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Author Topic: learning "by ear"  (Read 18668 times)

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nfldbox

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learning "by ear"
« on: March 12, 2010, 03:28:11 AM »

So I was at a session last night and heard a piece that became a real ear worm. I have no idea what it was--an Irish reel, that narrows things down a bit. I of course never asked for the name and didn't have a recorder with me.
But I was able to work it out today reasonably easily. My point is that I then wrote out the score. If I didn't know "the dots" I would have lost the piece because there is no way I could get it into my head and fingers that fast.
Now many people are quite dismissive of "the dots," as unnecessary and interrupting the natural flow or something.  I must admit I never use them once I have learned a piece and would never take them to a session but I don't see how this situation could have been addressed without knowing musical notation.
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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2010, 04:06:54 AM »

I wouldn't argue that the dots aren't useful - they are*. And obviously knowing them helped you not lose that new tune. But I think tunes have been very often memorized in similar circumstances without them.

I've heard stories of Irish musicians of an older generation hearing a new tune at a dance or ceili and then "didle-ing it (lilting it) all the way home" when they would pick up get their instrument and work out the tune and learn it that way.

People in earlier generations, who didn't know music, and when there were no recording devices, relied on their memory to a much greater extent and, I would argue, trained it the way we might think of training a muscle.

My old friend Packie Manus Byrne (born 1917, still going strong) described to me how he would memorize the words of a lengthy ballad, for example. The first time he heard it, he would make a kind of mental map of the story and structure, and memorize as many of the words as he could. The second time, he would fill in nearly all the gaps, and a third hearing served to clinch it.

In those days, singers and musicians might be jealous of their repertoire and unwilling to pass pieces on to younger ones, so the latter had to have an active memory to snag them.

* Once you know the musical language. For people who come to, say, Irish trad music having learned an instrument in another style, sheet music is often a barrier to learning properly because they assume that all the information they need is there on the paper, and it's not. That is why I think many people are passionately opposed to the use of the dots. Once you know what the music is supposed to sound like, yes, no problem.

george garside

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #2 on: March 12, 2010, 10:18:02 AM »

I agree that the dots can be useful sometimes to fill in the bit you just can't remember but as Steve rightly says dependence on them can be a serious barrier because the answer to good expressive playing is not provided by the dots.

As far as learning by ear (& playing from memory) I sometimes find that learning a new tune eg from a session , is best left to nature!   I can try to play said tune immeddiately after the session or maybe a coule of days later and not be abale to - then maybe a month later or maybe even a year later I find myself playing it without giving the matter any thought - its as if there is some organic process taking place in the brain that is taking a bit of time to arrange the notes in the right order in the memory bank . Same happens with humming,whistling,etc - sometimes a tune comes from 'nowhere'  trouble is then remembering where or on what cd you heard it & what its called.

A way I have found works when trying to convert avid dot readers to by earers is to get them to play a tune they don't know from the dots once through - then part way through 2nd time remove the dots - they stop dead! carry this process on i.e once through from the dodts & then lift dots once they have started playing (anywhere in tune) & the process of playing by ear starts to form.

This can be done as a diy exercise by just turning away from the dots once you have got going etc.

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strad

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2010, 11:23:56 AM »

I used to learn tunes via the dots, but to get them in my memory turn away from the page and see what hadn't sunk in. Then, due to a location change, I was in a place where there was no dots so had to learn by me lugs. So now I have the best of both worlds.

To get tunes off a recording I use a tape recorder because you can play the same few notes over and over again until you've got them down on paper. Now I find that by the time I have the notes on the page I am threequarters of the way to learning the tune anyway which speeds up the learning process. The trouble is, I have far more tunes I want to learn than I'm ever going to manage. Why is life so short??

There are normally definite patterns in tunes so trying to pick up melody in a session can become a bit easier if you spot that pattern. Look for the question and answer phrases - they help with learning tunes much quicker.

Nigel

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george garside

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2010, 11:44:19 AM »

It also  helps to listen for repeated bars,  its surprising how few bars there are in many traaditional tunes, eg Davy Nick Nack requires only the learning of 6 different bars to play the 16 bar tune.

