How long and hard should I practice the same tune?

Whistle
1

I’ve been whistling less than a year and need advice. When I find a nice tune, what’s the best way to learn? Personally I tend to practice tunes for very short periods at a time (with few exceptions). After about 5 or 7 repetitions (depending on the tune) I get a handle on it and move on to something else. I put the sheet music in my file and come back for a few more plays (usually one or two) on an almost-daily basis. My reasons are:
A: I don’t want to get bored with the tune
B: I don’t want to bug those around me
C: I find my ability to learn is high at first, then declines

Result: I have dozens of tunes that I love and can play merrily every few days, as long as I have sheet music in front of me (in other words, almost learned). And my repertoire of fully memorized tunes is skimpy. (I do realize the value of mastering and “owning” a tune.)

My “solution”: I’m hoping that over time the tunes I love will seep into my brain and one magic day I’ll find they are suddenly “there” (total mastery) without flogging the tune to death and hating it.

Will it ever happen, or should I quit “playing” (enjoying) and start “playing” (work at it until I master it).

Tom

[ This Message was edited by: whitmores75087 on 2002-10-26 19:02 ]

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Tom, I’ll leave it to Lee to point out that you should ALWAYS ENJOY YOUR MUSIC, and to wax philosophical on it (Lee :wink: ) but to answer the {old} subject line {which asked whether practice was possible without divorce}, as far aas my marriage is concerned, Yes, as long as the tune isn’t Give me Your Hand (don’t remember the Irish for it, sorry!). The four high B notes send poor Tyghre into a frenzy. He calls it The Tweep Tweep Tweep Tweep Tune.

As far as quick memorization, I have to say that physically writting the tune down myself is a VERY quick way for me to learn a tune. I don’t even have to get fancy with the transcription, just place the notes on the staff and play it through to get all the intervals right.

Tyghress
…And I go on, pursuing through the hours,
Another tiger, the one not found in verse.
Jorge Luis Borges

[ This Message was edited by: tyghress on 2002-10-26 23:19 to accomodate a changing subject line ]

[ This Message was edited by: tyghress on 2002-10-26 23:19 ]

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B: I don’t want to bug those around me

This was my problem - focusing on sections of a tune, rather than playing the whole. Led to the dog hiding under the bed and spouse threatening low flying crockery.

It was only when I finally had the sounds of the individual whistle notes in my head, that I could start to learn the tunes by heart. (However, by then I was in the garden!)

4

On 2002-10-26 11:47, Whitmores75087 wrote:

My “solution”: I’m hoping that over time the tunes I love will seep into my brain and one magic day I’ll find they are suddenly “there” (total mastery) without flogging the tune to death and hating it.

Will it ever happen, or should I quit “playing” (enjoying) and start “playing” (work at it until I master it).

Tom

Tom,when there ishope´there is also doubt´.Mastery is achieved because of an intent to master and this can only take place at the very moment you are playing.Playing in this way means boredom is virtualy impossible and hundreds of repetitions can be very enjoyable. :slight_smile: Mike

5

When I began whistling, I avoided too many repetitions for the first two reasons you mentioned - not boring myself or the other members of my family. However, I found out from a professional guitar player that this is really the most effective way to learn music. Apparently, if you practise something (a tune, section of a tune, or technique) for exactly three minutes a day - and not more - you will have it down in three weeks. I haven’t been disciplined enough to practise precisely that way, but I think the general concept works. But don’t forget that some tricky passages should be practised in isolation, as well as in the context of the whole tune.

6

I’m going to make a suggestion, but I suspect this one will draw some disagreement from folks on the board.

I think when you are learning whistle, or any instrument, you do yourself a disservice if you take a few tunes and try to learn them note-perfect.

If you are a music reader, my suggestion is get a large tunebook, and practice sightreading, every day. Pick a tune you’ve never played before, pick a tempo you think you can read it at, and play it. Don’t get fancy, don’t try to ornament it to death, just play it through about three times and then move on to another tune.

My reasoning is this: nearly all these tunes are built around the same building blocks. As you sightread the tunes, you are familiarizing yourself with those basic elements that the tunes are built from.

Later, this will greatly assist you in playing by ear in real-time (as in a session, for instance).

