I often find that a tune I have learnt is just off on the tip of my tongue, but if I can remember the first three notes right (pitch, tempo & feel), the rest of the tune virtually plays itself.
This is a bit wierd, because the first three notes may be less than 3% of the whole tune, and I still can’t recall the title (if I ever knew it), but it seems to work.
Anybody else remember tunes this way?
Yes. I similarly frustrate friends and colleagues by doing this. It really weirds them out when the first note/sound is something distinctive, and I can guess the song before the second note sounds. (ie. Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Kitaro, or Trans Siberian Orchestra)
Kenneth
Martin,
It’s interesting you should mention this. I don’t have any experience with sessions but, when I was in Ireland during May I watched a couple sessions from the sidelines. Between tunes the players discussed the tunes for the next set. They identified the tunes not by name but by the first few notes, like, “do you know this one..” and then he lilts the first two measures. This is not exactly what you were asking about but I thought it was neat anyway.
Mike
Martin, glad to see your face restored to order again.
While I may require a couple more than three notes to get a tune, catching it in three isn’t uncommon. There must be something going on there with the subconscious - just waiting for the conscious memory to grab onto it.
Susan
(Holy cow. I need a Diet Coke. That doesn’t even make sense to me and I know what I meant.)
There’s another wierd thing about this, and it illustrates my “key-deafness”.
I usually remember a tune by the fingering rather than note names, Sol-Fa or what have you, but sometimes I can start a tune on the wrong finger and only realise when I get to an odd half-hole or run out of notes.
This holds true on the fiddle too. Except for the half-hole of course. You don’t get holes on a fiddle. Except the f-holes.
Anyone else do that, or is it reserved for this talentless Brit?
On that point, we differ Mr. Milner. I’ve been blessed, (Or should I say CURSED?!) With true, perfect pitch. Great ability to have when doing solo work, as I can “adjust on the fly” to stay in tune. But it is agonizingly painful when others constantly “let slip the pitch”. Almost as bad as hours of having fingernails on chalkboards being played all around you… (Hence, the CURSE part!)
Remember, the grass is always greener, and know that there are some days when I’d happily trade places with you! :roll:
Kenneth
I think this may be akin to what you are saying. I sometimes play a few notes at random and suddenly recognize a tune. I can then play the rest or most of the rest of it. There must be a tune mechanism in the brain that remembers the tunes we have heard often.
Ron
At a recent dulcimer festival I attended, two different instructors said that once they learn a tune, they find a distinctive hammering pattern at some point in the tune, and that becomes the trigger for the whole tune. It must be something about the way our brain works. I too have a hard time remembering tunes by name, but once I hear/play a certain pattern, regardless of instrument, the tune comes rushing back to me and then all is OK. Well…at least most of the time… 
“… I’ve been blessed, (Or should I say CURSED?!) With true, perfect pitch. … Remember, the grass is always greener, and know that there are some days when I’d happily trade places with you!”
This reminds me of people who say, “No matter what I do, I just can’t seem to gain any weight!”
Susan
Yeah, Martin, I know just what you mean. I often remember the fingering of the first couple of notes, but then have to play around with it until I get the tempo right, because I might not even remember if it’s a jig or reel. Then the rest of the tune just spills out of my fingers. Sometimes I’ll even remember the name of the tune! My problem is that I can’t often pick up in the middle of a tune, so if I’m playing with other people and mess up, I often have to wait until the tune comes around to the beginning again, or at least to the B part, before I can join in again. For some reason I need to play the entire section as a whole. Hmmm…
Steven
THat’s another good point, sometimes the notes I recall aren’t at the start of the tune, they may occur partway through the B part, or whatever, and I follow the tune back to the start.
Unlike Steven, if I lose a tune I do sometimes come in partway through - usually the start of the next phrase.
I still get mixed up at times though - last night I was feeling my way into the Ruby Hornpipe, a lovely thing with lots of gorgeous arpeggios, and after playing through the A part I went onto the B part of Harvest Home. My fault for trying to learn them as a set!
