Learning by ear vs learning by sheet music, my experience

[tamborileru]

It's funny! This is the same question (more or less) than we have in other forum from a traditional instrument.

 

Really, the people that can read music sheets is a little number if we compare it with the number of people that cannot read music. However, today is higher the number of people that can read music sheets, and this is why this question appear in this kind of forums.

 

By ear or by sheets? This is the question.

 

In the past traditional musicians learned to play instruments by ear. Nobody could read music, and the players only could play a few of themes that the learned listening other traditional musicians. Today, the musicians that can read music can play hundreds, or thousands, or millions of different songs. They only have to read thant is writen in the sheet.

 

If we read this, the first impression is that is better read music that play by ear, because you can play a lot of different themes, much more themes than with the traditional way.

 

But I don't think so. Certainly, reading music sheets you can play thousands of songs. But that you win in number of themes, that you lose of "freedom" when you play. And you lose too in personal style. Traditional musicians alwais have their own way of play, always a personal style, different from the style of other traditional musicians. And this differences of styles is one of the things that make spetial the traditional music. If all we play the same and with the same style, what is that is have of wonderful?

 

Another advantage from traditional music is this: the traditional musicians that learn by ear can play in every situation because the have the song into his head. However, many musicians (not all the musicians, of course) that learn by sheets play the themes wonderful... if the have the sheets, but they can't play whitout the sheets.

 

In the past, I tried to play reading music, but for my this way was very bored. I prefer to play by ear. I prefer to play a few themes and to have my own style. It's ¿more funny? (sorry, I don't know this expression is correct).

[michael sam wild]

As a lifelong 'ear' player who was put off theory by bad teachers at school I have forced myself to work on ABC and the dots. I envy those who can read fluently but on aggregate would rather trust my ear.

 

I like the comment about the spaces in between the dots and the variations you need to put in to get a fluid style. That's where I have most fun!

 

I also sympathise with the post from the member about impending blindness. Good wishes. Many great musicians were blind . How do deaf musicians adapt?

[hjcjones]

If we're talking about learning tunes, then both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. I certainly regret that my music reading skills aren't good enough for me to be able to look through my music books and pick out tunes to try. On the other hand, ABC has been a godsend, and particularly on-line collections when I can quickly play a tune and decide whether or not to learn it.

 

The point I was making earlier, however, was about developing one's knowledge of the keyboard. I feel that the trial and error approach of playing by ear develops a knowledge of its layout which is based on pitch, and so relates more directly to the music, than a knowledge which is based on something on a page. I'm not suggesting that dot-readers don't also develop this in time, but the ear-player's approach to learning the instrument gets there more quickly.

 

Or would dot-readers disagree?

[Larry Stout]

I feel that the trial and error approach of playing by ear develops a knowledge of its layout which is based on pitch, and so relates more directly to the music, than a knowledge which is based on something on a page. I'm not suggesting that dot-readers don't also develop this in time, but the ear-player's approach to learning the instrument gets there more quickly.

 

Or would dot-readers disagree?

 

In the music school at the university where I teach mathematics the majors are expected to develop the ability to sight sing from standard musical notation-- learning to (really) read music involves getting so you can hear it by looking at the score, not so you can name the notes and then find them on your instrument. I've gotten so I can look at a tune in standard music notation and and hear approximately what it will sound like. I can't do that for ABC, since I don't hear the line from the name of the notes. Standard score gives a visual impression of the line and flow of the music in a way that just knowing the notes doesn't.

 

The instruments I play from written music are ones where the notes lie regularly in an organized fashion so that the connection between score and where the note is on the instrument is straightforward (English Concertina, fiddle, and mandolin fit here). It doesn't take much to make that connection harder for me-- I need tablature for lute and I play viola d'amore by ear rather than from the dots. Anglo concertina has a layout that made too little sense to me. I never got to the point of finding the same note in several different places. I suspect that were I to try to master the anglo I'd need to do it by ear.

[yankeeclipper]

The very notion of pitting "dots vs. ear" is ridiculous. Neither written music nor heard music immediately translates into good playing. In both cases, one works to learn the notes, and only then can play the music. Both methods are effective and worthwhile ways to acquire new tunes, and any player who can only do one or the other is working at a distinct disadvantage. I have learned many a tune by ear, and discovered many more in sheet music, and have been enriched by both. Please, competition and snobbery have no place in the wonderful world of music!

[Hereward]

Please, competition and snobbery have no place in the wonderful world of music!

