I’ve been playing for about two years now and I’m coming on pretty well. I have previously played the Highland pipes (but not any more) and now also play the scottish smallpipes. In my days of playing the Highland pipes I was told I had good fingers and I think I have taken this over to my playing of the Uilleann pipes. Indeed a few weeks ago at a Tionol I played a piece to a highly respected tutor and player who expressed some amazement that I had only been playing two years.
The one thing that I think holds me back and causes me great frustration is my inability to remember learnt tunes. Often at a session or during a practice I will try to play something which I had thought was ingrained in my memory banks (having been played by me 100 times or more before) and easily recallable only to find that it is if I’m still learning the tune and I will have forgotten some parts if not all of the tune. In contrast my peers at sessions seem to be able to play tune after tune from memory even if they have not played the tune for some time. It just comes naturally to them. I had the same problem when I was playing the Highland pipes often with detrimental consequences when playing in competitions or gigs and this may be part of the reason why I gave up. Is this down to fatigue or anxiety (I hope it is not symptomatic of something more serious!) and is there something that can be done or some mental process or system applied (CBT?) to remedy the problem?
First of all, two years is nothing at all so with all the practise in the world you still need patience.
If you’ve come from the highland pipes your likely to have learned most of if not all your (dance) tunes from sheet music, as is best IMO for GHB. For the rest of traditional music it’s generally accepted that learning by ear is best and you should find that tunes learned by ear are much easier to remember than written music.
For sessions the spontaneity of playing whatever tune comes into your head makes for a more enjoyable experience but if you’ve only been playing two years then you’d be best arranging some sets of tunes, maybe in groups of three, that you know well. That takes the pressure away from public playing that can cause your brain to freeze up. Also, if someone plays a tune you know then nods for you to play one you can just play the tune you normally play in a set.
Some sessions play tunes always in the same order every week anyway, which works if you have some weaker players, but generally the better the session is the more spontaneous it’s likely to be. Until you’ve been playing longer though there is nothing wrong with playing pre arranged sets and that should help.
I’m old enough that my mind and memory are not as flexible as they once were. The only thing that really works for me is to play through the tunes I’ve already learned every time I practice (every day). I don’t know that many tunes by heart yet so it works for me; I suppose by the time I learn 50 tunes I’ll have to split them up between days.
Listening to a tune repeatedly is good. This is best done alone, as you will drive others nuts if they are within earshot. Listen until you are tired of it then listen to another one. If you were raised in the tradition, many tunes will be in your head already. Lacking that, repeated listening will ingrain a tune in your memory. You should be able to hum or lilt the tune before trying to play it. Listen until the tune can easily be recalled. This can take some time at first. When enough tunes are memorized, it becomes easier to memorize new tunes. Eventually, you will be able to memorize a new tune after just a few repetitions. This is due to becoming familiar with the “language” of a tradition, in which there are some similarities in form and phrases from one tune to another within that tradition.
Or better yet, when you start mixing them up, playing the A part of one tune and the B part of another. You can always tell when people start to look at you in a special way.
I know a number of very good classically trained violinists who have taken up Irish music. It usually takes them a while to learn to play from memory, as opposed to sight reading. I’ve seen violinists reading directly from O’Neill’s while they played at a session (furiously flipping through pages when the tune changes!!).
Your ability to learn and recall tunes will improve with time. 2 years is not a long time in piping.
Try singing the tune. I’ve found if I can sing a tune I can usually play it, or at least major chunks of it, and by the third or fourth time through it seeps into my fingers (or back into them, depending on how long it’s been since I’ve played it).
Also, you can sing stuff to yourself all day long whether you get to your pipes or not. Kind of handy sometimes, though people do look at you oddly in traffic!
Whoops, just saw Ted suggested the same thing. Reading is fundamental, Cath!
how do you learn your tunes?
by notation or by ear?
i like to learn when i am half asleep, when i am very relaxed, than i remmeber easier
i also try to learn bar for bar and repeat a lot and listen a lot
anyway:
i think this is important
to be able to “remember” a tune without concentrating
if i play from notation a hundret times, i still dont remember
but if i can sing or humm a tune while doing and concentrate into something else, than i have it “deep inside” of me, my memory, my brain, my unsconsiossness, my consiousness, my fingers, whatever … its there
by the way, i just restarted to play guitar and there is a song i was able to play its melody and rhythm (fingerpicking) 30 years ago
i didnt play it for 25 years
and it took me maybe 3 weeks but now i can play it fluent and fast again … i did remember it part by part even if i thought somedays that i never can remmeber it… but our brain can do so much, its fantastic, memory is great
Only if you make the effort, though. It’s like anything else. And how to do it? Just do it. I’m not being flip: memory’s the same whatever you’re memorising. If there’s anything else you’re already good at memorising, you already know the basic process, and that there’s no magic bullet, but that repetition and a degree of dedicated attention are essential. It must be on your mind until you get it. You also know that the more you do it, the easier it gets - just as PJ suggested.
The only other “knack” I can think of would be eidetic memory, and to my knowledge you have to be born with that. The rest of us in our vast majority have to put in some work at it.
