As I live in a remote location and am learning Anglo (and maybe soon English) via cd/dvd tutors, there is often reference to the dreaded "Bad Habits". As well I have looked into camps and seen various instructors like to get beginners before they develop "Bad Habits".

Can the 'concertina.net collective' list and define what I shouldn't be doing in the beginning throes of learning. So I can attempt to not develop BH's.

Thanks

Bad habit #1: spending more time on C-net than practicing.


At least that my worst habit, I think.
I think this is a good idea.

Hi Rusty,

When I started out, I phoned up my brother Tom and asked him what I should do. He told me two things which were invaluable. These both relate to playing the Anglo, harmonic style and will not be much help if you aren’t working on the finger twisting process of learning to play melody and accompaniment at the same time. If you are though, here is what he told me:

• Never learn a tune without learning how to play the chord patterns that go along with it.

• Play the right hand melody notes long and the left hand accompaniment notes short.

To these, I would add a few pieces of advice that work for any instrument.

• Start off very, very, very slow and practice playing evenly, without pause; even if it’s just a measure or two of music played beautifully over and over again.

• Rhythm and pulse trump all other factors.

• Stay relaxed and don’t use any muscles you don’t need. Check yourself in a mirror while playing to see if you are doing anything unnecessary.

I’m still working on all of these issues after 30 years of playing and having a wonderful time. Good Luck

.

had mine for two weeks and i have the tendency to hold it at an angle instead of upright like it's supposed to be, so until i realize it i'm straining my wrists lol.

Hi Rusty,

Great advice from Jody - especially about rhythm and drive being the key.

Don't rely too much on following written music. By all means use it to pick up the bare bones of a tune, but try early on to develop the habit of committing the melody to memory (again as Jody says - short snatches of tune) and as soon as your fingers can find the right buttons to order, play in a dark room from memory and that is when you will be able to make the music really sing. LISTEN TO WHAT YOU ARE PLAYING - Let your ears tell you what is right.

Unless a brilliant sight reader with an intuitive feel for the type of music you are playing, the dots can tend to make delivery rather mechanical. Music on a page is only a suggested route map. How you travel that route and all the interesting diversions short cuts and 'scenic route interludes' along the way, are up to you. In short, express yourself and develop your own unique style.

While tutors are excellent aids in the early stages, do try and experiment with different fingering patterns etc. Remember, such tutors only represent the ideas of what suits that particular author and are not 'golden rules' never to be broken.

Regards

Dave

PS make really good friends with the air button as soon as possible.

Sing a tune, record yourself, listen, go puke, listen again, go..., re-record, listen....
Then try to play what you sing, with breathing, accents. Record yourself alot.
Buy that tape recorder with big buttons. Don't bother with some "portable" device, where butotns are tiny and which you have to "learn" to use. Big and simple is the theme.
Oh yes. I tried to record myself to a Garage Band with clicking metronome - wow! Big improvement!
I mean - Wow!

I agree strongly. It's common to stop playing when you make a mistake practicing, and go back to "fix it." But you should also often practice as if you were performing -- don't stop, keep the pulse as best you can, don't panic, and pick the tune back up in rhythm.

If you're playing in public, someone may start spontaneously dancing to your music, or some folks may tap their feet. If you haven't practiced keeping rhythm through mistakes, you will surely let them down soon, and they will stop. Which for me is a bit heart-breaking. But you can mangle a few notes here and there, and if you keep the rhythm, people will keep moving.

For me, in public playing any instrument I don't know backwards and forwards, it's tempting to flinch and roll my eyes at every mistake, announcing to myself and the world that I know I made a mistake, and I'm better than that really, I guess I'm just a bit nervous, give me another chance, please? It's much more musically rewarding to just keep the pulse, continue on, and let it go with no excuses, unconsciously manifested or otherwise.

I strongly agree. When you record yourself you will be disgusted most of the time. But you will hear all the flaws of your playing, much better than when you listen while playing.
Be critical but give yourself time to improve.

What Jody and Boney say. Definitely.
Enjoy yourself!
Samantha

Don't get into the bad habit of playing a tune exactly the same way, over and over again. Your playing will improve if you work on different approaches to a tune, try different chords, work out alternate fingerings.

