Many of you know I play my anglo by ear and most tunes for session playing I follow my usual route for playing tunes,learn the tune and then add chords or accompaniment that I think fits .On the rare occassion I sit down and learn a tune to play duet style with full chords as written.On this occasion I am learning a tune arranged by Iris Bishop and I will post the result for you all to hear.I am really enjoying myself and finding new chords is always a suprise and delight.I learn the tune from the music and add the chords as per the arrangement and work out air ,direction etc.When I can play the whole tune I then try to remember it all without using the music and put it and the new chords to memory.This is not easy but with time and considerable playing of the tune over and over again,it gets rammed into my brain.(and unfortunatly my wife`s).I find at some point in this process I can actually play the tune full chords in my mind.I can practice the tune driving on the motorway or more annoyingly at about three in the morning if I happen to wake up.I also make playing mistakes, which I then correct all in my mind. I cannot be the only person who can do this and I suspect most by ear players can also do a bit of mind playing,but how about the music readers, is this happening to you?
Or am I ready for being carted away,or just a lie down on the couch
Al

It all sounds fairly familiar to me - some of my best practice, particularly piano practice, is done without an instrument in my hands.

Don't you mean "under" your hands?

I'm trying to picture you playing a piano while holding it "in your hands" like a concertina.

Yes, even with a neck-strap it's a bit heavy.

But with proper, ergonomically-correct handles....

How are your foot pedals operated?
Al

Yup, many's the time I've been busted by the wife, asking why I'm just staring off into space, wriggling my fingers.
Medication has been suggested.

I too find myself driving along the highway tapping out tunes on the steering wheel. I actually spent some time forcing myself to play an imaginary concertina. It was a struggle at first, particularly imagining the bellows direction, but well worth the effort.

Dan

Anytime you can get the tune lodged in your brain, it's a big help in playing any instrument. If you really know the tune -- and can audible it (hum or sing) without error -- then you're on the way to being able to play it. You can't really play what you don't know.

This was a big help in learning "Rakes of Mallow." I never spent time with the melody, but for some reason, it got stuck out of the blue, wouldn't come out and when I sat down to play it (on mandolin), it was halfway decent.

ldp

I can (and do) do that for guitar, ukulele, whistle, flute, etc.

I haven't tried it on the English concertina (I mostly read on EC), and I don't play Anglo concertina enough to be able to do something like that.

Very interesting thread .....

Aldon

Al,
I take yoir comments as a lesson. Always learning from you.
In any case I am not so far away to come to the ppoint where you are.
I do not referring to your plñaying skill. There I doubt that ever I can arrive.

Waiting for listening and enjoying your new tune.

If I would not understand that your are in love with music and your concertinas, I would ask you are worried about Alzheimer ?

In any case it should be a good training for your brains and it shuld help to prevent it.
As I always knew, the Concertina is recommendable for many reasons !!

I wait for your tune.

Thank you !
Joachim

Well you all know what is meant by playing "Air Guitar", why not "Air Concertina". It would also give another reason to call it a wind instrument.

Pete

Rest easy Alan, you are not alone

I find myself doing this often on the train, or at other odd moments.

I also find this time of "virtual practice" very useful when I am under stress and need to focus on something else (ie. when I'm at the dentist ).

Although I do find that some tunes tend to "jump" into the fingers and the brain easier than others. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it...

Have a great day
Morgana

Sounds just like me. I swear that I'm wearing button holes into my steering wheel! An yes, the annoying 3 in the morning thing often happens. If you ever figure out how to turn off the nocturnal muic, PLEASE let me know. Last week I played Country Gardens, a Morris tune, 3 nights in a row!

I've always had that problem, at least now I have the concertina to let some of the tunes out of my head during the day.

I don't read music. . . I put it up on the piano and have to say "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" to figure out the notes.

Lisa

Ah, but wasn't the original concept one step further? Not "air" concertina, but "mind" concertina.
Try doing it without wiggling your fingers and flapping your arms.

You flap your arms while playing Jim? Isn't that rather dangerous in high-wind situations?

