A few weeks ago I posted about my seeming inability to play without having the sheet music in front of me. I was even sneaking books of tunes into seesions and hiding them under the table where I hoped no-one could see.
Most of you were very kind and said if that was what I needed to do I should do it and not to worry, but I have a nagging feeling that I will never play Irish music properly that way, because it is always going to be filtered by my brain rather than coming from the gut.
I have recently hit on a way forward which I would like to share in case anyone else has the same problem. I don’t think this original to me.
I bought a little hardback pocket book, divided it into letter sections and scored between the lines to make staves. Then I wrote in the first two bars only of each section of each tune I know really well. I find that once I get started I can remember the rest of it and part of the problem is the confidence that I can hit the right first note in the right key.
Just writng out the tune helps fix it in my head and a little note book looks much less stupid in the pub than Waltons 110 best session tunes. I am starting to find I don’t need the book anyway.
When our band plays a gig, I find it helps me if I note the key and the first note or so on our sets list. The more songs we learn, the harder it is for me to remember. And there’s nothing like starting off a song with the wrong key whistle & wondering why everyone else is playing the wrong thing!
You know what!! - I really wish I could read music - it would be so much easier to learn new tunes and especially to learn the harmonies and chords when I play keyboards etc.
Then again I feel the music - I dont know how - BUT IT JUST FEELS RIGHT - (when its right that is). Its like cooking - you know when the taste is right. I know a chord by its feel - I feel the rhythm - and a tune or piece just feels right. I know litlle or nothing of musical theory and most of the people I play with are in the same bracket.
You are right about Irish Music not being played much by “the dots” I suppose it would be impossible to show what it should feel like - no matter how many codes were written into the printed page. MIDI music is a bit like that - AND Irish music on MIDI sounds especially bad. But I put up with it because MIDI is a great way of getting a tune into the head in the right key and tempo.
My daughter-in-law has a degree in music from Cork University and we sometimes play together - I envy her ability to sight read - she says she envies my ability to feel out the right chords etc.
If I could read the dots I would ONLY use them while learning the piece - I would then loose them.
Just enjoy the music and be glad of you musical education. No one will mind if you have the right feeling in your music.
I have a way I can memerize stuff but I prefer music in front of me and some tunes I just memerize because I have heard and played so many times like “The Foxhunters Jig” I can play with out music because I have played it so many times.
I know what you mean. At sessions, I’d sit out “Off to California” because
I never learned it. One time, I started playing along, thinking it was a tune
I knew. When the tune ended, I asked “what’s that one called, again?”
I was surprised when someone said, “Off to CA”…
“But, I don’t know that one!”
Steve: I have used your method for years, as a way to keep repertoire straight in my head. With a band that has many, many hours of memorized repertoire, we sometimes do not play a certain tune, song, or medley for months at a time. We then want to resurrect it. My little book, with a few measures of each tune in it, helps me to get the music re-loaded into my brain’s ‘RAM.’ Remembering the rest of the tune is the easy part.
Congratulations! I use sheet music to learn from, at least so far. Once I find myself whistling the tune (with my lips) around the house, I then know I am ready to memorize it. I found it so terribly hard to memorize at first, and I realized it was because I didn’t really know the tune—so of course it was hard to memorize. When it’s in my head enough to hum or whistle with my lips, then I just have to work a bit to get it down as far as the notes go.
I am listening to a particular recording now, over and over, and perhaps I will be able to memorize some tunes from it—little bits are starting to come to me now and then—and then work out the notes on the whistle. I have not tried to sit down with a tune going a million miles an hour and work it out. I don’t see how I could do that.
Your notebook is a neat idea. If I ever learn enough tunes to need one, I am going to use this idea of yours.
Oh, the other thing that has helped me immensely with listening and memorizing is understanding the structure of the tune: AABB, and then the usual 4 phrases in each part sort of asking and answering a question. That framework isn’t common to all tunes, but to many.
that is such a GREAT idea!! our pipe master keeps telling me that if i play the song often enough pretty soon it will be automatically memorized, or my fingers will memorized it or something like that. for the short, easy pieces that seems to be true, but the longer ones with guys names in them just don’t seem to be getting through my thick skull . . .
Hi folks, I learn most of my tunes from notation but my site reading is not fast, which is an advantage in some ways, it means I play the tunes slowly and accurately. In fact just recently I’ve started trying to play tunes I thought I new well, slowly and discovered that I didn’t know them as well as I imagined.
Writing tunes down helps a lot and having a mental image of the title and first bar is very useful. It’s only in the last year that I realised that I could imagine the stave and notes of short sections of tunes. I’ve worked on the skill by spending time imagining a note on the stave and moving it to new positions whilst thinking of the note name.
I think with enough practice this skill will eventually give me a mental image of a whole tune and maybe even allow me to transpose in my head.
I don’t remember the source - whether I saw it, heard it, or read it - but, Matt Molloy said that he never learned how to read music properly, but he still usually writes the first couple bars down in a little book to help him remember the tune, and then he is off. So, you are in very good company I think!!
