No, I’m not talking about bad habits, such as tonguing too much or playing the whistle with your nose. I’m talking about habits of ear. Do you find it hard to change the way you play a tune? Not the key, but the interpretation?
For instance, there’s an air I learned some time ago, which I like and play rather a lot. Unfortunately, I recently heard a sung interpretation I like better (and which definitely works better with the words, which I also recently learned). The differences are slight…(I think if they were greater, they’d be easier, frankly. Much easier to learn a new tune than to adapt an old one, I’m finding)…I like the way the vocalist ornaments the notes, and closes the phrases. Trouble is, when I try to PLAY it that way, my fingers take over and play the tune the old way. I’ve tried fixing the song firmly in my mind as I play, and I’ve even tried NOT playing the air for several weeks, but listening to and singing the song a lot, but as soon as I pick up the whistle and try to play it, even if I get off to a good start, eventually I lose the thread of the sung version and the fingers take over once again. It’s rather frustrating.
The funny thing is, I don’t really play ANY tune exactly the same from session to session (“playing session” that is, not “session session”). I almost always play around a bit with tunes…different ornaments, different keys, different cadences, wherever the mood of the tune takes me. It’s just when I consciously try to make a change that my ear and fingers develop minds of their own.
Anyone else ever have this problem? Any suggestions?
Could you record the sung version and play along with it? Or, do you have a recording of it in a key that you can play it in? That might keep you on track well enough to develop some new habits.
Do you play from written music? If so, how about writing it out and playing from that for a while?
Unfortunately, it’s in an awkward key for playing along with the recording (I’m not even sure what key it’s in, but since I can sing along, it’s somewhere in the middle alto range). I could write it out, but it’s such a free and heart-felt interpretation, I’d hate to try to reduce it to dots (Karan Casey really has the most amazing voice!). What might help is tranposing it, so different fingerings come into play, but it crosses nearly two full octaves as it is, so transposing it might get a bit screechy.
When I was first starting, someone showed me how they played Boys of Bluehill. I practiced it a lot! All by ear, no sheet music.
When I finally found a session to play with, they played the tune a bit different.
The piano player told me to just play it the way I know and it will blend. I did and everyone seemed to think that it did indeed blend, but not to my ear. To me, I stuck out like a sore thumb.
And I believe you already know what you have to do if you want to relearn the tune/song.
Repetition. Practice it slow, note by note. I was amazed at how quickly I picked up the new way. Fact is, I don’t even remember how I use to play it. It has become embedded in my brain and fingers now.
The problem is, even when I try to play it slowly…note by note…I lose the thread of the tune. I fumble for the notes and just can’t find them.
It’s not a major thing, really…it’s just that I feel that, as a musician, I should be more flexible than this. It’s almost as if my brain interprets music I sing and music I play in a different way.
When I started out, I learned things a certain way thinking they sounded cool that way. Well, they don’t always, as I can now here. For instance I was playing the Cup of Tea (BAGF G~E3 | GEBE G~E3…) with too much swing.
SteveJ gave me the following good advice: Give it a rest. Don’t play the tune for a while. I did, and during that time listened to a good recording of it, humming and lilting along a lot. When I went back to the tune, I could get over the habit of playing it with too much swing. (It still too quite a bit of work, though.)
Yes, I think that’s what I’m ultimately going to have to do…either that or be content with the way I play it now (which isn’t wrong, and sounds just fine…I just like the other way better).
Redwolf, have you tried “playing” the tune without putting the whistle in your mouth while listening to the recording? Even if it’s not in the right key, this should work if you already know the notes. That way you can incorporate what you are hearing into your fingering without your own sound interfering. Sometimes I practice this way if I don’t know a tune well.
I sometimes have your problem Redwolf even though I came to ITM from jazz and blues which I still play a lot. Even improvising musicians have their cliches firmly imbedded in muscle memory and, although they can vary subtly, they perhaps can’t play a chorus using the cliches of someone else altogether.
Leaving the tune is one solution. I have another which isn’t available to everyone though. If the tune I want to play differently has been learnt on whistle, I’ll learn the new version on concertina. Since the muscle movements are different, I don’t have habits to break or fall back into. Then, when I feel comfortable with the new way of playing, I’ll go back to whistle and just transfer across from the way I now play on concertina—something I do a lot anyway.
Hmmm…I like the idea of playing along with the recording (but without the whistle). I get this hilarious picture, however…you see, my CD player is in my car. After all this renewed talk about whistling in the car, I have visions of “air whistling” at stop lights! Can you imagine pulling up next to someone who is earnestly PRETENDING she’s playing a whistle? Of course, this being Santa Cruz, most folks will probably think that’s pretty normal (and since I’m the person who deals with other people’s over-loud woofers by putting on the “Dies Irae” from Mozart’s Requiem (if anyone’s not familiar with that piece, it’s the one Nightcrawler tried to assassinate the president to in X-men 2), cranking up the volume and then going into my mad conductor routine, I’m somewhat accustomed to looking weird at stop lights!).
The trying it on another instrument could be helpful too. I can actually manage enough piano to pick out the melody line (which, of course, is all I’d need) so I might try that rather than, well, you know…that OTHER fippled instrument :roll:
When I’ve had this happen to me, I’ve had to slow the tune back down and practice it the way I now want to do it over and over and over and over and over…you get the picture. (I do still have to conciously think about it though when I get to the phrases that I changed.