Oh, no. In high wind situations I hold my arms steady and just soar, letting the wind blow through the reeds. A bit difficult with an anglo, I must admit, because I have to keep flipping over for the "bellows" changes. It's enough to make even an experieinced skydiver lose track of which way is up!

If you were playing an Aeola, presumably that would make it an Aeolian Aeola.

Going back to the original subject, I find mental non-instrument practice best while walking - I wonder if it has anything to do with the body being physically engaged in doing something rhythmic and repetitive of its own allowing the brain the space to do the other. Perhaps.

Nope, it doesn't work for me. I just end up wriggling my fingers at random. It's only when I'm holding the concertina that I know where the notes are.
Could be that changing from one concertina to another all the time means that I never get keyed into the exact positions of the buttons.
I should point out that I only know the names of about 4 buttons anyway. I suppose I just work from aural feedback, though in some sessions you get used to relying on the vibration coming back through the finger-tips.

Robin Madge

I am still interested to know if this only happens for by ear players or is it experianced by music readers?
Al

I can imagine "mind-english" players wagging their head from one side to the other as their fingers swap sides.
I am always in trouble for silent concertina (moving the fingers but not the bellows) playing during the TV news.
I am also regularly told off for reading the paper, listening to the news AND playing silent concertina. How's that for multi-tasking?

There are, of course, many music readers who cannot play without the paper in front of them. I would think such a player would be unable to use the "think system" (as Professor Harold Hill called it in "The Music Man") without looking at the music also.

I'm equally comfortable learning tunes by ear and by reading dots. I sometimes find myself working out arrangements (for my duet concertina) in my head, but not often.

When I feel the need to play an instrument in the car, I reach for my "road whistle." It's a 3-holed tabor pipe that I keep tucked behind the passenger-side seat. It has an octave and a half range and can be played with one hand. It is meant for playing with the left hand while beating a drum with the right, but in the car I play it with the right hand. Oddly enough, I find that if I've learned a tune with one hand I can then play it with the other without any additional practice. I'm sure that relates to Al's original question, but I'm not sure how (maybe I'm "think" playing with one hand while I'm actually playing with the other?).

Edited for typo.

I find it happens both for instruments that I play largely by ear and instruments that I play largely from music, if that helps.

I play about half by ear and half by dots, and I also play air concertina. Especially when bored at work (almost all the time) or under serious stress (caused by boredom at work, like as not)

Depends on what you mean, I suppose. I read music pretty well, and I do it. But I can also play by ear.

I can imagine reading the notes of imaginary music and playing my imaginary concertina with my imaginary hands as I do so, but I wouldn't want to do it while driving.

I play in the mind and take great pleasure from it, unfortunately most often tunes come out in fiddle fingering, an instrument I have not played in years, rather than concertina fingering, even if I have learned the tune only on the concertina. This is at least partly explained by my starting to play fiddle when I was 9, and doing it for 20 years.

In similar fashion, if I glance at a row of dots they usually occur kinetically to me in fiddle finger patterns ie. when I see an E0 it occurs as a feeling in my left index finger and with a certain set of both wrists and right arm. Although it has already been years, I am still hoping this will change with practise, as it means I could dispense with the rational thought interchange while sight reading and get on with the feeling of it. If I take a longer look rather than glance concertina fingering does start to assert itself.

I learn by ear and/or dots.

Chris
Edited for spulling...

If you want to see air concertina being played look at 'Grock the Clown' on
www.britishpathe.com

I have a couple of whistles with the top 3 holes taped over for that reason myself! My favorite is a Susato Bb...

I also have a tabor pipe, but don't care for the thumbhole thing. I prefer having 3 fingerholes (instead of 2 fingerholes + a thumbhole) because it lets me use my thumb and pinky to hold/balance the whistle.

Since you play tabor pipe, can you explain why they use a thumbhole? Is it mainly to get that extra half-step lower note by using the pinky to cover part of the end of the pipe? I've always wondered.......

Aldon

I was being a bit sneaky when I asked my question about mind playing and music readers,because I think only people who can play by ear and put it to memory can do it.Nobody has replied and said they only play by dots and mind play,all of you who have replied can do both or only by ear.If a dot reader could do it, he could play by ear without the dots.
Come on prove this theory wrong.This is a much more interesting subject than you may think if I am correct.
Al

'S true, the only-readers haven't.

