How to remember where notes are

[LDT]

Has anyone got a way of remembering the names of what notes are on what buttons?

I've tried saying the names to myself as I play the scales but it isn't working. >

Has anyone got a pneumonic (sp?) for remembering?

Coz for example if I got asked to find a C# I wouldn't know where it was or what it sounded like or even where it would be in a stave.

I keep trying but it won't stick.

[michael sam wild]

I had the same problem after years on a mouthorgan then amelodeon where I never learned to name notes, just played them by ear.

With a C/G anglo played cross row for Irish music i D,G, Am,Em etc it became necessary so I made a diagram with letters on the button circles and used two coloured marker pens ( for push or pull) Tou could keep it in your case lid., along with chord patterns coloured the same way)

 

As I was learning to read music by dots and ABc I found it essential. Now it's second nature and I know all the buttons by note and direction. I still have my diagram handy as I'm working hard on playing harmonically with chords on the LHS and melody on the RHS.

Good luck!

[Fergus_fiddler]

I had the same problem. So, I searched some stuff around the net and concertina net & made this fingering chart. THe duplicated colured noted proved to be very useful - at least, to me! -.

 

Cheers,

 

Fer

layout_3Ob_Wheatstone.pdf

[LDT]

I've got charts but they don't help...its just too slow a process. I want to just do it and know what note it is not be forever looking it up like I am at the moment.

[MarkvN]

Dear LDT,

 

The trick that did it (or actually is doing it) for me, is to learn the buttons all on the push and all on the pull. Let me expound (even though writing down all the details may look a bit pedantic - to most of you it will be too straight-forward to need any further explanation).

Start with the right hand side, the C-row, starting at the top and on the push, the buttons read c-e-g, after which the pattern repeats itself. On the pull, the pattern reads b-d-f-a, after which it repeats itself as well. Now copy this pattern to your left hand, starting from the top: it is identical.

The same is true for the G-row: on the push, right hand from the top, the pattern reads g-b-d, plus repeated pattern, and on the pull it is ^f –a-c-e- plus repetition. Again the pattern can be copied to the left hand.

The accidental row shows a regular pattern over the first three buttons, counting from the top, and again to be copied to the left hand. (^c – a – ^g and ^d – g – b flat)

 

As a memory aid, I made up short non-sense sentences, for which I'm sure you will find an appropriate English alternative:

 

Z-E-G

Bij De Franse Alpen

onder Geen BeDing

Vis Aan Zee Eten

 

('Say; in the French alps, under no circumstances (should you) eat fish at sea')

 

The nice thing is that, if you play across the rows, or if you play chords, it seems to make more sense to me to learn the lay-out this way anyway. And memorizing the repetition over three buttons (on the push) and four buttons (on the pull) in this way also makes it easier to learn the principle of doubling notes.

 

Hope this will be of any use to you. Happy study!

 

Mark

 

(edited immediately after posting)

Edited November 24, 2009 by MarkvN

[TomB-R]

When, or why do you want to know, LDT?

 

Lots of different methods for different mindsets.

The idiosyncracies of the Anglo layout help quite a bit for the way my head works!

 

Different for the Jeffries layout folks, but for the Lachenal/Wheatstone types you "know" you've got your important C# on the press of right-hand-top left.

 

C has to be press on the first button of the R/H C row.

G has to be press on the first button of the R/H G row.

The notes below these two, B and F# respectively have to be on the draw of those keys.

 

Low F# 2 is that perennial left-hand little finger draw and the next F# 3 is also on the draw, bottom left on the r/h.

 

G2 and A2 are easy beacuse they're everywhere on the left hand! The lower one must be g and the higher one A.

 

There's only that one press E2 on the left, etc etc.

 

 

Nice diagram Fer, but the swap of press and draw right and left doesn't quite work for me!!!

Tom

[Fergus_fiddler]

When, or why do you want to know, LDT?

 

Lots of different methods for different mindsets.

The idiosyncracies of the Anglo layout help quite a bit for the way my head works!

 

Different for the Jeffries layout folks, but for the Lachenal/Wheatstone types you "know" you've got your important C# on the press of right-hand-top left.

 

C has to be press on the first button of the R/H C row.

G has to be press on the first button of the R/H G row.

The notes below these two, B and F# respectively have to be on the draw of those keys.

 

Low F# 2 is that perennial left-hand little finger draw and the next F# 3 is also on the draw, bottom left on the r/h.

 

G2 and A2 are easy beacuse they're everywhere on the left hand! The lower one must be g and the higher one A.

 

There's only that one press E2 on the left, etc etc.

 

 

Nice diagram Fer, but the swap of press and draw right and left doesn't quite work for me!!!

Tom

 

Some people told to me, Tom... Actually, made sense to me because that's the direction in wich the bellows travel, but my new diagrams - I play now a Jeffries layout - are made a la Frank Edgley, according to his tutor book: the pull on the top half and the push in the down half. Anyway, anyone with a bit of knowledge about Illustrator could modify it at his / her taste; the pdf isn't protected.

