Hayden Tutorial, Chapter 6

[judyhawkins]

Chapter six of Judy's harum scarum Hayden tutorial

---------------- Section One -----------------

[For those of you with minimal musical background.]

Hmmm: I said I'd show you how to add a harmonization to a waltz, but
let's begin with learning the waltz, which is looking like taking all
the time I have for this chapter!

The basic principle is to turn the waltz into a set of little, easy to
learn tunes. This is a lot easier to do from notes, but of course you
may find it hard to read notes if you never learned how! But you can
learn that from a bunch of little easy-to-read tunes, which you can
fit together to make one whole tune.

So I'm going give you a set of abc files you can convert on the
concertina.net abc converter, with the letter names of the notes and
fingerings written in, so you can work with your button chart to
figure it out. You'll see the logic of staff notation pretty quickly,
I think.

There are many online places to learn musical notation from; here's
one: The Method Behind the Music

 

It's possible to learn to play a new instrument by ear only, but you need

to have other people with time to teach you, who already know the

kind of music you want to know. It's harder to learn by ear from recordings;

they're harder to ask questions of, and less easy to slow down, or get one

phrase played over and over until you get it.

 

If you learn a little bit about notation -- at least the basics, so you can

count out the notes and get started learning a tune -- means you're free to

learn any tune you're interested in; and it doesn't prevent you

from learning by ear, if you want that too. It just means you have

multiple perspectives on music, multiple ways of learning.


The really big challenge in this chapter is the rhythm. There are
long notes, and short notes, and musical notation has some conventions
to tell you what notes are shorter and longer. You can learn the details

of the notation online; I'm going to use a traditional musician's approach

for teaching you the rhythm.


This waltz, Tombigbee Waltz (named after a river in the southeast of
the U.S.) has a very familiar kind of rhythm, so it should be
reasonably easy to get the hang of.

 

There's a musical technique called "diddley" -- singing a tune with

nonsense syllables -- and it works really well to figure out a rhythm, thus:

Short notes are the syllable "da"

 

Medium notes are the syllable "dee"

 

Long notes are the syllable "dmmmmmmm..."

 

============== Tombigbee, Tunelet #1 ================

The first tunelet has the rhythm (with [ ] for a brief break for a breath!)

da-da dee dee dee dmmmmm da-da dee dee dee dmmmmm []

B A G B B d-- B A G B B d---
3 2 1 3 3 1 3 2 1 3 3 1

Say the rhythm to yourself a few times, then figure out the notes.

Play the notes a few times to get comfortable, then try saying the
rhythm and playing the notes in time with the rhythm.


The abc:

X:1
T:Tombigbee Waltz, Tunelet One
S:The Waltz Book, collected by Bill Matthieson
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:G
|: z2 "B3"B/"A2"A/ | "G1"G"B3"B"B3"B | "d1"d2 "B3"B/"A2"A/ | "G1"G"B3"B"B3"B | "d1"d2 z :|


Ah, yes, the bar lines | | |.... they play a role, helping keep track
of notes by grouping them in threes, and giving some hints about
emphasis. You can ignore them for now, or read about them online. The
ones with the two dots mean "repeat", like this:

|: lather rinse :|

to show you where to start over again.


========================== Tombigbee, Tunelet #2 ===================

Rhythm for the second chunk of the tune, almost all notes the same
length, a nice easy, relaxed, rhythm like lazing about on the river in
a slow row boat:

dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dmmmm dee dmmmm

B B A A A B d e-- d B
3 3 2 2 2 3 1 2 1 3


X:1
T:Tombigbee Waltz, Tunelet Two
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:G
|: z2 "B3"B | "B3"B"A2"A"A2"A | "A2"A"B3"B"d1"d | "e2"e2 "d1"d | "B3"B2 z :|



========================== Tombigbee, Tunelet #3 ===================

Rhythm for the third chunk of the tune:

da-da-da | dee dee dee | dmmmmm da-da | dee dee dee | dmmmm []
c B A | G B B | d-- B A | G B B | d---
1 3 2 | 1 3 3 | 1 3 2 | 1 3 3 | 1

with barlines so _I_ don't get lost.... You'll notice this is almost
EXACTLY the first tunelet, except for the first "c" note! Freebie!
you learned most of it already!

