Learning lots of tunes vs. practicing to perfection

Whistle
1

This is related to both the “Corrupting New Players” thread and the “Memorized tunes” thread. From what I can tell, one of the most important skills for ITM is being able to learn a tune quickly from ear, and also having a lot of tunes under your belt. On the other hand, playing tunes sloppily is no good. What is most important for a beginner: learning lots of tunes (by ear) or practicing these tunes to perfection?

My teacher gives me a new tune every lesson, about once a week. Should I just stick to the one tune for the week, or try and pick up a few others just to increase my ear training? (I should say I’m also working with Ear Power … interesting product.) Or should I just practice the one tune to death, with review on my other tunes (only around 12 so far)? I have a feeling the answer is stick to the one tune, but I thought it might be an interesting topic.

(My goals are to eventually be able to play in sessions, and to sound pretty darn good on solos.)

2

If I stuck to only a few tunes and practiced them ‘to perfection’ I’d get bored, depressed and discouraged. Every day I play the tunes that my instructor and I work on. Every day I review favorites that I’d like to know better. Every so often (weekly) I try for something new…and every day I do exercises because its true that they’re making me a better player.

3

Tyg can you summarize your exercises for us? I’d like to try them.

4

Well, if you’re learning a tune, you really have to hit it hard and really learn it. This involves muscle memory but it also involves real memory: getting the tune, every nuance of it, into your head.

Depending on the tune, this can be pretty intense and frustrating work, so I think it’s useful to work hard for a while, then give yourself a break by playing other tunes.

As an advantage, the more tunes you play the more you’ll come to recognise the “building blocks” these old traditional tunes are built around. This will serve you well in two ways: once you’ve learned to play those building blocks, it’s just a matter of how you assemble them into a tune, so learning new tunes gets much easier; even better, without ever realizing it, you’ll learn the skill of picking up and playing a tune by ear in real time, like at a session.

Just like learning a tune, though, none of this happens overnight. It’ll happen quietly, subtly, and you probably won’t be aware of much change until it “clicks” one day and suddenly your playing improves drastically, almost overnight.

So by all means, practice your lesson tunes hard but do some sightreading and play some tunes you already have down every now and again too.

Just my $.02.

Best,

–James
http://www.flutesite.com

P.S. What I’ve found useful in terms of exercises: scales and scales in thirds help with learning reels and jigs. Argeggios help with learning hornpipes and how chords work. Long tones help you gain control over an instrument. Playing along with good recordings helps you learn tempo, phrasing, pace, and ornamentation.

Best,

–James
http://www.flutesite.com


[ This Message was edited by: peeplj on 2003-01-26 13:59 ]

5

Okay…lets see if I can describe them…

I’m only doing the basic stuff so far, no broken chords…

Five note sets:
def#g agf#e def#g agf#e def#g agf#e d twice
ef#ga gf#ed ef#ga gf#ed ef#ga gf#ed e "
f#gag f#ede f#gag f#ede f#gag f#ede f# "
gagf# edef# gagf# edef# gagf# edef# g "
agf#e def#g agf#e def#g agf#e def#g a "
gf#ed ef#ga gf#ed ef#ga gf#ed ef#ga g "
f#ede f#gag f#ede f#gag f#ede f#gag a "
edef# gagf# edef# gagf# edef# gagf# g

Final notes are held for a whole measure
Now do the same pattern starting on e and going to b, starting on f# and going to c…
all the way up to the high E to B. I do about three sets every day, with different starting notes.

Three note sets:
def#e def#e def#e d twice
ef#ed ef#ed ef#ed e twice
f#ede f#ede f#ede f# twice
edef# edef# edef# e twice

then start the whole thing over, begining on e, f#, g…all the way up to the high G. I do about 5 sets a day.

The key here is smoothness, on the beat, every note exactly the same length, paying attention to the ring fingers most precisely. Speed isn’t the goal. Accuracy is. All these exercises are at 100 bpm.

Last one I do is twiddles…dededededed, efefefefefefe, again with the aim of absolutely even notes. Here I start at 100 bpm, and kick up the speed at the last half of my breath. I do each finger twice, for a whole breath, and then I repeat it for the ring fingers.

I’m also become a world-class rubber ball squeezer.

6

Ideally? Who doesn’t want to know every tune that’s out there …but…I would MUCH rather sit down and play with someone who knows 20 tunes very well( who plays musically and in time)than someone who ‘knows’ scads of tunes but plays them sloppily (out of time, etc).
There is a very infamous “musician” in these here parts who has a tune list a mile long…but he plays them so poorly that often one can’t distinguish his reels from his jig playing, as no matter what he plays the subdivision is nonexistent. When this fellow shows up at sessions people run for the hills.

7

Hello:

While taking music lessons, there was a poster in the classroom that read, “take your time to be perfect, and you’ll achieve faster results”. (translated from spanish).

In reality I think that the real answers lies on somewhere in between though. If you are performing you usually have a relatively narrow repertoire, but you must know them extremely well so you’ll look good on stage. Each of those songs should be closer to perfect as humanly possible. On stage, everything is prepared and rehearsed, you just go and play those 12-13 tunes that you practiced all along.

If you do a lot of improvisation (like on a session), I think that perfection is not what’s been looking for, but being good enough. Practice of these songs are important, but you’ll be bombarded with requests from your fellow musicians which they will be out of whack. Probably in this case the repertoire should be very broad 25-30 songs, but bear in mind that in this case you’ll be relying on your ability to recover than playing every single note with perfection.

If you are doing this for yourself, you set your own standards. Personally, I can care less if I’m perfect or not. I just want to sound good and enjoy doing it. If it becomes a drag, I stow away the whistle and watch TV or read a book.

At the end of the day, your only concern would be to strive to please your most toughest critic, yourself.

