Learning by ear vs learning by sheet music, my experience

[catty]

Language is fun.

 

Okay, fun it is then. I was ony defending myself, the American that I am (no Bushie, though )...in that I call a tune a tune, and a song a song!

Edited March 10, 2009 by catty

[Ptarmigan]

Language is fun.

 

Okay, fun it is then. I was ony defending myself, the American that I am (no Bushie, though )...in that I call a tune a tune, and a song a song!

 

& of course ....... a spade a spade!

 

Funny thing Catty, but when kids assume, because of my Scottish accent & my surname {Glasgow} that I actually come from Glasgow, my answer is usually:

 

"Don't be silly, do you think George Bush came from a Bush!" ............................... & then I wonder!

 

Cheers

Dick

[catty]

... George Bush came from (?) ...

 

I have lots of ideas...but of course shan't share them here. After all, we're talking about learning by ear vs sheet music, and not that SOME don't seem to learn at all... )

[Jody Kruskal]

I've spent many, many happy hours on forums discussing music & tunes, mostly Old Time, with Americans & I know that from my own experience & huge proportion of them like to call tunes songs. I can assure they don't do it out of ignorance at all, it just seems to be a convention with them, a pet name if you like & I don't really have a problem with it & it certainly doesn't keep me awake at night, but I often smile when I hear it being used.

 

Well, I never hear that being said up here in the US North-East where a tune is a tune and a song is a song. I was playing down in Nashville once, where I did hear folks saying song for both. I didn't hear that out in East Texas though. My guess is that it's a regional thing. Accents can be so strong in the rural South that I can barely understand a word.

 

Language is fun.

True for me too. I love it that in England I have to watch my step, where that little zipper bag I wear with a strap around my waist is called a "bum bag." If I call it my "fanny pack" as I do back home, people's eyes go wide at my shocking language.

 

Speaking of language, I was at the Eigse Mrs. Crotty in Clare last summer and attended numerous sessions. (Thank you Stephen Chambers for showing me around). I got an earful of ITM and only spuratically tried to play a bit as I really have such a different style from the Anglo players there and don't know very many of those tunes. Probably only a few hundred or so.

 

Anyway... one thing I was noticing was how the Irish accent in both English and Irish had a particular lilt to it. There is a sort of melodious flow to the rhythm, pitch and phrasing of speech that caught my ear. As I was listening to plenty of talk and also plenty of music, I started to hear that the two were really the same in a way that seems to make sense to my ear. There was something I was hearing about the Irish way of turning a phrase that gives it a humorous and teasing twist, adding a level of meaning that is shared by the sound of the music. Does this make sense to you native ITM players? You might not really notice it, but as a visitor, I sure did.

 

I bet that learning to play by ear is the only way to get the musical accent right, or at least close. If you already have the accent (musically), then dots are fine for the bare bones of a tune, but should not be relied on by beginners, as there is so much more to music than a series of notes and rhythms. I think that learners of any style should try to emulate actual music, not dots.

[Ptarmigan]

Accents can be so strong in the rural South that I can barely understand a word.

er ......... Pardon?

 

Anyway... one thing I was noticing was how the Irish accent in both English and Irish had a particular lilt to it.

There is a sort of melodious flow to the rhythm, pitch and phrasing of speech that caught my ear.

I'm sure it's the case in the States too Jody, as it is here in Ireland, Scotland & England too, that you only need to travel a few miles down the road, to hear a slightly different accent. I guess our ears are constantly tuning in automatically to these different accent stations & it's this skill that helps us when it comes to learning by ear.

 

Perhaps if you don't move around so much, you find it harder to tune in.

 

Cheers

Dick

[Mayofiddler]

Greek modes are older than gregorian music, just in case you didn't noticed.

 

Fer

 

Actually the Greek modes (if you are talking mixolydian etc.) have nothing to do with the Greeks, they were given Greek names in the mediaeval period when they were put together.

 

Anyway, enough of this, I'm not trying to start a war. What I'm saying is listen to the music and learn it. All you need to know is which notes are sharp (for example), which is easy enough to notice if you try a natural instead whilst learning a tune. Everything to do with written notation is irrelevant to Irish music. It holds absolutely nothing you can't hear with your ears and if all you are doing is playing a tune as notated, and sticking in a roll or cut here and there, you aren't playing Irish music. You have to be able to hear the *music* and if you can't no amount of notation will give it to you. And if you can hear it, you don't need the notation.

[Anglo-Irishman]

Charlie,

Interesting post - for me at least!

 

I am a mandolin player mostly

 

Me, too - well along with a couple of other fretted instruments, of which more later.

 

If I can hum the whole tune, every note, without doubt about any phrase, I can figure it out on the mandolin.

 

That sums up my position exactly.

 

When I decided to take up Crane Duet I was 60 years old and so far, I have only played by ear on it. I sometimes look at note system chart to figure out what note to start off on, but once I get rolling I can usually figure out the melody by ear.

 

Again, same here - except substitute 62 for 60 (near enough, no use quibbling about a year or two at our age ). I must add that, although I've picked up quite a bit of music theory over the years, I cannot sight-read on any instrument. So the Crane's no different there!

 

Of course the left hand is another matter, although I instantly know by ear if I am playing the wrong chord. I would say the Crane Duet has taught me a lot about forming and playing chords and accompaniement

 

Now, there's where we differ! One of my other fretted instruments is the 5-string banjo, which I play finger-style. On it, I've learned to form a few basic chord shapes with 3 fingers. You can move these up and down the neck to change the root of the chord, and a different shape at a different position gives you an inversion of the same chord. And the shapes can be easily modified to make them major or minor.

I've found all this to be true of the Crane duet, so learning chording has been relatively easy.