Also, if you try to learn a tune note-by-note now, you’ll find yourself years later learning the tune over again from scratch, unlearning all the things you do wrong now. Trust me on this one–I have much personal experience with having to unlearn old mistakes.

That’s my $.02 worth.

Best wishes in this and all things,

–James
http://www.flutesite.com

7

Let me first say that I’m not disagreeing with Peeplj, I’m simply adding to his advice.

In addition to that large tunebook he mentioned, I would also keep a pencil and spiral-bound notebook. When you learn a new tune, write notes (not the musical variety) about it. Especially pay attention to the key and time signatures. Learn as much of the tune as you can WITHOUT your instrument in your hands. Sing or lilt the tune. This will get the tune under your EARS. When you are done with this, and can hear the tune in your head when you look at the music, then pick up your instrument and get the tune under your FINGERS, so that what comes out of your instrument matches up with what’s playing in your head.

I might also add that as a whistler and a guitarist, we have a definite advantage over most other instrumentalists in that if we are given a tune written in a key other than the one we learned it in, we can simply swap whistles or put on a capo.

8

I’d say that I have probably played Drowsey Maggie well over a thousand times, maybe even two thousand. Why? Because I needed to learn it, and because I love it. I’ve also played a two octave, D major scale the same amount of times for precisely the same reasons. JP

9

Rote memorization is pretty darned good, even if you start out from sheet music. For me, the best way is to find the tune on a CD and play along with it until I’ve “got it”. It’s how I learnt “On Castle Rock”, my first complete whistle tune, and still my favourite. My fingers just “know” where to go, and if I think about it, I make mistakes! I do admit, however, that “Jean’s Reel” still has me shaking my head! :confused:

Cheers, keep on whistlin’!
Bill Whedon

10

James, you have made my day. The way you describe learning is the way I love to play. I love to go through the tune book and play one tune after another, staying a bit longer at the ones that challenge me. I’ve always felt it was a learning experience, but it’s just so unlike the standard concept that involves endless repetition. I’M FRE*E!!!

11

James wrote:

Also, if you try to learn a tune note-by-note now, you’ll find yourself years later learning the tune over again from scratch, unlearning all the things you do wrong now. Trust me on this one–I have much personal experience with having to unlearn old mistakes.

James, I don’t get this sentence.

I have learned some songs at such breakneck speeds that it was difficult to play them slowly. . . but the notes were still correct. I don’t understand what you mean about unlearning old mistakes, unless you didn’t pay close enough attention to those written notes. Then I would just say shame on you. :smiley:

JP


[ This Message was edited by: JohnPalmer on 2002-10-27 01:30 ]

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Don’t learn tunes just for the sake of learning them (a tune that’s popular doesn’t me you have to learn it, but it’s just useful).

Learn a tune or tunes that you can enjoy (‘LIKE’), and you’ll find you can learn it faster, with or without aids.

13

Hey John, I think I know what James is talking about. If you learn a song from a source other than sheet music, there is always a chance that you didn’t interpret it correctly. Even if you learn from sheet music, there’s always a chance that the sheet music you had wasn’t 100% correct. Then when you’ve burned the song into muscle memory, and go to a session and realize that you’re playing it wrong, it’s harder to go back and make the changes.

Same holds true for learning different versions of tunes. I played in one band for many years. Then later on I started playing with a new band. The new group plays some of the same tunes in slightly different settings. Guess what most of my mistakes are? Mixing up the two versions I’ve learned, naturally.

Still, I find value in playing fewer tunes and more repetitions. If I have half an hour to squeeze some practice into, I will probably only work on polishing up 2 or 3 pieces that I have already learned. The first day with a new tune, I’ll spend a good hour on it. I also keep a rigorous schedule of practice exercises. My goals (as a competition fifer) are different than some others, but the desire to be a decent player in any style and on any instrument is going to take a certain amount of discipline.

14

On 2002-10-27 01:28, JohnPalmer wrote:
James wrote:

Also, if you try to learn a tune note-by-note now, you’ll find yourself years later learning the tune over again from scratch, unlearning all the things you do wrong now. Trust me on this one–I have much personal experience with having to unlearn old mistakes.

James, I don’t get this sentence.

