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Ear?

21 (21.4%)

"Dots"

15 (15.3%)

Tablature?

0 (0%)

Both 1 and 2?

42 (42.9%)

Both 1 and 3

5 (5.1%)

All of the above?

10 (10.2%)

Heavenly Muses?

0 (0%)

Other. (Please explain)

5 (5.1%)

Total Members Voted: 97

[Grape Ape]

For me, mostly one with the help of three. I can count dots out loud at an expert level but still can't tell you what note it is nor where it corresponds to the keyboard, which I find kind of embarrassing but it just won't stick.  Tablature for some songs on the other hand, I can sight read.  Some tunes just come to me by ear, I guess, or maybe "heavenly muses," recently Oh Susanna, and Emile Wadteufel's Amour et Printemps (still needs some work).

How 'bout you?

[Lester]

Ear and ABC, can't read music very well but ABC gives me all I need to know.

[Bobtheboat]

Hey. When I'm first learning a tune I tend to find a recording of the tune to get the tempo and phrasing in my head then I work with the dots to get the tune 'into my fingers'. That stage usually takes about a month/6 weeks or more depending on the tune and available practice time.
 Lastly I leave the dots behind and gradually improve the accuracy, musicality and speed until I have it down. Then I move on to the next one and add that to my repertoire practices. 

[Mike-T]

I learn mostly by ear, then use the dots for those niggly little phrases you always seem to twist or turn round.
 All the tunes i learn first on fiddle or mandolin then set them onto  the box .
Mike.

[nigelr]

I need the dots to get me started.  My usual route is to find the ABC, get it into EasyABC to see the score and then learn a bar at a time from there.  I certainly need to get better at throwing the dots away as soon as possible, though 

[Thrupenny Bit]

I tend to combine dots and listening.
The dots tell me precisely which button to press and the listening helps me phrase the dots as it is played.

On my pc I use abcExplorer to enable me to convert a tune into dots and also listen to it to get the phrasing.
I bought an iPad to have something more portable and it's working very well at the moment.
I have The Amazing Slowdowner and Tunebook apps on it. The only two apps I possess.

The Amazing Slowdowner app costs under £8 and it brilliant.
It allows me to use any tune in my iTune library. It slows it down to whatever speed I want; can loop a particular section to help with those tricky bits you want to repeat and also can change key. The recent tunes I've learnt I discovered were being played on a G/C box. I adjusted the pitch 2 semitones and off I went on my D/G.

Tunebook app allows me to use abc's, the iPad rough equivalent of abcExplorer.
I can listen to the tune and look at the dots too. I think it was something silly like £1.50 for the app.

To link things together, I can tweak or add a tune in abc format using abcExplorer on my pc.
Copy the abc file into Dropbox, pick up Dropbox on the iPad and so update Tunebook.
I've also discovered I can use Audacity to copy a Youtube player and get a sound only file. Save it into my iTunes and pick that up in Amazing Slowdowner.
All in all I am starting to use technology to aid my learning. Anything to help get tunes into the head and box!
Q

[squeezy]

I can only really learn a tune by ear ... I started doing that very early on when I was 6 or 7 and messed around on the piano and because of that (and mild dyslexia) I have never taken as much notice of written music as I probably should have.  I know what the dots on the lines mean in terms of notes ... but to actually memorise the tune I need to play or sing the notes to my 'ear' which then learns it the way it would form hearing it being played!  Quite a roundabout way of doing things so I much prefer getting it direct from listening to the tune whenever possible.

Musical notation software such as Sibelius is a godsend for me because it allows me to scan music in to the computer and have it played back to me so I can learn it.

[george garside]

By ear starting with extensive listening to  tune until it becomes humable or whistleable eg listen CD in car  etc.

Then sometimes ( with luck!) straight onto the box SLOWLY

If stuck somewhere resort to "poking and prodding" - the next note can't be that far aaway on a diatonic keyboard

If all else fails and the odd bit of a tune is elusive I resort to a (very) slow reading of the dots for the 'missing' bit of the tune

Once I know and can play a tune I can  then read the dots for it - perhaps a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has escaped!

george

[malcolmbebb]

I sympathise with Grape Ape. I learn primarily from dots, supplemented by hearing the tune. However, my music reading is graphic and relative - I don't think in note names but in positions and relative positions, and I have to stop and think to name the notes. This seems to upset fiddle players.

The general plan is to listen to a few versions and find a few versions of the dots, where possible, and find one I like. Sometimes I generate a composite, using abc. I often look for ornamentation and remove it, sometimes guessing at the base tune (unless I already have a version of the tune in my head). I have spent ages in the past getting around somebody's favourite twiddlies only to discard them when I have a feel for the tune.
Discard the dots as soon as possible and start playing from memory as soon as I can.

Sometimes my fingers wander off on their own and I realise the tune I'm reading and the tune I'm playing ain't the same...

[Mike Hirst]

I have no problem reading and writing music. I often enjoy spending an evening playing through a few pages of Kerrs, Kohler , or some other written collection. However, to say that I have learned any of the melodies would be a falsity. The truth is that by the next morning I probably wont remember half of what I've played.

The learning process has to start with listening. Certain melodies will stand out, perhaps because I have enjoyed the company of the musician I'm listening to, or perhaps because of some quirk or twist in the melody. Other tunes might trigger a memory, emotion or  feeling of well being.