NOt only are bars repeated a great deal but some tunes  there are often  'near repeats'  eg 3 out of 4 notes the same  as those in another bar..  Its easy for non dot readers to just compare the pattern of notes in bars to establish the reapeats.

george
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Anahata

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #5 on: March 12, 2010, 11:47:35 AM »

If I didn't know "the dots" I would have lost the piece

Yes, I'm like that too, though I have (eventually) learned whole tunes by ear by listening to them in as session.

People who don't read music have no trouble in learning by ear and remembering tunes, but I think the cause and effect are the other way round. Learning to read music is hard work, and I don't believe anyone has an innate ability to do it, but I'm sure some do have an inborn gift for picking up and remembering tunes and others (like me) don't. It's the latter group that make the effort to learn to read music because we need that prop in order not to lose the tune forever.

That said, I agree with just about everything that's been posted above. I don't subscribe to the view, held by some, that if you read music you can't play folk music properly, but you have to understand that the dots don't give you everything, and a classically trained musician can't play folk music unless they've also spent time listening to it and really immersing themselves in the culture. You can't play classical music without doing that either...

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #6 on: March 12, 2010, 11:58:48 AM »

It also  helps to listen for repeated bars,  its surprising how few bars there are in many traaditional tunes
One of our favourites like that is a tune called The Royals' Quickstep.
It's a 48 bar polka made entirely out of 5 x 2-bar phrases arranged in the sequence
AXAY
BXBY
CXCY

We actually play it and teach in in workshops with me and and one half of the group playing the A,B, and C, and Mary and the other half doing the X and Y.

You notice how we rely on familiar patterns when you come across music from different cultures. If you play English music, you find French or Welsh tunes have different building blocks and they are harder to play at first because you can't guess where they are going to go next.
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nfldbox

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #7 on: March 12, 2010, 02:21:48 PM »

All true and I grinned at Steve's post as yesterday I was "diddling" like crazy to keep that tune in my head until I could get a chance to play it again. I normally have music on all the time while I am working but I stayed silent for the day so i would not lose the tune.
As to needing to hear, it is very difficult to learn any music without hearing it. Thus Suzuki violin kids listen to cd's for years before they start to read. But most classical musicians, even quite advanced, begin learning a piece with a recording, to get the shape into the ear at the same time as working through the notes on the page. Eventually, of course, each of us plays any piece his/her way, whether Kesh jig or a Brahms concerto, but it starts with the ear.
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Theo

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #8 on: March 12, 2010, 02:39:28 PM »

All true and I grinned at Steve's post as yesterday I was "diddling" like crazy to keep that tune in my head until I could get a chance to play it again.

You could have saved some time by calling a phone with an answering machine (your own perhaps)  and singing the tune down the line!   Or even record it on your mobile phone if it has voice memo ability.
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nfldbox

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #9 on: March 12, 2010, 05:47:28 PM »

I am proud to say I do not have and never have had a mobile phone. I know I cannot say never forever but I have held out so far.
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Stiamh

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #10 on: March 12, 2010, 08:06:00 PM »

I am proud to say I do not have and never have had a mobile phone. I know I cannot say never forever but I have held out so far.

Snap!

Not for you then (or me) the application I read about on thesession.org: hear an unfamiliar tune in a session, record a few bars of it on your iPhone, and the application identifies it for you by searching online ABC tune databases.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tunepal/id356935033?mt=8

All very clever, but the world has gone mad - mad, I tell you!

Québécois

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #11 on: March 12, 2010, 08:24:52 PM »

Confucius said: "Preserve the old, and know the new".
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juker

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #12 on: March 12, 2010, 09:08:26 PM »

Since starting to learn the melodeon I have been surprised by the attitude to musical notation by many 'folk' music people - almost as if there were something innately superior about not reading music. I can't imagine that anyone learns music without having an interest in the music they are learning so the idea that a person reading music somehow can't really know what the music sounds like is surely a no starter. However someone well versed in reading musical notation can imagine what the music sounds like without hearing it - surely a useful skill! My goal is to enjoy and play music and I am happy to use whatever tricks and skills it takes to get there.
If I had DTN's ability to hear and play/interpret music without needing any other tools I would surely use it, though I suspect it is not a common gift  (:)
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forrest

