Melodeon.net Forums

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Welcome to the new melodeon.net forum

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10 11 12 13   Go Down

Author Topic: Performance Skills  (Read 30890 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Thrupenny Bit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6831
  • happily squeezing away in Devon
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #120 on: September 26, 2017, 05:20:41 PM »

I find if I learn something quickly it can go equally quickly, if I take a long time to learn something it will stick.
I noticed this trait when I used to teach sub aqua many moons ago, those that really struggled and got there in the end had embedded their skills, whereas the fast learners were also fast forgetters.
Curious thing memory and the learning process......
Q
Logged
Thrupenny Bit

I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

rees

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4736
  • Windjammer
    • Wesson Accordions
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #121 on: September 26, 2017, 09:24:52 PM »

Last week was spent learning 16 unfamiliar, mostly Welsh and Irish tunes for our new ceilidh band "The Limestone Ploughboys".

Will you remember them for long if you don't play them regularly?

Exactly my friend! The only way forward is to practice the whole set at least twice a week until the next gig.
Logged
Rees Wesson (accordion builder and mechanic)
Gungrog, Welshpool, Wales, UK
www.melodeons.com

Jack Campin

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 764
    • Jack Campin's Home Page
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #122 on: September 27, 2017, 12:45:37 AM »

Quote
I'm also impressed by those who've discussed 'interval thinking', and clearly use it regularly in their playing.  I think in fact that many players, including 'players by ear', are doing it, perhaps even unconsciously. However again, this is a slightly different matter, unless those who use it claim that they are doing it every time they perform.

Pretty near all the time.  I play a lot of different instruments (melodeons not being one - I'm here because I like the repertoire and the culture) and very often learn tunes on different instruments than I will subsequently use to play them on.  For the Middle Eastern music I'm doing a lot now, I often learn it on the alto flute and subsequently play it on the cümbüs - it's easier to play the flute quietly and blend in until I get it right.  For bal folk I use the ocarina a lot because it's very dominant and assertive, but it plays at a fixed dynamic like a bagpipe, which means I usually wouldn't want to pick up an unfamilar tune playing it directly - so I use something else that blends in better, like a recorder or C melody sax.  And like any serious recorder player, I play several different pitches and don't transpose; I'll often learn a tune on one pitch and then use another for performance where it sits higher in the range and rings out better, with every note fingered differently.  For klezmer, I usually know how to play a tune on both a tarogato (B flat pitch) and C melody sax (C pitch) - the fingerings will be shifted one step, there isn't usually that much difference in difficulty but they don't play the same.  For any tune where I have the required technique, it makes bugger-all difference whether I'm playing it on a bass recorder, a tarogato or an oud.

I once heard a talk by Steven Isserlis where he described how he learns new pieces - on the piano.  It's much easier than the cello and he can figure out the cello-specific stuff once he's got the drift.

There are lots of instruments where there variations in fingering system, which, if you think about it the right way, are reasonably intelligible and easy to get used to and double on, but it isn't your fingers that are doing the thinking.  (Renaissance. vs. Baroque vs. German recorder fingering; Asian vs. Italian ocarinas; Boehm vs. several different "simple" clarinet fingerings).  Melodeons are certainly an example of that.

So muscle memory is at best an annoying interference.  I remember tunes intervallically, or maybe vocally might be a better word.

I rather like the approach taken by some traditional Japanese genres - a student is expected to memorize the entire repertoire through vocal instruction before they ever pick up an instrument.
Logged
http://www.campin.me.uk/

I can't figure out how to quit but I will no longer check this group and have deleted all shortcuts to it.

Little Eggy

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 750
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #123 on: September 27, 2017, 08:45:18 PM »

Re something Theo said about actors and lines.....Peter Barkworth was asked how long he spent learning a part. He said it's more a question of how long you spend "having learned" the part.  How true.
Logged

george garside

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5401
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #124 on: September 27, 2017, 11:42:25 PM »

I am not convinced by the so called 'muscle memory' as the only organ with a memory is the brain  which twirls around so to speak  before sending the , hopefully, correct signals to the digits or whatever.

as music can only go higher or lower the brain in conscious or  autopilot mode  has only to remember/decide how much higher or lower the next note is in relation to the one being played and so on throughout a tune  (and for more complex playing which other fingers can prod other notes to form chords or bits of chords)

So, to me,  the most important way of enabling this is to become as fluent as possible in the scales you are likely to use  - yes including on the  rowing! - so that when the brain effectively says eg a midge or two higher or much higher  it effectively sends instructions  as to how to move the appropriate finger into the required position without any conscious thought  being required.

practicing scales effectively programmes the brain (not muscle memory) into being able to plonk a finger where it is next needed in  a tune that you are playing either from memory or a sheet of paper!

george

       
Logged
author of DG tutor book "DG Melodeon a Crash Course for Beginners".