I have learned some songs at such breakneck speeds that it was difficult to play them slowly. . . but the notes were still correct. I don’t understand what you mean about unlearning old mistakes, unless you didn’t pay close enough attention to those written notes. Then I would just say shame on you. > :smiley:

JP

I think James’ has a point for several reasons. This music is not about repeating the same notes over and over, the beauty of the music comes from the constant variation a good player brings to it. If you learn tunes note perfect by heart from paper, it will become very hard to achieve the freedom t omove around within the structure of the tune, doing all the things that make the music so interesting. When you learn the tune from the basic building blocks up, you will have the basic ‘architecture’ if you like, you understand what part is structure and what fill in and ornamental and you can more freely leave out, add, vary, embellish and make your own voice heard.

Which is not to say the different ways of learning tunes are mutually exclusive, I think they complement eachother well.


[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-27 09:29 ]

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What I don’t understand is why the people who write the notation don’t do a better job of showing us that “basic ‘architecture’”. So often it seems like they manage to capture some particularly daft variation instead of cleanly expressing the underlying tune.

16

Until a girl from one of the floors below you screams “hey” in an angry way and starts running up the stairs after you. (at which point you run away out of the stairwell and back to your room).

17

Well, I can give a real-world example:

One of the first Irish reels I “learned” was Cooley’s Reel, on flute.

I didn’t have a recording of it to work from; I have actually only ever heard one recording of this tune, and that on guitar and played as a slow reel–what I had to work from was sheet music, downloaded from the Web.

And I got playing it well enough that it became one of the “signature” pieces of the band. Pat worked out a very non-traditional guitar part that is very jazzed, and to us at that stage of learning, it sounded pretty good.

Now, years later, I go back and look at that tune, and I see so much more that can be done with it. I see those “building blocks” and the unique way they fit together in this reel. And I wince when I hear the old recordings of us playing this tune and basically murdering it.

But here’s the worst part: if I pick up a flute or whistle and just play this reel, what I get is unchanged from the way I played it five years ago.

I am having to go back, phrase at a time, and put the tune back together from scratch, getting the “old tune” out of my head one tone at a time. And it’s much harder than it would have been to work the tune up from scrach if I first saw it at the point I’m at now in my playing.

That’s what I mean by unlearning mistakes–and it’s also what I mean about why it is a mistake to make a concrete image of how a tune should be played in your mind when you are new to the music.

As far as playing the right notes in the right place, I was–and in the classical world in which I was taught, once you’re at that point you have done as much with a piece of music as you are allowed to do.

But traditional music is much more than what can be written on paper–and that’s one of the things that makes it so wonderful.

Best wishes to all,

–James
http://www.flutesite.com

18

By the way, I still love to sightread…for instance, I can take O’Niel’s 1800, open it at random, and just start playing tunes…and if nothing disturbs me, I will look up five or six hours later and wonder where the hell the day went. :slight_smile:

Best,

–James
http://www.flutesite.com

19

The thing about sight reading is, you come across tunes that live somewhere in your subconcious, often when you go lookign for a particular tune you end up actually learning one from the same page. Learning by serendipity is the best way.

20

Colomon’s complaint, about the sloppy way some tunebooks are edited, is quite legitimate; every player is going to run into that annoying problem eventually, if he works at all from sheet music. In order to learn to play a new tune (after I can first hum it in my own head, of course), I find it very helpful to use printed sheet music as a sort of a “skeleton” guideline only, and to write out the tune myself in pencil, in a separate spiral notebook – and I will keep changing the notes and/or ornamentation until I’m satisfied with how it sounds, to my own ear. This approach seems to be the best way to “make the tune your own,” and also to avoid the later “unlearning” process that James (correctly, IMO) cites.

Geraldine Cotter’s instruction book gives several examples of how to “embellish” the same musical measure, to add variety, avoid monotony, etc.; I found her advice very helpful, when I first started to get a bit better, as a player.

The point that Peter makes, is well taken: no one should be afraid to experiment a bit, with written music. Just because some (hasty pudding?) editor writes something down in a tunebook, that doesn’t mean it’s engraved in stone, for all time. Learn to trust your own ear, and your instincts; Irish music always was a living tradition, and it always will be.

'luck (& serendipity) to all,
brian_k.