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[Theo]

Pete

Have you tried transposing your notation from DG to GC? Then you can play and think in your home keys. Of course your ears may tell you different, but it could be worth a try.

[Steve_freereeder]

Ok, Steve. Speed the Pough and Hunt the Squirrel fairly quickly fell under the fingers (though of course I'll have to remind myself later how they go), but my head is still screaming that I'm playing in the other key.
(1) I might just try calling out the chords as I play.

(1) Yes, if that works for you, go for it!
Overall, as others have also commented, the key to melodeon playing (4th-apart boxes anyway) is to just play familiar tunes over and over again, using no written music and putting in the basic chords, until the finger patterns become completely ingrained.

As I've previously described elsewhere on this forum in the 'how I started learning the melodeon' thread or similar, the busker whom I met in Llanelli one fateful Saturday morning told me 'It's tunes, see... You've got to learn some tunes, innit.' and lent me a cassette tape with a recording of his own playing, followed by the valedictory shout: '... if you can't play any of them tunes in a month, throw the bugger away'. (He meant the melodeon, not the tape).

[playandteach]

Pete

Have you tried transposing your notation from DG to GC? Then you can play and think in your home keys. Of course your ears may tell you different, but it could be worth a try.

I can do that all day long, just want to broaden my skills - already I can pretty much read in DG, it just switches when I try to play by ear - all the old familiar chords and notes have a laugh - 'We'll never let you leave..."

In case the 'read in DG' sounds like a brag - I can only read (or rather apply my reading) up to my current playing standard.

[Little Eggy]

Interesting thread.   You are all great players - one year into playing all I can say is - I wish I had your problems   

[Chris Brimley]

Whenever I get to that position on the DG box, despite knowing and internalising that it is a C chord, my brain flips back to GC speak, and now I'm imagining the whole piece in a different key. It acts like a pivot between boxes - a Tardis effect, I get in at C but come out at F in a parallel universe.

If it's not to do with perfect pitch, it seems like you're hearing the subdominant chord as if it's modulating to a new key, whereas a dominant perhaps just feels like the opposite to the tonic chord?  Maybe just try and hear the sub-dominant F as a passing phase, rather than something to stick with?

[playandteach]

It's not as brainy as that, it is just like putting a key in your new front door. It is an action you did so many times in the house you lived in for ages, that you expect the hallway to be the old hallway.

[Chris Brimley]

The labels may sound brainy, but they're not, they're just chord sounds to me.  If I play guitar with a capo on in an unfamiliar position, hearing the chord relationships is just as easy for me as it would be with no capo.  If I play guitar accompaniment to a tune I've not heard before, I'm first listening to 'modulations', I suppose.  For a simple '3-chord trick' tune, it's easy to hear these coming.  Then the next step on guitar accompaniment is to play that chord, and embellish it with the bass and rhythms I've learnt to play with that chord.  When I started playing the box many years ago, I just transferred that idea.  I wonder if the root cause of your difficulty may be that you learned to play music with single-line melody instruments, and that therefore pitch (not necessarily perfect pitch) is your natural reference point, rather than chord relationships?

I had an idea that might help - have a go at playing a Roland FR18, playing the same tune/buttons in lots of different keys (using the transpose function).  This may kick the habit of treating sub-dominant chords as a new reference key.  But if not, hey it's good fun, and may make you smile a lot!

[playandteach]

You're misunderstanding my point - which is I'm sure my fault. I don't mean the labels are brainy - I use those labels frequently - I just mean that it has nothing to do with losing my place in the chord sequence - just a weird trick that won't let go. If I play from DG music the notes stay in the right place. If I play from memory - partway through the tune someone throws a gear lever and my mind shifts into the other box key. Like looking hard your girlfriend's face, blink and when you open your eyes again, it's your previous girlfriend's face. And then they sort of blend in and out. Welcome to my world.
Nothing (for me) to do with chord progression as such.

[george garside]

perhaps the easiest way to get into session playing by ear is to (temporarily) forget how to read the dots ,   all learned music theory and anything you have been doing on a GC box,which I appreciate  may not be easy,   

Then just listen to tunes that are being played and try to join in here and there - not necessarily from the beginning or in any particular order.  The normal session system if for a tune to be played through  thrice so on the first play thro' you might just get the first and the last note, second time through  some random  phrases, bars or whatever., third time through more random phrases etc.  Next time you go to the session by repeating the process you may well finish up with the complete tune (assuming its played again as often happens in particular sessions)

Stick initially to  intuitive (often just 4 or 5 buttonsworth) on the row  and later in the privacy of you own home experiment with cross row versions if you wish so to do

That's how many DG box newcomers do it  , often with no prior knowledge of instrument playing  or music theory.

Just a thought

george

[Chris Brimley]

OK, P&T, in that case I'm completely flummoxed - unless you do indeed have a very good subconscious ear for pitch, which is taking over?

[playandteach]

No I don't, sadly. Flummoxed you are - but not alone, I'm sure.

[playandteach]

perhaps the easiest way to get into session playing by ear is to (temporarily) forget how to read the dots ,   all learned music theory and anything you have been doing on a GC box,which I appreciate  may not be easy,   

Then just listen to tunes that are being played and try to join in here and there - not necessarily from the beginning or in any particular order.  The normal session system if for a tune to be played through  thrice so on the first play thro' you might just get the first and the last note, second time through  some random  phrases, bars or whatever., third time through more random phrases etc. 