Tone Dumb Greg

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4929
    • Dartmoor Border Morris
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #125 on: September 28, 2017, 12:36:27 AM »

other notes to form chords or bits of chords)

...practicing scales effectively programmes the brain (not muscle memory) into being able to plonk a finger where it is next needed in  a tune that you are playing either from memory or a sheet of paper!

george
     

There are some excellent and well respected musicians who argue that playing scales only teaches you to play scales, not make music. I am not saying that I believe that (I don't have experience of whether it is true or not), just that I have seen it stated. In particular, on the Session site. It's a topic that often comes up and leads to a succession of predictable posts.
Logged
Greg Smith
DG/GC Pokerwork, DG 2.4 Saltarelle, pre-war CF Hohner, Hohner 1040 Vienna style, old  BbEb Hohner that needs a lot of work.

ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin. Ambrose Bierce

Stiamh

  • Old grey C#/D pest
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3538
    • Packie Manus Byrne
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #126 on: September 28, 2017, 01:18:12 AM »

One of the main benefits of playing scales must surely be to help you hardwire a map of the keyboard into your brain. On a 4th-apart box, wouldn't you want to explore at all the ways in which runs of notes (including complete and partial scales) can be executed?

On a semitone box, you have more scales and fewer options, but I think scales are invaluable for learning the keyboard and knowing which buttons are used in which direction in which keys. Equally valuable, if not more valuable, IMO are arpeggios, since they form the building blocks of tunes to a greater extent than scales, really.

Not everyone who posts on thesession.org is an excellent or well respected musician. One of the most vocal of the anti-scale brigade was, though (he is now banished for life). But he is a fiddler, not a box player. Having played fiddle and whistle to a good standard and box to a medium one I would say that scales and arpeggios are far more relevant to box squeezers than to players of those other instruments.

Jack Campin

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 764
    • Jack Campin's Home Page
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #127 on: September 28, 2017, 01:27:18 AM »

TheSession is mostly about Irish music, and Irish music is overwhelmingly made up of scales.  Play tunes at all and you'll be practicing scales willy-nilly.

An extension of arpeggio practice is "all-interval" practice patterns: rising and falling scales in semitones, tones, minor thirds... It would take a bit of thought to adapt that a diatonic instrument but it might be worth doing.
Logged
http://www.campin.me.uk/

I can't figure out how to quit but I will no longer check this group and have deleted all shortcuts to it.

Tone Dumb Greg

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4929
    • Dartmoor Border Morris
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #128 on: September 28, 2017, 01:57:23 AM »


...Not everyone who posts on thesession.org is an excellent or well respected musician...

True. But the people I am thinking of are.

I don't know who you referring to but I think, maybe, I can guess.
Logged
Greg Smith
DG/GC Pokerwork, DG 2.4 Saltarelle, pre-war CF Hohner, Hohner 1040 Vienna style, old  BbEb Hohner that needs a lot of work.

ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin. Ambrose Bierce

george garside

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5401
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #129 on: September 28, 2017, 09:13:35 AM »

practicing scales is also an excellent way of developing  a good level of the manual dexterity required to play the box, rather like a sports person doing exercises that are not necessarily directly related to their sport but which nevertheless  tune up their bits!

george
Logged
author of DG tutor book "DG Melodeon a Crash Course for Beginners".

Chris Brimley

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2019
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #130 on: September 28, 2017, 10:11:19 AM »

george, I'm indebted to you! - your last two points have made me think a great deal about this whole thing.

Do I agree with you?  I'm not actually sure!  I think that for some players, it is certainly true what you say, that effectively the brain can allow them to play in intervals automatically, through scales, and you may be one such player.

