When picking my whistle up i tend to play the most recent ten or so tunes, it’s probably because they are the latest of many over the past 4 years.
Then all of a sudden i hear a tune which i mastered maybe 2 years ago, and I’ve totally forgotten about it
When i attempt to play the tune, it seems i can still play it, but I’m a bit rusty and it takes a while to get back into it.
The more tunes i learn, the more i seem to forget about, my memory remembers only a certain amount at one time.
I’m also not very good at remembering the names of the tunes, which doesn’t help matters either.
I was flicking through youtube earlier and heard an old favorite of mine which i’d play all the time, and i thought what a shame that I’d forgotten about such a lovely tune.
keep playing them all the time?
i think thats how it usually goes, you dont play for a while you foget how it goes,
as for remembering the names, I’m pretty sure no one is good at that, look at all the names for each tune
I too am interested in how others manage all this tune information. I wonder how professionals deal with it. Somewhere, I read that Jerry Holland knows over a thousand tunes, and I thought, “Can he remember the name of each and every one? If so, then HOW?!”
Here’s what I do:
First, I keep a spreadsheet listing all the tunes I’ve learned. As I learn new tunes I add them to the spreadsheet. (You could just use a plain old text file, or even a sheet of paper, but I like to use a spreadsheet as it lets me sort different ways – by name, by key, by tune type…)
Second, occasionally I print off my tune list, and use it as a “practice checklist.” As I’m practicing, I go down the list, and pick a tune at random, and practice it, then I write a check-mark next to the tune name in the printout. Then I look for another tune, one that doesn’t have any checkmarks next to it. This way I guarantee that all the tunes I’ve learned get revisited semi-regularly.
I’ve only been focusing on Irish music about 18 months, and so far I only know about 110 tunes. So far, this little system seems fairly effective at making me brush up on playing the tunes. But it doesn’t help much at remembering the titles. But that’s okay, as I know that if I need a tune title, it’s somewhere in the spreadsheet.
I know its suppose to be a big no no. But I use sheet music. I have played a sax for well over 20+ years. In that time I memorized my fair share of tunes. I use sheet music more for a reminder. Once I see the first few notes then the old memory kicks in.
I guess as far as ITM and sessions go your suppose to play by memory and not use sheet music. Like I said I use sheet music more for a memory jog.
This is why notation is helpful in traditional musics. Notations assist as MEMORANDUM for things already learned by ear. A prompt.
And how did musicians in villages in days of yore remember hundreds of tunes and slow airs before notation and recordings came along? IMO they didn’t. If we think of olden Ireland in terms of heaps of other pre modern societies still extant today, it is very likely that an Irish village musician knew the following range by heart (EXAMPLE ONLY):-
Dance Music:-
up to 4 of EACH of jigs, reels and hornpipes that resolved at XXX XXX
up to 4 of EACH of jigs, reels and hornpipes that resolved at XXX XXO
up to 4 of EACH of jigs, reels and hornpipes that resolved at XXX OOO
up to 4 of EACH of jigs, reels and hornpipes that resolved at XXO OOO
a few pieces at XOO OOO.
Their memory prompt for these was simply to know which note the tunes began on (and where they ended or would end if the piece wasn’t ensconced in a cyclic performance with numerous other pieces). This is how most notation illiterate folk musicians operate to this day (Africa, South Asia, Middle East etc). And likewise the categories or “drawers” in their brains would be according to some rhythmic and tempo schema.
The village musician plays these same tunes so much that invariably and automatically he or she raises variations in the playing of it and the ornamenting of the notes which tend to become spontaneous. Should a musician raise a remarkable variation in say, a known jig, then that variation may be deemed to mark a new jig which takes on the musician’s name or that of the village.
In effect the village musician knew by heart only about 50 dance pieces categorised by rhythm type. These served as template for enlivening variations which, if sufficiently remarkable gave rise to new pieces.
