Melodeon.net Forums
Discussions => Tunes => Topic started by: AirTime on November 21, 2012, 08:11:32 PM
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After about 16 months on the melodeon, I feel like I am still making slow but steady progress. I can now pick up the basics of most tunes in a couple of hours. Another 2 or 3 hours to get some kind of fluidity & rhythm. But then comes the hard part - days/weeks of plugging away until I can get it to the point where I can pick up the box & confidently play the tune without making mistakes or forgetting what I'm doing.
There are so many great tunes out there ... I'm going to run out of time! :-\
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Many of us do 'run out of time' and move on to new tunes before really nailing something once and for all. To be honest it's all to do with self discipline, if a tune is worth learning it's worth learning well, keep it in the current repertoire until you have it nailed then add it to the 'revisit once a month' list for a year or so.
People learn at different speeds of course and for me tunes are randomly easy or hard to commit to memory depending on fingering, push-pull patterns and so on rather than the technical difficulty of the tune in a musical sense. Most tunes that are childishly simple like Shepherd's Hey and Winster Processional are the ones I'm most likely to mess up on because I'm bored witless after the first three notes!
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There are so many great tunes out there ... I'm going to run out of time! :-\
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I am SO identifying with this, Airtime! Hence my Tuna Week Challenge. I am aware I am just scratching the surface of each tune, but I do try and play each one I've recently picked up, every day. I've done about 8 in the last 4 plus weeks. My excuse for 'speed learning' them is so that I can join in at session without cheating and reverting to my fiddle all the time. I'm learning 'other stuff' at a deeper and more interesting level. Lester's Tune A Day is immensely helpful for my challenge, but he just makes matters worse as I am anxious to get so many of them under my belt then another really good one comes up!!
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I have perhaps a couple of dozen tunes "on the go" - I can basically play them, but haven't finalized the form. In other words, I'm still working out the order of repetitions, variations & embellishments. I find this part a bit uninspiring & want to move on to a new & fabulous tune I've come across. However, without properly finishing & (laboriously) memorizing each tune, I know it hasn't truly become part of my "repertoire".
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Yep. A kindred spirit here! The main reason that I do my blogs is to almost force myself to nail a tune. I definitely put myself under pressure by doing this but I think I'm a better player for it. I've still got a long way to go but I'm definitely enjoying the journey. Not only do I fret about all the tunes that I want to learn but also worry that I can't play the ones I learnt a few months back that I'm no longer working on! I like to have a few tunes on the go so that I don't go stale on a piece. When I sense that I'm getting close on a piece I concentrate on it for a few days so that I can film it.
Currently working on: The First Nowell DG /Rudolph GCF / Dunking Biscuits (one of mine!) GCF /Donkey Riding DG - trying to improve my bellows technique/Granton Fish Bowl - English Concertina
All the best to all beginners and improvers out there!
Les
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I think a reasonable compromise is to choose a reletively small number of tunes , perhaps 5 or 6 as 'sunday best' and hone them to something like 'performance standard' and at the same time build up a larger group of tunes that you can bash out in a session with varying degrees of quality i.e some better than others!
This satisfies both urges -the desire to play ( some) tunes really well and the desire to have a large 'join in' repertoire.
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Tunes can of course be moved from 'join in' catagory to 'sunday best catagory' and 'sunday best' stuff can be relegated to 'join in' so as to prevent the select 'sunday best' group from becoming stale.
george
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I also worry about too little time - you're not the only ones!
As my wife said I've a past time that will keep going ...... maybe, hopefully, even until I go to the Great Session in the Sky!
I get distracted too, a new tune happens along and I simply *have* to learn it, thereby dropping what I've already started learning.
I also find sometimes I get bored, leave a tune, then driving home it comes on the cd player.....and it re-invigorates me and the 'time off to rest' somehow has allowed it to be ingested. The fresh look then allows me to start again, but from a platform of being half way there, so the journey to the top isn't as bad.
Then again polishing up tunes, as George says' for sunday best' is good too. An added effort sometimes gets a 'nearly there' tune into something really good.
I find the whole learning process really good, enjoyable and thought provoking, but it has a lot of funny unfathomable twists and turns between seeing a set of dots and being able to play it at a tune session.
.....but it's all Jolly Good Fun!
Q
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Seing and presumably playing from a set of dots can prolong the time taken to be able to paly a tune (from memory) in a session etc. This seems to be becausps pe something in the brain says ''I don't need to remeber this as I can get the bit of paper out again'' and so the machanism that transmits stuff from the short term to the long term memory is reluctant to come into action. If on the other hand a tune is learned by ear the process of transmitting it from the short tem to the long term memory is much quicker and once this is done it is stored ready to be recalled . For dotists the trick is to play once through and then try to keep going while looking away from the dots . If or whn you get stuck start aagain and reeat the looking away process etc etc.
george
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Geoerge, I agree, it's what I try and do.
