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   Go Down

Author Topic: Building and maintaining repertoire  (Read 5109 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Thrupenny Bit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6831
  • happily squeezing away in Devon
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #20 on: October 12, 2019, 09:45:01 PM »

I use Tunebook sd on my iPad so I would think it'd work on an iphone.
Q
Logged
Thrupenny Bit

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

Thrupenny Bit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6831
  • happily squeezing away in Devon
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #21 on: October 12, 2019, 09:51:42 PM »

Just to add:
I prefer to make a file of tunes using abcexplorer on my pc.
abcexplorer is another free app. I just find using a proper keyboard etc just easier to work with, creating a file of tunes I want.
A repertoire, set of Morris tunes, band set list, whatever you want. It is just a list of tunes
I then copy the file into Dropbox and pick it up on my phone or ipad, then transfer it to the app.
Once there, it's there on your device!
Q
Logged
Thrupenny Bit

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

Lester

  • MADman
  • Mods and volunteers
  • Hero Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9109
  • Hohners'R'me
    • Lester's Melodeon Emporium and Tune-a-Rama
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #22 on: October 12, 2019, 10:04:05 PM »

TradMusician is the goto app for Android phones or tablets

Hi Lester. Do you know if there is anything similar for iPhone?


TuneBook

Thrupenny Bit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6831
  • happily squeezing away in Devon
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #23 on: October 14, 2019, 02:23:45 PM »

Returning to the topic:
Today I've just had a tune set 'returning' to my fingers after probably a couple of years. I remember they were complicated and I never wholly got them off pat, always slightly just beyond reach.
I started to try and remember them but rather than re-learn it wrongly from memory, I've dug out the pdf of my tunes .

Two thoughts :-
Some parts that I used to speed up to blast through hoping I'd get through can now be taken slower and more precisely.
No more speeding up in a built up area!

They don't seem as intimidating as I remember.
The tunes won't have changed, I assume my playing has improved. They need another good look at them methinks.

All part of building and maintaining the repertoire!
Q
off for another go at them....

Logged
Thrupenny Bit

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

boxer

  • Respected Sage
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 380
  • B/C Pokerwork - ultimate ceili box
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #24 on: October 14, 2019, 05:11:24 PM »

I often find that a difficult tune that I half-learned months or years ago suddenly becomes easy (or easier) to play fluently and completely after a decent period of neglect.  I can't imagine why this should be.
Logged
Nuage, Tommy, Cairdin, 
Double Ray DLX 21x12, Black Dot,
Pre-Erica, Pokerwork
plus various stringed things

Thrupenny Bit

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6831
  • happily squeezing away in Devon
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #25 on: October 14, 2019, 05:19:42 PM »

I agree boxer.
I think it is a combination of improving your playing in the time between, and also something that has much been mentioned here.
You do somehow digest tunes even though you are not necessarily playing them.
Something in the brain somehow consolidates them. Learning something is a marvellous mystery!
Q
Logged
Thrupenny Bit

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

Anahata

  • This mind intentionally left blank
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6359
  • Oakwood D/G, C/F Club, 1-rows in C,D,G
    • Treewind Music
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #26 on: October 15, 2019, 08:37:54 AM »

Agreed. I think it's an extension of the principle whereby you practise something for an hour and it doesn't get any better, then the magic happens overnight.

Also practising tune B makes tune A get better...
Logged
I'm a melodeon player. What's your excuse?
Music recording and web hosting: www.treewind.co.uk
Mary Humphreys and Anahata: www.maryanahata.co.uk
Ceilidh band: www.barleycoteband.co.uk

The Oul' Boy

  • Respected Sage
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 380
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #27 on: October 15, 2019, 05:52:54 PM »

Can I just say, the conversations on here are so interesting and informative, thank you! (From someone still in their first year of learning with a small - but growing - repertoire!)
Logged
Warren M (Edinburgh, formerly Tyneside and Tyrone)
Hohner Pokerwork D/G

boxer

  • Respected Sage
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 380
  • B/C Pokerwork - ultimate ceili box
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #28 on: October 15, 2019, 06:38:51 PM »

the B parts of many of the Irish reels I play - particularly those in A mi, the B parts are often broadly similar from one tune to another, and fairly simple, but different enough to make them hard to assign to the right A part once I'm away from home.  I've often seen sessions grind to a halt when somebody accidentally sticks, for example, a Sligo Maid B on the end of, say, a Knotted cord A.