 

I have found the folk music world to be full of snobbery on occasion and this astonished me because I agree with your statement here.

 

Ian

[David Levine]

Please, competition and snobbery have no place in the wonderful world of music!

 

Please, you're wrong on both counts. A bit of competition between friends is not a bad thing. It can spur you on to more effort and better playing.My pals and I encourage each other to strut our stuff. It serves as impetus for growth. The idea isn't to blow people away but to gently challenge them and to encourage them by example.

 

I have no idea what you mean by snobbery. Do you mean that an accomplished musician should always play to the level of beginners when he is with beginners? Or never turn his nose up when the music is shite? I don't expect world-class musicians to show up at our little local session. I don't expect to play tennis with Andre Agassi, either. Rank hath its privilege. That includes knowing who you are and, if you're really really good at something, knowing that and not denying who you are and what you have accomplished.

[Azalin]

Speaking of which, I received my "Session Snob" T-shirt last week and it was quite a success at the house session I had. I actually consider myself being a snob on attitude more than skills. I can often play with beginner players with good behaviour, but have a hard time with good players with bad behaviour. Anyhow, this is the T-shirt I got:

 

http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/session...shirt/280620169

[jeffw]

Wow, what a thread this has turned into!

 

And good discussion I might add.

 

Just to restate my opening post, I was personally surprised and pleased with my own progress in developing a previously unknown (to me) relationship with the instrument. And, it *has* made a positive difference in my playing -- a dimension I had not yet realized and now I am enjoying exploring that new dimension.

 

That, of course, is my experience. Your mileage will vary, as they say...

 

Do I still look at music notation from time to time to remember how a tune starts -- you bet I do.

 

Am I willing to learn a tune from notation, well, I was just looking for some barndances yesterday, coming up empty with the CD's on hand, and learned the "Kerry Mill" from notation because it looked pretty fun. But I do wonder how an accomplished player would interpret the tune, something I can never get from notation alone.

 

I am in awe of anyone who can play an instrument well, with life and feeling, regardless of how they achieve that end.

 

Cheers,

Jeff

[Chris Drinkwater]

I am sure that it has been said many times before in posts in this forum, that the notes for a piece of music, whether on paper, or in the head, are just the starting point and that it is up to the musician to use his skill to make the tune come alive in a way that suits the type of tune by putting his/her interpretation on it. I have just come back from hearing the English duo Matt Green and Andy Turner playing live. You can hear Andy Turner playing solo on Anglo International. Matt Green plays the fiddle. Together, they turn an ordinary country dance tune into something special. Their playing combines in such a way that they feed off each other to the extent that the music really comes alive, almost in a 3D context. Obviously, that takes very good, perhaps exceptional musicianship and a thorough knowledge of your instrument and what you can achieve through playing it, combined with years of practice and then being able to successfully integrate it with another musician's playing. Although I can sight read a bit, I prefer to learn by ear, because once the tune is in my head, I can play around with it and improvise in a way that I can't when I read the dots. Some people can sight read well enough to be able to 'hear' the tune as they read it. I can't. It's a bit like reading a paragraph from a book you have never seen before. You don't know what's coming next. I generally only refer to sheet music when I cannot find a recording of a tune, I want to learn. And we have William Caxton, and his invention, to thank for that!

 

Chris

[David Barnert]

I can't remember who said it, but the skill in playing traditional music from sheet music is in playing the bits between the notes. The shape of the tune is contained in the sheet music before you, but the pulse and lilt and (gulp) soul of the tune is in the stylistic nuances of timing and expression that sheet music would expend a lot of ink to convey, but your knowledge of how English (or Irish or French) music works supplies.

That may have been me. I've certainly said it. Not so much referring to the notes as they appear on paper, but as they sound. Anybody can play a stream of notes, whether from paper of from memory. It becomes musical when you pay attention to the spaces between the notes. That's where the music is.

 

This whole conversation seems to assume the simplicity that there are two ways to play: from notation and by ear. There are, of course, many variants of both:

• You can learn a tune without ever having seen it on paper (note that this pretty much means that you've got it memorized).
  
• You can learn a tune from paper and then memorize it before attempting to perform it, never performing from paper.
  
• You can learn a tune without paper, then look at the paper (or write it down) to cement it into place.
  
• You can learn it from paper and never play it without having the paper in front of you.
  
• You can read it at sight from paper and learn it as you're playing it, memorizing it after a couple of times through.
  

