spaces very quickly. It's part of our school system's curriculum.
Having said all that, one of the best musicians I've ever known is my brother, a very successful rock/pop guitarist in Florida, who never had a lesson and can't tell a half note from a ham sandwich.
IMHO, dot-reading is only one part of the picture. I can't learn a tune only by listening, like so many of my fellow session.orgers, and I wish I could.
You had to practice to learn the dots. You only have to practice to learn the ear. The problem is that once you learn the dots you are less likely to learn the ear since you can always just turn to the dots.
But music is heard, not seen. It cannot be represented as it is graphically, not even classical music.
Suzuki got it right. Learn the language before you learn the literature.
John Culhane said: "I don't seem to be able to remember tunes that I learn from the dots. I need to learn them by hearing them."
I learned to read sheet music at age 7, as part of learning to play piano. Dreary stuff, at the time, but enough stuck that it was useful when I started playing other music and instruments as a teenager.
But I always thought the whole point of reading sheet music was so you could hear the music--either by playing it on an instrument from the dots, or just imagining the intervals and phrasings in your mind's ear.
That's how I've used sheet music, anyway--it's just another way to hear the tunes in my head, which is all we do when we learn "by ear." In other words, the dots are just another way of hearing the music.
I can see how this might be difficult to understand for someone who doesn't read sheet music ("How can anyone possibly 'hear' music from those inky hieroglyphics?"). But that's the whole reason for having sheet music in the first place--a visual way to represent pitch and intervals and timing, in sum, music. If you're not hearing music when you sight read, you're not sight reading.
And when you *do* hear what the dots represent, then it's no longer difficult to internalize and memorize tunes from sheet music.
(So my own answer to the question posed in the original post to this thread is, yes, I read sheet music and also abc notation. Fast enough to play an unfamiliar tune at moderate session tempo. But I learn nearly all my Irish trad music by listening to other people play, live or recordings. And I learn all my music "by ear," whether the source is aural or written.)
Er, sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was picking on John--but his post neatly captured that sense of not listening to the dots that so many people mention here.
I usually have a book of music on the bus like other people have normal books. I was classically trained and I have had to teach myself to learn by ear. I now have the best of both worlds. - What I can't do is hear the tune from looking at ABC like I can when I look at a manuscript.
What I need is an extra memory card in my brain to actually remember all these tunes!
The problem with reading as she is taught is that it fosters a connection between the dots and the physical act to produce the note, whereas what should really be going on is learning to perform a physical act to reproduce what you "hear," and for the dots to allow you to "hear" music you have not heard.
This can be, and is, taught, in fact it's the "classical" method, but it can be a difficult adjustment for one who has already been trained to relate a dot purely to a physical act, whereas if you learn to play first learning to read at a later time can be a fairly simple task. You already know what to do, just as when you learn to read your native language you already know what the words sound like and how to say them.
Know one of those people who seem to be able to pick up any instrument and play it? This is how they do it. Because they can bloody well hear the thing.
Sheet music does a good job of graphically showing the rise and fall of pitch (notes are correspondingly higher or lower on the stave), and the size of the intervals between pitches, all of which makes it relatively easy to hear the tune.
Abc notation lacks this aspect of sheet music, but the more you sight read it, the easier it becomes to see patterns--arpeggios, scale runs, etc.--in the letters. It's a bit like doing anagrams, or reading Jabberwocky.
Wanting to post tunes here is what led me to learn abc notation, but I can now sight read it at least as fast as regular sheet music. One difference between the two systems is that it's easier to transpose--to play in a key other than what's on the page--while reading sheet music than abc notation. I think that's because the abcs name the specific notes, while sheet music allows you to follow the intervals more easily, even if the dots are in one key and you're fingering another.
Voice trained, classically trained, read and write dots and ABC fluently, play by ear blah blah.
BUT I pass single tunes aurally to others - its much quicker.
Passing tunes on to other musicians is a different matter, I would generally give them a page full, to be played as a set.
I tape about 6 hours of folk off the radio a week and listen to it on the way to work in the car - I pick up a lot of tunes (and styles) that way, but do like picking a book off the shelf and playing down a random page just to find some surprises.
Well I've never had "formal" training, but i can read the dots fine. Prefer to write it out in ABC form though, thet's how I first learnt about 10 years back(Oh my god!!!). But I like learning by ear because it's good practice for when you go to a seisiun, trying to pick up tunes you don't know. But what I find REALLY useful is having the tune in ABC form out in front of me, with the tune playing on a tape/CD. You have the notes there, and you might just pick up a little variation too. It's good.
Learnt to read the dots as a child, so I never have trouble picking up a tune from the dots.
I prefer to hear the tune first though if possible, but I have dozens of tunebooks and would never pick up some ogf the tunes if I had to wait to hear them all first.
Greg the piano tuner says: "I consider it (dot reading) essential for a musician's education to be complete."
