Especially in the begining, do most of you find it easier to learn one tune at a time, or work on a few tunes of the same type, or a few tunes of different types?
Perhaps because I have no musical training at all, I am learning very slowly, and I find myself getting bored working on the same section of the same tune for so long, so I am trying to learn a few different tunes at once.
In the one class I took, we started with a very simple Polka (with one transition that still kills me) and almost immediatly started on a jig and a slide as well.
I think that it depends on what your goal is. (This is just speaking from personal experience though, and I haven’t been playing long) I feel, that if you want to learn ‘a’ song, you should just play that song, but I don’t recommend it. If you want to learn to play the whistle, play many different types of music (in this case, jigs/reels/airs/etc.) You still need to focus on just one song once and a while, so you can learn them well, but this way I think you can learn more.
I believe that keeping your interest up is very important for obvious reasons. Some tunes are easy to learn and others take a lot of work. I’d suggest working on more than one tune at a time, so that when you get tired of playing one, you can put it aside and work on the other. After a break, you may feel your enthusiasm returning for practicing the first one again. Working on something difficult and something easy at the same time is a nice changeup, too. Jusdt don’t spread yourself too thin working on too much stuff at the same time or you’ll note slower progress. Be sure to keep it fun. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Tony
I usually work on more than one tune at a time, each tune working on something different - perhaps ornamentation on one and rhythm on another - then, when I get frustrated (which is pretty often), instead of putting my whistle down, I move on to something else. Also, something that helps is I have a folk tune I love to play and will use it to warm-up and as a break from working on songs (it’s amazing how much better that little tune is getting!) Practice should be fun and not tedious; otherwise playing the whistle gets to be tedious as well.
I work on about 3 at a time. I get rather good with them (but not close to perfect), get bored, and move on to something new. I always return to those ones that I am good with and play them regularly. It keeps my spirits up to play something that I’m relatively good at instead of working on something so new that I flub it a lot.
When I began, I had a very small tune book with only about ten tunes in it. It came with a tape as well. I got quite tired of those tunes, especially those that weren’t connected with Irish music. Then I got the Mel Bay Tinwhistle Songbook, with about 80 tunes, and went through it to identify the ones that were easy enough to start on (no C natural, for example). I worked on a few of those intensively, but I played through many of the other tunes regularly as well. I was able to get a better feel for the music that way, becoming familiar with common phrases or patterns in the tunes. Before that, jigs, reels and hornpipes all sounded much the same to me. I needed to actually play a lot of tunes, however haltingly, before some of them stuck in my brain so that I could sing them. After that, I was able to learn tunes more quickly.
Although I have had a whistle for many years, I have only begun to seriously learn since January. I started with two or three tunes and added a few more as I progressed. It keeps me from being bored with one tune and as I return to the earlier tunes I find I can play them better than I expected. I can now play three or four without too many mistakes and am working on a couple more. As time goes on I expect my timing to get better.
I second TonyHiggins; I dont practice much these days even though I should. Still a beginner but have little time. I started out playing at several tunes at the time; a few really simple ones and one difficult. Still cant play the very difficult one with much precision, though
But I think this is important to stay inspired. Also, you should LIKE the tunes you train with. Not only play them cause you know they have elements in them that you want to practices. But it also does not hurt to try and find tunes that are a bit different when beginning; so that you for instance dont practice just tunes having closed lines up and down but also some leaps, several octave changes etc. See my point?
I have found that what works best for me is to try all kinds of different tunes but to keep coming back to a set that I like or am trying to learn thoroughly. Just like with skiing or skating, one has to try new trails to get better.
It just depends - I started out learning one tune at a time, got very bored with that, and then I began learning about two tunes at once and have done it like that ever since. And, I think by learning two or more tunes at once, if you get frustrated with a certain tune, you have another to go to.
