The Freedom of Learning by Ear

[JonesB]

I’m a relative newcomer to concertina and have been enjoying learning to play my Minstrel anglo for about 8 months.

 

With a mixed musical background of piano, banjo, fiddle (not nice) melodeon and dulcimer I’ve always learned by following standard notation or tabs…….usually downloaded on my tablet which then stares at me from its stand whilst I’m playing.

Same for my anglo where everything is in tabs …. courtesy of Gary Coovers excellent books and his method has served me well on my squeezebox journey.

 

I currently have about 50 tunes that I play regularly, usually about an hour a day. Half of these are melody tunes and half are harmonised……some US folk, some ITM and some Morris tunes.

Recently I wondered how many of these I could play without reference to the tabs so I started to play some (firstly single note and then with harmony) tunes from memory. I could not believe the ability of the human mind to remember so much (and my mind is older than many others) because I could immediately play about a dozen tunes by ear and have now gone on to play upwards of 30 without reference to my ever glaring tabs.

But just remembering the tune is only a small part of it ……I am now listening to what I’m playing!

 

I can therefore adjust what has been missing in terms of bellows/volume control, emphasis, ornamentation etc and generally make the tune more enjoyable to listen to so that my anglo becomes more of a musical instrument and less of a note making machine. I can now be self critical and modify my playing accordingly.

I can also play quicker (read “less slowly) because I don’t have to observe and mentally process the tab……but above all I’m having a blast and enjoying playing to an extent I wouldn’t have believed possible.

 

Tabs have been an essential part of my progress….but now I’m starting to learn!
 

Brian

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Welcome to world of concertina🌝

When I began I had t do all the basics music theory, and learned to play with practicing with a tablature on a basic book. After many months I also used the tablature less or only for awkward reaches, and now hardly at all. I think the instrument lends itself to learning by ear and also by reading on page. As I write new music a lot also.. they are also great as portable musical devices for inventing new tunes, I have found.

Keep going on your learning and there's hardly any music you cannot make work on concertinas, of virtually all genres.and let everyone here see your efforts too🌝🌝🌝 

[JonesB]

Thanks for your encouragement Simon…..I have followed your exploits on this forum so your support is welcome. You mention the portability of the concertina……I take mine everywhere with me as I did many years ago with my harmonica so whenever I need a boost it’s there!

Brian

[Don Taylor]

Last week there was an interesting (and long) set of posts on 'The Session" that covers a lot ground:

Thinking while learning and playing by ear

[Matthew Heumann]

10 hours ago, JonesB said:

 I could not believe the ability of the human mind to remember so much.....

I'm sure there are many of us who, even though we haven't played a tune in 40 years, are amazed that as soon as we hear it, we automatically play along....... thinking, "What is this tune and why do I know it?" I haven't played in Irish sessions for probably 25 years or more, but my fingers seem to go into auto-pilot if someone else is playing. I don't know if its muscle memory, but my brain certainly doesn't remember the tunes. I once figured that with a little auditory prompting, I probably had 200 or so tunes stored in my fingers that I'd long forgotten about. It still amazes me how music is processed in the brain, even a 73 year-old one.

[RAc]

On 8/15/2024 at 5:04 PM, JonesB said:

I could not believe the ability of the human mind to remember so much (and my mind is older than many others) because I could immediately play about a dozen tunes by ear and have now gone on to play upwards of 30 without reference to my ever glaring tabs.

 

I believe to have read somewhere that music theory research has pinpointed the maximum storage space to between 50-100, of course depending on many different factors with a significant individual variance. 

 

As usual (just like in almost any issue related to music), there is no "one size fits all" answer to the question how to approach music/music practicing. In the circle of musicians I hang out with, some have classical training, meaning you can present them with any score, and they will be able to sight read those score and render them in finest written detail at full combat speed without ever having seen them before. Generally they don't do as well in improvising, inventing complimenting voices, accompanying and so on, but the range of pieces accessible to them makes me envious at times.

 

Some others do not read music at all but can pick up pieces by ear real fast. After two times through, they will be able to play along as if they had practiced it all their lives. Makes me envious at times.

 

I myself am neither a good sight reader nor a good by ear player (though I like to believe I am getting better at it), so my only choice is to learn the pieces I feel confident to play outside my four walls by heart. That works fairly well and has so far gifted a satisfactory repertoire to me, but it is a time-consuming process, and as the number of pieces gets larger, I realize my limited storage capacity. 

 

Thus, for me personally, I resolved for a mixture of sight reading training, ear training and tune studying as my recipe for getting better (or sometimes, depending on how much time I can invest in music, simply keeping my level). As the indeed very interesting thread that @Don Taylor linked with (thanks!) revealed, there are as many strategies out there as there are people making music, so everybody must find his/her own lever. 

Edited August 17 by RAc
minor spelling issues fixed

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

It is very satisfying, I always think, when you can also begin to understand the rudimentary basic skills to read music.  Even if not absolutely essential, and the fact you do not need to understand absolutely everything theoretically in the skill.. just enough to get by.

My own distant relatives were a mixed group ( as fa as musical skills go).. my mother admitted she could never play any instrument, even though she was encouraged to do piano classes. My grandmother played everything ( I was told)  with a very strict 1..2...3 rhythm. Whilst  a great aunt relative, apparently could hear a tube once and then play it back perfectly. My father's side also had skilled musician (Poland). Fiddle, and Dulcimer, ...

So, there's many ways into the art form as there are patterns on butterfly wings.

Edited August 17 by SIMON GABRIELOW

[Can the Man]

I came to concertina playing from previously playing the GHBP, where the primary playing was for competition so we learned from staff notation, memorised it and all had to play identical music no freedom for your own embellishments unless you were playing solo. 
I found the chan3 of music to ABC notation very helpful for my concertina playing, I still struggle trying to learn by ear, when I was at the Concertina crinniú these last few years the tutors were encouraging the learn by ear but it just doesn’t work like that for me. I need the ABC’s and then I can follow the notes by ear.