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How Do You Develope A Style?


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The answer to my question of does playing by ear only give you style has in part been answered by a firm no.

It's certainly true that those who use written music to guide their playing, or even just to learn tune/parts/pieces that they afterward play from memory, can also develop styles. BUT even they learn their style "by ear", i.e., by listening.

 

If you want to learn a particular individual, regional, or national style, or the style of a particular idiom (jazz, blues, klezmer, opera, Romantic), or the interpretive style of a particular symphony conductor, you do it by listening. Only by hearing the similarity between what you're producing and what you want to produce can you develop the consistency in playing we call "style". Even if you develop your own "style" in complete isolation, you will do it by listening to youself.

 

No one will ever learn the subtle nuances of a style from written music, because no written notation is capable of conveying all the subtle variations of timing, dynamics, and timbre which comprise a style. (And if it could, we would still need to use our "ears" to learn which elements of the notation corresponded to what variations in sound.) Luckily, we've developed a different sort of "notation" which can accurately record these nuances... sound recording!

 

Even with sound recording, you haven't truly learned a "style" (IMO) until you can apply it to a new number -- one you haven't heard before, at least not in that style -- and have it recognized by others as being in that style.

 

It was perhaps a stupid question, but at least we all talk about it.

The fact that we all talk about it is proof that it wasn't a stupid question.

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If you want to learn a particular individual, regional, or national style, or the style of a particular idiom (jazz, blues, klezmer, opera, Romantic), or the interpretive style of a particular symphony conductor, you do it by listening.  Only by hearing the similarity between what you're producing and what you want to produce can you develop the consistency in playing we call "style".  Even if you develop your own "style" in complete isolation, you will do it by listening to youself.

 

I wholeheartedly agree Jim - and I think the best way of developing a personal style is to be a magpie, unashamedly thieving things from other people and working to integrate them into the whole. The first step can be stylistic imitation by learning the same piece, the next step is applying that stylistic imitation to something else, and the step after that is to make your own - often unconscious - modifications to the style that you've picked up.

 

My own experience is that I can point to probably half a dozen guitarists whose playing has shaped my own - William Reid of the Jesus & Mary Chain, Syd Barrett, David Gedge of The Wedding Present, Bob Dylan, Neil Young (both in his acoustic and fearsomely distorted electric incarnations), Craig Scanlon of The Fall. I don't really sound like any single one of them, but if you were to sit down and listen specifically for stylistic elements of any of the above in my guitar playing, you'd find them.

 

Another good way of taking a distinctive approach to an instrument can be to try and imitate the playing styles of people who don't play your instrument. When I was learning to play jazz piano, years ago, I asked a friend of mine to recommend some extra recordings that I could learn from - and he promptly reeled off the names of five or six LPs... of saxophonists. Initially I was sceptical, but he was right: I started to incorporate approaches to phrasing that I probably wouldn't have done had I based my learning on recordings of piano players alone.

 

I'm reasonably happy that I've developed my own voice on piano, guitar and bass, in various idioms. As for concertina, I'm not so sure - it still feels very much in flux! :lol:

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No one will ever learn the subtle nuances of a style from written music, because no written notation is capable of conveying all the subtle variations of timing, dynamics, and timbre which comprise a style.  (And if it could, we would still need to use our "ears" to learn which elements of the notation corresponded to what variations in sound.)

Jim

You're absoluyely right! Looking back in this forum I found this topic that supports your point:

So I gave my wife the sheet music for The Old Concertina Reel to play on the piano. She is a human metronome on the piano...and when she played it it didn't sound right..e.ven though her timing was good. So then she listened to the CDROM...and played it again...subtly adjusting her rhythm...and it sounded good. I asked her to articulate what those subtle adjustments to her timing were ...and she really couldn't articulate it.

Alan,

This is a very interesting thread.

Thanks for that!! ;)

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Thank you Henk for that recent thread, that for some reason I was too busy to read the first time.

Stuart always comes up with a new way of thinking and he has done it again,I like the idea of the saxophone,it is strange but all these years I have parralled my ideas of jazz playing on the trumpet.