My 2 cents, badly devalued by inflation.

Great stuff, thanks everyone.....

You others....keep it coming....Bad Habits...

I do stop when I make a mistake, my playing does sound mechanical, even though I try different approaches.

The Hills of Conamarra, Twinkle Twinkle, and Three Blind Mice are getting tiring...lol, and I do play them in the dark a lot as I'm on this ship all night. It does sound really good on the car deck, nice echo/reverby kinda thingy.

I'm spending a couple of hours a night with favourite tunes/songs turned very low, trying to follow and find the buttons and their relations to one another, big improvement in that dept this week, and playing across the buttons has been a bit easier than I thought it would be.

I'm still in doubt about the way the Rochelle and my hands (relatively large, I'm 6'2") fit. As big a they are the air button is difficult and the pinky seems to not want to play inline with the other fingers, seems twisted somehow trying to keep the right end in line. Awkward best describes it, possibly the weight and size of the beast.

OOps, gotta go, we have an emergency run to do....

I have added blocking to the handles that raise my palms up (5/8") nicely, and makes things much easier.

I've got to the stage of being able to find the right notes for a few tunes, but it was pointed out to me a few days ago (in the nicest possible way) that I didn't have much sense of rhythm. I do have access to a metronome but I thought it would be better to learn to keep time by tapping my foot. I found this a little tricky to begin with but it's improving. It forces me to brush over the mistakes and stops me from slowing down on the twiddly bits. The result isn't always pretty but it probably sounds more like dance music which is what I'm essentially trying to play. Eventually I hope my left hand will be providing the rhythm, but at least this is giving me a better sense of rhythm.

Having started on a Rochelle myself, I'd add that it's a good idea to rest the instrument on one knee whilst playing and keep the bellows well away from your body. I got a bit carried away during a practice session and before I realised it, I'd got some nice white wear marks on the ridges of the bellows where they'd rubbed against my belt!

I don't know if the bellows on more expensive instruments are as easily damaged, but I'm making good and sure that my newly-acquired Crabb doesn't touch any part of me other than my right knee while I'm playing it...

Avoid any attempts to perfect music for which the Concertina is unsuited. If the instrument is uncomfortable with a choice of melody or style of music it will make it's feelings all too obvious and no amount of practice will satisfactorily solve the problem.

One of the hardest (but most important) things to get the hang of when playing any musical instrument is listening to the sound you're actually making rather than the sound you think you're making.

That's why recording yourself is so important! Because when you are playing you do not perceive the music you are making the same way as when you take some distance and just listen.

Rusty,

A big mistake as a beginner is to forget that you are a beginner.

With things like that awkward pinky, you mustn't get discouraged and think that your hands are unsuitable for the concertina. Give it time. It has to learn, build its strength and dexterity. You can't expect everything to work equally well right from the start.

Believe me, at over 60 I'm a real expert at being a beginner. There are some things you think you'll never learn - but, looking back in a couple of years, you'll laugh at your self-skepticism

Rod made a good point about not forcing the instrument to play things it's not suitable for. Between the suitable and the unsuitable pieces, there are pieces that are difficult but rewarding. You might write them off as "unsuitable" as a beginner - but come back to them after a while, and they could turn out to be of the "difficult but rewarding" variety.
Avoid the mistake of thinking that you're going to remain a beginner indefinitely!

Cheers,
John

If you really want to cement a strong sense of rhythm, start going to dances. Contradances is what we'd call them here, but country dances, square dances, playford dances, barn dances would work just as well. You'll hear tunes you've just got to learn, and when you play them you'll imagine yourself dancing and the rhythm will come naturally.

As pull notes are more difficult than push.Practice evening out the push pull notes so that you get an equal sound in both directions.
On a vintage or cheap instrument particularly ,work on short sharp notes this will give you more available air.
Al

Learn to use your airbutton so you are never in danger getting the bellows fully extended or closed. It's better to take small gasps of air when you can, rather than wait until you really need to and then take a huge gulp! Controlling the air button properly will allow you to keep the right amount of air in the bellows at all times.