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #13 on: March 12, 2010, 09:48:23 PM »

My goal is to enjoy and play music and I am happy to use whatever tricks and skills it takes to get there.
If I had DTN's ability to hear and play/interpret music without needing any other tools I would surely use it, though I suspect it is not a common gift  (:)

  I for one agree with you. I also think that Derek is endowed with a natural gift. It is also my belief that modern music education does not acknowledge the value of developing these gifts. The emphasis seems to be on sight reading, rather than other cognitive skills. IMO, both are necessary for a balanced musician.
  Also, I have heard it said that our modern western culture, by dint of the technologies of data storage and handling, is allowing us to let our ability for memorization slip away. Former cultures placed great value on memorization, (some still do), particularly where recording even by writing was not always easy or convenient. Here's an interesting clip about a Tibetan woman who memorized and recites the Tibetan epic song/poem King Gesar of Ling    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kfSZuxCDo
   
« Last Edit: March 12, 2010, 09:51:19 PM by j.w.forrest »
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Stiamh

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2010, 04:05:11 AM »

I can't imagine that anyone learns music without having an interest in the music they are learning so the idea that a person reading music somehow can't really know what the music sounds like is surely a no starter.

Actually juker it's not just an idea, it's an observation! (Based on my own experience of learning Irish fiddle after a good grounding in violin as a child, and later of teaching it for the past couple of decades.)

I wrote quite a bit of stuff here about this and related subjects a while ago, which might explain more about why I think this way if you have a few minutes to spare.

Completely agree with j.w.f. about memorization.

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2010, 04:33:44 AM »

I wrote quite a bit of stuff here about this and related subjects a while ago, which might explain more about why I think this way if you have a few minutes to spare.

 Thanks for the link, Steve....definitely worth a good read!
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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #16 on: March 13, 2010, 06:21:47 AM »

Very interesting article, I can see you have a lot of knowledge and passion about this. I suspect that there is a good reason why classical musicians read musical notation (anyone who has seen a piece of classical music compared to a folk tune, or tried to play with a large orchestra would understand this) but I still dispute the suggestion that somehow reading music makes one deaf to the subtleties of particular musical styles. Surely it is not an either/or situation - don't classical musicians listen to classical music? Getting stuck in front of the dots can be a problem but I think that musicians generally are aware of this problem. For myself I see reading the dots to learn a tune as just one part of using "all your croutons, spices, flavourings", as it were.
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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #17 on: March 13, 2010, 08:54:37 AM »

but I still dispute the suggestion that somehow reading music makes one deaf to the subtleties of particular musical styles. Surely it is not an either/or situation - don't classical musicians listen to classical music? Getting stuck in front of the dots can be a problem but I think that musicians generally are aware of this problem. For myself I see reading the dots to learn a tune as just one part of using "all your croutons, spices, flavourings", as it were.

Dead right.  I think the problem is that some people do try to learn from notation without listening to the subtleties of style, and the result is not good.  Classical players do have the advantage of sometimes having a conductor who will ensure that the unwritten stylistic stuff is there,  folk musicians on the whole have to do that for themselves.   There is also a good case for arguing that in traditional music there is usually much less of the music in the notation, and much more to add in terms of style. 

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #18 on: March 13, 2010, 09:02:44 AM »

imo. i do a bit of both yet nither. i use the dots to idenifiy the butoon to use but my ear tofind out how to play them.

Chris Ryall

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Re: learning "by ear"
« Reply #19 on: March 13, 2010, 09:06:13 AM »

Interesting developments here. I started in music singing, then adding chords on guitar without any notation whatsoever. When I took up melodeon about 10 years later I learned the tunes 'by ear' . Common enoiugh pathway here in Blighty I think.

France is quite different and nearly all melodeonist have had a tutor and can read music. Doing courses there I've had to sharpen up my rudimantary dot skills quite a lot. I can now name all the notes on my instrument (well, almost in ABC, but not in their parallel SolFa system).

Odd thing is .. give me a new melody as dots and I'll explore it by singing  ???
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