 

On the other hand, I think my aproach to learning where the notes are was very similar to yours, first I tried to learn where the octaves were located and then the most used noted... As long as I play only ITM, there are are notes that I've to think where the heck they are because are almost not used - F, B flat - but now I'm getting rid of them. To me, the most complex task is go below the low D that is the lowest in most irish music tunes. Is being quite tricky to adapt my fiddle tunes to the tina...

 

Anyway, I'm not in a hurry: I've got the rst of my life to learn to play concertina. And I do enjoy very much challenges!

 

Cheers,

 

Fer

[LDT]

Why? hmmm....its coz I'm fed of just smiling and nodding when anyone uses music speak around or to me, but actually not having a clue.

 

And I think not knowing is holding me back from progressing a bit. Coz I'm stuck in a rut between reading music and playing by ear and not grasping either one properly.

 

And for reference I play English style (lets not start an argument by that I mean tune on RH, other stuff on the LH), on Jeffries layout.

[Fergus_fiddler]

Why? hmmm....its coz I'm fed of just smiling and nodding when anyone uses music speak around or to me, but actually not having a clue.

 

And I think not knowing is holding me back from progressing a bit. Coz I'm stuck in a rut between reading music and playing by ear and not grasping either one properly.

 

And for reference I play English style (lets not start an argument by that I mean tune on RH, other stuff on the LH), on Jeffries layout.

 

I've seen your videos on Youtube and my opinion is not that you lack of talent, indeed you lack patience.

 

I'm a very slow music reader, but a bit of music theory isn't harmful at all. I.e., when I began to learn fiddle - by ear - I struggled for a while before realising that you have not necessary to read the tune, but having a look at the key signature helps you to know wich notes can and wich ones can't be played. Then I tried to hear how the tune sounds, either by a recording or an abc file. Then practising ad nauseam.

 

Never use chords but the ocassional drone or 5th / 3rd / 6th interval, but played a bit of guitar when I was younger... There are plenty of resources on the Internet about how chords are built, you don't need yo know very complex fancy chords for to make it sound nice. Simple triads with the ocassional 7th sound quite nice. Then when you master them, can begin with walking basses, inversions and all that stuff...

 

And at last, but not least: I do speak & write reasonably well in two languajes, and music is just another one. The only way to improve at any languaje is practising.

 

All this said, of course, from my very personal experience. Wish this was useful in some way.

 

P.S.: Jeffries chart:

Fingering_30b_Jeffries_CG.pdf

[Woody]

I've got charts but they don't help...its just too slow a process. I want to just do it...

 

.. my opinion is not that you lack of talent, indeed you lack patience...

 

Sadly I think Fer is right. These things take time & sometimes there is no real alternative to practice.

 

There are however some tricks you can use to improve the learning process. The brain seems to store information by allocating it a priority and by using links to the information. The more of a priority you can make it seem & the more links you can make, the easier it becomes to recall the information.

 

The priority seems to be worked out by how often the information is needed. The more often it is used the higher the priority. This is why learning things by doing little but often works better than doing long practice sessions occasionally. By using the information often the brain keeps it ready as it knows it will need it again soon. If something is not used for a while its priority gets downgraded and hence it takes more effort to recall. This is the source of the phrase Use it or lose it.

 

The brain creates links to the information which are used to access it later. The greater the variety of situations in which the information is used, the greater the number of links. For example, if you try learning the names by playing them & saying them; writing out diagrams where you work out where the notes are; sing the note names as you play them; have a set of flash cards where a note name is given & you have to find all the places where the note occurs on the instrument - using all the techniques together will make more links than just repeating one again and again.

 

That said it still requires hard work.

 

Alternatively you could just learn to play by ear.

[carlovian]

I had the same problem. So, I searched some stuff around the net and concertina net & made this fingering chart. THe duplicated colured noted proved to be very useful - at least, to me! -.

 

Cheers,

 

Fer

very helpful thanks

[Jim Albea]

Has anyone got a way of remembering the names of what notes are on what buttons?

I've tried saying the names to myself as I play the scales but it isn't working. >

Has anyone got a pneumonic (sp?) for remembering?

Coz for example if I got asked to find a C# I wouldn't know where it was or what it sounded like or even where it would be in a stave.

I keep trying but it won't stick.

 

I had the exact same struggle, and I found the solution: Flash cards.

 

This is an example of a site that has downloadable pdfs that you can print out and cut up.

music notation pdfs

 

I made a card for each note on my concertina. Then I shuffled them and picked out five at random. As I picked up each one of the five I went through the typical rigmarole to figure out where the heck it was. Then I shuffled that same five and went through them again. Then again. Then again. Then again. ... I kept it up until I could nail those five notes on sight. Somehow my brain just didn't want to make the connection between a little tadpole on the page and a button on the tina.

 

Then I mixed that five back in the stack and picked out another five at random, hoping that at least one of the original five would be in the group. I pounded away at those five until I could nail those. I kept repeating the process and eventually moved up to picking out ten.

 

After about two continuous weeks of this I could make it through the whole stack (46 notes). Then I repeated that over, and over. So, finally, now when I see a note on a page I can just play it.

[Hereward]

Thanks Jim. Perhaps now even I will handle this. I'm certainly going to give it my best shot.

 

Ian