But then goes on to say: "dot-reading is only one part of the picture. I can't learn a tune only by listening, and I wish I could."
Sorry to single him out, but what he says is endemic in these discussions which repeat themselves every month or so.
There is a feeling that not to be able to read is a distinct disadvantage, though not being able to learn a tune only by listening is merely an inconvenience, provided you are able to refer to the dots.
I've said this before but I feel compelled to reiterate:
This music we play is rhythmically, structurally and harmonically very easy.
If you look at a sheet of paper with some diddly tunes on it, it is almost empty compared to almost any other form of music.
Sure there are complexities in the music when it is played well, "decoration", variation and accent, but these subtleties that make it what it is are not on the sheet of paper.
My exasperation is this: if you struggle getting the easy part by ear, the rhythm, the structure and the intervals, how on earth are you going to get the more difficult subtle bits?
As an ear learner who has gradually picked up how the dots work, and can now use both, I know that if tomorrow the brain surgeon said he had to remove one or the other from my brain - I'd live without the dots far sooner than give up the ability to learn by ear.
During my childhood involvement with various jazz and marching bands, I learned to read music a fair bit, although a lot of times, it was my ear that got me through. I still use printed music quite a bit as a supplement to learning by ear, refreshing my memory on the bits have been forgotten or went by quicker than I could catch them. My wife is better at dots than I am--if there are tunes we play that were learned from dots, not hearing them from others, she is generally the one who did it.
But even though I am most comfortable with the ear, I like having both skills to draw on.
What really impresses me is how good my memory is--until I learned to put written music away, I never realized how much I actually could retain. And I have learned lyrics to a lot of songs as well, and once placed in my brain, they stick remarkably well. I have become convinced that our educational system should go back to pushing memorization of poetry, math tables, etc--people are becoming too comfortable with letting electronic devices and written records remember things for them. And important mental abilities that should be strengthened are being allowed to atrophy.
I suppose by Will's definition I am not sightreading as the dots for me are finger positions and I only know what it is going to sound like when I play it.
I can't sing from dots. I suppose if I practised the intervals it would be easier but I don't.
I do know that I can listen to a tune and once it's in my head I can then reproduce it quite easily but that ability has diminished a bit since I started getting tunes from books (or here).
The rest of the band learn things aurally, even our classically trained harpist. They find if you know it by ear you retain it better.
Never thought about that last point, but I know I have to make far less effort to remember something I've leaned by ear than I would from something I've learned with the dots. For me the dots are a rather weird way of getting to know a piece of music, even though that's been my primary way of learning until recently, when I discovered sessions!
For any really complicated tune, such as one where it requires detailed listening to get "right", I've transcribed a recording into notation before then learning to play on the harp. I only do that where it's a complex, existing piece that I want to replicate exactly. That works for me. Otherwise (for simple melodies / harmonies) then I'd just listen and play.
The point about people connecting dots with finger movements rather than sounds is an interesting one -- and an aspect of the dots vs ears debate that has been overlooked. As I have begun to learn how to learn by ear, I have realized how much of what I did earlier was memorizing a finger dance - or failing to memorize a tune at all. Now that I've started to work on playing by ear, all sorts of other pieces are falling into place.
FWIW - for those of you trying to make the transition, easy Christmas carols are a wonderful place to start. Even if you're not Christian, the tunes are inescapable and embedded deep in the subconcious (I had a friend with Alzheimer's who could still sing Carols a year after he stopped being able to converse). I find that figuring out a tune on my flute, then trying again in a different key to be a fabulous ear training exercise.
My relatively recent wanderings into Irish Traditional Music, led me here to you folks a few days ago, and I've been sitting quietly back here in the shadows, reading all the posts. I must say that, at first, I was about to break and run, right away, since - would you believe it? - the very first post I read was "A Piece of my Mind" Scary stuff at first sight. Anyway, I persevered, and have decided that you all appear to be a good bunch of people - maybe a little bit wacky, but wacky is a very large part of my definition of "good people".
Since I've only recently re-immersed myself into music after a fifty-year hiatus and am also truly a novitiate in regard to Irish Traditional (See: my profile) - and - since, from the sound of your discussions, you all appear to be well along in your musicianship, I've hesitated to throw in my tupence. But, then after following this thread all day, and realizing that it is on a subject I've been agonizing over for quite some time, I figured to go ahead and jump in. No guts, no glory. Right?