My relative pitch is pretty good - give me a note & I can give you the third, fifth, seventh etc. - but I couldn’t tell you if the original note was A=440Hz, or the G below. On stringed instruments (guitar, mandolin, and now fiddle) I can keep the strings in tune relative to each other, but without an electronic tuner they tend to slide, and eventually I can be a semitone out and not realise!
I guess I should carry an A tuning fork at all times - then I can do that “Conductor” thing of strining the fork, holding it to my jug-like, & humming the right note - plus they’re great for eating Jellied Eels.
N.B No eels were harmed in the production of this post.
Hi Burnsy,
Yeah, they did that a lot in Miltown during Willie Clancy Week, or often someone just started playing & the rest joined in after a bar or two. I even joined in myself on occasion, knowing the tune but not what it was called, which was kinda neat (except for my playing, ahem).
I think it’s all part of the “aural not written tradition”. In the course I did in Cambridge with Liz Doherty, she failed to name several tunes she played us, and I don’t think it was for effect, I think she genuinely couldn’t remember them, or never knew them.
Or, the ever-popular, “Please don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”…
Hey, I’m musically handi-capable, and darned proud of it! 
Kenneth
Hey, Martin,
It was in Ennis that I saw this happen at sessions. My wife, who is not a musician, thought this was quite extraordinary. She even mentioned it to friends when we came home as a special feature of the trip. It seemed to me like a logical thing to do, especially when there are so many tunes with multiple names or no name. On the other hand, it seems like absolute magic when she takes a blank piece of paper, puts a few charcoal lines on it and the lines look like something in real life.
BTW, did you get a suntanned dome with all the hot weather recently? 
Mike Burnsey
Mr. Milner…
I’m thinking that maybe we should have a chat sometime…
Kenneth
FYI there are other species out there. I met a hammered dulcimer player who knows hundreds of tunes, but can’t recall how to play one until she remembers the name. I think she’s an Engineer. Does that explain it?
Actually, I’ve known some A-holes on fiddle (and violin, for that matter). But perhaps that’s a different matter.
I too find I can remember a tune more readily if I find a part of it that’s a little unique (I know, I know… :roll: ).
I told this story to a few people, so I apologize if I posted it before, but it seems apropos here:
Went to a Martin Hayes/Dennis Cahill concert in April. For their encore they routinely ask audience members to name a few tunes they’d like to hear and they pick three of them and play a final set. I don’t recall the tunes that were picked this particular night (one of them was Fanny Power). Hayes and Cahill flew through the first two (if you can fly through Fanny Power), and as they prepared to go into the third tune, abruptly came to a screeching halt - Hayes with his fiddle bow in mid-air. Neither of them could remember how the third tune went! They sat there laughing (fiddle bow still in mid-air), while Hayes kept saying, “We’ll get it… we’ll get it.” I don’t know how he remembered it at that point, but suddenly he put bow to strings and off they went!
I’ve often wondered how people who know as many tunes as those two must know ever remember any of them!
Susan
For me it’s getting it in my head and remembering the starting note. Then I’m ok. I also don’t think of the note as A, B, C, but of the fingering. Perhaps this is because I play pipes, clarinet too. It gets too confusing thinking one note is D on one instrument and G on the other. So, I just think of the starting note fingering and then I’m ok.
Perhaps because of my growing up with folks playing Old Time tunes, I can jump in just about anywhere on a tune, but usually wait till the beginning of a phrase- This is on recorded tunes. No sessions here unfortunately, and I am the world’s worst at remembering tune names- actually I really don’t care about the name, just how to play it, so I guess that’s why I don’t know the name of half the stuff I play. 
Isn"t it wonderful to be able to fire up the computer, read a couple of threads and VOILA ! ! ! . You suddenly discover that you really arn’t nearly as strange as you thought you were.
Thanks, I’m feeling so much better now.
Mike