I get to know the tune by ear simply by listening a few times, check the dots to really get to knw it accurately, then glance away, increasing my distrations.
I find a combnation of both sight reading and listening in the end produces a good version of a tune.
My daugher is a superb flautist and through orchestra work plays by looking at the dots, which is what they need to do. it is frustrating as she has an accurate ear, but finds it difficult at present to committ the tune to memory simply because she doesn't need to in any of her other musical avenues.
For morris she'll have to get over it. Those she's learnt are played well, full sound etc. and lovely pace so i need her to get the learning process sorted - so I understand the point you make looking from both sides of the mirror!
Q
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Geoerge, I agree, it's what I try and do.
I get to know the tune by ear simply by listening a few times, check the dots to really get to knw it accurately, then glance away, increasing my distrations.
I find a combnation of both sight reading and listening in the end produces a good version of a tune.
My daugher is a superb flautist and through orchestra work plays by looking at the dots, which is what they need to do. it is frustrating as she has an accurate ear, but finds it difficult at present to committ the tune to memory simply because she doesn't need to in any of her other musical avenues.
For morris she'll have to get over it. Those she's learnt are played well, full sound etc. and lovely pace so i need her to get the learning process sorted - so I understand the point you make looking from both sides of the mirror!
Q
Every Christmas for the past few years I have gone to a carol singing/playing do at a chums house where his friends and neighbours give the Oxford Book of carols a seeing too. One of his neighbours is guest leader of the Halle, so is quite good, but seems to be unable to play Good King Wenceslas without music and really admires the folkies ability to play tunes from memory.
His 1695 Stradivarius is very nearly a match for my Pokerwork though (:)
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;D
Yes but is it the Stradavarius Penguin of Death????
;D
I remember a long while back a group of extremely talented classical musicians were talking to us at Sidmouth. Likewise, they had no concept of playing without music and were stunned and incredibly impressed at what us rabble were thrashing out.
In many ways I wish there wasn't such a divide..... and more opportunity to mix.
Q
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I know a gentleman who plays with a local band, well respected. He sight reads from a VDU, but rarely would you know it - guess he has practised the tunes anyway. Trouble is, if the dance runs over, he has been known to run out of music and stop.
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Now that's another can of worms - looking at the audience if in a band, or at the dancers if playing for morris.
You *must* do it in both cases or else how do you know if you're playing for the dance?.....which is the whole object of playing!
That is an example of why you need to have internalised the music to do what we are talking about.
Q
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I can't see how it would be any kind of a handicap to be able to read music fluently. Surely, you would still be able to commit a tune to memory easily enough by just playing through it enough times?
I have to admit that one of things that attracted me to the diatonic accordion is the fact that it is such an "unusual" instrument here, that there is no expectation of receiving any kind of formal training. This leaves me free, for better or for worse, to "do my own thing", & learn what I like, when I like, how I like. There is, in addition, no melodeon "community" to play with (or, for that matter, to learn from).
I am amazed (frustrated) at how, when it comes to some tunes, I don't seem to be able to remember how to start them without a prompt. In most cases, I remember a little phrase, not necessarily from the beginning that jogs my memory & allows me to put the whole thing together.
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I can't see how it would be any kind of a handicap to be able to read music fluently. Surely, you would still be able to commit a tune to memory easily enough by just playing through it enough times?
My experience is that people who play from music seem to be wed to it and don't make the leap to internalising the tunes
I am amazed (frustrated) at how, when it comes to some tunes, I don't seem to be able to remember how to start them without a prompt. In most cases, I remember a little phrase, not necessarily from the beginning that jogs my memory & allows me to put the whole thing together.
I have been playing for 30 years + and am in the same place. Many tunes I can only play by quickly running through the B part to trigger off the A. I carry a crib list of the first few notes of tunes in ABC format on my phone for when all else fails ;)
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My experience is that people who play from music seem to be wed to it and don't make the leap to internalising the tunes
With my very limited experience I am surprised at how little 'cross over' there seems to be. I don't seem to be able to learn tunes by just playing the music. I've been playing from the dots to help me gain some fluency in moving my fingers, but I can't remember what notes I've just played - I am having to go through a completely different process to hammer the sequence into memory. I think that the skills must be organised in different ways or in different parts of the brain.