Dots versus ear; ear vs. ABC; eyes vs. ears - and one thing that hasn't been mentioned - common tablature vs. whatever... How do we learn best? I think the key word, here, is "we". "We" don't all learn the same way. My mother made me start taking piano lessions when I was five-years-old. By the time I was ten, I was taking lessons on piano, clarinet, and trumpet. We had very strong music programs back then, through all twelve grades, and I went on to major in music for a year, at college, before being intimidated by "real" musicians, and changing my major. Nearly fifty-years went by, with music - except for listening - being pushed aside, in order to grub for the almighty dollar, until eight-months ago. I got myself a mandolin. After I had brought it home and tried to get the clubs I have for fingers, to find homes between those tiny strings and frets, I said out loud: "What was I thinking? I won't ever be able to play this thing." Then, in my best (which isn't at all good) John Wayne impression, I also said aloud: "The hell I won't!" And, now, eight months later - I'm no Sam Bush (I don't know the Irish virtuosos yet.), but the clubs are now finding room for themselves, and I can hammer out quite a respectful repertoire, some even good enough that my wife now thinks it was a "good" idea that I spent a thousand-dollars on a second instrument, and another thousand on a 5-string banjo, and the assortment of other instruments that have mysteriously accumulated around me. (See: my profile) She doesn't know about the 1934 Gibson I'm drooling over - and we'll just keep it that way.
Anyway, this brings me to my point. I've been agonizing over "How is the best way for me to 'learn' tunes. I live in the absolute boonies of Pennsylvania. Picture: one neighbor, who shortly after I met him, informed me that he "ain't never read no book frum front to back in his whole life, an' it ain't hurt him none"; a two-thousand-foot mountain rising up behind my house; seven miles to the nearest town; and forty-miles to the nearest music shop. The one banjo player I know of, here in the valley, knows three chords, and never "seen no use fer that fifth string", so he took it off. When I asked him if he knows any Irish tunes, he told me he "don't go in fer that furrin' stuff, much". So, until I have more time to dig out some other players, I'm pretty much confined to MIDIs, CDs, the Net; dots, and tablature. So far ABC is beyond my grasp.
As I said, I have been agonizing over this for some time, and I think I'm closing in on an answer. I've printed out a couple hundred sheets of tabbed Irish tunes, and I've done nearly as much in standard notation, which I've then converted to tab; I've learned some tunes from MIDI, and some from CDs. I've been asking myself which way works best - for me - and it finally occurred to me that I couldn't say any of them actually worked best, every time. Then, how was I learning the tunes that I was learning rapidly, and what was the problem with the others - no matter what the method I was using? And, the common thread that I came up with is - for want of a better word - soul. No, I'm not learning MoTown tunes. I'm talking about that thing that the music reaches down and touches, and makes the little hairs on the backs of our necks stand up: that makes us want to hear it again, and again; that makes us willing to do it over, and over, and over; that makes it stick in our heads, no matter whether we're hearing someone else play it, playing it from dots on a page, or reading it from tab. I hear so many people bantering about such things as: "You can't get this or that from the dots, notation, a MIDI, ya-dah, ya-dah, ya-dah. You have to hear - with your ear." "You must hear the Irish dogs barking, smell the gorse, suffer!!!" It's all right - for someone. But "we" all don't learn the same way. I had a wife once, who used to say "The eyes are the window to the soul... But I think all the senses are windows to the soul. Some folks just use the windows different ways, or use them different ways at different ways at different times. Some folk's windows are just dirtier than others. I was using only tablature to learn tunes for quite a while, when I first heard Wiskey In the Jar/Kilgary Mountain. For some reason or other, that tune just blew me away. Every hair on my arms stood on end. I just had to learn it, and I nearly freaked. I couldn't find tablature or sheet music for it, anywhere. What to do? I listened to the MIDI a couple more times, and astonished myself when, in about ten minutes, I was playing it. Even more-so when I woke up the next morning and was whistling it. I've had the same thing happen with tunes I've learned using any of the other venues. So, what is the best way to learn tunes? Whatever way works for you. The important thing is the music - it is the voice of the Universe.
Is anyone still awake?
Forgive me. I promise I'll try not to be so long-winded, again.
Welcome, dylandew, we're not all vampires round here so your virginity is safe. And if you meet some of the people here in real life you'll find they're just like any other session players. A wide spectrum of characters. I'd watch that Zina Lee, she's a bit dodgy, though . I think we've established "A Piece" was a hoax, and a good one at that.
As for me, once upon a time I could read slowly when I went to lessons, but there are so many tunes stuck in my brain now that there doesn't seem much point in reviving that mostly forgotten skill. ABC's much the same.
I;ve never been precisely "classically" trained but do have some similar experiences. I started seriously playing music with GHB's in my early teens. While the tunes are largely "trad," the highland piping world is very heavily committed to dots - playing in a military-styled band requires absolute unison, twiddly bits and all. So I learned to memorize tunes from dots reasonably competently. Which isn;t really the same skill as sightreading.
Then in college I played in a recorder consort. 4-part voice leading and the like; complex, lengthy pieces like fantasias. So notation was absolutely essential for that type of ensemble. You can't pick up your part by ear because it's different from everybody else's part.
