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Author Topic: Performance Skills  (Read 30882 times)

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george garside

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #160 on: September 30, 2017, 08:44:50 PM »


I
I am planning to have a last ditch try at learning to play by ear, on the fly by going along to Jimmy's slow sessions and not using any dots. See how many tunes I can actually get right.

There are two things that should facilitate  getting the hang of playing 'by ear' which is  shorthand for learning a tune by listening and then playing it from memory.

1.  Start  with tunes that you already have 'stored' in the memory i.e. ones you can sing, hum or whistle. Use slow tunes only as these will sound half decent when played slowly!

2.  When playing/learning a tune from the dots it is natural to start at the beginning and proceed from there.  When playing from memory  it can help ,if you are unable to get the tune started, to play random parts of a tune - little gingles - that are running round in your head from anywhere in the tune.  Then find other bits and build the tune up rather like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

Will leave it there as have no wish to cause thread drift!

george
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Chris Brimley

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #161 on: September 30, 2017, 10:15:45 PM »

Mm, I know the ear/dots learning controversy always causes a lot of discussion - fine by me, though I'm not sure whether it's actually directly related to final performance skills, as I suggested earlier on.  I do agree however that really good sight readers can use it as one technique to prevent falling over.
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AnnC

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #162 on: September 30, 2017, 10:41:43 PM »

.......broad smiles show how much pleasure the musicians get from playing ...


 A vital skill ......  ;D learning how to smile cheerfully while playing .... and keeping smiling and playing when things go pear shaped  :|bl ;D .... audiences are very forgiving, sometimes they don't even notice the mistakes if you smile, look happy and keep going rather than stop.  >: ;D 
 
 
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Gary P Chapin

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #163 on: September 30, 2017, 10:44:52 PM »

.......broad smiles show how much pleasure the musicians get from playing ...


 A vital skill ......  ;D learning how to smile cheerfully while playing .... and keeping smiling and playing when things go pear shaped  :|bl ;D .... audiences are very forgiving, sometimes they don't even notice the mistakes if you smile, look happy and keep going rather than stop.  >: ;D

Yes. The compliment I'm most pleased to get is, "You looked like you were really enjoying yourself up there."
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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #164 on: September 30, 2017, 11:20:06 PM »


I
I am planning to have a last ditch try at learning to play by ear, on the fly by going along to Jimmy's slow sessions and not using any dots. See how many tunes I can actually get right.

There are two things that should facilitate  getting the hang of playing 'by ear' which is  shorthand for learning a tune by listening and then playing it from memory.

george

This might be a different thread and  has been in the past, but what I am talking about is something slightly different. It's joining in with tunes in a session and picking them them up before them up before they finish. I can can work most tunes out, more or less, if I am somewhere where I can take my time. I can't get this knack of hearing it once then joining in and I'm worried I'm to old to learn. My friend Sally (who can do this in her sleep) said just keep trying. It will happen, but I'm not so sure. That was three years ago.
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george garside

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #165 on: September 30, 2017, 11:47:58 PM »

Greg, don't try to hard!.   in a session with a tune you don't know being played the first time though you may get the first and last notes of it but will also have subconsciously absorbed the rhythm etc. Second time through  you may just be able to join in with a bar randomly here and there. Third time through another may chuck in a nother bar or two. 

Next time you hear that tune in a session  you may well be able to join in with more or even most of it because there seems to be an unconscious process that will have been going on between sessions, perhaps aided be  a dabble at it by yourself.  Again  join in with the bits you can and don't worry about the bits you havn't quite got the hang of!

george
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Chris Ryall

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #166 on: October 01, 2017, 01:14:31 PM »

Perhaps my biggest weakness. Philippe Bissiers runs the successful Beaumont en Die summer schools at his farm, well up a mountain in S France Vercors. The place is very «beau» indeed, with excellent cuisine under a massive Linden tree.

http://lapaixdemenage.fr/lapaixdemenage/Stages_dans_la_drome_accordeon_diatonique_clarinette_chant_tambourin_danse_zampogna_impro.html

Philippe's been a fan of my songs for 2years now, and this time insisted on taking photos of me singing at "aperitif time" back in August. OK, it was a blues … but my face looked like I was having a tooth extracted!

