I’m curious how many tunes people know by memory. When you go to sessions, do you just play them from memory? Or just figure them out as you go?
John Mac
Edited to appease Bloomfield. I guess he doesn’t have any tunes memorized. 
[ This Message was edited by: goesto11 on 2002-10-16 10:55 ]
[ This Message was edited by: goesto11 on 2002-10-16 11:33 ]
Do you mean tunes?
On 2002-10-15 14:20, goesto11 wrote:
I’m curious how many songs people know by memory. John Mac
I know all the songs I’ve memorized.
Well, recently I posted a list of a hundred-and-something songs/tunes that I ‘knew’ (though I’ve since added 6 to the list.)
I’m not sure about anyone else, but the only music that makes it to my list is stuff I can play from memory, without sheet music, or having to go “how does that tune go again?”.
Learning the notes has always seemed easy for me..after all, there’s only about 96 notes in a jig like Legacy Jig (less when you group rolls and the like into a ‘unit’). Within that tune, there’s a lot of repetition, so the actual amount of data to learn is a pretty smallish number. The harder part has always been teachin my fingers to play what my brain knows. Then again, I’m the only guy at our session who knows at least one of the names of every tune I play. Just a good memory I guess 
I know quite a few, actually. Somewhere around 30-40 tunes I can just ‘rattle off’ by memory, however that’s probably nothing compared to some of the Whistler’s who’ve been playing for many years…
I think one of the difficulties is that quite a lot of tunes are alike. I sometimes mix them up, going from A in one tune to B in another. I also know quite a bit of tunes I can’t even name.
Not many, John. But when I do go to a session, I find out what tunes are on their play list and take a stab at memorizing a few of those at home - for the next time.
Many of the folks in the last session that I went to used music, but the most effective players had them memorized. Some would just glance at the music to see which name went with which tune. Since it was OK to tootle a bit (session ediquette allowed), I would try playing from the dots on the tunes that I didn’t have memorized, but I was never particularly good at it.
My suggestion would be not to play a tune at a session unless you have it memorized.
Erik
p.s. How’s it going? I suppose that I should e-mail you
There’s about 50-60 tunes I can play and another dozen or so I could play at least one part of, but for all but about 25 of them I would need either someone else to start it off or refer to my cheat sheet for the beginning notes.
I have a ‘kick-start’ memory
2 … only … pure memory.
The man who said it doesn’t matter how many tune you play, it matters how many you play well, he had a point.
On the other hand, you are expected to play just a bout anything when sitting in with good players. And good players do have loads of tunes, I have a good few, or at least I like to think I do. Still it happens I sit down with players I play with regularly and have been for years and they tap into some layer of their brain and they come up wit ha full night of tunes I have never heard before.
After a while it becomes less a matter of how much you have memorised, when you have music around you a lot, you’ll absorb a lot of tunes and if you play a lot you’ll find people start a tune and you play it without knowing what you are playing or whethter you played it before or not.
Regular pensioners I have spoken to:
IE Frank Ryan at the IAC in NYC. They play Sunday afternoons in Central Park. Frank plays Guitar, Mandolin, Flute, and Whistle. He says they usually have a group of about 20.
Frank says that most of the musicians he know have between 120 to 200 tune that they play from memory. Although certain tunes lend themselves to being played together which makes them a little easier to remember.
As for myself I have about 20 and a long way to go.
[ This Message was edited by: wizzer on 2002-10-16 08:46 ]
I’m having a lot of fun recently noticing tunes I didn’t think I knew being used as TV background music.
Last week I heard Fairy Dance being played at a Scottish Ceili in the background. It’s a tune I’m learning from a CD recording, and I don’t know to play it yet, but I recognised it anyway.
On 2002-10-16 06:44, Peter Laban wrote:
After a while it becomes less a matter of how much you have memorised, when you have music around you a lot, you’ll absorb a lot of tunes and if you play a lot you’ll find people start a tune and you play it without knowing what you are playing or whethter you played it before or not.
I’ve played in rock groups with bass players who were deputising for an ill band member and who got through, without rehearsal, with a word or two before each number and then watching what I was doing on guitar. I once did much the same with a New Orleans jazz band playing guitar to cover for an absent banjo player. I had a chord book to get started on each tune but had to watch the other band members during the tunes to get the breaks right, so I had to play by ear. It’s just a matter of having a good ear and knowing the style of music.
As for numbers of tunes, I don’t know very many Irish tunes yet—I’m fairly new to the style as a player—but all up, counting other kinds of tunes, I might know about 30 by heart on whistle by now. It’s a bit misleading to say that though. Any slowish tune I can hum I can play through straight away with perhaps only a couple of fumbles. If I come back to it in a week’s time, I’ll play it through again with a couple of fumbles. They might be in the same place or in a different place. Perhaps, with enough practice, I’ll eliminate the fumbles and be able to do the same with fast tunes. I think that’s where top session players are at.