My doctor told me not to worry about short term memory like forgetting names and other things that eventually come back. He did say a person should see him if they forget who they are. Hmmmmmmmmm…
Dr. who? Now where did I put his name?
Sheet music is not a “no no”…it’s a blessing. Phrases can sound so similar in this music that the brain can cause a listener to skip over important bits that make the song different, especially turns and triplets. Sheet music clears up the mysteries. Sheet music also keeps everyone honest since it tends to be the source. (i know…not true 100%…we’ll call it 90% )
I find myself practicing the tunes that ‘don’t lay well’ on whistle the most which causes me to forget about the easier tunes. Keeping a list works but then I find myself forgetting what tunes go with what names, and it’s back to the sheet music or recordings. All folk music is that way. I’m a jazz guitar player by training and “charts is where it starts”. (couldn’t find anything to rhyme with “fake book”… )
Maybe 5% if you’re lucky. Seriously, all it should take is about ten minutes looking up the same tune in different sources to convince yourself you can’t consider one of them to be “the” way the tune is played.
In traditional music, about the only time sheet music is “the source” is when the sheet music is written down by the composer. And even then, what actually enters the tradition is frequently different from what the composer originally wrote. I must have half-a-dozen recordings of Sean Ryan’s “Twilight in Portroe”, all of which are essentially the same, none of which match what is in the Sean Ryan tunebook. Somehow over time the key signature and a couple of the phrases changed, and that version of the tune entered the tradition. It’s just as “real” a version of the tune as what Ryan wrote, and more likely to be played, in my experience.
Same thing with Ed Reavy’s “Maudabawn Chapel” – I don’t have the composer’s sheet music, but the official Reavy Collection recording of the tune has one phrase different than the way everyone around here plays it.
Heck, speaking as a sometimes composer myself, there are a couple of my tunes that I routinely play differently from the sheet music I wrote – things that started as occasional variations and eventually mutated to be used routinely. Your basic sheet music is not well-equipped to say “lots of the time replace this melodic phrase with this similar but different melodic phrase, but don’t do it every time.” But that sort of thing is an important component of the tradition.
Like MusicalADD I have a spreadsheet. It has the first two or three bars of ABC against each tune, and I have a copy in my pocket. When I practice, I’m usually practicing a bunch of tunes that I’m trying to perfect, but I try to pick something at random from my spreadsheet and run through that. Depending on how bad it was, I may add it to the list of tunes to practice next time.
I still have trouble with recalling how tunes start. I’ve found it helps to remember the name of the tune as if it was sung, to the beginning of the tune. For instance, I know two tunes called “The Rose Waltz”. One I remember anyway, and the other is “The rose waltz, the rose waltz, the rose waltz again…”. “Dusty Windowsills” I used to have trouble with, but now I sing the tune, there’s no problem.
Oh, no doubt. It’s the same way in bluegrass. My wife’s 93 year old grandmother can sing old tunes from memory, the real deal, from rural Arkansas. Those songs charted might not be recognizable as the same song… she’ll say “yer playin’ it wrong, sonny boy!”
In Celtic sessions however, I’ve been “corrected” by a person or two about playing the A phrase as the B phrase or sumsuch,…‘uh, no, the sheet music says I’m right’…argument won! (after the second round, it doesn’t matter…)
Seriously, for practice and memorization, sheet music provides a solid base from which to start. Local tradition takes over from there.
Heck, we all change just about everything we play by stylizing and interpretation.
I have a Word document “tune book” that contains the dots/lyrics for the tunes/songs I know. It’s a memory jogger that I refer to once in a while when I just can’t start a tune. For example when I try to play Barrack Hill right after playing Maggie in the Wood. Sometimes it just won’t happen. Last week we had seven of us stumped becuase of that. We were starting all sorts of things, but none were Barrack Hill. Alas I didn’t have the book. Or I can get lost on Off to California if I try to play it right after Cooley’s Hornpipe. “How’s that go again?”
