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Author Topic: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista  (Read 2859 times)

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Eshed

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A few times in the past months I've used the search function on this board to find out how to do a certain thing on the box or how to fix a bug in my playing.
After two or three such searches it was clear that many questions are met with similar (not to say, identical) answers, so I've tried to extract the essence of these answers and visualise them in the form of a flowchart.
Since its inception, this tool helped me a lot and I share it here so it can help others as well.
 >:E
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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2018, 03:42:36 PM »

Seeing as many on here like to play ITM, is there a similar chart for that, I wonder?
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Theo

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2018, 04:11:27 PM »

I think it’s unfair to imply that players of Irish music consistently play too fast any more than players of other genres.  I’ve been to English sessions where this happens too,  and I’ve been to Irish sessions (in Ireland) where the music flowed with a great laid back pulse. 
I think it’s more to do with the experience of the musicians  than to the type of music.  For players of a fair to middling standard it is all too easy to get carried away and start rushing.
So please let’s not have any allegations, either implied or explicit, that “x” type of music is played badly, whether that be too fast, too slow, too much swing, too straight, etc.
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Winston Smith

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2018, 04:40:59 PM »

That wasn't my intention, Theo, and I'm surprised that you might think that it was.
But, isn't Irish traditional music usually/often quite fast? certainly in my experience it is, and that's not a criticism, it's just an observation.
It seems, from the offence taken at several of my comments recently, that my sense of humour must be as outdated as most of the instruments I own! I promise, that in future, I will try my very best to refrain from making any comments which could possibly be (mis?)construed as being intended to be hurtful or offensive an any way.
I hope that the community of melodeonists who read these pages will forgive me my old fart's intemperate language.
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Nigel

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2018, 05:37:06 PM »

It seems, from the offence taken at several of my comments recently, that my sense of humour must be as outdated as most of the instruments I own! I promise, that in future, I will try my very best to refrain from making any comments which could possibly be (mis?)construed as being intended to be hurtful or offensive an any way.
I hope that the community of melodeonists who read these pages will forgive me my old fart's intemperate language.

Hey Edward, it was recently implied that I'm a snowflake! Jeez. As a younger old fart, you never offend me so keep farting away.   
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boxer

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2018, 07:07:14 PM »

Irish music played in English pubs is sometimes played by people have not yet traveled far on the long journey of learning how to do so.  Hence the tendency to play it too fast.  We all do it, whatever the genre.  Theo's observation is, as usual, right to the point.
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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2018, 11:45:38 PM »

To answer Edwards question in the sense that he meant it: yes, the point of practising slowly is not to make you play slow; it's so you can play fast music (or at any speed) accurately. So the best way to learn to pay fast and well is to practise slowly. When the precision and rhythm are right, you can then practise playing faster, but you don't need to spend nearly so much time on that and if it starts getting ragged, you need to slow down again.
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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2018, 08:03:32 AM »

That wasn't my intention, Theo, and I'm surprised that you might think that it was.
But, isn't Irish traditional music usually/often quite fast? certainly in my experience it is, and that's not a criticism, it's just an observation.
It seems, from the offence taken at several of my comments recently, that my sense of humour must be as outdated as most of the instruments I own! I promise, that in future, I will try my very best to refrain from making any comments which could possibly be (mis?)construed as being intended to be hurtful or offensive an any way.
I hope that the community of melodeonists who read these pages will forgive me my old fart's intemperate language.
heretic..!!..burn..burn..!!.. >:E.. >:E
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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2018, 08:48:25 AM »

It seems, from the offence taken at several of my comments recently, that my sense of humour must be as outdated as most of the instruments I own! I promise, that in future, I will try my very best to refrain from making any comments which could possibly be (mis?)construed as being intended to be hurtful or offensive an any way.
I hope that the community of melodeonists who read these pages will forgive me my old fart's intemperate language.

Hey Edward, it was recently implied that I'm a snowflake! Jeez. As a younger old fart, you never offend me so keep farting away.   

We live in a world in which banter is becoming increasingly likely to be misconstrued as bullying. Shame. Not something peculiar to this site, though.
 ;D
« Last Edit: May 05, 2018, 08:53:07 AM by Tone Dumb Greg »
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george garside

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2018, 09:27:03 AM »

The late Will Atkinson, master of the mouthie and  demon Shand Morino  man in his inimitable way  politely  told somebody off in a session for playing too fast saying something on the lines of - ''every tune has a natural speed  and it would sound a lot better if you played it at its natural speed''

george

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Lester

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2018, 09:36:08 AM »

The late Will Atkinson, master of the mouthie and  demon Shand Morino  man in his inimitable way  politely  told somebody off in a session for playing too fast saying something on the lines of - ''every tune has a natural speed  and it would sound a lot better if you played it at its natural speed''

george

Or possibly, ''every tune has a speed which I like and it would sound a lot better if you played it at my speed'' 

Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2018, 09:46:33 AM »


Or possibly, ''every tune has a speed which I like and it would sound a lot better if you played it at my speed''

Is that the same as "one man's meat"?
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Greg Smith
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Theo

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2018, 10:17:20 AM »

tIndeed.  Last night at a regular session we had some visitors, very good musicians all but from much further south that Tyneside.  They played some Northumbrian rants at a much slower temp than is typical here.  Both tempos sound good when played with a good pulse.  Rant tempos are linked to regional differences in dance style. Here the faster tempo is perfect for dance step where the feet only just leave the ground.  Further south rants are often danced at a slower tempo which allows the dancers to get further off the ground and to make larger foot and leg movements.  All valid but some of us prefer one over the other, but neither is right or wrong.
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Ebor_fiddler

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #13 on: May 19, 2018, 10:52:57 PM »

Some of us just don't have the right sort of ankles to rant properly. I could when I was about twenty, but I got so out of practice that my body simply won't co-operate nowadays, even when given the right instructions!  >:(
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Mutt

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #14 on: May 21, 2018, 02:33:06 AM »

To answer Edwards question in the sense that he meant it: yes, the point of practising slowly is not to make you play slow; it's so you can play fast music (or at any speed) accurately. So the best way to learn to pay fast and well is to practise slowly. When the precision and rhythm are right, you can then practise playing faster, but you don't need to spend nearly so much time on that and if it starts getting ragged, you need to slow down again.

I remember hearing a story, perhaps apocryphal, of a famous Cello teacher telling her already highly proficient students to slow down their practice speeds. "If I walk by your practice room," she is supposed to have said, "and I recognize the piece you are playing, you are playing it too fast."

I remember the story, but I seem incapable of applying the lesson.  :||:
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 02:35:18 AM by Mutt »
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Julian S

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Re: An abridged flowchart guide for the autodidact melodeonista
« Reply #15 on: May 21, 2018, 10:07:53 AM »

From someone who sometimes (maybe often !) plays too fast, the problem is controlling rhythm.
I enjoyed a particularly useful workshop led by Andy Cutting last weekend, focussing on this and learning the three time bourree La Coccinelle. Whilst the tune needs to be played quite fast, it's also very easy to lose the rhythm and emphasis on the b part of the tune, which is certainly tricky. Definitely a work in progress tune for me even though I've being playing it for sometime, and one to use as a practice exercise.

J
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