On 2002-10-16 08:45, Wizzer wrote:
Frank says that most of the musicians he know have between 120 to 200 tune that they play from memory.
Most accomplished Irish musicians that I’ve run into have well over 500 tunes…
All of 'em.
On 2002-10-16 10:45, Wombat wrote:
I’ve played in rock groups with bass players who were deputising for an ill band member and who got through, without rehearsal, with a word or two before each number and then watching what I was doing on guitar. I once did much the same with a New Orleans jazz band playing guitar to cover for an absent banjo player. I had a chord book to get started on each tune but had to watch the other band members during the tunes to get the breaks right, so I had to play by ear. It’s just a matter of having a good ear and knowing the style of music.
I have the greatest admiration for musicians who can do that. In an Irish traditional session however, such people can be a royal pain in the arse.
Melody players mainly - I know a banjo/mandolin player, whose real forte is bluegrass but who knows a smattering of Irish tunes, and he joins in with the melody even when he doesn’t know it. He gets 75% of it right, because he has a good ear and is used to vamping, but the 25% that he gets wrong totally wrecks the enjoyment for the poor whistle player (e.g. me) trying to convey the subtle melodic twists of the particular tune. His contribution brings everything down to a lower level. And of course being a banjo player he is very loud.
Then you get the occasional musician (usually a recorder player or silver-flute player, sometimes a violinist) who thinks that the session is a “jam” and that although they don’t know the tunes, or even any Irish tunes, they can just noodle away so long as it harmonizes. Most of them get very upset when they are told that their contributions are not welcome.
Guitarists can easily screw a tune up by thumping away when they don’t know it, too.
Hey I once went to a bodhran workshop (I was roped in to provide melody) where the tutor insisted that even bodhran players should never join in with a tune unless they knew it and all its twists and turns. Wouldn’t the session world be a different place if everyone applied that dictum!
I was at session once, and someone asked me to “play that slow air you did the other day for us”. (Packie’s By The Side of the Rock, btw. A real favorite.) So I did and you all know that playing a slow air in a crowded noisy pub is a bit of a fragile thing: Your on your own and it requires a bit closer listening than say Tom Billy’s. Anyway, there was this silver-flute player sitting next to me trying to pick out the tune while I was playing. I would have strangled her if I wouldn’t have had to drop the whistle to do so.
I mean, you never ever play along with a slow air that someone else plays, whether you have it memorized or not (unless you have rehearsed it as a duo beforehand). I am sure it was just a coincidence that she played silver flute. I don’t see her around much anymore.
On 2002-10-15 14:20, goesto11 wrote:
Edited to appease Bloomfield. I guess he doesn’t have any tunes memorized. >
If your going to play try and it right, you might as well start talking right, right? Right.
Anyway, since you ask. I have about 60 memorized so that I can start them and play them through without leaning on other. That doesn’t mean that I play them well in the sense that I have really thought through the tune and figured out my personal little variations and preferences. The players I talk to stop counting once their past 150 or 200.
On 2002-10-16 11:59, StevieJ wrote:
On 2002-10-16 10:45, Wombat wrote:
I’ve played in rock groups with bass players who were deputising for an ill band member and who got through, without rehearsal, with a word or two before each number and then watching what I was doing on guitar. I once did much the same with a New Orleans jazz band playing guitar to cover for an absent banjo player. I had a chord book to get started on each tune but had to watch the other band members during the tunes to get the breaks right, so I had to play by ear. It’s just a matter of having a good ear and knowing the style of music.I have the greatest admiration for musicians who can do that. In an Irish traditional session however, such people can be a royal pain in the arse.
I’ll take the compliment bit Stevie but I hasten to add that I wouldn’t dream of doing this at a session. The occasions I described were emergencies and were very scarey. Two hours playing thinking that things could fall apart at any moment is no fun. Sessions are supposed to be fun for all, although sometimes you would be surprised to hear that if you just wandered in by mistake. ‘Jamming’ is even worse, unless of course the sessioners want countermelodies (not always) and that’s what they’re getting.
I should add that my earlier post was a reply to Peter Laban whose point was that the very best session musicians are so familiar with the language that they can play by ear and anticipate the twists and turns without really being fully aware that they are doing it. Obviously only the very best can do this without falling into the traps Stevie rightly condemns.
The best advice I’ve got on this is from a Sarah McQuaid book on DADGAD guitar (I think). Never play or accompany a tune you don’t know. If you are in that category of stellar ear readers, listen to the tune the first time through before joining in. Now if you follow that advice, you’ll go wrong only if you mistakenly think your ear is better than it is.
I don’t usually mix John Wayne advice with matters this delicate but, when it comes to sessions, the bit I reject is ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do’ and the bit I go along with is ‘A man’s gotta know his limitations.’ Same goes for women, although I doubt whether Mr Wayne would have offered women the first bit of advice.