I don’t want to start up the discussion again regarding ‘Ear versus Eye’ but I do have something I want to share.
I have always played by ear and had no training in reading music. In the last couple of months I have taught myself how to read music and can’t believe what a great tool it is for learning tunes.
In the past week alone I have mastered three new tunes - Taimse Im Chodladh (I am sleeping), The 3 Sea Captains and the Templehouse Reel - all by reading the music. Admittedly, I also listened to the tunes to get the feel for them, but I mainly learned them from the sheet music.
This has opend up new doors for learning that I didn’t realize it would.
Hey Gypsy-
As somebody who has read music from the very beginning, I appreciate your attitude and wish you the joy of “opening new doors”. I have often been mystified by those who had invested so much into music but were intimidated by the shorthand we call notation. It is just that after all, shorthand for what you really do.
As a guitar player, I was always amused at tablature. Its really just another way but it runs into limitations with multiple notes etc. But I often found people who were avid tablature readers (mostly in bluegrass world) but completely convinced that they could “never read music.” Go figger.
For Irish music, I think its better that you played by ear first. Without soundin’ preachy, i urge people to read Breandan Breatnach’s little book about the music to enhance the sense of relativity of written notation to what we play and hear..
The more I re-read it, the more i realize AND RESPECT what a parallel but different track Irish music operates on than Western classical music even though it may share the notation.
I wish to mention especially the following: in the book , he points out that the use of F natural is very special and “curious.” (A very good example of this is the Set Dance called simply “The Hunt.”
He actually laments the prominence of even-tempered instruments because they don’t deliver an “authentic” F natural or C natural. He says that C natural should be about “halfway between B and D!” I get that from one of the weaker cross-fingerings but not from the more familiar-sounding half-holed version.
To a post-Bach even-tempered oriented classical musician, this is curious talk indeed! It actually opens a new can of worms relative to whistling. It might be that premium whistles that have solved intonation “problems” have somehow deviated from an authentic norm. That’s a head-scratcher…
Well that deviates from the thread but best wishes anyway!
Whistling Gypsy, I’m the opposite, having always read music, and now learning to play by ear. A new skill or more knowledge never hurts. Glad you’re, as Lee Marsh would say, enjoying your music (and more of it and quicker)!
Bah, Humbug,
Some of the littery grates couldn’t pen a note to the milkman. Music notation, great, it’s like learning a foreign language… speak it and it’s great, learn to write it first and your shackled, for life!!
Does anybody know a good on-line source for learning to play by ear? Since I’ve ALWAYS relied on sheet music, even though I’m not tone-deaf I can’t seem to get the hang of hearing the intervals. It’s funny, I can read a full concert score right along with the orchestra, but I can’t write the melody down by ear for the life of me!
I’m practicing ornamentation and trying to decipher it from recordings, but not being ear-trained is a hassle.
For Irish music, I think its better that you played by ear first. Without soundin’ preachy, i urge people to read Breandan Breatnach’s little book about the music to enhance the sense of relativity of written notation to what we play and hear..
To assist the uninformed (that would be me) could you be a bit more specific with regard to the book to which you are referring? Would it be “Folk Music and Dances of Ireland : A Comprehensive Study Examining the Basic Elements of Irish Folk Music and Dance Traditions”?
Yes, that;s the correct title. I have seen so few books on this subject that were not tunebooks that I kind of assumed all were familiar with it. Its a small book in the current paperback printing, available from Ossian USA and elsewhere. They also sell a version which has an accompanying tape to demonstrate his examples.
I called it a “little” book because that’s how it looks but it continues to reveal things as I grow and change as a player.
Lately I,ve been writing down the notatation as I am learning a tune by ear.Any one else do this?Saves a lot of time and it,s a good memory re-fresher the day after.Peace, Mike
I had a music prof. in college who said that people who play by ear don’t read very well, and people who read very well don’t play by ear very well. I think it’s true. -JP
I had a music prof. in college who said that people who play by ear don’t read very well, and people who read very well don’t play by ear very well. I think it’s true. -JP
Not necessarily so, I started out learning by ear and picked up reading along the way, I can sight-read any tune as well as pick it up by ear. I suppose it’s a matter of how you learned and what you learned to rely on.
People who lift a tune easily often won’t bother to read and vice versa but when you sit down and practice both it shouldn’t be a problem.
I always write down a tune after learning it, I get these tune learning sprees where I pick up loads of tunes within a short period of time, often I completely forget which tunes I learned [in the sense that I can play the tunes when they come up but won’t think of them when I start up a tune myself) so the notation comes in handy just to look up what I have.
Hello Kendra,
Conal here from Scoiltrad. Our classes at http://www.scoiltrad.com allow you to learn either by ear or by using the notation. The tune is split into its component parts and played at 50%, 80% and 100% of performance pace with control buttons to allow you pause, loop etc. Close-up, slow motion of onramentation techniques is also provided. We do supply the notation as well so you can use both your ear and the notes as you learn the tune.
I learned all my music by ear and until recently (i.e until starting Scoiltrad) wasn’t able to read music. I find that learning by ear allows you to learn a lot more than just the notes…you get the internal rhythms (not just the time signature), emphasis and colour at the same time. Far from this making the learning process more complex, it seems to make more sense and adds to the enjoyment of picking up the tune,
Beir Bua
Conal
One of the players in our weekly session uses 3X5 cards with just the start of all the tunes pasted on them. He probably has at least 3 tunes on every card and has them held together with a keyring or something.
This is a great idea as it helps you to remember the tunes, but of course you need to be able to read music for it to work.
Now if I could just get organized enough to put these cards together
Reading music and learning by ear are not mutually exclusive at all and most good musicians can do both. Knowing notation gives you a much wider range of material to work with and means that you can play music convincingly even if you haven’t yet memorizied it - not useful for sessions, but invaluable in many other situations.
A good method of ear training is Solfege, which is the simple do-re-mi system. Courses may be available at a local music school, or there is material that can be puchased on the net.
If I was a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing…
[ This Message was edited by: Blackbird on 2002-04-02 15:21 ]
I have not tried it or anythign, barely skimmed the website, as I am still at school, but maybe it will be worthwhile. If not, try one of the other 11,499 Google hits!
Sounds like something good to own. I’ll set out on a quest.
Peace, Mike