I think I am really more of an ear person, and my session-faking skills have improved dramatically since I dropped the dots like crack-addict girlfriend ;P
I have discovered a mental defect that I think I have had all my life. If my wife were to spell something that she didn't want the kids to hear, I would have no idea what she was spelling. Tell me a phone number, and it will escape me! Very strange. I learn more from books than listening to a teacher. The same goes with tunes. I MUST see them.
I have enjoyed the tune "Gypsy" from Riverdance for years, and tried, in vain, to play it by ear. It remained a mystery. I got the dots and learned it immediately-no mystery, quite simple. I rely on dots. I have an excuse!
I love listening to Classical Music (especially Bach) with the complete scores before me. I hear all kinds of things because the dots tell me when something great is happening or coming up. It is a total soul experience to listen to and see the music together
I can hear, too, with my eyes looking at the dots. Like reading poetry.
My daughter had her dyslexia diagnosed when she was 16. It was surprising that she could read music at that point. However, we found that she was doing what she did with her language, listening, learning and using the written bits at a rough guide. She always had some problems with stuff that she hadn't heard and claims she can't sight read triplets at all.( getting her to play something she hadn't heard at all from the dots was as much fun as playing Ispy with her when she was younger. - I spy something being with K ............sky etc)
I can follow orchestral scores and use music to tell roughly where I'm going wrong with a tune but wouldn't be able to sing something I hadn't got a least an idea about. I have always assumed that's my inexperience but perhaps I've inherited the dyslexia from my daughter - the spelling's atrocious as well.
I do both. Not too hot at sight reading (well, you have to play loads of notes at once on piano). Wish I could sight read better, used to be a bit better but got out of practice. Normally learn by ear or from sheet music, do plenty of both. V. handy to know a bit of theory as it means I can jot a tune down if I want to remember it. Or 'give' a tune to somebody else. I know people who say they don't need theory because they have a good ear. Cobblers! knowing theory is an enhancement, it does not spoil a good ear. All right, they might not 'need' it, but.....
Musically literate?
Musically literate?
Just a quick question for all you trad heads out there,
How many of you have ever had formal musical training? By that I mean who can read the dots? Which of you prefer, as I do, just to learn tunes by ear?
I'm interested to know how a largely oral tradition is transmitted around the world these days!
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Ceoltoiri
Re: Musically literate?
"By that I mean who can read the dots"
Well, I can sight read well--at least for our kind of music but I've still never had any formal musical training. I taught myself. Before that(and still to this day), I learn(ed) tunes by ear.
Learning by ear is best I think it's good (not all will agree here)when you can do both.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Musically literate?
It's a bit embarrassing, because I'm the only member of my band who can't sightread on the spot - doesn't matter in the band where I'm the bass-player, but I learn my tunes slowly from the dots then take them out afterwards. I am also so old that I have hundreds of tunes embedded deep in the grey matter, and when someone plays something I sometimes find I have most of it if called upon to play along. It's all those years of a misspent youth in folk clubs, irish sessions, and barn-dance bands.
It's ABC I find confusing, perhaps I shoud learn it to keep the brain active ?
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Musically literate?
I can learn by the dots the best as I started out as a Bassoon player. I find it hard to learn tunes from recordings but not from live people. I am slowly making the trasition to learning mostly by ear, but I learn fin eif I here the tune a lot then get the dots I can pick it up in no time.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Unseen122
Re: Musically literate?
I can sightread really well (that's rather important in classical violin) but I don't like to use music. I learn by ear whenever possible, I find that if I learn from the dots, it's harder to add ornaments and variations.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Fiddlekit
Re: Musically literate?
I have a high school music theory background. I was indoctrinated with Walter Piston at an impressionable age. My fiddle teacher had been classically trained, so I had lessons that included five octave scales in all the keys and all the modes (even locrian). We would play music from O'Carolan to Tommy Jarrell to Bela Bartok. My more formal training, however, was in folklore--I learned to sightread by researching things like the Sacred Harp, Edward Bunting, and George Petrie. But I did learn by ear first. Both are useful skills, I think. You can't learn style by reading a score, but I discovered that I could get more tunes for the money by buying books.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by dwdeacon
Re: Musically literate?
I'm classically trained and can certainly read and sight read the dots with little problem. However, since getting into Irish music I've forced myself to go the route of learning by ear, and now I prefer to learn a tune by ear. Tunes I learn from the dots never stick as well and take much longer to make my own stylistically. I've also taught myself to read and write the ABCs, and while it's still a bit of a second language to me, it's getting there. Much easier to scribble ABCs than the dots on a bar napkin.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Jason G
Re: Musically literate?
I can sightread fluently. I can learn fairly well by ear, but not nearly as well as I'd like to. Tunes that are in my head, I can play by ear.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by GaryAMartin
Re: Musically literate?