It really shouldn't surprise me. Many years ago I learned to touch type - and worked my way through uni by typing up reports for local firms needing a temporary typist. I learned that I had very little idea about what it was that I had just typed up, the words are just translated into key strokes by the brain without being aware of what you are doing. Perhaps you have to concentrate so much to get the words to the keys that you haven't got any spare capacity for being aware of what it is that you are typing. Is reading music the same, I wonder?
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I have the same problem getting started as Lester - but we're only a couple of months apart age wise, that might have a bearing 8). I can't read music fast enough to play, I have to learn a few bars at a time from the dots. Although most tunes I am learning I already know to listen to.
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I can't see how it would be any kind of a handicap to be able to read music fluently. Surely, you would still be able to commit a tune to memory easily enough by just playing through it enough times?
My experience is that people who play from music seem to be wed to it and don't make the leap to internalising the tunes
I am amazed (frustrated) at how, when it comes to some tunes, I don't seem to be able to remember how to start them without a prompt. In most cases, I remember a little phrase, not necessarily from the beginning that jogs my memory & allows me to put the whole thing together.
I have been playing for 30 years + and am in the same place. Many tunes I can only play by quickly running through the B part to trigger off the A. I carry a crib list of the first few notes of tunes in ABC format on my phone for when all else fails ;)
In the main the relatively few dotists who caan play from memory do so in the same rigid way as they would if following the dots which can be aat odds with the byearists who add to the tune by playing the gaps by making small aadjustments to note length on the hoof.
george
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I can't see how it would be any kind of a handicap to be able to read music fluently. Surely, you would still be able to commit a tune to memory easily enough by just playing through it enough times?
My experience is that people who play from music seem to be wed to it and don't make the leap to internalising the tunes
I am amazed (frustrated) at how, when it comes to some tunes, I don't seem to be able to remember how to start them without a prompt. In most cases, I remember a little phrase, not necessarily from the beginning that jogs my memory & allows me to put the whole thing together.
I have been playing for 30 years + and am in the same place. Many tunes I can only play by quickly running through the B part to trigger off the A. I carry a crib list of the first few notes of tunes in ABC format on my phone for when all else fails ;)
In the main the relatively few dotists who caan play from memory do so in the same rigid way as they would if following the dots which can be aat odds with the byearists who add to the tune by playing the gaps by making small aadjustments to note length on the hoof.
george
I don't... (at least I don't think I do...)
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What is it with this stupid folkie complex about people who are able to read music?.
Try sitting in with dozens of other musicians you've never met to play a 25 minute piece you've never heard and play all the parts required of you correctly on cue, in time and in synch with everyone else without any mistakes. Then try being as smug and disparaging of "the dots" as before...
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What is it with this stupid folkie complex about people who are able to read music?.
Try sitting in with dozens of other musicians you've never met to play a 25 minute piece you've never heard and play all the parts required of you on cue, in time and in synch with everyone else. Then try being as smug and disparaging of "the dots" as before...
I, for one, was not being smug about my inability to wead music, I would love to be able to do it. But, for the most part, we are not discussing 25 minute pieces with multiple parts but simple little 32 bar tunes so I am not sure your retort is valid.
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Now that's another can of worms - looking at the audience if in a band, or at the dancers if playing for morris.
You *must* do it in both cases or else how do you know if you're playing for the dance?.....which is the whole object of playing!
That is an example of why you need to have internalised the music to do what we are talking about.
Q
I couldn't agree more! What a pity the dancers won't give you half a chance by letting you know in advance what they'll be doing on the next practice night so you can run through it a couple of times in advance, especially when it's something they only danced once in the last season and that was on the first of May!
It's a peculiar fact that professional British orchestral musicians are renowned the world over for their ability to play a piece of music to performance standard by sight reading a piece they only get to rehearse on the day of the performance. They aren't the best musicians in the world to listen to by any means because the great orchestras of the world rehearse a seasons repertoire endlessly and cannot be swayed from the agreed format and thus lack versatility. The conductor being taken ill at short notice throws everything into disarray for the well disciplined and rehearsed musician, not so for the Brits, they just play what's on the page with scant regard to the silly old sod at the front waving his arms around. :D
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What is it with this stupid folkie complex about people who are able to read music?.
Try sitting in with dozens of other musicians you've never met to play a 25 minute piece you've never heard and play all the parts required of you on cue, in time and in synch with everyone else. Then try being as smug and disparaging of "the dots" as before...
I, for one, was not being smug about my inability to wead music, I would love to be able to do it. But, for the most part, we are not discussing 25 minute pieces with multiple parts but simple little 32 bar tunes so I am not sure your retort is valid.
