I have only been on here for a short time. I signed up to get some help in learning to play properly. I have been playing whistle since about Christmas. I am not a young fellow that learns quickly, 64. I can read music so I can learn the right notes fairly quickly. A number of you have said it is important to learn by ear. I have two problems (I am an optimist). I have no ear and no sense of rhythm. How can I improve both? Is there a secret to learning tunes by ear? Those tunes I have learned I learned from the music and listening to the tunes for the right sound. Any help out there?
Ron
The secret is to listen to players with good solid rhythm, and listen again, and again and again. Then try to learn by ear from those players. You could probably play “Happy Birthday” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” by ear - because you’ve heard them so many times that you really know them. It’s the same thing with trad. Just keep listening.
Best of luck to you.
Jim
for what they are worth, here are my hints:
- training the feeling for rhythm: use a metronome. It may sound dull, but that’s how I did it: set the metronome at a very slow pace. Play the piece you want to practice. When done, be a critical judge of yourself. If you think you were OK with the metronome, make it faster by one stroke. If not, make it slower by two strokes. (Note: the "punishment is more severe than the “reward”) I ended up by playing my pieces without metronome, and with a rather pronounced sense of rhythm at a decent speed.
- training the ear: listen to good performers, listen again and again. Hum along with the CD. Listen and hum until you are able to hum the tune without the CD going. Then try to play the tune on the whistle. I found playing along with the CD not so very effective for two reasons. First, for some mysterious reason it was very hard to find a whistle that was perfectly in tune with the CD. Secondly, it is hard to play at the same speed as the CD. And there is no interaction possible with the genius playing on CD: no way to have him adapt to YOUR way of playing.
I hope this may be of some help to you, givng you some ideas to work on. BTW I’m 60 myself and play since about 3 years - and performing in public since about one year. So don’t despair, it comes faster than you expect it - and then slower than you want it.
Wilfried
Try running a search on both topics: learning by ear & developing good rhythm. You’ll see that everyone has to work on it, and that it can be learned.
About getting the rhythm: listen to a lot of the kind of music that you want to play (in my case that is Irish Traditional Music, so dance music) and tap your foot to it. Always tap your foot to the beat. When you are not listening, because you are in the car, at the post office, whereever: hum a tune and tap your foot to it. You can get rhythm into your system. If you do work with a metronome, don’t rely on it too heavily or to exclusively (it’s a crutch and the more you lean on it, the more you’ll have to wean yourself from it).
In addition to the ideas already mentioned there are some ear trinining sites on line. Here’s one:
http://www.good-ear.com/
I can’t really vouch for this because I’ve never tried it but it’s worth a try. Also Homesupn Tapes puts out some general musicianship stuff including ear training and rthytm ttraining.
http://www.homespuntapes.com/search/default.asp
If that doesn’t take you to the relevant material just look for “musicianship”
Steve
Most of the advice (if not all) you’ll get here are from very experienced musicians, who think of playing by ear as very easy. I have no previous musical experience before last year at this time, and to me learning by ear smacked of magic. I’d say that it’s useless to tell a total beginner to learn by ear because they have no idea which fingerings will produce which sounds. I only began learning by ear after months of learning slowly by sheet music and practicing endlessly until I got an idea of what sounds were produced by each different pattern of covered holes. After that, learning by ear began to make sense.
Ron,
I’m 52, I’ve been playing whistle for a year. I played classical guitar for around 28 years so I’m not a music novice. Here’s my take on this:
Metronomes - I used it intensively for ten years. I use it rarely now because I don’t need it. I didn’t become dependent on it. I say use it if it helps. However, tapping your foot may do just as well. Tap especially when you are listening. The good players will show you where the beat is. Listen to dance music. If the beat isn’t clear there the dancers won’t hire the musicians again.
I learn with a combination of written music and listening. I look at the notation as an aid to jog my memory when I have a senior moment. Frankly, I don’t see how anybody can learn or perform music without listening to A LOT of music. Even classical players listen a lot. The goal is to learn the tunes so you can play them without the paper in front of you. The thing about Irish traditional music, and most folk musics, is that musical notation can’t transmit all the subtleties of the tradition. That makes listening to good musicians a must.
Good luck. Keep plugging away!
Mike
If you can sing a song you’ve just heard then you ARE playing by ear. At least that’s what I tell my wife who insists she can’t play by ear.
I envy those who can look at a complex piece of music and start jamming away. My reading skills are beyond abysmal.
I can’t concieve of not playing by ear. Even when I read music I am only reading notes. I don’t play music until I also hear it. I’ve always played by ear even back in my early teens when I started learning blues on the harmonica.
Sadly it has been a two edged sword. Because it’s so easy I have never spent the time I should learning to read properly. This leads to problems when I’m with people who toss out sheet music and figure I’m just going to start playing. Lately I’ve been devoting much more effort to reading for that reason.
Your obedient servent
Cuthbert
This playing-by-ear thing is an interesting subject. People who can do it can’t believe others can’t - and vice versa. It assumes a number of skills. For example, is this note higher in pitch than the last note or is it lower? For that matter, what does it mean to be higher or lower? And how do you determine how much higher or lower. Not that learning to translate dots and lines into tones and durations is easy, but learning by ear is by no means simple either. Both require dedication and effort to master. I say, whatever works. And try your best to learn the other way too.
Mike
The good players will show you where the beat is. Listen to dance music.
There is a lot of good advice here and I definitely will give everything a try. I went to the ear training site and found I may not be as hopeless as I thought. My first try I scored 28/32 on the beginner series. I listen to IrT all day. My wife loves it too. We went to Ireland last May and she did not want to go. She was the one that cried when we had to come home. I will try putting a tune into a repeating loop and play it until it infects my soul. Then I will try to play along by ear. I also will listen to some tunes and learn the notes from sheet music. I have to listen to it because I can not get the rhythm from the music. I think that if you played it as it is written it wouldn’t sound right. There is an accent or some quality the is not imparted by the written notation. I also view those who play strictly by ear as practicing some form of magic. I have a friend that I have been playing music (bluegrass) with for about 50 years. He can listen to a song on the radio one time and then play it flawlessly. Drives me crazy. I feel encouraged from what all of you have said. I think I can become competent on this little tin tube.
Thanks, Ron
It sounds like you are well on your way to learning tunes by ear.
Once you’ve got the tune in your head you will find it on the whistle.
As you play more and more tunes you will find that your fingers will find certain passages that they almost automatically can do without thinking. This is because they are common phrases that occur in lots of tunes.
Your bluegrass friend has played enough to have these phrases down cold and that’s why he can jump in on a tune, even when he may not have played that exact tune before. His fingers just “know” what’s comming next. Of course someone who can play a tune exactly with only hearing it once also has a true “gift”.