I also find the concept of playing the scale with 3 fingers on one row and skipping to the next row very akin to playing scales on the mandolin, and the idea of just shifting a finger to get a sharp or flat is also familiar.

 

In fact, when I decided to escape from the diatonic confines of the Anglo, and compared all the available concertina button layouts, my decision for the Crane was heavily influenced by my familiarity with the mandolin!

Was your decision for the Crane similar, or did you take it up "just because it was there"? (That's the way I took up both mandolin and banjo )

 

Cheers,

John

[Anglo-Irishman]

I bet that learning to play by ear is the only way to get the musical accent right, or at least close. If you already have the accent (musically), then dots are fine for the bare bones of a tune, but should not be relied on by beginners, as there is so much more to music than a series of notes and rhythms. I think that learners of any style should try to emulate actual music, not dots.

 

Jody,

As so often, you sum it up perfectly!

 

And we must remember that there are not only local, rural or urban accents, but also educated accents, posh accents, affected accents ...

This really does apply to music as much as speech. You need the appropriate accent to play classical music from the dots, too. In fact, the mainstream orchestra players and the Ancient Music ("authentic performance") players cultivate quite distinct accents for Bach's or Mozart's dots. Clearly, if you're going to play Irish or Appalachian music like a native, dots alone will not help you.

 

But what I wonder sometimes is, how do people come to start learning to play music without hearing it beforehand? I mean, I'm old, and even I listened to the radio as far back as I can remember - long before I was big enough or old enough to play any of the instruments in the house. I was also subjected to music through my parents' playing, and at church, at the Salvation Army, at street parades, later on through the family's record player - even at school! When I finally got my hands on an an instrument, the acquisition phase was well under way - all I had to do was develop a technique to let out what I had passively accumulated over the years. Of course, with ever more varied, more available media, my acquisition phase continues. But I have "my" accent, which was influenced by the music I enjoyed, which is the music I play.

 

Does anyone who starts an instrument when older than, say, 7 really not have a "native" accent? I don't mean only English, Irish or American, but also classical, jazz, folk or pop.

 

Cheers,

John

[catty]

Add to this colloquial dilemma (or, dilemmer, as it is known in some parts of the US) the complicating aspect that some tunes are also known as songs: e.g., the TUNE "Arkansas traveller" which was derived from a Breton (?...I hesitate to employ the term "Celtic"......to avoid inviting another brouhaha) source, is also known as another "nursery" tune altogether ("I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee...won't my mother be so proud of me") and several verses of hillbilly lyrics, as well..

 

(..but still, I know the difference )

Edited March 13, 2009 by catty

[tamborileru]

Hello, friends!

 

This topic is very hot, WOW!

 

All the opinions are very interesting, and there are many, many opinions. My last time in the forum was a week ago, and there are many new opinions sice that day.

 

First of all, the other Spanish in the forum (fergus_fiddler) has reason when he says that perhaps the language or translation are a problem sometimes. The level of Spanish in English language is very poor. I "speak" English 25 years ago... and today is very difficult for me. In these few lines I've used my English-Spanish / Spanish-English 2 or 3 times. I'm sure that sometimes is difficult for you read our posts because we don't use some words and expressions in the correct form.

 

Well, respect in the matter of Celtic Music, I think that this is a label. The Celts, like Celt People, dissapeared in time of romans. Well, this is not correct. The Celt People, with his own culture and traditions stayed on into the Roman Empire and, later, in some places for many centuries. But his culture and traditions were pursued by the staments of Power in all the Middle Age and Modern Age. So, today Celtic Culture is a little part of was the Celtic Culture in the past, and the Celtic People has dissapeared under the modern countries, without conscience like a only one People. This pursuit still continue in all the countries, all the continents, all the cultures and all the peoples.

 

However, the label of "Celtic" today is very important and, that is more important for "money lovers", today everything with the label "Celt" can do win a lot of money a some people, and the put Celtic Label a many things that nothing have to see with authentic celtic culture or traditions.

 

What are the rest of Celtic Culture today? Pipes? Perhaps, but not necessary. There are many kinds of Pipes in the world, even in Europe. In Spain, we have: gaita gallega (from Galicia), gaita asturiana (from Asturias), gaita sanabresa (from Zamora); gaita alistana (from Zamora); gaita aragonesa (from Aragón);... and many other pipes in all the cornes in the country, even in Mallorca (Illes Balears). And all the pipes different. The Celts were in Spain (well, not in Spain, in the land of we call Spain today), but not in all the territory, only in the North of the Península Ibérica (sorry, I don´t know the name of this in English).

 

Really is very difficult to say what is Celtic. I think we must to speak for Celtic Lands (or something in this style), because is impossible find something that we can say: I'm sure that it's Celtic.

 

Other question. I was reading your posts and I don't understand one thing: what is ITM?

 

Cheers.

 

José Benito "tamborileru"

[hjcjones]

"Celtic" is probably more a cultural rather than an ethnic label - even in the British Isles there are at least two very distinct "celtic" racial and linguistic groups.

 

I think what irritates people is the use of "celtic" to mean Irish - this seems to have originated with the music industry, particular in America, and has become fairly widespread, especially but by no means exclusively among Americans. "Celtic" culture varies considerably and whilst there are certain similarities between them they also have very distinct regional variations.

 

It is also misleading to think of the pipes as a celtic instrument - they are found widely in many cultures.

[Fergus_fiddler]

Other question. I was reading your posts and I don't understand one thing: what is ITM?

 

ITM = Irish Traditional Music = Música Tradicional Irlandesa.

 

Un saludo!

 

Fer

[tamborileru]

Thanks, Fer

 

Gracias, paisano.