Ok. Learning by ear is useful and learning by reading music is also useful (when you can- I can’t.)
How important is ‘finger memory’ to your tune acquisition? I find that where I put my fingers on the whistle at the beginning of a tune helps me to remember the rest of the tune. Is this a big factor for anyone else?
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A blowpipe is a universal mystery, methinks.
~Mega HAL
[ This Message was edited by: LittleMy on 2001-08-23 19:59 ]
I do that too, but I’m not sure whether it is the finger placement that I am matching or the sound of the note (I’m still learning to read music). I’m sure it’s a factor though.
On stage before every song, I finger it and
especially go over the hard parts so my brain is all in gear for it when we start
to play. It really seems to help on songs I am un-sure of.
I think that finger memory is all about patterns. Insane amounts of practice drum all of these patterns into your fingers, and when you hear them in a new tune or read them in written music, your fingers can just whip them out, without thinking. You can also identify patterns you see a lot and try to practice them specifically. That’s what scales and arpeggios are all about. But it’s also nice to learn some other patterns besides those. For example, I’m a whistle beginner, but I noticed a lot of tunes use midD-A-F#-A-D (which is, BTW, based on the D major arpeggio). This is not an easy pattern for me, so I’m working on it quite a bit. I find most scale-based passages a lot easier.
jomac
I remembering reading something related to this on a site about the Alexander Technique - http://www.alexandercenter.com/pa/index.html
It mentioned that we have (what I think are called) “sets”. These are little actions that we perform prior to doing something tricky. If you watch yourself really carefully you’ll find that you do certain things before a tricky passage of music … perhaps you grip the whistle tighter, or close your eyes, move your body weight forward, whatever.
A lot of these habit-formed actions can inhibit our ability to perform the tricky phrase (eg, tensing up), but some are actually useful since (provided they don’t inhibit what it is we’re trying to achieve), they serve as a kind of memory prompter for our unconscious memory. So it’s like putting your fingers in a certain position gets the pathways in your brain that you are about to use all ready to fire.
I heard the phrase “neural linguistic memory” at some time on PBS TV, which fits the description of what you are talking about.
I have experienced the same thing in playing,once I have the first three notes (fingerings) the tune seems to follow almost automatically.
Mark
Thanks Champ, for the link on the Alexander Technique. It looks interesting. When I have a tune I’m playing by ear but have trouble spots…I do concentrate on the fingering. Not for every note but the anchor note for a certain passage and also fingering on the highest note…everything else…seems to fall into place.
And to MarkB…I love your personal favorite quote…how true! Gm
Hello all,
I can’t start a tune if I can’t remember the finger placement (not the notes) of the first 3 notes. And even if I’m reading from music, it is the form of the note that appears in my mind, not the name.
Um, I just noticed that this post doesn’t really add much to the discussion - but I guess it answers the orginal question 
Yes, I do learn kinistetically.
Peace,
Erik
Finger memory is a scary thing. My hands remember a few really nice piano compositions from twenty years ago, so they play all by themselves. The problem is, when my hands have a memory lapse two minutes into the music, the rest of me can’t very easily jump in and finish .
Dave
On 2001-08-24 03:11, ErikT wrote:
I can’t start a tune if I can’t remember the finger placement (not the notes) of the first 3 notes.
That’s been my experience too. I also tend to confuse tunes that share the first few notes. I’ll intend to play one, but the other will come out. Weird.