"Must do better" 😩
« Last Edit: October 01, 2017, 01:18:33 PM by Chris Ryall »
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busbox

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #167 on: October 01, 2017, 09:39:16 PM »

I have found this discussion very interesting. I do most of my performing when busking and many aspects you all raised rang true to me.
There is no doubt that I aim to get a tune into the 'muscle memory' stage so that I can play while keeping an eye out for likely donors.
I like to change to tunes I think that the very young and the very old might appreciate.
Long ago when playing in a recorder and viol ensemble, I was tied to the music, mainly so that I did not make errors which would spoil the overall performance.
Now, I can't imagine setting up a music stand. I am already cluttered enough with harmonica, whistle, melodeon and jig doll!
I always thank donors even if it means taking an instrument from my mouth, and playing by muscle memory helps there.
It is always interesting to 'discover' that a tune works better and flows more naturally on one instrument rather than another.
Anyway, thank you all for the surprisingly interesting discussion.
Cheerio
Tony, in drought stricken Australia
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Pete Dunk

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #168 on: October 01, 2017, 11:06:35 PM »

A vital skill ......  ;D learning how to smile cheerfully while playing .... and keeping smiling and playing when things go pear shaped  :|bl ;D .... audiences are very forgiving, sometimes they don't even notice the mistakes if you smile, look happy and keep going rather than stop.  >: ;D

A welcome comment from someone on the North Yorkshire Coast, I'm a West Yorkshire Tyke meself but it's lovely to hear from you lass! :D
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Chris Brimley

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #169 on: October 02, 2017, 05:34:50 PM »

Tony, I really appreciated your contribution, it's just the sort of thing I think I was trying to understand, and you are clearly an experienced performer.

 It seems to me that 'muscle-memory', unless you are an amazing sight-reader, is an essential pre-requisite to good performance.

Many on this forum are not really in it for the performance - it's great fun to learn and play tunes with others, and I feel the enjoyment of that too sometimes.

However for those of us who'd like to take it further, I sometimes feel that to concentrate solely on learning to play a given tune precisely, which many of us are probably guilty of, is missing the whole point of performance.  Just like the early box players did, we need interest, fun, dynamics, great rhythm, audience empathy, drive, presence, and so on, in order to do this, and those are the things I'd like to work on at the moment.
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Jack Campin

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #170 on: October 02, 2017, 05:54:42 PM »

 
Quote
It seems to me that 'muscle-memory', unless you are an amazing sight-reader, is an essential pre-requisite to good performance.

It's not a pre-requisite, it's a liability.  It constrains you in a similar way to perfect pitch.  Change key or instrument and you're buggered.

Sight-reading is irrelevant.  Learning by ear, I normally use a different instrument to learn the tune than I'll subsequently use to play it.  What muscles are doing the same thing when I play a B minor scale on an alto flute and an oud?
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george garside

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #171 on: October 02, 2017, 08:05:33 PM »

I agree with both Chris and Jack. 

With Chris is that learning to play a tune 'precisely', whatever that may actualy mean, is not the same as honing a tune to performance standard and  putting your own stamp on it rather than just acting as a machine to reproduce exactly what somebody else plays or has written the dots for.

With Jack re so called muscle memory . If you know (or can sight read) a tune you should be able to play it on whatever  instruments you  have learned to play properly irrespective of lack of operational similarity eg  Dg box, English concertina and whistle or in my case DG box, BC(C#) box , mouthie and continental box. All completely different to handle  so  where does that put muscle memory?

george
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AnnC

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #172 on: October 02, 2017, 08:32:41 PM »

 (:) not being a sight reader, more a learn by ear player I need to have the tune running through my head to get it out at the fingers  :|||:  ( and some tunes go in one ear and out the other without leaving a trace, even if they are popular session tunes  ;D) ..... however what seems to stick in my brain is the shape of the tune, the intervals between the notes, rather than the key I heard it played in so life can get interesting if my starting note for a melody is not the one everyone else is expecting, but it does mean that if someone starts a tune then once I've worked out which note starts a phrase then busking along and picking up the tune can be fairly easy  :|||: ;D
 Knowing when not to join in,when not able to get the tune, and to just sit back, listen and enjoy someone else's playing,rather than make a complete hash of a good tune, is another vital skill that has taken me years to learn  ::)
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 08:46:47 PM by AnnC »
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Mike Carney