Every time this topic comes up on here, or in most other folk circles, there are constant subtle and not-so-subtle implications that the "the dots" are inherently bad and people who don't play entirely by ear are creatively-challenged zombies lacking real musicality, enslaved to whatever is on the page, terrified of making even the slightest deviation and incapable of playing anything exciting. That's highly presumptuous at best and patronising cobblers otherwise...
I'd bet any sum of money that a competent sight reader could memorise a 32 bar folk tune and play it well if they wanted to do it and enjoyed it but I doubt the average by ear only session player or Morris man would even know where to begin in a simple small ensemble classical piece.
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Whilst I don't think 'complex' is rather a derogatory turn of phrase to use in respect of 'folk' musicians I am of the opinion that those of both musical disciplines (dots or memory) are sometimes a wee bit jelous of each others skills. One lot thinking ''can somebody put a pice of paaper in front of him and play all that stuff without having heard it'' anad the other lot thinking ''how can somebody just get out an instrument and play all that stuff without recoourse to a bit of paper''
Those capable of either method of playing music posess considerable skill and most of us probably recognise that. However unless we want to live in a po faced world a bit of friendly knocking and banter does not go amiss
I could follow that by asking ''what is the definition of an orchestra'' ( the answer being a bloody great musical instrument played by a conducter) but I shall refrain from so doing and blaim my computer for thought reading this paragraph!
george
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but I doubt the average by ear only session player or Morris man would even know where to begin in a simple small ensemble classical piece.
To quote some one That's highly presumptuous at best and patronising cobblers otherwise...
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just on a point of order - is there any difference between a piece and a tune?
george
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I'd bet any sum of money that a competent sight reader could memorise a 32 bar folk tune and play it well if they wanted to do it and enjoyed it but I doubt the average by ear session player or Morris man would even know where to begin in a simple small ensemble classical piece.
Sorry Andy but this is largely off topic. People who play classical pieces would probably tear you to shreds for considering the melodeon to be an instrument. Anyone with an ear for music in its purest sense would consider the tremolo tuning of our beloved boxes to be truly unacceptable! Don't commit the sin of being as disparaging or as narrow minded towards one group of musicians as they may be towards you without at least considering their point of view.
Dancers are a different matter of course, left footed oafs the lot of 'em! ;)
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but I doubt the average by ear only session player or Morris man would even know where to begin in a simple small ensemble classical piece.
To quote some one That's highly presumptuous at best and patronising cobblers otherwise...
...err, not really. It's an entirely reasonable assumption because the ability to sight-read is necessary to successfully participate in classical ensemble work. A bit like saying that an English-speaker who can't speak Russian wouldn't be able to verbally communicate their intentions to a Russian-speaker who can't speak English
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Eh!
g
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just on a point of order - is there any difference between a piece and a tune?
george
If you need to ask the question you probably won't understand the answer. Speed the Plough is a tune (and a very good one!) Jupiter from the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst is a piece. If you'd like your pieces in a more traditional form try the Steel Skies Suite by Alistair Anderson.
The arguments between staff notation readers and ear only players will rage on forever. The truth for me lies somewhere in between, all musicians have merit and it's the adaptable ones that are the cream of the crop no matter which school they cleave from.
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What is it with this stupid folkie complex about people who are able to read music?.
Try sitting in with dozens of other musicians you've never met to play a 25 minute piece you've never heard and play all the parts required of you on cue, in time and in synch with everyone else. Then try being as smug and disparaging of "the dots" as before...
I, for one, was not being smug about my inability to wead music, I would love to be able to do it. But, for the most part, we are not discussing 25 minute pieces with multiple parts but simple little 32 bar tunes so I am not sure your retort is valid.
Every time this topic comes up on here, or in most other folk circles, there are constant subtle and not-so-subtle implications that the "the dots" are inherently bad and people who don't play entirely by ear are creatively-challenged zombies lacking real musicality, enslaved to whatever is on the page, terrified of making even the slightest deviation and incapable of playing anything exciting. That's highly presumptuous at best and patronising cobblers otherwise...
I'm doing a bit of research on something related to notation in folk music at the moment. This quote rings true...
“The basic premise for research into microrhythmic phenomena is the belief that we do not play any rhythm exactly as it is, or could be, written in standard notation.” (Kvifte, Tellef, 2007, p.65).
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I, for one, would never disparage the ability to read music. I am somewhat in awe of people who are able to read & play a piece on sight. On the other hand, my wife, who received traditional piano training, is able to sight-read music, but is in awe of (well, a little bit!) my ability to pick up a tune by ear. I've got to believe many skilled, classically trained musicians are able to do both equally well.