I took the time to put a contents and index in the book, the tunes being in alphabetical order so the contents makes tunes easy to find by name. The index is by type, reel, jig etc. and I note the key in the index as well. So now when I add a tune, I put it in it’s proper place and it appears in the contents and index. Quite handy. The contents and index are great helps when the session has been going for six hours and I’m looking for a tune we’ve not played yet.
There is a section at the end for tunes I’d like to learn. Some just names, some dots and/or ABC. I prefer to learn by ear, but sometimes a peek at the dots helps resolve something. More often it just confuses, because it isn’t what I’m listening to.
Many times I’ve given the book to someone who’s new to our session so they would have a reference to what we play. It’s much appreciated. I tell them to go find the tunes on YouTube or some of the many instructional sites and learn them by ear. (I should put a list of those sites on the book, eh?) Or I just rip out the index or contents and give them that.
Yes, eventually I too figured out that I could easily fit the opening 2 bars of ABC into my spreadsheet, so I’ve been doing that lately. Very helpful.
I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who tries to remember tune titles by imagining them sung to the melody. I do that as well, with limited success (though Behind The Haystack works nicely)… but I feel kind of silly about doing that, because it reminds me of an episode of “Cheers” where the Coach is demonstrating how he uses songs to memorize textbook facts. I can still remember him singing, to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In”:
Albania! Albania! You border on the Adriatic!
Your terrain… is mostly mountainous
And your main ex-port is chrome!
I guess the fact that I can remember that after all these years proves that the singing thing really does help with memory. Now, uh… where did I leave my car keys, again?
I predict that your 90% estimate is not going to hold up.
The idea that ‘the dots’ is where you start is a popular perception with newcomers, but with this music, that idea is usually overcome as you learn more about the tradition.
If you cannot hear the tune, played properly, in your head, you will most likely not play it properly, even with the notation right in front of you. The dynamics of ITM are not easily reflected, and therefore, most often not included in the notation.
Opening up you music stand and flipping to the tune will get you raised eyebrows and under-breath comments (if you are lucky ) at a serious session.
Yes, i think it’s all about jogging the memory.
It’s not that i’ve forgotten how to play the tune, it’s that i’ve forgotten about it.
It’s mostly, when i think about it, tunes i have learnt competently. I suppose it’s when i move on to learning new tunes, the less time i spend on tunes i already can play well and they eventually get forgotten.
I guess if you asked me to play all the tunes i know, i could probably play around ten or so straight off, and then i’d really have to rack my brains to remember the other hundred or so.
It’s a bit of a shame when i’ve got so many to choose from, but can only remember ten off the top of my head.
If there had been sessions where i live, I’m sure other musicians would help with the memory jogging, in fact I’ve learnt most of my music through Chiff & Fipple, and you tube video’s.
I would have loved to had the opportunity to play with others,
and this forum keeps me going, so thanks everyone
You never really forget a tune. Joni Mitchell sings, “…songs are like tattoos…” Yes they do get dusty and rusty but they come back very quickly. Trust your memory, it’s actually quite good.
And the different versions of tunes become less troublesome with time because your adaptation gets better as you get to be a better player.
If you want to lead a few sets in a session then bring a short list of tunes to help you get through the mental brown outs.
I think in a way it is good to forget tunes. I’ve forgotten many tunes, but once in a while at the session someone will start one of them. I’ll think to myself, this tune sounds really familiar and I’ll give it a go. Since they always play a tune a little different than how I learned it, it’s an avenue in to learning by ear.
I think it’s also good to forget tunes so that you can come back to them later after you’ve made general improvements. You can come back to an old tune fresh again and bring more to it. Make it new again.
Certainly, there is a price tag in terms of effort. But once they’re in memory, the dividends are huge.
Once they’re in memory, your awareness is free to pay attention to things like: keeping together with others, adding ornaments, being aware of dynamics.
Myself, I usually use dots to get a tune into memory. I simply have a poor ear. Without the dots, I would be lost. But, once the basic outline of a tune is in memory, I find it makes it much eaisier to be aware of others’ variations, phrasing, + ornaments.
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