But I don't think it's my ear playing that makes it work for me. I can also to some extent sight sing (or whistle), i.e., know what the written notes sound like when I see them. And when I mind-play, I can imagine either written notes or note names, or whistle fingerings, or sounds -- however else I already knew it, -- and that's how I translate it into buttons... and bellows for the anglo. (If I'm just practicing "playing" something I already know, it may be simply the feel of the buttons I remember... and reinforce.) Sometimes when I'm learning by ear, though, my fingers find the right buttons while my mind is still trying to decide what they should be.

So what about those who "only" read to learn, but who then play from memory. What are you remembering, and can you use it to mind play?

I thought about answering this in a new thread about tabor pipes. I really did. But a whole thread about tabor pipes on concertina.net would have been silly, so I'll answer the question here and hope the subject goes away soon.

The only time you can use the little finger to get the low half-step is when all the fingers are down, so it hardly matters whether there's a hole under your thumb or some other finger. You should be able to do that trick with either arrangement.

The thumb hole actually makes the instrument easier to hold firmly. With your lips at one end and two fingers clamped on the other end, there's nowhere it can go. I've tried it the other way, too and I find that while it's certainly possible, it tends to roll around a bit when you have two or three holes open.

Oh all right, I'll answer this. I have been avoiding responding to this, sorta like avoiding the plague.

But here goes. When I learned a tune for the hammer dulcimer, I would use the dots and immediately memorize the tune. I then played it, I think, geometrically, by the pattern that developed. Sorta like remembering a phone number by the pattern you make when you *dial* the number on your touch tone phone.

The most amazing thing. I really never thought about it. I learned Silent Night (on the concertina) and played it for a church. You may not think this is a big deal, but I NEVER played with people, let alone 3 solos. Anyway, I probably never analyzed how I learned the songs because I was just so grateful that I did learn them. The amazing part for me is I learned the songs, never looked at the written music again, and played them by the sound. Heard the sound in my head, did not see the dots in my head. Corrected when I made a mistake by hearing the wrong sound not visualizing the wrong note. Well golly gee. I may just be on my way to playing by ear.

I don't think I'm explaining this very well. But boy Alan, you sure got me thinking. A lot of you would talk about hearing the tune you were learning by ear. I don't think I played them enough to notice that before. But I am playing tunes I am learning for the piano accordion a lot. Comes from having a teacher whom you don't want to face without really knowing the tune. I am playing the tunes or sometimes they are songs, quite a bit. And I do hear them in my head. I am not visualizing the dots at all.

I learned to read music when I was very young and reading music is very easy and fast for me. I never learned to play by ear although I always wanted to. I can understand a little better now how you play something over and over and then get it in your head and have it come out through your hands. Pretty neat. I'm not there yet, but pretty neat.

I'm tempted to delete this whole message, but I'll let it go through.

Helen

edited to add - I hear the tunes in my head at night now, wake up and hear them and play them without the instrument. I dunno, I think you guys are messing with my mind. This kinda stuff never happened before. Could be because I am playing a whole lot more than I ever did before or Alan is making me crazy. But since I started playing piano accordion a lot the hearing the tunes at odd times has been happening. You are doing it Alan, I know you are. Don't stop, it's kinda nice.

Intrigued,

in the UK there are laws against using a mobile phone whilst driving, people have been prosecuted for unwrapping a chocolate bar, or eating a banana whilst controlling a vehicle.

playing a virtual concertina, no evidence! unless one sings (loudly) to it too.

Dave

An interesting point, and more so with regard to playing tabor pipe while driving, I would think.

There was an interesting case a number of years ago in Connecticut (one of the "United" States) where a man was charged under a similar law (I don't remember whether it specified "full attention on driving" or "both hands on the steering wheel", or exactly what) for eating a sandwich while driving. His defense was interesting: He admitted having done so, but claimed that enforcement of the law was prejudicial, and thus unconstitutional:

The Defense: "Officer, have you ever observed drivers smoking a cigaret while driving?"
Officer: "Yes."
The Defense: "Often?"
Officer: "Yes."
The Defense: "Have you ever given such a person a summons for doing so?"
Officer: "No."
The Defense: "But according to the wording of the law, they were doing the same as this man you have charged. Is that not so?"
Officer: "Well, yes."
The Defense: "Your Honor?"
The Judge: "I see your point. Case dismissed."