At some point in the future I might find myself humming, singing or whistling the tune, perhaps washing up or walking down the street. At that point if I can pick up an instrument I can usually sit down and play a basic, no frills version of the tune.

Next comes a process of shaping and owning the tune. I'll play the tune over and over, trying different keys and different instruments. I might try adding notes, or taking notes away. I may try playing from written versions. Eventually I will have the familiarty and flexibility to call the tune my own.

[Howard Jones]

By ear.  The only instrument I learned from music was recorder at primary school.  I sort of know what the dots are, but as I've never thought much about which button represents which note I've never mapped the dots to the buttons.  As I play several melodeons and concertinas in different keys but with the same fingering I suspect I'd only get confused if I tried now.

I use ABC to transcribe a tune and play it back, and if the dots are of a tune I already know I can often follow the shape of it, but I'll be using it as an aid to play from memory rather than reading the music.

[Thrupenny Bit]

I can also relate to George and Mike's experience.
I remember on a boxless holiday, crashed out in the sun and a tune caught my ear on my iPod. A real earworm. If I awoke at night cos of a thunderstorm it would return, driving I was humming it. It totally took over. I got home picked up the box and it was pretty much all there.

I suppose in ordinary life we tend to go straight for the box and start to work it out. In many ways letting the brain do the legwork  fast forwards you .....if you are patient enough to leave the box on the floor.
I'm not normally that patient!
Q

[Theo]

There are two different learning processes combined in different proportions in the descriptions above.  Some of it is about learning tunes, but mixed in with that (in different proportions for each of us) is learning the instrument.  That is why it is so hard learning a first instrument, because for many of us that can mean a double learning process - tune and instrument at the same time. No wonder it's hard work!
Over time the way I learn tunes has gone through changes as the proportion of learning the instrument has generally decreased.

[911377brian]

Totally by ear as I have absolutely no musical knowledge. I welcome the dreaded ear worm providing that it's munching away at the tune I'm trying to learn. Having bought Lesters Mignon I felt it incumbent on me to learn his version of Sir Sidney Smiths March. Now that's been an absolute bugger of a tune to get into my head, one of the rare occasions when I've wished I could read the dots.Thrupenny Bit, will Slowdowner work on the music I've stowed away in Favourites on my iPad?

[Nick Collis Bird]

I've always said it from early days "if you can hum it I can play it" once it's in your head its there.
  With the one exception. A little lad on a campsite asked me to play "Football's Coming Home" it's the most banal tune with no structure that I've ever heard. Bring back Delilah I say. At least that's mostly on the pull and frankly fairly difficult. 
 By the way, that little lad's tune I just couldn't play! Every time I started it , waves of nausea just swept over me.

[Mike Hirst]

I'm very pleased to see 'heavenly muses' included in the poll. For me this is an option for songs rather than tunes. The song 'Lakes of Coolfin' came to me while walking over Woodhouse Ridge in Leeds. I opened my mouth and started singing - all the verses where in place and I've not changed a word in nearly 30 years of singing that song.

At other times, usually at the end of a two or three day festival binge, I have opened my mouth and sung completely new songs, many of which have gone on to become cornerstones of a shared repertoire.

I have no idea how this works, I just know that it does.

[Mike Hirst]

I'm very pleased to see 'heavenly muses' included in the poll. For me this is an option for songs rather than tunes. The song 'Lakes of Coolfin' came to me while walking over Woodhouse Ridge in Leeds. I opened my mouth and started singing - all the verses where in place and I've not changed a word in nearly 30 years of singing that song.

At other times, usually at the end of a two or three day festival binge, I have opened my mouth and sung completely new songs, many of which have gone on to become cornerstones of a shared repertoire.

I have no idea how this works, I just know that it does.

On reading back over this post. I noticed that I had no idea how to spell Coolfin. I doubt that I have ever written the name or words to the song.Clearly a case of the oral tradition predating written record.

I think there is something important here, pertinent to the learning process. I'd be interested to know how many others transcribe from their own playing. I often do this when preparing lesson material for pupils. It has to be said that my understanding of the melody is often enhanced through that process. Perhaps forcing me to focus on harmony or decoration.

[Thrupenny Bit]

Brian - I'm unsure about music in favourites on iPad.
All mine are in my iTunes, but there are options as to where to get the tune from and bring it into AS.
There is a free version that only allows 30secs of a tune to be played. I tried this first to see how it worked then chose to update it and buy it as I could see its usefulness.
Why don't you try the free version and if you can't import tunes from where you keep them you can just delete it without loosing a penny.
Good luck
Q

[deltasalmon]

I try to learn tunes anyway I can but I've found that the way that works best for me is using a recording and a tool like audacity to slow it down and sheet music or dots to read along while I'm trying to figure it out. Usually after I'm done making all the notes on the transcription on different notes that are played on that particular recording or where certain ornaments are used, I can get rid of the sheet music but the process of transcribing it helps me learn it faster.

[Sebastian]

By sheet music.

For me that's the most efficient way. If I have to learn a tune by ear I prefer to first write it down to have a representation of the tune which is independent of a specific instrument. Than it can be transposed freely according to the limitations of the instruments.