Sometimes you need to plan ahead - if the next phrase of music is all on the pull, then you may need to use the phrase leading up to it to dump some air, so the bellows will have enough stretch. If it's all on the push, you'll need to take on air beforehand. It's OK to use the air button at the same time as playing the notes (although you may need to increase pressure to maintain volume), so you can control the bellows without breaking up the rhythm.

Amazingly, with practice this will become such second-nature that you hardly have to think about it.

I think this is a great thread. Could it become a sticky, or listed in the FAQ section in some way?
Samantha

keep away from ebay for a few years!

Avoid Chopping!

I'm surprised nobody talked about chopping: using the same finger to go consecutively from one button to another. This seems extremely important to me. This (avoiding the chop) is a huge reason for playing across the rows. What follows is an excerpt from an article I wrote about a few classes I took from Noel Hill twenty years ago - when there was no appeal to non-disclosure. I took what he said as gospel and (hopefully) my memory is clear. I can email or post the article if there is interest. Learning the system from words rather than from seeing fingers can be painful. That's why taking a class is always preferable to just reading about the technique.

Chopping was hard for me to unlearn. I still have to fight the urge to chop. It seems easier to chop and to play within each row than to learn separate fingerings. But when you have fingering choices you aren’t fighting the instrument. Eventually it become second nature to avoid the chop. This is not an especially obvious way of playing were you to pick up the instrument for the first time. The concertina is deceptive. It seems easy because the tone is self-generated. But it is the only instrument I play which continually involves such a wide choice of fingerings. The fiddle can be a bit more complicated but on the flute there is really only one way to play a high G -on the three row C/G concertina there is a choice of at least three.

Well I certainly would not have mentioned "Chopping" as it is something I have never heard of before. For base runs I use my little finger for certain notes and the ring finger for others. If the base notes require my little finger to move over then I do chop.
Al

I agree that on the lower notes, when you have to move your hand out of position, it's hard to avoid chopping without contorting your hand.

Hi Al,
Like you, I had never heard it called 'chopping' nor do I remember really giving it much thought, but it seems to me not to merit that name if you can do it proficiently. Just played a few tunes through and realise that my little fingers both 'chop' for England, especially, the left. Doesn't end there, since just about all my fingers do at some time in one tune or another. OK so alternatives are available, but like yourself, I prefer the fuller chorded sound so accept the fact that I need to 'chop' to achieve the chord sound I want. I don't have any problem with it but can see the advantages of avoiding it in nonchordal melodic playing, indeed I do automatically tend to minimize chopping when playing in this style.

'Horses for courses' as they say

I would suggest that moving the whole hand up the row by one button and back again at the appropriate point would likely cause beginners more problems than chopping ?? This is however a technique more likely to be encountered in English style playing.

Not so much 'bad habits to be avoided' perhaps, but more as useful techniques to master ... but maybe not in week one of playing

Bad Habits ?? Immersing your concertina in Canals they don't like it

Dave

Alan & Dave you can carry on this discussion at the Bradfield Traditional Music Weekend as cocusflute will be coming for the weekend together with Tom Driscoll.I have been receiving anti chopping lessons from cocusflute when I visit Ireland and very good they are to.I think chopping is more of a problem if you are playing Irish music.As I try to play both I need to try to get out of the habit.Not easy at my age!

Looking forward to your weekend Mark - Old habits certainly die hard

Dave

Chops Chips and pees?
Al

Oh, and on topic:
Don't forget to play softly...my biggest problem, I think. When working things out during practicing, it is easy just to honk like mad, and if you always play loud, you have no dynamics....something Jody stresses in his teaching.
I second what Boney said on making faces when playing, at first...it is a tic that will do you no good, so best to nip it in the bud. Play in front of a mirror sometimes. Years back, when I was a bit younger, we played a St Patricks day thing at a local hotel. The neighborhood weekly paper had me on the front page, grimacing like mad. Lesson learned.

Jody mentioned watching yourself in a mirror to see how you hold your body when you play. I would add that paying attention to a sore thumb, a tight elbow, shoulder pain...or anything that might serve as an alert of some unusual, perhaps unnecessary, strain on your personal machinery.