Dear Helen,
Thank you for your lovely comments.
The best is yet to come as Irish and English session players will tell you that if you know the tune you can play it,obviously not with some tunes which are more difficult or in an unfriendly key.The way then is to experiment as you play try this or that on the A or B if it works great if it doesn`t do not play it next time around.It is how sessions tunes develop,they are rarely played the same way,the same group of musicians will sound different every time they play.It is because we are not tied exactly to the dots as written but obviously to the tune, it is the arrangement which varies.
As you play more by ear the notes come automatically and you will start to play English Country Gardens at three in the morning in your mind.
Al

There are many things we do while driving that might be thought of as distractions. Some are considerably more disracting than others. I am convinced that speaking on a cellular telephone, be it hand held or not, is way ahead of the rest of the list. Talking to passengers in the car, mental activity, adjusting the radio, listening to the radio, using other dashboard controls, and smoking are considerably less distracting. Even eating a sandwich, which might be somewhere in between.

When I play tabor pipe in the car, I am concerned about what might happen in a collision, with the dashboard or the airbag possibly damaging the instrument ( ) but I do not worry about my ability to pay attention to my driving. It is much less of a distraction than talking on a phone.

Thank you Alan.

Lovely to know that even more insanity is coming my way.

Helen

Yes, Jim, exactly so. I do this a lot usually in the early hours to sort out phrasing and emphasis paticularly with jigs on EC, also melodeon (sorry).
Hello all, this is my first post.

Robin T

Oh dear, I stupidly failed to notice the long-past date and page of Jim's message to which I replied and so made no sense to anyone.

Of course I should have quoted from that post directly but I am still feeling my way around all this.

Sorry about that, what a way to start. Got quite carried away by the topic of playing in your mind I'm afraid, and which I do a lot of. I will now creep away.

Robin T

Hey Robin,

Come on back. And welcome. We're always responding to posts out of order. Usually we quote, but all of us forget to do so from time to time.

So just jump right back in. We're always glad to hear from new people.

Where are you located?

Helen

A funny thing. Last night at the folk club I asked my wife if she was going to sing a new song that she was learning. She said no, she wasn't certain of the tune at one point and didn't have her concertina with her.
Now she has learnt this song by ear but is happer to play the tune of it on the concertina than to sing it, and it is the tune not the words that are giving her the trouble!
I'm not sure quite what bit of mind playing is going on here.

Robin Madge

You are introducing another element here Robin,I can hum the tune (without humming )in my mind and play the chords on the left or play single notes left and right hand.To sing and play the tune in my head or live for that matter I have never managed .Except for a few words.
Welcome Robin.
Al

Well I have waited to post until I came back from the session last night, as i wanted to see if what I thought happened did.
Well yes it does, and on a session night it is murder trying to get some sleep.
I find that tunes keep popping up into my head and I can figure the tunes fingering pattern and repeats and dynamics, etc. Don't know the title though, that bit doesn't seem to pop into my head at all. I don't even know if even half of the tunes are from what I have heard played that night or if it just opens the door to anything I have heard from cds, etc.

BUT the problem is I cannot get a start to the tune when I am awake. I always tell myself I will but of course I don't.


Sharron

This is a great thread. I teach Special Education at the middle school level, 11 to 14 year olds, and I am often forced to figure out why a kid does not read or spell adequately, or when they do, just how they do it! When one begins to break down these activities into component parts the number of variables can become bewildering.
I wonder if the processes for reading music, and the apparent dependency on the dots of some people, are similar to the the process of reading and spelling print ? The two happen in different parts of the brain; so, I suspect, do the reading of music and the "by ear" method.
So, how about it, you readers of dots, Do you experience printed music the same way as printed text? And the "Listeners: how's your facility for spelling?
Maybe I'm way off base here but now I'm curious!
Rob

Hey Robert,

Interesting idea. I am a voracious reader and I play by dots. I learned to read music at a very early age and am most comfortable playing that way.