For my playing, I think the answer is that thinking in intervals (consciously or unconsciously) is certainly there as part of the learning process, and yes, I can just about play many tunes like that, particularly the simpler tunes that involve 3 or 4 accompanying chords in one of the home keys.  However, for performance of a piece, that process for me has been parked in a different part of the brain, in favour of patterns of positions, fingers, bellows directions etc, which (I think quite rightly) has been called 'muscle memory'.  Moreover, this is a good thing, because that's what enables the player to extract the maximum effect from the musical capabilities of the box and his/her playing skills - where the conscious mind is controlling the overall effect of the piece, leaving the subconscious to get the mechanics right.

However, there is something which I think your theory cannot alone cover, and that is the fact that on almost all boxes, certainly the bigger ones, there are several ways of playing the same note, and therefore the brain needs to know which to pick.  A few years ago, my playing went through a period where I often had this trouble, and I would end up playing a piece 'the wrong way round', and getting lost.  I posted a thread about using 'mnemonics' on scores to try to overcome the issue, and several contributors had obviously developed similar ideas in their playing.  I still use this notation, but as a rehearsal aid and pre-playing reminder mainly - the solution for me has been to concentrate more on developing muscle-memory to a stage where I don't need the score in front of me any more, when performing.  Another useful technique I found was to remember patterns of fingering and bellows directions that most easily cover particular runs of notes and accompanying chords.

I've learned a piece recently on my DGAcc box which I can use to illustrate this - it's called Green Loch, by PA player Gary Coupland, in Dm.  Playing a simple Dm arpeggio, 1,3,5 (D,F,A) can be done in several different ways on my box - though I have the F on pull only. However the accompanying (thirdless) chords for the tune, Dm (both ways), F (pull), Bb (push), C (both ways), Am (both ways), and G maj and min (push), dictate bellows directions and therefore fingerings.  Therefore learning to play it requires a lot of pre-rehearsal.   If I for example were to just think of playing that three note arpeggio against a Dm LH chord , I have 3 ways of playing the D, one way of playing the F, and 2 ways of playing the A - i.e. there's 6 different ways of doing those 3 notes.  Which one to select would depend on ease of fingering, feel of bellows direction changes and bellows position.  The brain just can't work all that out at once while playing the piece, it's too complex, so you either need the mnemonic, or simply, to learn the muscle memory.   I tried learning the mnemonics at one stage, to see if that would work.  Anyway the point is that with advancing years I have learnt that if I get to the stage in rehearsal of knowing how I want to play it, it's much quicker and more reliable if I then discard the score, and concentrate rehearsal on playing it from muscle memory.  It's also incidentally a smoother and hopefully more 'musical' performance that way.

Logged

Winston Smith

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3769
  • AKA Edward Jennings
    • "Our Luxor B&B" Luxor life, slice by slice.
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #131 on: September 28, 2017, 10:30:24 AM »

If nothing else, this thread is utterly fascinating! From it, I've learned that "Bears of little brain", like me, are truly blessed to have 1-row instruments where we really cannot go very far wrong.

To paraphrase a certain gentleman, "Blessed are the 1-row (by ear) players, for they shall receive satisfaction!"
Logged
At last, broken and resigned to accept conformity.
Oh, how I LOVE Big Brother!

george garside

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5401
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #132 on: September 28, 2017, 10:41:07 AM »

for what its worth on the 3 row BCC# box ( on which all the accidentals are duplicated)  I practice scales  using all variations of fingering and bellowing.  This greatly facilitates  autopilot selecting the most appropriate button to facilitate bellows control, and/or, fingering.

george
Logged
author of DG tutor book "DG Melodeon a Crash Course for Beginners".

Chris Brimley

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2019
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #133 on: September 28, 2017, 10:58:28 AM »

Indeed, this may well be one of the particular long-term advantages of the BCC# concept, that you do have that near complete flexibility.  But, 'all variations'?  Even if you only have each note in and out with no repeats, that still means 256 different fingerings!  As EJ says, he's got just 1, and only 1 key to learn it for!  ;)
Logged

Boxhead

  • Good talker
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 53
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #134 on: September 28, 2017, 01:15:57 PM »

For me there are just a couple of tunes I need to play that don't seem to work so easily on b/c box. I draw arrows  (to indicate push/pull) on the printed score to help me learn passages with tricky bellows changes or that contain the 'magic notes' played in different directions within the same phrase. It really does help me get it right, and it is good to have when I come back to the tune after I haven't played it for a while and it has 'gone cold'
Logged

george garside

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5401
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #135 on: September 28, 2017, 02:31:05 PM »

Indeed, this may well be one of the particular long-term advantages of the BCC# concept, that you do have that near complete flexibility.  But, 'all variations'?  Even if you only have each note in and out with no repeats, that still means 256 different fingerings!  As EJ says, he's got just 1, and only 1 key to learn it for!  ;)

in practice its nothing like that complicated!

george ;)



 
Logged
author of DG tutor book "DG Melodeon a Crash Course for Beginners".

