Playing In Your Mind

[Helen]

Thank you Alan.

 

Lovely to know that even more insanity is coming my way.

 

Helen

[Robin Tims]

Yes, Jim, exactly so. I do this a lot usually in the early hours to sort out phrasing and emphasis paticularly with jigs on EC, also melodeon (sorry).

Hello all, this is my first post.

 

Robin T

[Robin Tims]

Oh dear, I stupidly failed to notice the long-past date and page of Jim's message to which I replied and so made no sense to anyone.

 

Of course I should have quoted from that post directly but I am still feeling my way around all this.

 

Sorry about that, what a way to start. Got quite carried away by the topic of playing in your mind I'm afraid, and which I do a lot of. I will now creep away.

 

Robin T

[Helen]

Hey Robin,

 

Come on back. And welcome. We're always responding to posts out of order. Usually we quote, but all of us forget to do so from time to time.

 

So just jump right back in. We're always glad to hear from new people.

 

Where are you located?

 

Helen

[Robin Madge]

A funny thing. Last night at the folk club I asked my wife if she was going to sing a new song that she was learning. She said no, she wasn't certain of the tune at one point and didn't have her concertina with her.

Now she has learnt this song by ear but is happer to play the tune of it on the concertina than to sing it, and it is the tune not the words that are giving her the trouble!

I'm not sure quite what bit of mind playing is going on here.

 

Robin Madge

[Alan Day]

You are introducing another element here Robin,I can hum the tune (without humming )in my mind and play the chords on the left or play single notes left and right hand.To sing and play the tune in my head or live for that matter I have never managed .Except for a few words.

Welcome Robin.

Al

[Sharron]

Well I have waited to post until I came back from the session last night, as i wanted to see if what I thought happened did.

Well yes it does, and on a session night it is murder trying to get some sleep.

I find that tunes keep popping up into my head and I can figure the tunes fingering pattern and repeats and dynamics, etc. Don't know the title though, that bit doesn't seem to pop into my head at all. I don't even know if even half of the tunes are from what I have heard played that night or if it just opens the door to anything I have heard from cds, etc.

 

BUT the problem is I cannot get a start to the tune when I am awake. I always tell myself I will but of course I don't.

 

 

Sharron

[Robert Booth]

This is a great thread. I teach Special Education at the middle school level, 11 to 14 year olds, and I am often forced to figure out why a kid does not read or spell adequately, or when they do, just how they do it! When one begins to break down these activities into component parts the number of variables can become bewildering.

I wonder if the processes for reading music, and the apparent dependency on the dots of some people, are similar to the the process of reading and spelling print ? The two happen in different parts of the brain; so, I suspect, do the reading of music and the "by ear" method.

So, how about it, you readers of dots, Do you experience printed music the same way as printed text? And the "Listeners: how's your facility for spelling?

Maybe I'm way off base here but now I'm curious!

Rob

[Helen]

Hey Robert,

 

Interesting idea. I am a voracious reader and I play by dots. I learned to read music at a very early age and am most comfortable playing that way.

 

I was always a good student and remembered what teachers said in class even the inflection of their voices. I really remembered what I read.

 

Maybe I should approach hearing a tune as I used to approach actively listening to a lecture that I would be tested on later. I wonder if that will help.

 

I'd be a great test subject as I don't play by ear at all. Although certainly willing to try.

 

Helen

[JimLucas]

When one begins to break down these activities into component parts the number of variables can become bewildering.

Well, yeah. The different processes of reading, learning, speaking, playing, etc. all consist of numerous sub-processes, some of which may be shared and others not. None of them are unitary, monolithic, or even straight-through sequences. Thus, trying to compare reading music with reading text without looking at them in more detail seems futile to me.

 

I wonder if the processes for reading music, and the apparent dependency on the dots of some people, are similar to the the process of reading and spelling print ?

I think you're neglecting some factors here. If you're going to compare reading music with reading text, I think it should be a comparison with reading text out loud. While some folks learn to read music and "hear" the sounds in their mind without actually playing them on an instrument, I think most note readers can't do that. However, reading text silently is much more common than reading out loud, even for most parents, school teachers, and speechifying politicians.

 

That last does suggest a potential comparison, though. Some folks read notes to learn music, after which they can play it without looking (or glancing down only occasionally for reference), while others simply can't play at all without looking at "the dots". Similarly, there are those public speakers who speak from memory use notes as a guide vs. those who can only read their speeches from paper. (There's the famous story about President Reagan missing four pages of a speech -- of which reporters had pre-printed copies, so they could tell -- and being completely unaware of it.) Extemporaneous speech might be compared with musical improvisation.