Etcetera.

 

Everyone does it differently and has different names for and ideas about what they and others do.

[michael sam wild]

I appreciate the point about 'hearing' the tune when you look at notes on the stave. I would love to be able to do that. How do allow for sharps and flats in various key signatures?

 

Any tips as to how to develop the sight reading skill at my age , 69?

 

I have a friend who teaches kids using the method develped by Kodaly

[LDT]

I don't use either and yet at the same time both.....let me explain. I work out beforehand what buttons each dot means then I work out how to play it by what I hear. See told you I'm very odd.

Both sight reading and learning by ear are a mystery to me but I've found a middle way that works for me..... but I need both the dots and the audio so that's why I like the tune o tron.

Anyone else use this method or am I the only one? If I am the only one...can I name the technique after myself?

Edited March 6, 2009 by LDT

[buikligger]

I use a combination of tune-o-tron (with speed regulation) and ABC

[yankeeclipper]

Please, competition and snobbery have no place in the wonderful world of music!

 

Please, you're wrong on both counts.

 

My apologies, David, I should have made an exception for Irish trad.

[Fergus_fiddler]

Here are my two cents:

 

About reading the dots and playing by ear... I've only very recently managed to read music fluently enough and is useful for a couple of things in traditional music, e.g., when you find difficult to play a bar or you don't remember the key or the beginnig of the tune, but I agree very much Tamborileru: expression in traditional music is EVERYTHING. So, when I try to learn a new tune, usually hear as many versions of the tune as possible, then I learn the tune and play it the best I CAN

 

And about competition and snobbery... Uffff! I've seen quite a few of both in my musical life. I began to play regularly at a session 15 years ago at the only - still is - traditional music place in Madrid: Taberna Elisa.

 

The 90's where the years of the folk revival in Spain. You could found there a lot of f*****k snobs, mostly nerds with high degrees in sciences or maths, playing the most bizarre instruments - hurdy-gurdys, rebecs, weird flutes - only for exhibit themselves. When you asked them if they played ITM, the answered: 'Oh, I surpassed that'. I didn`t know that irish music was something that had to be surpassed In fact, if you heared them playing ITM, their playing was crap.

 

Of course, there were nice guys - like the ones from the band 'La Musgaña' -, but they weren't a majority.

 

'competition and snobbery have no place in the wonderful world of music'. Wow, what a statement. Indeed, they SHOULDN'T, but the sad reality is that there are. And a lot. I'm recently discovering the world of english trad. music and I'm delighted. I don't see there the furious competition usually fund at ITM. Perhaps is because english music didn't went to the USA and come back transformed into a Disneyworld merchandising package, like the 'Celtic Music' - revolting word -. Perhaps because wasn't used as a sign of national identity or nationalism, or the amount of professional musicians is significantly smaller. But I feel the playing of such as John Kirpatrick or Brian Peters a lot more 'authentic' and honest that most of irish nowadays bands.

 

Of course, as usual, this is only my opinion and my point of view.

 

Cheers,

 

Fer

[michael sam wild]

Interesting point about the American ITM thing. But I always found the feedback from the States by emigrant musicians a healthy part of the tradition

 

Are later generations in US changing the nature of sessions and competion etc. I don't know .

 

I Britain we get some hotshot sessions and others that are laid back. I agree with the comment about English trad and I think that's because it's not been appropriated for romantic, 'political' or nationalistic causes, we musicians are just glad if it's appreciated and not slagged off by journalists etc. If we had had a dose of colonisation, later than by the Norman French we might value our heritage more!

If Napoleon or Hitler had won we'd be doing Rebel Morris secretly and hiding concertinas in the hay with the weapons!

[Ptarmigan]

As an ear player, I don't know and I don't care what the notes are called, I simply map the sound of them straight to the appropriate buttons.

Ahh & I thought it was only me who didn't know what all those buttons were called!

 

When I sold my Anglo recently, after playing one for 30 years, the first question the buyer asked as he strapped himself in was where such & such a note was ... & of course I couldn't tell, so said he'd just have to look for it himself.

 

Mind you, I found that flying by the seat of my pants ear approach, much easier on the Anglo than I am finding on the English. The opportunity to hit BUM notes on the EC seems so much greater!

 

I played the Fiddle for years too without ever bothering to learn the names of the notes & to be honest, the only reason I learned them, & then learned to read the dots, was when I started teaching kids.

 

Cheers

Dick