Brian was hinting at experimentation and this is worth persuing as like Brian I am always looking for different ways to play a tune and often try something and see if it works,if it does I use it again if it doesn`t I look sheepish and hope not too many people heard it.

The extreme case of experimentation was when Rosbif was formed,an English band playing traditional dance music and I chose to use the concertina and not the melodion a more traditional French style instrument to use with French bagpipes,Hurdy Gurdy and Viola/Violin.There was no concertina being played as far as I know with this line up at that time, so I had nothing to give me a guide.The pipes and Hurdy Gurdy being heavy drone instruments made it difficult to use chords all the time. I just experimented as I played and gradually a style of play developed.Some of you with more music knowledge may have approached it in a different way,writing out the chords to go with the drones etc and a completely different style would be the result.

Thank you for joining in this discussion ,I am enjoying it and learning new ideas.

Al :)

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When I was learning to play jazz piano, years ago, I asked a friend of mine to recommend some extra recordings that I could learn from - and he promptly reeled off the names of five or six LPs... of saxophonists. Initially I was sceptical, but he was right: I started to incorporate approaches to phrasing that I probably wouldn't have done had I based my learning on recordings of piano players alone.

...I like the idea of the saxophone,it is strange but all these years I have parralled my ideas of jazz playing on the trumpet.

And a friend of mine some years ago wanted to play jazz on his baritone English concertina, so he took lessons from a jazz trombonist.

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I just experimented as I played and gradually a style of play developed.

 

In saying that it happened "gradually" I think you've hit on something else there Al. Developing a personal style is something that can take quite a lot of time, as it's an organic process of assimilation and rejection.

 

Another thought came to mind this morning. An important psychological step to take is to be prepared to think something along the lines of "my hero plays [x] this way - I'm happy to be doing something else". As far as I'm concerned, nothing in music is "right" or "wrong" if your mode of expression communicates what you want it to communicate. There are accepted norms within genres just as society has accepted norms of behaviour - but rules are there to be broken. However it pays to have studied the generic "rules", whatever they happen to be, in order to break them successfully.

 

I don't mean to suggest that this is something that should be forced: it's more a case of not being intimidated by the example of great players, on any instrument. The way they use phrasing, articulation, ornamentation or harmony isn't necessarily "the right way". It's their right way. If you begin to do things differently after you've tried imitating them for a while, then that's your right way.

 

I think the bottom line is "be yourself". :D

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This is a great thread and I enjoyed it very much.

 

I don't really have a style yet. I am just desparately trying to hit the right notes. But I am happy to realize that I play somewhat by ear. I always considered playing by ear to mean that you hear a note and can say - that is a C. I can't do that, but I do play a note that is written and hear that it is wrong. I then find a better note. And I adjust what is written for phrasing etc.

 

And now, oh happy day, phrases run through my head during the day and I can go play them. Kinda.

 

But like Mark, I like and need to have the written notes as a jumping off place.

 

I learned a lot from this thread, thanks.

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I always considered playing by ear to mean that you hear a note and can say - that is a C.

That's what I would call perfect pitch, and it's pretty rare. I personally don't know anyone with perfect pitch. To me playing by ear means playing without score in front of you. This can be accomplished by feats of memory (i.e. learning the score) or by picking the tune up and learning to play it that way. But after years of playing by ear the most I can mange in terms of recognising note values is a reasonable guess (right 75% of the time) as to whether a new tune heard in a session is in G, D or C (let's not talk about the relative minors!).

 

Chris

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I always considered playing by ear to mean that you hear a note and can say - that is a C.

That's what I would call perfect pitch, and it's pretty rare.

 

You'll meet one at the Arran event, Chris :lol: I'm blessed/cursed with it. It's tremendously useful, especially for transcribing music and reading scores, but can also be a bit of a bind (imagine your brain constantly tracing multiple lines of pitches while you listen to music...)

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I certainly do not recognise the note as I play it and learning a new tune by ear I have to fumble around until I find the right place to start and key which suits my style of playing.