"How many of you have ever had formal musical training? By that I mean who can read the dots?"
Yo.
"Which of you prefer, as I do, just to learn tunes by ear?"
Yo.
The former has nothing to do with the latter.
KFG
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by KFG
Re: Musically literate?
As a teenager, I learned from my girlfriend and from a book what the dots mean. Later in life I learned a fair bit of classical guitar music from the dots and I occasionally use them to help shorten the task of learning a fiddle or guitar tune. Even then, I verify it by ear.
I can sort of sight sing, but I've never been proficient at sight reading for an istrument - certainly not at first sight.
I doubt if I would ever learn a trad tune from dots without hearing it played "in the tradition". But I might. I flatter myself that after several decades of immersion, I would probably know how to interpret a tune well enough.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: Musically literate?
I can read the dots. I learned this from classical violin lessons. I still read them but not to learn tunes. I do spend a Saturday afternoon now and then "reading" tune. When I find a tune I like, I either find a recording of it and learn it from the recording or record it myself and learn it from my own playing. People have said this before, but I will repeat it: I don't seem to be able to remember tunes that I learn from the dots. I need to learn them by hearing them. (So, relating to an earlier thread, I guess I'm pretty ignorant.)
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by John Culhane
Re: Musically literate?
Dot reader, here, for sure. Classical training and all that. I consider it essential for a musician's education to be complete. Here in the USA, some degree of fluency in reading music is one of the national standards for music in grades 5-12
Every day, all day, I teach 6th graders how to read music. In a large group, it doesn't stick, but one-on-one, I can get a child to identify the names of the lines and spaces very quickly. It's part of our school system's curriculum.
Having said all that, one of the best musicians I've ever known is my brother, a very successful rock/pop guitarist in Florida, who never had a lesson and can't tell a half note from a ham sandwich.
IMHO, dot-reading is only one part of the picture. I can't learn a tune only by listening, like so many of my fellow session.orgers, and I wish I could.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Musically literate?
You had to practice to learn the dots. You only have to practice to learn the ear. The problem is that once you learn the dots you are less likely to learn the ear since you can always just turn to the dots.
But music is heard, not seen. It cannot be represented as it is graphically, not even classical music.
Suzuki got it right. Learn the language before you learn the literature.
KFG
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by KFG
Re: Musically literate?
John Culhane said: "I don't seem to be able to remember tunes that I learn from the dots. I need to learn them by hearing them."
I learned to read sheet music at age 7, as part of learning to play piano. Dreary stuff, at the time, but enough stuck that it was useful when I started playing other music and instruments as a teenager.
But I always thought the whole point of reading sheet music was so you could hear the music--either by playing it on an instrument from the dots, or just imagining the intervals and phrasings in your mind's ear.
That's how I've used sheet music, anyway--it's just another way to hear the tunes in my head, which is all we do when we learn "by ear." In other words, the dots are just another way of hearing the music.
I can see how this might be difficult to understand for someone who doesn't read sheet music ("How can anyone possibly 'hear' music from those inky hieroglyphics?"). But that's the whole reason for having sheet music in the first place--a visual way to represent pitch and intervals and timing, in sum, music. If you're not hearing music when you sight read, you're not sight reading.
And when you *do* hear what the dots represent, then it's no longer difficult to internalize and memorize tunes from sheet music.
(So my own answer to the question posed in the original post to this thread is, yes, I read sheet music and also abc notation. Fast enough to play an unfamiliar tune at moderate session tempo. But I learn nearly all my Irish trad music by listening to other people play, live or recordings. And I learn all my music "by ear," whether the source is aural or written.)
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Musically literate?
Er, sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was picking on John--but his post neatly captured that sense of not listening to the dots that so many people mention here.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Musically literate?
I usually have a book of music on the bus like other people have normal books. I was classically trained and I have had to teach myself to learn by ear. I now have the best of both worlds. - What I can't do is hear the tune from looking at ABC like I can when I look at a manuscript.
What I need is an extra memory card in my brain to actually remember all these tunes!
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Tarrantella
Re: Musically literate?
Bingo! Will wins the prize, as usual.
The problem with reading as she is taught is that it fosters a connection between the dots and the physical act to produce the note, whereas what should really be going on is learning to perform a physical act to reproduce what you "hear," and for the dots to allow you to "hear" music you have not heard.
This can be, and is, taught, in fact it's the "classical" method, but it can be a difficult adjustment for one who has already been trained to relate a dot purely to a physical act, whereas if you learn to play first learning to read at a later time can be a fairly simple task. You already know what to do, just as when you learn to read your native language you already know what the words sound like and how to say them.
Know one of those people who seem to be able to pick up any instrument and play it? This is how they do it. Because they can bloody well hear the thing.
KFG
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by KFG
Re: Musically literate?