Gary P Chapin

  • L'Accordéonaire
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1930
  • We are all the Free Reed Liberation Orchestra
    • l'Accordéonaire
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #136 on: September 29, 2017, 12:01:14 AM »

I find that interval thinking has allowed me to play from music written in any key. I used to transcribe music into the few keys that were natural for me (C and G), but now, in mainly diatonic music of course, I can find the intervals.
Logged
Read the l'Accordéonaire French music blog: http://accordeonaire.com/
The Bal Folk Tune Book Project: https://accordeonaire.com/bal-folk-tune-book-project/
The Free Reed Liberation Orchestra: https://accordeonaire.com/the-free-reed-liberation-orchestra/

Chris Brimley

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2019
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #137 on: September 29, 2017, 09:53:36 AM »

I am impressed by you guys who have developed these skills on the box, because of course you can't immediately see or physically feel the intervals.  It's a whole lot easier on an isomorphic instrument such as a guitar, bass, Atzarin accordion (and probably keyboard, I guess?), where 'position' playing becomes second nature, as rock lead guitarists do it all the time.

However, the question I would ask is whether you're actually performing pieces in this way?

A similar question might be whether someone who learns a tune from dots, as I generally do, and then commits it to muscle memory through rehearsal, still remembers what notes they are playing.  I confess I usually don't bother to remember any more when I'm playing, it's just a succession of expected sounds.  I sometimes feel a bit guilty about that!
Logged

Steve_freereeder

  • Content Manager
  • Hero Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7511
  • MAD is inevitable. Keep Calm and Carry On
    • Lizzie Dripping
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #138 on: September 29, 2017, 10:03:50 AM »

... I confess I usually don't bother to remember any more when I'm playing, it's just a succession of expected sounds.  I sometimes feel a bit guilty about that!
Precisely! That's what playing by ear/from memory is all about. No need to feel guilty about it. The 'expected sounds' demonstrates that you have internalised the music in your head and your inner musician (see earlier in this thread) has come to the fore and is playing the music for you.
Logged
Steve
Sheffield, UK.
www.lizziedripping.org.uk

Bob Ellis

  • Hero?....Where's my medal, then?
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2878
  • Ain't I cute?
Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #139 on: September 29, 2017, 10:13:50 AM »

Learning to recognise intervals and practising them to keep the recognition current is central to how I learn tunes by ear. I also find that memorising tunes so that I can sing them helps with performance. I sing through the tune in my head while I am playing it, but the singing is just slightly in advance of the playing to remind me what note comes next and interval recognition helps me to find that note.

Somebody wrote that they thought that playing scales was of little value because all it teaches you is how to play scales. However, that depends on the purpose for which you are playing scales. I use scales to train my ear to recognise intervals. I play the scales very slowly and play a pedal note (i.e. the tonic) in between each note of the scale whilst saying to myself 'fifth', 'third', 'sixth' or whatever the interval is. Another technique I use to recognise intervals is to use tunes I know well as aides memoires for how certain intervals sound. The best tune I have come across for this is Harvest Home, which contains every interval in the diatonic scale except a full octave.
Logged
Bob in beautiful Wensleydale, Les Panards Dansants, Crook Morris and the Loose Knit Band.
Clément Guais 3-row D/G/acc.; Castagnari 1914 D/G; Karntnerland Steirische 3-row G/C/F; Ellis Pariselle 2.6-row D/G/acc.; Gabbanelli Compact 2-row D/G with lots of bling, pre-war Hohner Bb/F; Acadian one-row in D.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10 11 12 13   Go Up
 


Melodeon.net - (c) Theo Gibb; Clive Williams 2010. The access and use of this website and forum featuring these terms and conditions constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions.
SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal