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[Winston Smith]

As a strictly ear/memory player, I obviously agree with all these "by ear" comments. However, some people just cannot play without the music to work from. I know (what I would describe as) excellent musicians who are all at sea when you take away the music in the middle of them playing a tune they've played for years!
It completely mystifies me, I have to admit.

[george garside]

and some of us are equaly' at sea of someone plonks a page of dots in front of us and expects us to play therefrom!

 george

[Winston Smith]

Too true, Mr Garside!

[Howard Jones]

I would say "playing by ear" means being able to play what you hear (whether actual sound or internally).  That is how people in sessions are able to join in with tunes they haven't heard before. I guess some short-term memory may be involved, but it's not the same as learning a tune properly, which for me is primarily about getting the melody itself stuck in my head - remembering how I play it comes later, and I often only consciously think about those phrases which require specific fingering, the rest of the tune sort of takes care of itself.

[george garside]

HOW we paly a tune 'by ear/from memory' depends on who we heard playing it  toget it into our memory. 

[Thrupenny Bit]

I think Howards' point regarding short term memory is important as a starting point in learning the tune.
Also I think sometimes tunes go no further. At a session there are tunes that I never play, but once someone starts it, I join in. It is almost like it is stuck there in short term memory and goes no further.

At the start, yes I agree you will copy the playing of the person playing the tune, but I think it then can change. To my mind, if it's a 'keeper' and one that becomes a tune you regularly play then it will mutate to become yours.
Those little personal nuances  in the way you play phrases will become embedded. You will bring things such as bass runs from other tunes and discover other little ways of playing bits of the tune.
I think a tune that you always play will change as your style changes.
Q

[Steve_freereeder]

I think Howards' point regarding short term memory is important as a starting point in learning the tune.
Also I think sometimes tunes go no further. At a session there are tunes that I never play, but once someone starts it, I join in. It is almost like it is stuck there in short term memory and goes no further.

At the start, yes I agree you will copy the playing of the person playing the tune, but I think it then can change. To my mind, if it's a 'keeper' and one that becomes a tune you regularly play then it will mutate to become yours.
Those little personal nuances  in the way you play phrases will become embedded. You will bring things such as bass runs from other tunes and discover other little ways of playing bits of the tune.
I think a tune that you always play will change as your style changes.
Q

Yes - all that. Spot on, Quinton!

[Howard Jones]

At a session there are tunes that I never play, but once someone starts it, I join in.

My problems begin when I sometimes start a tune in a session before realising

• it is one of those tunes I usually only play when someone else is leading it
• I'm not actually quite sure how it goes
• I usually play it in a different key, and
• on a different instrument

Provided I can overcome (2) then, because I mostly remember melodies rather than fingerings, I can usually busk my way through, at least long enough for others to join in.  However many tunes have at least one distinctive phrase where it's really helpful to have worked out, and remembered, a specific fingering - those can be tricky when you're unprepared, or on the wrong instrument.

[Winston Smith]

"My problems begin when I sometimes start a tune in a session before realising

1. it is one of those tunes I usually only play when someone else is leading it
2. I'm not actually quite sure how it goes
3. I usually play it in a different key, and
4. on a different instrument"

Oooooh Dear! I'm rather pleased, now, that I don't get to any sessions. I've enough problems in just knocking out a tune at home!

[baz parkes]

At a session there are tunes that I never play, but once someone starts it, I join in.

My problems begin when I sometimes start a tune in a session before realising

[

• on a different instrument
  

One of the problems I have most often is trying to play a tune on a two row that I usually play on a one row...it should be exactly the same...but it isn't....

[smiley]

One of the problems I have most often is trying to play a tune on a two row that I usually play on a one row...it should be exactly the same...but it isn't....

One of the problems I have most often is trying to play a tune

[Julian S]

Whilst I can both learn by ear and sight read reasonably well, I have a particular ability to mishear and misread (and therefore mislearn). I suppose I've always justified this on the basis that such is the folk process and I'm just playing my own version ! My fingers do seem to try to simplify the tricky phrases which are often the best bits of the tune - and that's when slowing down recordings and changing keys where necessary, so I can play along is most useful. I shall be trying that today with Leveret's recording of The Rising Sun - which they play slightly differently from the dots that I have found.

Having spent quite a lot of time recently attempting to record my version of  Chris Wood's North Downs Way, I can confirm that I never play a tune quite the same way twice - there are always subtle differences. Of course, the version I started with might not have been the original anyway.
But whether or not I'm playing exactly the right notes, it's the overall result that is important (not that I'm satisfied with progress to date)
 
J

[Thrupenny Bit]

I find a combination of sight reading and listening to be the best way.
Inevitably there will be a phrase or run of notes that I find j cannot hear clearly. Having the dots in front can help me get it right, but as Julian says, only if you have the correct version!
Q

[Steve_freereeder]

Whilst I can both learn by ear and sight read reasonably well, I have a particular ability to mishear and misread (and therefore mislearn). I suppose I've always justified this on the basis that such is the folk process and I'm just playing my own version ! My fingers do seem to try to simplify the tricky phrases which are often the best bits of the tune...

You are not alone in this - I think most of us are prone to 'simplifying' a tune because of a combination of (a) playing what we think we hear, rather than what is actually there, and (b) playing what is easier to fit under the fingers. Yes - it is partly the folk process, but over time and through multiple passings on at sessions, for morris, etc. the tune does tend to get rather degraded from its original - it has all its interesting lumps and bumps smoothed off. I suppose one analogy is like when you make a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy... The original image is still broadly recognisable but the subtleties are lost.

Having spent quite a lot of time recently attempting to record my version of  Chris Wood's North Downs Way, I can confirm that I never play a tune quite the same way twice - there are always subtle differences. Of course, the version I started with might not have been the original anyway.

Again, you are in good company! I think most of us will do this, and generally, why not? It adds interest. However, when I was listening to archive recordings of East Anglian musicians when transcribing their playing for the EATMT tunebook 'Before the Night Was Out', a recurring problem was that so often the individual musicians rarely played the tune the same way through twice. Which version was a transcriber to adopt?? A notable exception was the playing of Oscar Woods, who was very consistent on all his repeats.

I do remember a tutors' conversation about this very topic, one lunchtime in The Angel in Witney. Andy Cutting said something like "I am pleased that people like my tunes and learn to play them, but I do wish they would listen to the original properly first and learn that, before they go making any changes".

[Thrupenny Bit]

Some very good points there Steve, I totally agree.
Julian and I  had a similar discussion with Andy Cutting last year during a coffee break at Halsway.
He made made the point that those 'lumps and bumps' of the tune are often the bits that define the tune. The bits that make it different.
If you gloss over them and simplify them then you've lost the point of the tune!
Essentially work on those bits and try to play them accurately.
Q