I know fiddlers who will play in a crunched up fashion for hours. I don't know how they can straighten up at the end of the night. I want to poke them and tell them to "stand up straight." Thats why I got a mirror in my practice room. I don't want anyone poking me with the same comment.

Randy

I used to be a world gurning championship contender while playing - though I am told I am little better now...

a new point....
Especially true if you have come to Anglo from Harmonica - Do remember to breathe normally!!
If you find yourself breathing in and out with the bellows direction, break the habit early or, at best, you will never be able to sing with the instrument, and at worst, you will turn blue then grey and then find yourself playing celestial anglo with an angelic harp accompaniment

Dave

PS Perhaps we could arrange a camera and have a concertina gurning event at Bradfield - I bet the Judge would win

'Chopping'. Depends upon the style of music being played. Where the the tempo allows, why not practice it a little ? Need it necessarily become an addiction ? I guess we all do a little bit of it on occasions and when it comes to the computer keyboard I'm a 100 per cent right-handed index finger chopper and unashamed to admit it !

Well, yes, it depends on what you are doing. But in a quick melody line (ie. ITM) don't chop the melody. It takes a split second to move your finger, and depending on how fast you are playing, that could be a note or even two. For chords sometimes you have no choice but to move a finger from one button to the next, but don't do it on the melody. This is generally true for piano as well.

I seem to be on the right track so far. Went into town yesterday (it's a big deal, two ferries, spend all our money, and now won't return until fall) and got a metronome.

I was "chopping" but have since worked out duplicate buttons that help alleviate the problem eg. A2-L10o vs A2-L4i, which helped a lot with the flow. I've done the mirror thing before, for woodturning demos, amazing how grimaced one becomes when shoving a steel bar into a 24", 70lb. block of maple spinning around at speed a foot in front of your face. Had to look cool, otherwise the audience heads for the bomb shelters.

Her Majesty took me off to a children's fiddle concert last night (arranged by her fiddle teacher), the kids were amazing! First they had to get up and solo, and the latter half of the evening was spent with parents and guests joining in dancing to their 12 dance program tunes. It was very entertaining, as there were drummers, guitarists, and a fellow on a tub base. So the children got the full experience. I just came away from it all, seeing all those eager young faces, in awe of the legacy that teacher is creating. Yes, she wants to know when I'll be ready....oh brother.....

Great thread. I’m enjoying reading what folks think is important knowledge for beginners. Here are some further thoughts of mine.

Chopping is good to avoid when you can, though avoiding it is less essential at slower tempos.

The fun thing about the harmonic Anglo puzzle, is that you make up your own arrangement, your own accompaniment part. After composing a number of these for a while you can eventually make them up on the fly. The patterns you learn get used again and again with slight variations from tune to tune.

At any point in the tune there are choices to be made. I’m thinking about the ways to play that are outside of what you consider to be normal. There are only a few choices though and because the number is finite, I’ve tried to learn as many as I can. Some choices allow you to avoid chopping. Others let you choose to harmonize low, or high. Others let you sustain low bass notes under a melodic phrase. Others let you add a nifty ornament or grace note. One choice might not be good for all of these things at once. That’s fine. Every pass through a tune can be different.

Some of the fingering or in/out choices allow for a better rhythmic flow to the melody. That’s always good. Some let you harmonize with the lowest notes on the instrument. That’s good too. Balancing the needs of the left and right hand is the goal. I don’t feel that I have really learned to play a tune until I can fully harmonize it all the way through with the low notes of the instrument playing their part and the melody singing freely.

This was my goal as a beginner and it took many frustrating hours of practice to achieve even partial success with the simplest of tunes. I don’t always perform that way, with full accompaniment, but I want that ability because when I know how a tune is harmonized I have the knowledge to allow me to insert variety, and not just play the same thing over and over.