Sheet music does a good job of graphically showing the rise and fall of pitch (notes are correspondingly higher or lower on the stave), and the size of the intervals between pitches, all of which makes it relatively easy to hear the tune.
Abc notation lacks this aspect of sheet music, but the more you sight read it, the easier it becomes to see patterns--arpeggios, scale runs, etc.--in the letters. It's a bit like doing anagrams, or reading Jabberwocky.
Wanting to post tunes here is what led me to learn abc notation, but I can now sight read it at least as fast as regular sheet music. One difference between the two systems is that it's easier to transpose--to play in a key other than what's on the page--while reading sheet music than abc notation. I think that's because the abcs name the specific notes, while sheet music allows you to follow the intervals more easily, even if the dots are in one key and you're fingering another.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Musically literate?
Great! Kevin, pm me and I'll give you my snail mail address so you can ship the prize straight away!
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Musically literate?
Voice trained, classically trained, read and write dots and ABC fluently, play by ear blah blah.
BUT I pass single tunes aurally to others - its much quicker.
Passing tunes on to other musicians is a different matter, I would generally give them a page full, to be played as a set.
I tape about 6 hours of folk off the radio a week and listen to it on the way to work in the car - I pick up a lot of tunes (and styles) that way, but do like picking a book off the shelf and playing down a random page just to find some surprises.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Musically literate?
Ceoltoiri - you say:
"I'm interested to know how a largely oral tradition is transmitted around the world these days!"
Look back a couple of days to a thread entitled "A piece of my mind" - you'll find it's all done by computers now.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Musically literate?
Well I've never had "formal" training, but i can read the dots fine. Prefer to write it out in ABC form though, thet's how I first learnt about 10 years back(Oh my god!!!). But I like learning by ear because it's good practice for when you go to a seisiun, trying to pick up tunes you don't know. But what I find REALLY useful is having the tune in ABC form out in front of me, with the tune playing on a tape/CD. You have the notes there, and you might just pick up a little variation too. It's good.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by person
Re: Musically literate?
Learnt to read the dots as a child, so I never have trouble picking up a tune from the dots.
I prefer to hear the tune first though if possible, but I have dozens of tunebooks and would never pick up some ogf the tunes if I had to wait to hear them all first.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Martin Milner
Re: Musically literate?
Greg the piano tuner says: "I consider it (dot reading) essential for a musician's education to be complete."
But then goes on to say: "dot-reading is only one part of the picture. I can't learn a tune only by listening, and I wish I could."
Sorry to single him out, but what he says is endemic in these discussions which repeat themselves every month or so.
There is a feeling that not to be able to read is a distinct disadvantage, though not being able to learn a tune only by listening is merely an inconvenience, provided you are able to refer to the dots.
I've said this before but I feel compelled to reiterate:
This music we play is rhythmically, structurally and harmonically very easy.
If you look at a sheet of paper with some diddly tunes on it, it is almost empty compared to almost any other form of music.
Sure there are complexities in the music when it is played well, "decoration", variation and accent, but these subtleties that make it what it is are not on the sheet of paper.
My exasperation is this: if you struggle getting the easy part by ear, the rhythm, the structure and the intervals, how on earth are you going to get the more difficult subtle bits?
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Musically literate?
As an ear learner who has gradually picked up how the dots work, and can now use both, I know that if tomorrow the brain surgeon said he had to remove one or the other from my brain - I'd live without the dots far sooner than give up the ability to learn by ear.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: Musically literate?
I've always learned by ear - I can read the dots once I've learned the tune!
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by boxershort
Re: Musically literate?
During my childhood involvement with various jazz and marching bands, I learned to read music a fair bit, although a lot of times, it was my ear that got me through. I still use printed music quite a bit as a supplement to learning by ear, refreshing my memory on the bits have been forgotten or went by quicker than I could catch them. My wife is better at dots than I am--if there are tunes we play that were learned from dots, not hearing them from others, she is generally the one who did it.
But even though I am most comfortable with the ear, I like having both skills to draw on.
What really impresses me is how good my memory is--until I learned to put written music away, I never realized how much I actually could retain. And I have learned lyrics to a lot of songs as well, and once placed in my brain, they stick remarkably well. I have become convinced that our educational system should go back to pushing memorization of poetry, math tables, etc--people are becoming too comfortable with letting electronic devices and written records remember things for them. And important mental abilities that should be strengthened are being allowed to atrophy.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Musically literate?
I suppose by Will's definition I am not sightreading as the dots for me are finger positions and I only know what it is going to sound like when I play it.
I can't sing from dots. I suppose if I practised the intervals it would be easier but I don't.
I do know that I can listen to a tune and once it's in my head I can then reproduce it quite easily but that ability has diminished a bit since I started getting tunes from books (or here).
The rest of the band learn things aurally, even our classically trained harpist. They find if you know it by ear you retain it better.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: Musically literate?