Ditto to this and what others have said about repetition. Listen to it over and over and over and over – and don’t try to play it until you can sing it by and to yourself. You can even make up nonsense words to help you remember the first few bars of a tune. (Right, Cathy? ) You have plenty of pop music evidence that this works. For example, if you’re at least 35 years old I bet you can probably finish Jenny’s phone number: “8-6-7…” or sing along with a whole bunch of Beatles songs, regardless of your age. How did that happen? Repetition.
I think you also have to keep in mind how different solo practice and session playing are. There are distractions: the demon of self-consciousness, other people talking, background noise in the bar, the deafening sound of other people listening to you, etc. If you are trying to start a tune all by yourself, at home, you don’t have any of that, but at a session, you have to shut that all out and connect with the music. You’re not practicing shutting out distractions at home, I bet, so of course it makes sense that you are not very good at it yet in public. Or, if you are trying to add a tune on to one already being played, that’s even harder and needs to be practiced too. That is an incredibly difficult skill, because you have to think of the next tune while still playing the current one. And it can’t really be practiced alone. I know some pipers’ clubs who practice what they call the circle of death: everyone plays a jig together and then it’s someone’s turn to start the next jig, in time, without stopping the music, and then that person nods to someone else to start the next one, and so on. So perhaps getting together with a friend to practice tunes might help.
Finally, make sure that when you practice you are not stopping when you make a mistake. When you play with or for other people, you can’t do that. Alone, practice barreling ahead even when you stumble, because keeping the energy and rhythm going will help you get through when you are on the spot.
So, basically, what you are discovering is that, alas, there is much more to it than quick fingers. Welcome to the club!!! We feel your pain.
All tunes have a hook. That is what the hook is for. Your hook may differ from mine.
Wake up with the tune in your head, and then it cannot help but come out.
Thanks everyone for your contributions and I think KAD may in particular may have hit the nail on the head. First and foremost I think I need to be more patient and less hard on myself. I’ve only been playing for two years. One of the hardest things to master is when playing in a session and trying to join in with tunes which I have learnt. At home in practice I can play the tunes with litttle or no mistakes. I can take my time to recall the tune and if I start it with a few bum notes I can start the tune again. But when someone else at a session has started a tune I find it difficult to get into the “groove” or rhythm of the tune to synchronise my joining in with the others. Often I find that the speed they are playing is far quicker than I play at home and that’s when the mistakes creep in. Often I will then sit out the rest if the tune rather than make a hash of it and spoil it for others which is really frustrating when I have been practising the tune very diligently at home, feel that I know it inside out only to lose my nerve at a session. I supose it’s all a matter of more confience, less anxiety and less self consciousness. I’m learning that playing alone and playing infront of others are completely different animals! CBT may assist me with my problem!
The only cure for that is to play at more sessions. Preferably friendly ones where they won’t mind you trainwrecking on occasion.
When I was learning to play, I remember asking my sessions-mates, “Can you play X,” as I had just learned X but didn’t want to lead it myself. They would dutifully play X and I’d try to play along, but it would be an utter disaster, even though I had been playing the tune just fine at home. I think everyone goes through that. Adjusting to others swing, tempo, etc. is a skill in and of itself. So is training your brain to remember tunes and operates the pipes in a variety of contexts. There is a phase a lot of learner’s go through where you play okay in one place, but you fall apart when surrounded by different cues.
A friend of mine who has been playing since the beginning of time frequently plays the wrong B part and his known by his friends as “Captain B Part.”
I still owe you like, a case of your favorite beverage for that! (And 100 million dollars and a galaxy named in your honor and a B full set of BK pipes and … in other words, I’m eternally in your debt!)
But yes, what KAD says is true … thanks to KAD & Friends’ specially-brewed lyrics I will never, EVER forget how “The Boy in the Gap” starts ever again (or think of it without laughing)!
Oh Lord, that is such a perfect description! Broken only by a roaring in the ears …
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There’s lots of good advice here; what a neat bunch of people pipers are.
Have fun, keep listening, and just stay with it. It’s a process, and the only way to get better is to keep playing!
P.S. I have also found it’s much easier to remember a tune I absolutely love – maybe because it’s easier to listen to it 500 million times? Not sure. But the tunes I adore seem to have certain “hooks” like uillmann talks about, so perhaps just see what catches your ear next time you’re listening and go from there.
P.P.S. As for the speed thing, could you bribe a friend or two from the session to meet you early for a pint and go through your tunes more slowly? Another option (depending on the humours of your session): either 1) learn a tune no one else knows and then teach it to them at your pace, or 2) suggest a new tune for everyone to learn together. We’ve started a tune-learning session on the odd Thursday night where “slow and numerous-times-through” is the name of the game, and we’re having more fun than should be legally allowed.
) You have plenty of pop music evidence that this works. For example, if you’re at least 35 years old I bet you can probably finish Jenny’s phone number: “8-6-7…” or sing along with a whole bunch of Beatles songs, regardless of your age. How did that happen? Repetition.
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