The ability to play full harmony is my goal, but in performance, a simple, single melody line is great too. I use that texture often when playing with other people. Going the opposite way is great too. A fine choice might be to throw the tune out completely and play something else that works, especially something that uses the harmony but focuses on the rhythm. Anglo can be a great rhythm instrument. Bands often include rhythm instruments that also play melody from time to time. The role of the piano, guitar, horns and even non-melody percussion instruments can be emulated quite successfully on the Anglo and probably the other concertinas as well.

I was already thinking of putting a link into the Concertina FAQ; you're right, this is one of the must inspiring threads in years, since it's covering do's as well as don'ts.

Someone, I think it was David, said something about going to dances. This may be running before you can walk, but if ever you can get to play for dancers that is a most tremendous discipline. Much of this stuff we play is dance music, and watching dancers in front of you responding to the music you play both teaches you how to play for dance and gives a huge buzz - can't recommend it enough.

Chris

Would it be a good idea for those of us going to Bradfield to try to arrange a meeting where we can talk more about chopping,
and different ways of playing a particular tune? Rather than leaving it to chance?
I only play ITM but Jody's comments about chording and harmonies made me aware
that there could be more to this than I thought....

I'd not heard of "chopping" before either, but I agree that it makes sense to avoid it when playing the melody. When playing chords, it's a different matter. My left hand little finger is doing a lot of work playing the bass runs while the other fingers fill in the chords. But there's usually a lot more time in which to move the finger, so it's less of a problem.

When playing chords, you need to be able to move all your fingers at the same time (unless you're deliberately playing arpeggios). By the time I came to the concertina, I'd already learned how to do this on guitar, but when I was learning to play that each chord change was painfully slow as I moved each finger in turn to the next position. Eventually it fell into place and I was able to control all my fingers at once.

Another legacy from guitar, where chords are often written as little "window" diagrams representing the fingering on the fretboard, is a tendency to think of chords as fingering shapes rather than groups of notes. To me, a chord of "C" is represented by finger positions, rather than the notes C,E,G (I had to stop there to work out what the notes are). This is not entirely a good thing, as I'm sure my musicianship would be far better if I understood the musical structure of chords better. However, from a playing point of view, the shapes are interchangeable between my different instruments and it doesn't matter what they're called.

I think what I'm trying to say is that you should learn how chords are constructed so you can build the chords you need from the different notes. But it can also helpful to think of them as patterns as well, especially if you play different instruments in different keys. I can sometimes get muddled if I'm asked for a particular chord on my G/D box as the fingering is different from the C/G, but I can use the same fingering patterns on both instruments knowing that I'll be playing the appropriate chords for that key.

If you play by ear, learn to read notation. If you can't read it well enough to play from, at least be able to get the tune into your head and then play it by ear or memory. You'll then be able to learn more tunes, and will have an aide memoire for the ones you've learned.

If you play from music, learn to play by ear. You'll free yourself from the music stand and piles of music, and won't spend the entire session trying to find the right page, only for the tune to change when you've found it. More importantly, you'll learn to find your way around your instrument without having to think where each note is, and you'll learn how to listen and respond to other musicians. You'll also have the capacity to improvise.

They're both important skills to have. Too many players take sides in the argument. I'm an ear player, but I regret not understanding notation better.

Although we play the one instrument there is a huge difference between the Anglo and the English concertinas. There as is much difference between the two as between the button box and the piano accordion. The size and shape are the same, and the way of holding them, but the fingering is totally different. Much of what anybody says about fingering, or chopping, applies only to the one or the other. I often don't know to which instrument a comment would apply.

The difference between playing English music - suitable for Morris dancing - and ITM is also profound. Most Irish music is purely melodic, with only a passing chord thrown in as if by accident. Occasionally elite players like Tim Collins will play a left-hand accompaniment to he melody but that's rare, I think. Reels go so fast that I cannot imagine chopping at any point in the tune. I will do anything to avoid chopping. I gather that on the English concertina, on a slower piece, or playing English music, this is not so much of a problem.

The first thing a beginner should say is whether he plays Anglo or English (or both) and what kind of music he will be playing.