Never thought about that last point, but I know I have to make far less effort to remember something I've leaned by ear than I would from something I've learned with the dots. For me the dots are a rather weird way of getting to know a piece of music, even though that's been my primary way of learning until recently, when I discovered sessions!
For any really complicated tune, such as one where it requires detailed listening to get "right", I've transcribed a recording into notation before then learning to play on the harp. I only do that where it's a complex, existing piece that I want to replicate exactly. That works for me. Otherwise (for simple melodies / harmonies) then I'd just listen and play.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Mark Harmer
Re: Musically literate?
The point about people connecting dots with finger movements rather than sounds is an interesting one -- and an aspect of the dots vs ears debate that has been overlooked. As I have begun to learn how to learn by ear, I have realized how much of what I did earlier was memorizing a finger dance - or failing to memorize a tune at all. Now that I've started to work on playing by ear, all sorts of other pieces are falling into place.
FWIW - for those of you trying to make the transition, easy Christmas carols are a wonderful place to start. Even if you're not Christian, the tunes are inescapable and embedded deep in the subconcious (I had a friend with Alzheimer's who could still sing Carols a year after he stopped being able to converse). I find that figuring out a tune on my flute, then trying again in a different key to be a fabulous ear training exercise.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by KateG
Re: Musically literate?
Be kind. I'm a virgin, here.
My relatively recent wanderings into Irish Traditional Music, led me here to you folks a few days ago, and I've been sitting quietly back here in the shadows, reading all the posts. I must say that, at first, I was about to break and run, right away, since - would you believe it? - the very first post I read was "A Piece of my Mind" Scary stuff at first sight. Anyway, I persevered, and have decided that you all appear to be a good bunch of people - maybe a little bit wacky, but wacky is a very large part of my definition of "good people".
Since I've only recently re-immersed myself into music after a fifty-year hiatus and am also truly a novitiate in regard to Irish Traditional (See: my profile) - and - since, from the sound of your discussions, you all appear to be well along in your musicianship, I've hesitated to throw in my tupence. But, then after following this thread all day, and realizing that it is on a subject I've been agonizing over for quite some time, I figured to go ahead and jump in. No guts, no glory. Right?
Dots versus ear; ear vs. ABC; eyes vs. ears - and one thing that hasn't been mentioned - common tablature vs. whatever... How do we learn best? I think the key word, here, is "we". "We" don't all learn the same way. My mother made me start taking piano lessions when I was five-years-old. By the time I was ten, I was taking lessons on piano, clarinet, and trumpet. We had very strong music programs back then, through all twelve grades, and I went on to major in music for a year, at college, before being intimidated by "real" musicians, and changing my major. Nearly fifty-years went by, with music - except for listening - being pushed aside, in order to grub for the almighty dollar, until eight-months ago. I got myself a mandolin. After I had brought it home and tried to get the clubs I have for fingers, to find homes between those tiny strings and frets, I said out loud: "What was I thinking? I won't ever be able to play this thing." Then, in my best (which isn't at all good) John Wayne impression, I also said aloud: "The hell I won't!" And, now, eight months later - I'm no Sam Bush (I don't know the Irish virtuosos yet.), but the clubs are now finding room for themselves, and I can hammer out quite a respectful repertoire, some even good enough that my wife now thinks it was a "good" idea that I spent a thousand-dollars on a second instrument, and another thousand on a 5-string banjo, and the assortment of other instruments that have mysteriously accumulated around me. (See: my profile) She doesn't know about the 1934 Gibson I'm drooling over - and we'll just keep it that way.
Anyway, this brings me to my point. I've been agonizing over "How is the best way for me to 'learn' tunes. I live in the absolute boonies of Pennsylvania. Picture: one neighbor, who shortly after I met him, informed me that he "ain't never read no book frum front to back in his whole life, an' it ain't hurt him none"; a two-thousand-foot mountain rising up behind my house; seven miles to the nearest town; and forty-miles to the nearest music shop. The one banjo player I know of, here in the valley, knows three chords, and never "seen no use fer that fifth string", so he took it off. When I asked him if he knows any Irish tunes, he told me he "don't go in fer that furrin' stuff, much". So, until I have more time to dig out some other players, I'm pretty much confined to MIDIs, CDs, the Net; dots, and tablature. So far ABC is beyond my grasp.