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #173 on: October 02, 2017, 09:26:27 PM »

Knowing when not to join in,when not able to get the tune, and to just sit back, listen and enjoy someone else's playing,rather than make a complete hash of a good tune, is another vital skill that has taken me years to learn  ::)
Well said. I know we're getting off the original theme a little but I think this is so important. I can recall one or two of my tunes played out for the first time being put at risk by really poor chord choices from one or two other players who dived instraigt away without listening really. I loved your playing at Whitby in The George.
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Anahata

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #174 on: October 02, 2017, 09:39:47 PM »

I sometimes feel that to concentrate solely on learning to play a given tune precisely, which many of us are probably guilty of, is missing the whole point of performance.

Only because of the word 'solely' in that. There're's nothing wrong per se with precision. I don't see why people should pay to hear a performer who doesn't even know his music or can't play his instrument accurately. It's just like listening a singer who is stumbling and has to read the words - how can someone like that have got sufficiently inside the song or the tune to put on an involving perfomance? I don't mean lapses of memory - I mean never having learnt the ****** thing properly in the first place, frequently seen in folk clubs and singarounds.

Quote
we need interest, fun, dynamics, great rhythm, audience empathy, drive, presence, and so on
Yes, and there's nothing about playing accurately that precludes any of those things. In many ways, knowing the tune inside out (or possibly being a fluent reader) so you don't have to think about it frees you to concentrate on the music instead of how to play the notes, and that's surely a good thing.

Of course, folk music in some areas does make concessions to technique and accuracy if the performer gets sufficiently into the spirit of the thing, certainly more so than classical music does.
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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #175 on: October 02, 2017, 11:23:14 PM »

I sometimes feel that to concentrate solely on learning to play a given tune precisely, which many of us are probably guilty of, is missing the whole point of performance.

Only because of the word 'solely' in that. There're's nothing wrong per se with precision. I don't see why people should pay to hear a performer who doesn't even know his music or can't play his instrument accurately. It's just like listening a singer who is stumbling and has to read the words - how can someone like that have got sufficiently inside the song or the tune to put on an involving perfomance? I don't mean lapses of memory - I mean never having learnt the ****** thing properly in the first place, frequently seen in folk clubs and singarounds.

Quote
we need interest, fun, dynamics, great rhythm, audience empathy, drive, presence, and so on
Yes, and there's nothing about playing accurately that precludes any of those things. In many ways, knowing the tune inside out (or possibly being a fluent reader) so you don't have to think about it frees you to concentrate on the music instead of how to play the notes, and that's surely a good thing.

Of course, folk music in some areas does make concessions to technique and accuracy if the performer gets sufficiently into the spirit of the thing, certainly more so than classical music does.

Very much agree with this. The two things are not mutually exclusive. I would argue that getting a tune to performance standard should first be about actually being able to play the tune fluently, then you can start to deviate from it by adding interest/putting your own stamp on it etc.
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Chris Brimley

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #176 on: October 02, 2017, 11:51:46 PM »

I certainly wasn't trying to suggest concentrating on getting a tune isn't essential, and I don't quite know how I inadvertently gave that impression - just that there other important factors in performing well.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 11:54:57 PM by Chris Brimley »
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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #177 on: October 03, 2017, 12:03:35 AM »

"It's just like listening a singer who is stumbling and has to read the words...............frequently seen in folk clubs and singarounds.
Yes, Anahata has been to our folk club! However, if he'd been on some other weeks, he'd have seen half a dozen regulars forget their words altogether, so much so that they even managed to unnerve the paid guest so much that they too forgot their lines too!
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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #178 on: October 03, 2017, 12:27:29 AM »


... It's just like listening a singer who is stumbling and has to read the words - how can someone like that have got sufficiently inside the song or the tune to put on an involving perfomance? I don't mean lapses of memory ...

Quote

I am always prepared to make an exception for Nic Jones. Not so much lapses of memory. More total absence of it. Sings great when he has the words, though.
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Chris Brimley

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Re: Performance Skills
« Reply #179 on: October 03, 2017, 09:59:24 AM »

Jack, it does seem to me that you perhaps play music in a different way to most others, and it's certainly impressive - but one thing I don't understand about your technique - if you try not to use muscle memory, how do you cope with playing an instrument where there are so many different ways of playing the same notes?
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