That's how many DG box newcomers do it  , often with no prior knowledge of instrument playing  or music theory.

george

Much sense here, George, although it's a bit like forgetting that the colour yellow does in fact have a name - how many of us could willingly forget the colour name? Even the word yellow is yellow when you read it.
But I will try, of course. It is also wonderfully encouraging that others pick up so little in their first few hearings. Thanks for the advice and encouragement.
Chris, don't feel bad about not getting it - I'm sure you're a happier man because of it.

[Stiamh]

... I go up for the G in the first bar, my brain says, oh we've been here before - that's a C. At that point with no warning, all the notes and chords flip to the wrong key. I find that G on a DG box switches to C, and D on a DG box switches to G. The exact place this is happening is usually the C chord in DG becomes F. And the low D right hand notes become G (but most of all Em just won't stay Em - wants to be Am all day long).

Is this all taking place in your brain only? I mean, not in your fingers? I guess it must be: when you say "the C chord becomes F" you can't mean that you suddenly start playing the wrong chord, because AFAIK your D/G box doesn't have an F chord.

So you lose the connection between the notes you are actually playing and what you think they are, have I understood correctly? When this happens, do you then stop playing, or freeze, or fall to pieces, or otherwise start messing the tune up, or what?

Whatever happens, obviously it's a problem for you. I think somehow you have to break the connection of dependence between knowing what notes you are playing and making music on the melodeon. You might rephrase your original question as "do you listen when you are playing from memory - or do you have to know what the name of the next note is before you know where to find it?"

You said in a comment on a video that you played from memory and that doing so meant moving out of your comfort zone. I think you should spend a lot more time in that place until it ceases to be uncomfortable. Go cold turkey on using sheet music and learn some new tunes that you have never played, or even listened to, before - by ear. Maybe learn them without touching the basses (an excommunicable offence for quint-box players, I know).

Apologies if this is off on the wrong track, or if it has all been said by other contributors already. 

Edit: looking back, I see that much of it has been said already, by Steve FR in particular. Sorry. I just needed to understand what you were on about and was sort of thinking aloud.

[boxcall]

I'm not sure if this is relevant but when playing at times ( I play mostly one row) I play a tune out of the blue in the wrong key. I start messing about and hear a phase of a tune I know and start playing it then I realize that I'm playing it in a key that I don't even know or normally play it in.
Kinda like looking at your wife really hard then blinking and waking up with a new wife
In this scenario it's not a bad thing.

[squeezy]

It's not as brainy as that

While you may have been right in context ... I think all the useful conversation here is pointing to the fact that all of this is brain-y ... as in to do with the brain and the way our different past experiences have shaped the pathways in our brains to such an extent that even when trying to achieve the same goal (i.e. playing tunes on melodeons!) - we need to approach the topic from vastly different angles.

Andy's post about the book studying how the brain interprets music sounds fascinating and I will definitely be following it up ... however I'm not sure that knowing that rhythm, tunes and pitch are stored in totally different parts of the brain, no matter how true it is, because my brain always puts them back together again when I think about or play music!

The human brain is a fascinating thing.  I think the most important things for us adult-learners to get on top of is accepting and understanding the starting point that your individual brain is at - and finding methods to get where you want to go from that starting point.  Often on here you'll hear people saying "why don't you just do this?  I do it and I'm fine!" ... but it isn't as simple as that.

[malcolmbebb]

Often on here you'll hear people saying "why don't you just do this?  I do it and I'm fine!" ... but it isn't as simple as that.

That applies to so many aspects of human life. If only.

[playandteach]

So you lose the connection between the notes you are actually playing and what you think they are, have I understood correctly? When this happens, do you then stop playing, or freeze, or fall to pieces, or otherwise start messing the tune up, or what?

I can't release my brain from knowing that it is playing notes with a name. I want to become fluent in DG. My mind keeps reverting to GC unless I can trick it by looking at the notes as I play. Perhaps I still need to do more of this in DG.
The by ear thing is fine (and I intend to pursue it to the end) but it isn't going to make me think in DG.
The only time it seems to stop me is in a particular chord sequence - a cycle of fifths - where I can't help but know the next chord in the pattern, say Em to Am, to D, to G (but if my GC brain interrupts, then I don't instinctively reach for the G chord because my brain has started to reinterpret the key).
Lots of good advice.
I guess there are two forces at play, DG / GC bilingual desire, and playing from memory.
There may be no short cuts. I appreciate that after all this time spent on my learning curve, nobody has just said to stop with the threads and come back in a year. Or two.

[george garside]

perhaps thinking 3 notes higher 1 lower 4 higher  2 lower et etc   rather than in terms of the notes of a particular key may help. I do something on those lines when I am slowly and  not fluently reading music. It doesn't matter what key its written in  as provided I am fluent with a particular scale I can play it in that using the higher / lower method  eg written in Bb play it in G F A  or whatever by just playing the ups and downs. I also tend to think of scales in terms of doh re me etc which works for all scales rather than by note names.

george

[Theo]

I think you need another couple of boxes, maybe CF and BbEb when you learn a new tune play it on all four using the same fingering on each.

Said lightly tongue in cheek, but more variety might start blurring the very sharp distinction you are seeing between GC and DG

[squeezy]

That's not entirely stupid advice from Theo.  You want to force your brain to hear the pattern of the tune rather than the absolute notes ... so hearing it in several different melodeons that transition from G/C to D/G would be a good way of acclimatising.