As I said, I have been agonizing over this for some time, and I think I'm closing in on an answer. I've printed out a couple hundred sheets of tabbed Irish tunes, and I've done nearly as much in standard notation, which I've then converted to tab; I've learned some tunes from MIDI, and some from CDs. I've been asking myself which way works best - for me - and it finally occurred to me that I couldn't say any of them actually worked best, every time. Then, how was I learning the tunes that I was learning rapidly, and what was the problem with the others - no matter what the method I was using? And, the common thread that I came up with is - for want of a better word - soul. No, I'm not learning MoTown tunes. I'm talking about that thing that the music reaches down and touches, and makes the little hairs on the backs of our necks stand up: that makes us want to hear it again, and again; that makes us willing to do it over, and over, and over; that makes it stick in our heads, no matter whether we're hearing someone else play it, playing it from dots on a page, or reading it from tab. I hear so many people bantering about such things as: "You can't get this or that from the dots, notation, a MIDI, ya-dah, ya-dah, ya-dah. You have to hear - with your ear." "You must hear the Irish dogs barking, smell the gorse, suffer!!!" It's all right - for someone. But "we" all don't learn the same way. I had a wife once, who used to say "The eyes are the window to the soul... But I think all the senses are windows to the soul. Some folks just use the windows different ways, or use them different ways at different ways at different times. Some folk's windows are just dirtier than others. I was using only tablature to learn tunes for quite a while, when I first heard Wiskey In the Jar/Kilgary Mountain. For some reason or other, that tune just blew me away. Every hair on my arms stood on end. I just had to learn it, and I nearly freaked. I couldn't find tablature or sheet music for it, anywhere. What to do? I listened to the MIDI a couple more times, and astonished myself when, in about ten minutes, I was playing it. Even more-so when I woke up the next morning and was whistling it. I've had the same thing happen with tunes I've learned using any of the other venues. So, what is the best way to learn tunes? Whatever way works for you. The important thing is the music - it is the voice of the Universe.
Is anyone still awake?
Forgive me. I promise I'll try not to be so long-winded, again.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by dylandew
Re: Musically literate?
Welcome, dylandew, we're not all vampires round here so your virginity is safe. And if you meet some of the people here in real life you'll find they're just like any other session players. A wide spectrum of characters. I'd watch that Zina Lee, she's a bit dodgy, though
. I think we've established "A Piece" was a hoax, and a good one at that.
As for me, once upon a time I could read slowly when I went to lessons, but there are so many tunes stuck in my brain now that there doesn't seem much point in reviving that mostly forgotten skill. ABC's much the same.
# Posted on December 15th 2005 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Musically literate?
I;ve never been precisely "classically" trained but do have some similar experiences. I started seriously playing music with GHB's in my early teens. While the tunes are largely "trad," the highland piping world is very heavily committed to dots - playing in a military-styled band requires absolute unison, twiddly bits and all. So I learned to memorize tunes from dots reasonably competently. Which isn;t really the same skill as sightreading.
Then in college I played in a recorder consort. 4-part voice leading and the like; complex, lengthy pieces like fantasias. So notation was absolutely essential for that type of ensemble. You can't pick up your part by ear because it's different from everybody else's part.
I think I am really more of an ear person, and my session-faking skills have improved dramatically since I dropped the dots like crack-addict girlfriend ;P
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: Musically literate?
I have discovered a mental defect that I think I have had all my life. If my wife were to spell something that she didn't want the kids to hear, I would have no idea what she was spelling. Tell me a phone number, and it will escape me! Very strange. I learn more from books than listening to a teacher. The same goes with tunes. I MUST see them.
I have enjoyed the tune "Gypsy" from Riverdance for years, and tried, in vain, to play it by ear. It remained a mystery. I got the dots and learned it immediately-no mystery, quite simple. I rely on dots. I have an excuse!
I love listening to Classical Music (especially Bach) with the complete scores before me. I hear all kinds of things because the dots tell me when something great is happening or coming up. It is a total soul experience to listen to and see the music together
I can hear, too, with my eyes looking at the dots. Like reading poetry.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by feardearg
Re: Musically literate?
My daughter had her dyslexia diagnosed when she was 16. It was surprising that she could read music at that point. However, we found that she was doing what she did with her language, listening, learning and using the written bits at a rough guide. She always had some problems with stuff that she hadn't heard and claims she can't sight read triplets at all.( getting her to play something she hadn't heard at all from the dots was as much fun as playing Ispy with her when she was younger. - I spy something being with K ............sky etc)
I can follow orchestral scores and use music to tell roughly where I'm going wrong with a tune but wouldn't be able to sing something I hadn't got a least an idea about. I have always assumed that's my inexperience but perhaps I've inherited the dyslexia from my daughter - the spelling's atrocious as well.
J
# Posted on December 19th 2005 by jfother
Re: Musically literate?
I do both. Not too hot at sight reading (well, you have to play loads of notes at once on piano). Wish I could sight read better, used to be a bit better but got out of practice. Normally learn by ear or from sheet music, do plenty of both. V. handy to know a bit of theory as it means I can jot a tune down if I want to remember it. Or 'give' a tune to somebody else. I know people who say they don't need theory because they have a good ear. Cobblers! knowing theory is an enhancement, it does not spoil a good ear. All right, they might not 'need' it, but.....
# Posted on December 19th 2005 by flying tigerpig