X:1
T:Tombigbee Waltz, Tunelet Three
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:G
|: z3/ "c1"c/"B3"B/"A2"A/ | "G1"G"B3"B"B3"B | "d1"d2 "B3"B/"A2"A/ | "G1"G"B3"B"B3"B | "d1"d2 z :|

========================== Tombigbee, Tunelet #4 ===================

Rhythm for the fourth chunk of the tune ( a freebie and a
curve ball!)

dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dmmmm

B B A A A B d e d #F G--
3 3 2 2 2 3 1 2 1 3 1

Most of this is the same as tunelet 2, except the note you'll have to
reach down for:

the #F is on the row below the G.

(The # symbol -- called an "accidental" -- has to do with music
theoretical concepts -- for now, you can treat it as "that note,
WHICH is a different note from the F that doesn't have the #", or you
can read about it elsewhere. I'll have more to say another time,
especially the delight I take in the term "accidental...")

X:1
T:Tombigbee Waltz, Tunelet Four
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:G
|: z2 "B3"B | "B3"B"A2"A"A2"A | "A2"A"B3"B"d1"d | "e2"e "d1"d "#F3"^F | "G1"B2 z :|

============= That's the first half of the tune.=================

Enough for one chapter.

I'll put the second half of the tune in the next chapter, and THEN
I'll get into the harmony.

Here's how the first half of the tune looks, without all the extra
notations I added. Convert it, print it out and add your own
notations, the ones you invent for doing things the way that works
best for you.

X:1
T:Tombigbee Waltz, "A" part
S:The Waltz Book, collected by Bill Matthieson
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:G
B/A/ || GBB | d2 B/A/| GBB | d2 B | BAA | ABd | e2 d | B>c B/A/ |
GBB | d2 B/A/| GBB | d2 B | BAA | ABd | edF | G2 d ||

You might want to write the diddley syllables in over the notes, and

observe how they relate to the music notation symbols!

 

Any time you are having any trouble at all learning a rhythm, try using

diddley syllables. It's a lot easier to learn a rhythm if you start with

your voice, the instrument with which you are the most familiar!

And I'll churn out the second half of the waltz as soon as I can.

It's mostly ready to go, except for all my final tweakings....

---------------- Section Two -----------------

[For those of you with more musical background.]

Take a running leap into Edly's Music Theory for Practical People, and
learn something about music theory you always wondered about.

Some of the Chapter Titles: Diatonic Harmony; Chord Inversion;
Intervals for Ear-Training; Blues Structure; Chords: 9ths, 11ths and
13ths; Secondary Chords; Improvisation Ideas; Ingredients of Voicings.

My favorite chapters are the ones about Modes: Chapter 21, 22, 23,
(including the section titled Scales from Mercury) and especially
Chapter 26, Diatonic Modal Chords.

As I've poked around on the Hayden with a few different modal tunes,
I'm realizing just how nicely it lends itself to them, with the very
clear sense of where the semi-tones land in the scale. I didn't think
it would make so much sense, when I first started learning the Hayden
system: the semi-tone interval is such a huge leap, fingering-wise.
But as it turns out, the way the modal scale is grouped by the
semi-tone is made very vivid on the Hayden. Lots of fun. (If that's
totally baffling and intriguing, read Chapter 21 and noodle around on
the Hayden, watching for the semi-tone, and how it organizes the mode.)

Someone else's recommendation for Edly's:

Theory’s simple. You get twelve notes and
put them together in different ways...
like Lego, only noisier. Edly's is
simple and clear, yet goes deep into
many of theory's quirky complexities.
The best book on popular theory I've seen.
-- Gunnar Madsen, cofounder of the Bobs

Edited June 22, 2013 by judyhawkins

[Frank Dudgeon]

Judy,

 

Many thanks for these tutorials. I just got an Elise from the Button Box to see how I get on with it, and your work here will make the journey a lot smoother.

 

Frank

[judyhawkins]

Thanks! I've become a novice all over again on several instruments, over the years. My aim here is to put those experiences into as succinct and clear a form as I can.

 

Judy