I’m 66 and play fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin and can sight-read an unknown fiddle tune at a reasonable tempo. I attended a workshop last weekend that was given by a very talented professional concertina player, Caroline Keane. One thing that she was Adamant about was to close your eyes when learning a new tune or a new instrument. She says your brain spends way too much energy on vision. Turn that off and you’ll adapt quickly. Your fingers will find the buttons and remember their location. I attended her workshop because I’m considering buying a concertina. I’m going to follow her lead and never use music of any kind other than a backing track with Strum Machine when I learn to play the concertina.
I also attended two large sessions that same weekend. I spent a lot of time preparing for the weekend by repeating common tunes many, many times. I could (mostly) keep up! I also had a tablet with my tunes on it sitting on a stand in front of me. I quickly realized that it was useless. Tunes change too fast to ever find a tune on the tablet before the group is on to the next tune. Even the very professional bass player, singer, whistle, everything player sitting next to me couldn’t keep up with an unknown tune if she didn’t have the tune ready on her tablet.
I’m interested in others’ experience on this subject.
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Hi David, same age , but I have a hard time keeping everything square in my head. I play banjo, but I DO NOT SING (groan). By default, I tend to overlook songs chord progressions and although I recognize the songs, sometimes I need help with the chords (not all songs are I,IV,V). Hence SM and I am not ashamed of it. As you say, playing by ear is a very noble attribute, but at times things move fast enough to make one sound tentative, if not outright incompetent, hence notation and/or tabs. I know pros can chart jazz by ear. Well, I am not a pro. I do what I can and take any help I can.
I’ve got five years on you, David, and for the past four have been playing guitar, mando and bouzouki in a Celtic trad trio and attending a monthly session. Having never played the music before, I was pretty overwhelmed (still am!) by the sheer volume of tunes. I’ve got a binder with over 200 that I continue to work on. I’m not particularly facile with standard notation but can play at speed pretty quickly with tab. Once I take my eyes off the printed page of a tune (or tablet), however, it’s like I’ve never even seen or heard it. You have to force yourself to look away and face the ignominy of your ineptitude. Even at our advanced ages, you CAN learn if you throw away the crutch. I’ve not tried closing my eyes, as Caroline suggests, but will.
Caroline is incredible, as you already know. She’s not only talented, but her utter joy and love for the music are infectious. I am mesmerized watching her facial expressions as she plays. (If you haven’t seen it, check out the Fleadh TV live video of her doing Rollicking Boys Around Tondragee with Four Winds and my hero, Daiori Farrell.) She’s also a lovely person; I was traveling to Dingle a few years ago and contacted her to ask if she and Tom were performing anywhere close. She responded immediately, but unfortunately I missed her by a couple days.
My preference is to try to learn a tune by ear first. And yes, I shut my eyes a lot! It feels like I can narrow down what my brain is doing that way. I try to live with a tune for awhile, whistling it, imagining it playing in my head, my fingers noting it. After I get what I can, I look at notation to help pick up things I might have missed. And I think the challenge of learning a new tune (if it’s not too fast or complicated!) in real time at a jam is great fun.
There’s nothing wrong with being very good at reading the music. Like classical orchestra, etc. And it’s handy to be able to sight read well. But I know that tunes I learn by ear are laid down in a different groove of my brain, and they stick with me. And that’s what works best when you are playing in the wild!
I am a recovering classical musician. My professional instrument was French horn; my second instrument was/is guitar. Started on folk, then classical guitar in the 60s, then no guitar until the 80s when I learned jazz, then got tendinitis and didn’t play much until 2021 when I retired. On guitar I am good at reading both notation and TAB, but that facility is a double edged sword. On one hand, reading gives you access to a lot of printed literature. On the other hand, it handicaps your progress on getting deeper into tunes, memorizing, and improvising. It’s easy for me to read through books of printed stuff, but at the end I don’t know any tunes. So I have embarked on the painful journey of weaning myself off the page. It is slow going, but it’s the best thing for me right now. I hope and assume that the process of learning without ink gets easier over time with quantity. That keeps me going. But it’s clear to have or build a repertoire I just have to play as much as possible without ink in front of me. I’m not sorry that I can read, but I am sorry that I have not given aural learning equal time over the years. All us notation junkies have to support and encourage each other and keep building repertoire slowly but surely, one tune at a time. (maybe read of few on weekends for fun and to keep the rust off, but stay off the page as much as possible the rest of the time).
I learned two tunes this morning, Mary Scott and Memories of Father MacDonnell. I don’t think I can learn tunes like that just by ear. They are both strathspeys and I’m not quite keyed into consistently correct rhythm without the notation in front of me. I’ll try it with a simpler set of tunes.
Thank you all for this thread. I consider it a fascinating topic. I play banjo. As far as playing by ear, in a jam session, I find that if I am not familiar with the tune, I can often improvise and make passable breaks and backup. But learning a new song more precisely is something altogether different.
I recently heard a piece of advice that I have been using for a couple of weeks - Set a limit on how long (say 2 days) to look at tablature. Then, thereafter, if I cannot remember, I listen to the actual break instead of looking at any music. I think that the effectiveness of my memorization is much better - I learn quicker. It is frustrating to start. But may be better in the long run.
Thanks for bringing up this topic, David. It is something near and dear to my heart. I play Mandolin, guitar, bass, harmonica, and have always pretty much played by ear. But other than Harmonica, the Mandolin is the first one I’ve actually played Melody lines. I discovered Baron Collins-Hill a while back and he specifically teaches using ear training with PDFs available if you need them. It has been an amazing adventure learning how to play by ear on these crazy celtic tunes and the harder Fiddle tunes. Simple tunes. I have no problem because I have a good ear. But it has inspired me to learn notation so I can slowly pick out a song using notation if I have to, more to supplement what I’m hearing I guess. Great topic of discussion and thanks everyone. Jude.