I think that the problem with B parts is that they don't get played as many times during the learning process.  Learning by repetition as I do, and beginning by learning the A part, the A has already been played a few hundred times before I even get to learning the B part.  By the time the B part's three quarters learned, I'm getting sick to death of the tune.  By now I've now played the A part more than twice as many times as the B part.    I mark it all down as learned and move on to fresh pastures.  When I try to play the new tune at a session, the first sixteen bars go fine, and then it falls at the first or second B.

Maybe I should learn B parts first. 
Logged
Nuage, Tommy, Cairdin, 
Double Ray DLX 21x12, Black Dot,
Pre-Erica, Pokerwork
plus various stringed things

Anahata

  • This mind intentionally left blank
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6359
  • Oakwood D/G, C/F Club, 1-rows in C,D,G
    • Treewind Music
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #29 on: October 15, 2019, 10:47:04 PM »

Maybe I should learn B parts first.

Some singers learn songs backwards - last verse first - for the same reason.

Also practising tune B makes tune A get better...

Just realised you might have misunderstood me there - I wasan't talking about A and B parts of the same tune, I meant practising one tune can improve your playing of another tune.
Logged
I'm a melodeon player. What's your excuse?
Music recording and web hosting: www.treewind.co.uk
Mary Humphreys and Anahata: www.maryanahata.co.uk
Ceilidh band: www.barleycoteband.co.uk

boxer

  • Respected Sage
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 380
  • B/C Pokerwork - ultimate ceili box
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #30 on: October 16, 2019, 07:01:43 PM »

I'm sure your original idea was correct
Logged
Nuage, Tommy, Cairdin, 
Double Ray DLX 21x12, Black Dot,
Pre-Erica, Pokerwork
plus various stringed things

Little Eggy

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 750
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #31 on: October 16, 2019, 07:25:14 PM »


What kind of practice regimen do you use to build up and maintain a repertoire that you can play off the cuff without fumbling to remember how it starts, etc.? Do you alternate practice sessions for learning new tunes and refreshing old ones, or do you split up each practice with a bit of each? Do you keep a written list of tunes you consider part of your "current repertoire"?
[/quote]


In the two or three days before a club meeting or session I normally 'rehearse' exactly what I plan to do several times at the start of my time practising.  In the days/ weeks in between I tend to do three distinct things (1) Quick run though a list of about 50 tunes I know (2) Detailed work on one or two tunes I know but which I'm working on - maybe trying variants, or getting them much sharper, or going back to the dots in my books (Mally; Rennie, Nick Barber etc) (3) Learning something new and challenging.

Logged

george garside

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5401
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #32 on: October 16, 2019, 08:43:04 PM »

If one must put tunes into catagories  , of which there can be a great many,  my very rough and ready divisions are something on the lines of

- when I had a ceilidh band we had a weekly practice session on the tunes  that we intented to use for the next ceildh. This was also an exellent excuse to to nip to the pub down the road at about 9pm 

-  If intending to  or hoping to start a tune or two at a forthcoming session  give said tunes a whirl or two prior to the session.

-  If .for whatever reason. I am learning a new to me tune  that I want to add to my repertoire   this calls for some serious practice not only of the  basic tune but more importantly sorting  out things like phrasing, dynamics and rhythm  and also deciding  which version of the tune I am going to play  as many tunes can be  legitimately played  in different ways. So give it a purpose  eg a haunting slow air, a waltz (fast or slow) a march, jig, reel, hornpipe, etce tc etc. Not giving the tune a 'purpose' can result in it sounding like a dogs dinner!

-   'old tunes'  that I havn't played for along time but which suddenly and for no apparent reason   come down my arm  much of  the 'new to me' process will take place but hopefully somewhat abbreviated.

-  general session tunes of the sort that you have no idea what is going to be played at a session  join in as best I can (quietly )  and perhaps  have aa few goes at at home.

-  if a new to me tune is proving to be really difficult to get the hang of put it back on the mental shelf  for a week or month or whatever so that the brain can fart about with it on auto pilot rather than driving myself round the bend trying to get the hang of it immediately. Its surpising  how much easier ti can be once the brain has mysteriously got the hang of it.

I always  give priority to honing general box playing rather than specific tune playing skills  as the former makes the latter much easier!

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

Jozz

  • Good talker
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 97
  • Greetings from the Netherlands!
    • Stichting Bon Artz
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #33 on: October 23, 2019, 12:29:25 PM »

Interesting thread to follow.

What kind of practice regimen do you use to build up and maintain a repertoire that you can play off the cuff without fumbling to remember how it starts, etc.? Do you alternate practice sessions for learning new tunes and refreshing old ones, or do you split up each practice with a bit of each? Do you keep a written list of tunes you consider part of your "current repertoire"?