My 2 cents,

Luis

8

Well, as a snake, I can tell you that we’re a downtrodden lot - nobody wants to give us lessons, not only because we don’t have hands or fingers, but also, the fangs get in the way and they get really jumpy about trying to help us correct embouchure. Still, if I actually could find a way to play, I think I’d want to play lots of tunes, but concentrate on improving the ear-hand coordination - a bit difficult, when you hear through your belly and have no hands…
hmmmmmm…
:smiley:
serpent
~*~ :wink: SerpiePie

9

I think learning one new tune every week is a good rate, especially for a beginner. The more you know, the more time you’ll need to practice what you already know. It’s a dilemma. The more you know, the more fun it is.

If you attend the same session with the same people, you can find out what the group repetoire is and work on that. If you go to different sessions or places you haven’t been before, forget it. You’ll be lucky to know a fraction of their regular tunes.

I won’t tell you to not practice arpeggios or whatever, but, personally, I’d rather spend the time practicing tunes or learning new ones. The difficult passages will show up in them and you can slow them down and perfect them.

Play as well as you can at a session, and practice to be as good as you can. Ultimately you’re at a session for your own edification and/or enjoyment. “Good enough” can sound pretty grim when you really listen.
Tony

10

-Athletes are encouraged to use specificity in training for best outcome i.e.
sprinting to improve sprinting, practicing rock holds to get better at rock climbing and so on.
-The musical corollary of this means playing music one wants to improve on many times to perfect it. This is fine for highly focused people, but would mean a motivation gap for me-still working hard to improve basics. I really like jumping from piece to piece to keep practice interesting and motivation up. I respect
a better player’s choice to focus
on specifics, but its not for me yet, at least not to the point of disinterest. Some goals like good high octave flute embouchure demand specific repetitive practice, but its not a life sentence. (at least not yet)

11

On 2003-01-26 17:02, PapoAnaya wrote:
If you do a lot of improvisation (like on a session), I think that perfection is not what’s been looking for, but being good enough.

I assume you are referring to jazz improvisation, but in any case shouldn’t “perfection” be the goal, and “being good enough” mean doing one’s best? Part of the fun of playing music is trying to make it sound as good as possible. I’m very far from perfect, but I can’t imagine relaxing my standards. I should think that would be very boring.

12

On 2003-01-26 18:42, Ridseard wrote:
I assume you are referring to jazz improvisation, but in any case shouldn’t “perfection” be the goal, and “being good enough” mean doing one’s best? Part of the fun of playing music is trying to make it sound as good as possible. I’m very far from perfect, but I can’t imagine relaxing my standards. I should think that would be very boring.

Well.


I agree with you. if you do lower your standards, you will get bored. You play a song lousy, you’ll be playing it the same lousy way. Therefore you work for it to be as written or conceived if by ear.

Good rendition should be the goal on playing a song. But when you are improvising, you are playing something that is not written anywhere. Therefore there is no measure on how a song is supposed to sound because it is coming out at that instant. The song is the one that will not sound “perfect”. The execution must be flawless.

I think that you should strive to master the instrument. For that songs(specially difficult ones), scales and exercises help you do that. That’s when you work to make them sound perfectly.

On performance, songs should sound consistently as written and directed by the conductor. Everything is methodically prepared and rehearsed. On these, the performer should strive to play it as perfect as possible.

On improvisation, it is a different set of rules. There is no perfect song, “because you are jamming”.

So.. the question is, what should be perfect. playing songs perfectly, or mastering the instrument so that playing a song comes naturally?

One last thought. A computer will play a song perfectly. All the notes will be complete, all the rests “al tempo”, nothing will be amiss. However, there will be something lacking. Human ingenuity that gives the song its feeling.

My other 2’s

Luis

13

This is an important subject. I used to focus heavily on a few tunes that I wanted to play perfectly. I got frustrated and went to tune hopping. I downloaded scores of tunes (sheet music) from the Internet and played each one long enough to get it more-or-less right, and kept the sheet music for the ones I liked. After about a week of doing this I went back to some of those tunes I had been working on. Lo and behold I could see a big improvement. It’s a good thing to work intensely on tunes we particularly want to play well, but my music reading ability and my playing skills improved better with wider exposure. It also keeps me from getting bored with the tunes or frustrated with minimal progress.

14

Thanks for the clarification, Luis.

15

It mostly depends on (a) what you want to do, and (b) what you CAN do.

Basically, most people’s goals are to play in sessions, or maybe a small group. Either way, a sizeable repetoire is quite important to avoid boredom (it kills).

However, taking it to the (b) part, and using myself as an example. I live like, soo far away from anything that’s can at least be considered a ‘small’ group (heck finding another IrTrad lover is, ahem, almost nil).

So what’s the point for me to practice so many tunes? Of course I could perform in the streets, but no one would understand and appreciate (defeats the perfoming purpose…). For me, I would rather learn tunes I can like even after bazillion repetitions - and do them well.

Hence, from somewhere I’ve read (forgotten the source), it said “Rhythm”. I really agree on that being important, since my definition of sloppy is playing with skipping or stopping in the wrong places. A jig/reel played slowly throughout is okay to me, but not one that’s played slow, then fast, stops and continues (all in the wrong places).

My opinion only.

16

I struggle with this also. My teacher keeps giving me new tunes to play and sometimes I get a little overwhelmed. What we have both agreed on is that I need to first learn the tune, then add the ornaments and then commit it to memory. Now that I have a few tunes perfect, then I find it easier to learn more tunes and memorize them. Now that I have a few favorites it is becoming easier to learn from ear. The long and the short of it: I think it is better to know a handfull of songs and play them amazing then a bunch of songs that you can just get through. You will never become a great player that way.