If you do enough by ear playing ,providing it is a fairly simple tune,if you know how it goes you can play it.With session playing someone may play a tune which you have not heard for years and once through you can play along.I am sure Chris and Stuart will agree that it is possible to be able to play hundreds of tunes in this manner.For those of you who doubt this,it is the same as hearing a joke from someone that you heard years before and remembering the punch line.The style of course comes from the way you play it and giving other musicians a chance to express their way of playing in the gaps you make for them.

Volume also comes into this discussion at this point,playing some times loudly and sometimes softly will vary the tune for the listener and change the total sound for the musicians who have quieter instruments.

Al

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DerekDerekDerek

 

 

Chris, Stuart and Alan,

 

Gosh thanks. This ear playing may be something that I can do. And in fact do a little of now. I always always always thought it meant you heard the notes and immediately "got it". Knew what they were. Well, of course for Stuart that is true.

 

Well, hey, I can do this. Sort of.

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Yeah yeah Al, go on, encourage him.

 

You may have missed my reply as we both posted at the same time.

 

Derek, Al is not really laughing at your pa jokes.

 

Oh heck, of course he is and so am I.

 

I love jokes. So go ahead.

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[....perfect pitch, and it's pretty rare. I personally don't know anyone with perfect pitch. .... But after years of playing by ear the most I can mange in terms of recognising note values is a reasonable guess (right 75% of the time) as to whether a new tune heard in a session is in G, D or C (let's not talk about the relative minors!).

 

 

 

There are more people with perfect pitch than imagine Chris. Like you, I am not one of them.

 

The only time in my life I wished for that curse was at Conservatory in dictation class. The professor was drilling us in recognizing types of chords by their sound. Not very hard in the beginning, but later on.... :blink:

 

A fellow in the class (Tony) was getting the answers straight away and throwing up his hand madly. The professor wouldn't call on him because he had perfect pitch and was just spelling out the chords without any need to recognize their sound as a whole.

 

Tony was a riot when puchasing a coffee from an automatic vending machine in our building for he would have to call out the pitches the cup made falling into place and of course the sound of the coffee. I hope he later in life learned to keep that bit under his hat.

 

You mention guessing the key of a new tune at about 75% of the time. Pretty good. Perhaps you have as I do relative pitch (most of us do). I discovered it by realizing that when I sing a song or whistle tune walking about, more often than not I am on the money.

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If you do enough by ear playing ,providing it is a fairly simple tune,if you know how it goes you can play it.With session playing someone may play a tune which you have not heard for years and once through you can play along.I am sure Chris and Stuart will agree that it is possible to be able to play hundreds of tunes in this manner.For those of you who doubt this,it is the same as hearing a joke from someone that you heard years before and remembering the punch line.

 

Yes, I'd certainly agree with that Al - I think there comes a point whereby so long as you can hear a tune in your head, your ear will tell your fingers what to do in order to play it and you don't really have to intervene. I'm sure there's a much better way of explaining the cognitive phenomena that occur but I have no idea what they are, I just know it works :)

 

Helen, the power of a well-developed sense of "relative pitch" (i.e. hearing how different notes relate to one another) as opposed to "absolute (perfect) pitch" (being able to say "that's a G") is enormous. And everyone, apart from the few unfortunate souls who are genuinely "tone-deaf", has a sense of relative pitch - otherwise you wouldn't be able to enjoy listening to music, as any differences in pitch would be meaningless to you. As for learning how to apply it to playing an instrument, I've no personal experience I can relate, as I've always, since childhood, had absolute pitch... :rolleyes:

 

(edited to add a missing comma...)

Edited by stuart estell
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I have the ability to put a harmony, (singing or playing) fairly readily to anything I hear, whereas other folks while being able to hold a melody line against a harmony, are unable to harmonise with out being taught the harmony line verbatim. Is this anything to do with relative pitch? I am getting confused with the whole "relative pitch" definition.

 

Derek

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As the issues of playing by ear, perfect vs. relative pitch, etc. seem to me a topic independent of style, I've started a new Topic -- "Playing by Ear?" -- in the Teaching and Learning subForum, where I'm posting my own comments/responses on the matter.

 

Anybody want to join me there?

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