I agree with George about prioritizing levelling up your general skills first, and I have a couple of tunes for "loosening up the fingers". These are the only tunes I play before EVERY practice session, and the only tunes that are REALLY embedded.

For the rest I have a tablet with a library. On stage I practice for the gig and ditch the tablet and use a setlist marked with the key of the song and possibly some bridge chords.

I have maybe a couple of dozen tunes/songs that I can play off the cuff, these are from current musical projects. But I know if I don't play them weekly I will forget them in a couple of months. If you do lots of different stuff, you will forget. It's no biggie. I long ago accepted that I needed a tune library to keep up.
Logged
Stichting Bon Artz - We present and support authentic music and small-scale performance arts.

richard.fleming

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 552
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #34 on: October 23, 2019, 12:55:23 PM »



Maybe I should learn B parts first.

Learn the tune as a tune, not as 2 parts.
Logged
Old Paolo Sopranis in C#/D and D/D#

boxer

  • Respected Sage
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 380
  • B/C Pokerwork - ultimate ceili box
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #35 on: October 23, 2019, 05:00:43 PM »

interesting point.  As A and B parts (at least in the tunes I try to play) usually contrast with one another, I tend to see them as related but separate entities rather than as a unified whole.  Perhaps that's why they're called parts.  To be honest, I find that learning one phrase at a time works best for my brain.
Logged
Nuage, Tommy, Cairdin, 
Double Ray DLX 21x12, Black Dot,
Pre-Erica, Pokerwork
plus various stringed things

Winston Smith

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3769
  • AKA Edward Jennings
    • "Our Luxor B&B" Luxor life, slice by slice.
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #36 on: October 23, 2019, 07:06:45 PM »

I have to say that this A and B business seems very strange and unnecessary to me. (Of course, I'll be shot down in a minute or two, I'm sure!) I asked once at our Northern get together, why we played two A's and only 1 B and was told that the music was written that way. When I looked, there they were; repeat lines through the stave. So it wasn't really and 2 A's and 1 B, it was just a piece of music with the first part repeated.
I'm still at a loss as to why we separate music into A's and B's. In over 50 years of singing in a choir, I've never come across this use of the terms before.
Logged
At last, broken and resigned to accept conformity.
Oh, how I LOVE Big Brother!

malcolmbebb

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2609
  • In dampest Dorset, on the soggy south coast.
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #37 on: October 23, 2019, 08:39:45 PM »

AB 2(CB)
OY (A) 5(AB)A
OY (A) 5(A 2B) A

That's why, Winston. Just for starters. You're welcome.
Logged
Dino BPII.
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."

Peadar

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1939
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #38 on: October 23, 2019, 09:07:41 PM »

I have to say that this A and B business seems very strange and unnecessary to me. (Of course, I'll be shot down in a minute or two, I'm sure!) I asked once at our Northern get together, why we played two A's and only 1 B and was told that the music was written that way. When I looked, there they were; repeat lines through the stave. So it wasn't really and 2 A's and 1 B, it was just a piece of music with the first part repeated.
I'm still at a loss as to why we separate music into A's and B's. In over 50 years of singing in a choir, I've never come across this use of the terms before.

It's a very English Ceilidh Dance Band thing. Each part is usually an 8 bar phrase. Coming from the North East of England* you will know that one rant step takes 4 beats  or 1 bar of music and most country dance figures take eight take steps/bars to execute. So a 32 bar reel demands twice through the first eight bars and twice through the second two bars....and then the dance starts again.  The terminology isn't commonly used in Scotland....or at least not to my knowledge.

(* From where I sit the North East means Aberdeen-shire within which Newcastle and Gateshead have been described as the "Clatt and Rhynie ae England" - you have to ken Clatt and Rhynie to appreciate the irony)
Logged
Why should the devil have all the best instruments???

Winston Smith

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3769
  • AKA Edward Jennings
    • "Our Luxor B&B" Luxor life, slice by slice.
Re: Building and maintaining repertoire
« Reply #39 on: October 23, 2019, 09:15:08 PM »

Well, thank you so much Mr Bebb, I like a man with a sense of humour!

And thank you Peader, as well, although I know nowt about dancing nor playing for dance. (Even though I did have a bronze medal for ballroom, which was stolen by some burglars many moons ago.)

I'll just get back to my own little world now.
Logged
At last, broken and resigned to accept conformity.
Oh, how I LOVE Big Brother!
Pages: 1 [2] 3   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