Progress After Two Days

[Jeff Stallard]

I got my 48b English on Wednesday. By Wednesday night I was noodling around with Pagalia's (sp?) Song (dropped it an octave) from Captain Corelli's Mandolin. By Thursday night I was using sheet music to play (poorly mind you) a nice little waltz ("Josephin's Dopfals" or something like that). I'm very happy with the learning curve on this English. I know it's going to take a while for muscle memory to kick in, but the initial intimidation of all those buttons has worn off and it seems very nicely laid out.

[Mark Evans]

The fun has begun !

 

ENJOY

 

As I remember you decided on a Stagi? Just wondering...

[Jeff Stallard]

Yep, Stagi, but I don't know if it's any particular model or anything. For the time being, I'm using the old way of holding it, with both the ring and pinkie fingers on the fingerplate, but once I get my strap on, I imagine I'll be able to all but ignore the plate.

[Mark Evans]

That's what I thought. You know, even with my old 64 note I just used the pinky on the fingerplate. Didn't ever look into a strap either.

 

It's fun ain't it?

[otsaku]

Good on you jeff.

 

I was surprised at how "easy" an instrument the ec is once you got past the mind boggling number of identical buttons...

 

Not attempted any classical music yet myself, I'm a fairly new to reading music so it will be a while yet.

[Jeff Stallard]

I was surprised how little finger movement it takes to span an octave. At first I was always pushing buttons higher up than I had to, thinking the jumps were farther, but it's really just tiny little movements. The closeness of the buttons is a very good thing. I was thinking it would be confusing.

 

Learning to read sheet music is very difficult, so give yourself time. It was very frustrating for me. Oh, you might think about getting some sheet music flash cards. They help a lot.

[Mark Evans]

Jeff, keep at it and the relation to notes on the page and buttons on the box will fall into place as your finger positions already have.

 

Your mention of the difficulty in learning to read music begs me ask: Do you learn by ear? I've recently been having conversations with musicians about ear verses sight in learning music. Folks seem to shake down into four catagories:

 

Learn by ear only (most natural in my never to be humble opinion)

 

Learn by ear with the suppliment of sight reading (me)

 

Learn by sight reading only

 

Equally comfortable with both (my wife, confound her)

 

For years I felt less than a compitant musician because I naturally learned faster listening and repeating back a phrase. It's just how my mind works (considering I had a healthy career as a "classical" singer this was something that brought me in for a lot of ribbing from colleagues about my "process"). To this day it still blows me away that my wife will take a score with her on the airplane and learn it cold, memorized and finished on the way to the gig!

 

Most folk music transcriptions can be deceptive. It is a music that lives one musician passed to another. My preference is several recorded sources and if possible someone to play their version line by line with me parroting it back. The handed down tradition is very important (here I go on my granola thing again) because there is a holy passing of the torch that connects you to all those who have communed with the paticular music before you.

Edited March 1, 2005 by Mark Evans

[Jeff Stallard]

For the first few years (classical violin), I learned only through sheet music. I was so entrenched in that way of learning that I could sight-read a piece no problem, but take the music away and I would be 100% lost. I didn't like that, so I started using the sheet music as a guide. I'd play through it a few times reading it, then look away and see how far I could get. I got better, to the point where it only took a half dozen times with the sheet music before I had it memorized. Bear in mind I could ONLY do that with folk music, which is a lot simpler than other styles (oh boy, I'll take some heat for that). Now I'm going down two roads: strictly sheet music with the concertina, and strictly ear learning with the tin whistle.

[Jeff Stallard]

The handed down tradition is very important (here I go on my granola thing again) because there is a holy passing of the torch that connects you to all those who have communed with the paticular music before you.

 

So what's more important, the music or the musical tradition?

 

I feel no connection with those who came before me, nor do I have a sense of obligation to them. Maybe that's because folk music wasn't present at all in my family; it's something I chose as an adult. I don't know...I'm just guessing.

[Mark Evans]

Very thoughtful question Jeff. Guess for me it can all be tied up in the old american song/fiddle tune Cotton-eyed Joe:

 

Where'd ya' come from

Where'd ya' go

Where'd ya' come from

Cotton-eyed Joe

 

In a World Music class I observed yesterday, musician and folklorist Skip Gorman weaved a spell over a crowd of 18-20 somethings who knew nothing of their own musical heritage. You could hear a pin drop in that room as he told stories and played a number of instruments all illustrating the connections that are the American Musical Heritage. I'm a worshiper at that shrine already so he was preachin' to the choir in my case.

 

Cat suprised the beegeezus outta' me however. In fact I was dropped dead in my tracks. He pulled out the fiddle and tuned it to triple D tuning (3 D's and an A) and started playing Bonapart's Retreat. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Never in my 30 years of playing that fiddle tune had I heard it rendered so. I had trouble catching my breath for I was on the verge of sobbing. It was as if generations of fiddlers stood beside him as he played. Skip later told me that he had learned it from an eighty year old fiddler in Wyoming back in the 1960's who had learned it from his father who hand....

 

Music is created by a human then succeding generations have that music pass through them as if they (humanity) were a prism. I find a deep enjoyment feeling where it came from and then adding the colors my prism will be to its heritage.

 

Of course one can (and I do) simply look at the score and see what it says to me, as if I'm reaching back over the generations to the originator unimpeded by other interpertations. Even in the case of Bach or Beethoven I would feel somehow cheated were I not able to commune with others on how they had been the conduit for a timeless communitation from beyond time. (what a load of hooyie, but that's my bag)

 

Both the music and the tradition are important. The balance is ours to find.

Edited March 2, 2005 by Mark Evans