All of the above bears repetition. I'm a "reader" but want to improve as an "ear" player. I can memorise tunes, and so am not totally dependent on having the dots in front of me.
So ... if you want to develop your ear don't be afraid, at a session, of playing the little bits of melody that you can in a tune that's new to you (it may be just one note to start with) and leaving out the rest. Many folk tunes from many traditions have repeated sections - learn to listen out for them and play your little sequence of notes. Each time it comes round you may be able to add a little more, or just to play with a little more confidence. Perhaps you recognise a little run of notes, or perhaps you can play the first note in each bar - anything like this is useful. Build on this at every opportunity. It sounds as though some of the sessions that Chris Timson has described (with multiple repetitions of a tune) would be ideal for this.
All the best
Samantha

Howard & Samantha,

I very much agree with all the points you have made.
I would very strongly recommend that beginners on the concertina start on the road to becoming proficient at both ear playing and sight reading, from the moment they first pick up a concertina. Both methods have a lot of advantages.

As I said in a previous post, 'Old habits die hard'.
It is so easy to either get dependant on one system or the other and ideally, both should be learned / taught together. Perhaps teachers might take some time to consider whether their own methods do enough to really integrate both elements.

Over the last 30 years, I have put a great deal of effort into trying to relate the 'mysterious tadpoles' and later, abc notation to the notes played, so many times now that I have lost count. Frankly, I have finally given up on it. This will sound crazy, but if I want to know which note I am playing on the box, I need to start at one of the few reference points I know, like where the Gs and Ds are, and 'count up' the notes till I get to the one I require....... after 30 years, I would call that illiterate. It is a total mental block.

I do seriously wonder if there is some real condition such as 'music notation dyslexia'. ........discuss!

After 30 years playing the anglo, I am very much aware that there is something new to learn every time I pick up the box, or get in the company of other players and this is a never ending delight to me. After so many years 'banging my head against a brick wall' I am blissfully content now to settle for this sort of learning and reluctantly accept the limitations of being musically illiterate.

" I learned to read music ... it's easy" I hear folks say ...... So it may be for you!

Maybe the dyslexia idea is just a 'cop out' for lack of discipline & application or laziness & impatience (and the like) on my part, but it certainly does not feel like that to me. Short, perhaps of someone teaching me music under deep hypnosis, I fear I am a lost cause.
I suspect there will be many others out there in the same boat as me, and an equal number of sight readers who have similar problems playing by ear.

I cheat a lot by playing midi/abc/nwc files on the computer (such a handy tool) and can learn the bare bones of a new tune. I am then free to interpret / adapt / modify / arrange as my fancy takes me. I have no doubt that the end result is often musically impure, unconventional or approximate, but the one thing that it will be, is my expression of that piece of music.

I do get most frustrated trying to teach others or explain what I am playing since, in musical terms, I don't really know myself. All I know is what the 'sound and rhythmic structure' is like and, often after quite a bit of self analysis, roughly how I achieve it in practice ..... Such vague descriptions are certainly not the best way to get something across to a beginner.

Being able to read music would solve my problem of remembering how tunes go. It would be bliss to be able to read crib sheets of the first couple or three bars of a tune.

So, if you are just starting out on the concertina, and 30 years on, wish to be free of the same frustrations and limitations that I experience, WORK HARD AT BOTH !

Dave

Oh man, I'm with you Dave. Musical Dyslexia is me. As per some advice to incorporate chords, I went on-line to look up how to construct them. I fell asleep reading the explanation and got hopelessly lost and disinterested with all the BIG words! Finally I went back to Bertram Levy's tutor and got real.

So to try and counter this problem I've been copying tunes from all the tutors I have into Finale's Print Music. Then I run "Play" and I can hear how it's supposed to sound (IF I've put it in correctly). I also add the button designations and am slowly getting to identify the various relationships, note to button to ear.

It being Fathers Day........Happy Fathers Day everyone!.... I have a day to play/practice for 15 minutes, run in here and plunk in more music notation, back to out to practice, and no ones giving me heck for not doing the lawn....yet....

Not in isolation. Dyslexia is a general condition so you would notice deficiencies in other areas; one area might be more pronounced than another but would still remain part of a general trend. A large percentage of dyslexics also suffer to a greater or lesser extent from dyspraxia, commonly referred to as 'clumsy child syndrome' and exhibit a lack of physical coordination and fine motor skills.