The musician I am in most on awe of is young Chris Thile. At the tender age of 31 (mind you, he has been playing the mandolin since the age of 5) he seems to have a endless array of tunes committed to memory. Bluegrass, folk, experimental, jazz, classical - he plays them all & I've never seen him so much as glance at a sheet of music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcuf8c675Uk
I'm guessing it would take me the rest of my life just to learn to play that one piece. :'(
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My main problem occurs when I more or less learn a tune [it will never be better than more or less as an almost newby of 75 ] on one box and then play it on another box, identical in all but key , and it all falls apart on me. Can't work that one out at all..... Brian, West Devon
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My main problem occurs when I more or less learn a tune [it will never be better than more or less as an almost newby of 75 ] on one box and then play it on another box, identical in all but key , and it all falls apart on me. Can't work that one out at all..... Brian, West Devon
You need to learn the tune first by listening to it many times eg from a recording, so that you can sing/hum it or play it in your head. Then you learn how to get your instrument to reproduce it. And both those processes take time and patience and being nice to yourself, irrespective of age.
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I'm doing a bit of research on something related to notation in folk music at the moment. This quote rings true...
“The basic premise for research into microrhythmic phenomena is the belief that we do not play any rhythm exactly as it is, or could be, written in standard notation.” (Kvifte, Tellef, 2007, p.65).
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It certainly rings true to me. But then when I use notation or dots or whatever you want to call it I go for the simple one liners eg in the NOrthumbrian Pipers tune books,( which I highly recommend) and treat the 'notation' as a starting point rather than as something to be aimed at with great precision - probably because I couldn't follow notation with great precision even if wanted to!
george
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“The basic premise for research into microrhythmic phenomena is the belief that we do not play any rhythm exactly as it is, or could be, written in standard notation.” (Kvifte, Tellef, 2007, p.65).
This has been well documented in jazz studies where it's very obvious when you try to notate "swing." The dotted-eight/sixteenth relationship changes considerably as tempo increases in swing, with the notes becoming more even in length as tempo rises.
As for the larger debate, I am of both worlds and don't fit either stereo-type. I use sheet music a lot -- and actually have a love of music theory -- but always fill my ears with the tune while learning. The disparaging of either side -- one is primitive and the other is inauthentic -- is discouraging to me. Really, what benefit do you derive by putting down the way someone else decides they want to relate to music?
Finally, I haven't taken any surveys or anything, but I've known many classical musicians (and jazz musicians!) who are completely fascinated by all music and would not dismiss melodeon as described here (and, let's face it, that Tremolo Americano can be a complete bear for anyone to tune to).
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I have a foot in both worlds too Gary and wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts on the schism. Bob
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I'd love to be able to read music properly - I can just about follow the simple tune in note form IF I ALREADY KNOW THE TUNE Otherwise I'm lost. I do SO admire anyone who can sight read at a glance. Totally silly to get sniffy about ears versus notes. Both are skills, though I have no idea where my ear-learning ability came from and I neither prctice it nor feel 'special' because of it.
I would say though that there is a basis for 'either side' feeling a spasm of irritation at the others' perceived intrangience!
I get frustrated when my 'dotty' pals can't join me in learning a new tune if they don't have the dots, or when they insist that it should be played 'as it is written'. And in turn I infuriate the pants off them by learning a tune the way I think I've heard it - oftenputting a completely different B part in, sometimes of my own making! I know I do , change a phrase around because I think I remember it that way. But we jostle along nicely together, and I owe them a huge debt for bringing to my ears a wealth of sumptuous music I might otherwise never had heard.
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I'd bet any sum of money that a competent sight reader could memorise a 32 bar folk tune and play it well if they wanted to do it and enjoyed it but I doubt the average by ear only session player or Morris man would even know where to begin in a simple small ensemble classical piece.
Nice to know that I'm not average. I can sight read for 'cello, voice, classical guitar, melodeon. I was taught how to do it when I was 7. It's not that difficult to learn to do, it just needs practice (like most things).
I'd recommend everyone tries to learn how to read music (dots, not abc), as it opens up so many more musical options. eg last week I came across a Pipe majors tune book in Holyrood Palace shop, and was able to read and hum the tunes to myself before deciding not to buy it!
From the opposite side, I'd encorage every folk musician who plays from the printed note to try playing by ear. Most (if not all) can when they put their mind to it. Moving away from having to read the notes all the time allows you to open up your playing style. Thats the real issue with always playing from the notes - it can stifle exploration.