I was always a good student and remembered what teachers said in class even the inflection of their voices. I really remembered what I read.

Maybe I should approach hearing a tune as I used to approach actively listening to a lecture that I would be tested on later. I wonder if that will help.

I'd be a great test subject as I don't play by ear at all. Although certainly willing to try.

Helen

Well, yeah. The different processes of reading, learning, speaking, playing, etc. all consist of numerous sub-processes, some of which may be shared and others not. None of them are unitary, monolithic, or even straight-through sequences. Thus, trying to compare reading music with reading text without looking at them in more detail seems futile to me.


I think you're neglecting some factors here. If you're going to compare reading music with reading text, I think it should be a comparison with reading text out loud. While some folks learn to read music and "hear" the sounds in their mind without actually playing them on an instrument, I think most note readers can't do that. However, reading text silently is much more common than reading out loud, even for most parents, school teachers, and speechifying politicians.

That last does suggest a potential comparison, though. Some folks read notes to learn music, after which they can play it without looking (or glancing down only occasionally for reference), while others simply can't play at all without looking at "the dots". Similarly, there are those public speakers who speak from memory use notes as a guide vs. those who can only read their speeches from paper. (There's the famous story about President Reagan missing four pages of a speech -- of which reporters had pre-printed copies, so they could tell -- and being completely unaware of it.) Extemporaneous speech might be compared with musical improvisation.

One difference between text and standard music notation -- though I don't know how much difference it actually makes in the two reading processes -- is that text is linear, while music notation is two-dimensional. (ABC music notation is also linear.) But different people also have different ways of reading text. Some can only do it a word at a time; some take in larger units -- a phrase, a line, a sentence -- at a time; and some even seem able to perceive a large block of a page (or even an entire small page) as a single unit.


Now, I think the reading/speech equivalent of learning "by ear" would have to be learning speech from listening. That's what a lot of folks do with popular songs, and is something I've never been good at. On the other hand, I am good at singing along in real time with songs I've never heard before, and I can sometimes do that with tunes, too. Go figure. What I think may be an intermediate process is picking up a tune gradually as others play it through a few times, though often forgetting it afterward. (I.e., there are "short term" and "long term" versions of learning by ear, just as there are for memory in general.)



I don't think so, though I don't think I can analyze how I "experience" either, and I wonder how many can.


Well, I'm great at spelling, but I'm both a reader and an ear-player.


I suspect you are, but it is an interesting idea.

Thanks Helen, made me feel much better. I'm in Norfolk UK and play English 48 treble and baritone except for 2 years time out on C/G Anglo now abandoned.

Learning a tune by ear is a struggle for me and I always start from the dots. After that I tend to visualise the dots at least at the start of the tune then try not to interrrupt my brain by thinking about it. Conversely I can absorb a melody very quickly and remember it to hum quite easily. This with a 67 year old brain !

Robin T

When I was at school I played the violin and later played the trumpet,both instruments were played using written music.The way I learnt was to use the dots as finger positions on the instrument,I rarely converted the dots to alphabet GABC etc.Therefore if you took the music away I was completely lost and unable to play at all.
If you use this method or any other ways of using written music to play it would be
WRITTEN MUSIC=BUTTONS TO COMPRESS= NOTE(TUNE)
also of course direction for the anglo or left or right side for the English.
With by ear playing you are looking at the exact opposite
NOTE(TUNE)=BUTTONS TO COMPRESS.
It is this reason why some of you have to imagine the written dots to play the music adding another dimension to memory( an incredible thing to do).
When we were decimalised many people were converting the new currency into the old or centimeters into inches etc.(me included) instead of getting on with the new currency.
Playing by ear is adapting your memory to accept SOUND= BUTTON.
It is then you can understand how people can drive along ,humming a tune and playing an imaginary instrument, or mind playing,the subject of this discussion.
Al

Yes, Alan, but can you chew gum at the same time??

Not when I`m laughing Lisa.