Oddly enough many of the pupils at the school I work in (a private school specialising in sever dyslexia) do really well in music so it would seem that tadpoles on washing lines are less of an issue than the written word. That said working 'by ear' and learning chord shapes are much more popular than the dots.

In answer to Rusty's original enquiry I can't really comment on bad habits of anglo playing because I only play English system but I can thoroughly recommend buying a copy of the 3 CD album Anglo International to hear it done properly in a number of styles and disciplines. That will give you something to aspire to - and a great deal of listening pleasure.

I have strong suspicion that those explaining are endeared by their own voices. Practice is the only way.
As for Anglo International - I disagree that it's done "properly". Most of it is very amateurish, mushy and unsophisticated to say the least. Irish stuff is good though, so if you are into Irish only (what a strange concept!), you'll likely find Anglo International very useful. Other than that you are left to your own. And I don't believe in music dislexia the way you put it. Reading the notes is very easy, there are only 7 of them, in two locations on 5 lines. You can read and write, can't you? You even learned to type, a real job 100 years ago.
You just don't do it correctly. May be just start with 3 notes a practice. Write them on stave in various combinations, and play it untill you turn blue. It'll take you 20 minutes. etc.
As for the chords, write down the triads and practice them in each key, that's possible on your instrument.
If you want, I have a list of triads I made for myself. No construction please - it's not a piano.

Yes, it was me, and I meant what I said. I would think playing for dances would be much easier after you had done some dancing. I would go so far as to say that I would be wary of a dance musician who had never tried the dancing.

I guess the lesson here is that different approaches work for different people. I've no doubt Chris's take on this was earnestly learned from experience, as was mine. My own experience, initially, was contradancing (New England) and then playing in a contrtadance band. Then the same sequence with Playford-style dancing. Then (20 years ago) I joined a Morris Dancing team as a musician without ever having tried it and was quickly encouraged to take some Morris dance workshops at Pinewoods, which I did, and I feel it improved my playing considerably even though I do not consider myself a Morris Dancer.

I agree with you David,if you have never danced the music then the chances are that your timing will be out. The "feel" of the music comes with participation,certainly with Morris music playing the dancers are looking for lift,The timing is vital for good dancing,if you have never danced the tunes then you will never achieve what the dancers require of you.
Al
Posting chopped with one finger

Hold on Dave, music exists as music .. it's like language - it's an oral and aural thing. You don't need to be able to read or write music notation to play music anymore than you need to be able to write language in order to be able to talk. The word 'illiteracy' comes across as a putdown whereas in this context, it has no relevance. As far as I can see and hear there are many people out there who are limited and stunted as musicians because they have been taught to play by reading music notation. Instead of the music coming out like speech, they play in a stilted manner, often trying to remember sequences of notes GAB etc. rather than sounds and rhythms. For these, playing and learning by ear is a mystery and one they would dearly love to solve.

Hi Tombilly,

Very much agree with your comments. I used the word 'illiteracy' only because I felt it fairly accurately puts across my meaning. I certainly did not intend it to be any sort of a put down, but I can see your point. Perhaps I should have emphasised that I meant the word to apply, not to musical ability or appreciation as a whole, but rather to the inability to understand the conventional notations and glossary of terms etc. used in reading & writing music.

That there are similar frustration amongst sight readers wishing to play by ear, I have no doubt at all.
The main points I wished to get across were that folks should work hard to master both, before they get too set in their ways and that teachers should try to build both elements into their teaching methods and perhaps encourage and support a bit more ear learning, experimentation and self expression right from the early stages.

I do feel that not being able to sight read probably made some aspects of learning somewhat more difficult for me, particularly in the early stages of learning. It does not bother me much now, but still leaves me with that vague feeling that I am somehow 'missing out' on new opportunities to expand. Playing by ear (or should that read 'flying by the seat of my pants' ?) has completely moulded the way my playing style has developed. How different this might have been, had I been able to read music, I simply have no idea.

Perhaps those who do teach might like to comment on how such 'integration' of sight and ear playing might be achieved in practice?

Regards

Dave