 

One difference between text and standard music notation -- though I don't know how much difference it actually makes in the two reading processes -- is that text is linear, while music notation is two-dimensional. (ABC music notation is also linear.) But different people also have different ways of reading text. Some can only do it a word at a time; some take in larger units -- a phrase, a line, a sentence -- at a time; and some even seem able to perceive a large block of a page (or even an entire small page) as a single unit.

 

The two happen in different parts of the brain; so, I suspect, do the reading of music and the "by ear" method.

Now, I think the reading/speech equivalent of learning "by ear" would have to be learning speech from listening. That's what a lot of folks do with popular songs, and is something I've never been good at. On the other hand, I am good at singing along in real time with songs I've never heard before, and I can sometimes do that with tunes, too. Go figure. What I think may be an intermediate process is picking up a tune gradually as others play it through a few times, though often forgetting it afterward. (I.e., there are "short term" and "long term" versions of learning by ear, just as there are for memory in general.)

 

 

So, how about it, you readers of dots, Do you experience printed music the same way as printed text?

I don't think so, though I don't think I can analyze how I "experience" either, and I wonder how many can.

 

And the "Listeners: how's your facility for spelling?

Well, I'm great at spelling, but I'm both a reader and an ear-player.

 

Maybe I'm way off base here but now I'm curious!

I suspect you are, but it is an interesting idea.

[Robin Tims]

So just jump right back in. We're always glad to hear from new people.

 

Where are you located?

 

Helen

Thanks Helen, made me feel much better. I'm in Norfolk UK and play English 48 treble and baritone except for 2 years time out on C/G Anglo now abandoned.

 

Learning a tune by ear is a struggle for me and I always start from the dots. After that I tend to visualise the dots at least at the start of the tune then try not to interrrupt my brain by thinking about it. Conversely I can absorb a melody very quickly and remember it to hum quite easily. This with a 67 year old brain !

 

Robin T

[Alan Day]

When I was at school I played the violin and later played the trumpet,both instruments were played using written music.The way I learnt was to use the dots as finger positions on the instrument,I rarely converted the dots to alphabet GABC etc.Therefore if you took the music away I was completely lost and unable to play at all.

If you use this method or any other ways of using written music to play it would be

WRITTEN MUSIC=BUTTONS TO COMPRESS= NOTE(TUNE)

also of course direction for the anglo or left or right side for the English.

With by ear playing you are looking at the exact opposite

NOTE(TUNE)=BUTTONS TO COMPRESS.

It is this reason why some of you have to imagine the written dots to play the music adding another dimension to memory( an incredible thing to do).

When we were decimalised many people were converting the new currency into the old or centimeters into inches etc.(me included) instead of getting on with the new currency.

Playing by ear is adapting your memory to accept SOUND= BUTTON.

It is then you can understand how people can drive along ,humming a tune and playing an imaginary instrument, or mind playing,the subject of this discussion.

Al

[RustyBits]

Yes, Alan, but can you chew gum at the same time??

[Alan Day]

Not when I`m laughing Lisa.

[Henk van Aalten]

Yes, Alan, but can you chew gum at the same time??

Interesting that you mention this Lisa!

When I play by ear (from memory) I cannot chew at all. I even lose control of my facial muscles. This gives the impression that I am completely absent (so my wife tells me).

On the other hand I easily can watch TV (an exciting soccer match) or listen to the radio while playing.

 

Anyone of you recognizes this?

 

Henk

[Chris Ghent]

On the other hand I easily can watch TV (an exciting soccer match) or listen to the radio while playing.

One of our local TV channels plays many foreign movies with subtitles. This means you can have the sound down and play while you watch. I have often played for a whole movie. I do stop for the tense/exciting/climactic bits.

 

Chris

[JimLucas]

I even lose control of my facial muscles. This gives the impression that I am completely absent (so my wife tells me).

On the other hand I easily can watch TV (an exciting soccer match) or listen to the radio while playing.

 

Anyone of you recognizes this?

"The concertina players vacant stare" is infamous. The soccer/football match is new to me.

[Robin Madge]

I find it almost impossible to speak or to eat whilst playing. I assume that singing whilst playing works because the timing is interlinked.

 

Martin Carthy plays the Harry Lyme theme on guitar whilst reciting a poem. When I asked him about it he revealed that he uses cetain notes as cues to start the next phrase, and is not just reciting at random as it appears.

 

Robin Madge