List:
Does anyone else run into this? Once I memorize a tune by ear or book,I’ll play it for several weeks and then get bored with it I think my mind goes on auto pilot and loses that certain sometime that you get from playing an instrument. It’s not as simple to just memorize more tunes ,this happens if you know one or 100 in your head. Now if I play with others these tunes become fresh again, but the only thing that helps me on a daily basis is to just sight read out of tune books. This may sound strange but does anyone else feel this way? It also helps to pick up the flute, then go for 10 minutes , put it down and then pick up the whistle. I would find it very dull not to be able to sight read music and can’t help but wonder if this is true for those that don’t read music?
Ben
I can’t read music and I do find that a tune gets repetitive after a while, so I will just try to learn another one. After struggling with the new one for a while I like to revisit one that I know, it’s a confidance booster and gives my roommates a break from the screetching. Since I can’t read music I have found that after I ear-learn a tune, I need to memorize the first few fingerings and the basic rhythm, and then if I can recall those two things I can recall the entire tune. I guess it’s a ‘crib sheet’ type thing. 
I don’t find that I get bored of tunes, as there is always something more to do with a good melody. I can play it faster, or with more bounce or other kind of feeling, or change the ornamentation. But I am always interested in learning more tunes, usually have several on the go at the same time, and often read through tune books. It’s always a pleasure to come across something that sounds familiar from years of less-than-attentive listening, and find that it’s easy to pick up. (Blarney Pilgrim and Road to Lisdoonvarna struck me that way.) And it’s nicer still to play through something entirely new and find that you have an affinity for it. Being able to sight-read is a real advantage that way.
Once you have a tune and play it, generally a traditional player will consantly change it while going along, introduce variation in ornamentation, rhythm ( introducing small shifts, giving an impression of syncopation) and a certain amount of melodic variation. This is part and parcel of traditional playing and serves greatly to relieve monotony to player and listener alike. Actually it is what makes the music interesting and what gives it individual expression. Listen to a variety of players play the same tune (not necessarily on the same instrument) and realise the differences, why they are there and what the players are achieving by the introduction of these things. As with most of these issues, listening is the key to learning. Some introduction on variation can be found in Breandan Breatnach’s Flok music and dances from Ireland. Also some in Tomas O Canainn’s book and Pat Mitchell had written some brilliant analysis of playing styles : the introductions to the Willie Clancy and Patsy Touhey books being the most accessible but his two articles on structure and rhythm in jigs published in the Journal of the Sean Reid society will open up a world for you. Unfortunately these are hard to find due to the limited circulation of this [cd-rom based]journal.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-04-20 08:47 ]
I usually find myself bored with a tune before I’ve even got it memorised! Which is why I think I know a tune, and then find I don’t.
What I’m trying to do right now is increase my repertoire of Jigs (to more than 4) so I play the newest one, then play the rest on the end of it as a set, so I play all my jigs, then start again at the beginning. I’m not sure how long I will be able to keep this up, if I get to 30 or 40 jigs it’ll take forever, but at least I’m keeping all the tunes under my fingers.
As Peter says, variations find their way in from most players, and I sometimes find that when I know the tune to play without conscious thought, my fingers will throw in a variation spontaneously. This is such a buzz for me as it makes me feel I’m getting the feel for the music & not just repeating parrot fashion.
Those who were classically trained (poor us) may consider that any variation from what is written on the page is bad - of course this isn’t true in Irish Music. What is written on the page is just a snapshot of a tune from one angle, heard one day played by one particular player, and the tune can have as many versions as there are eyewitness accounts of a rock concert.
[ This Message was edited by: The Weekenders on 2002-04-22 08:19 ]
Actually, if you think about it a bit, you’ll see that memorizing the tune is just the first step in playing it. Step 2 is to get to KNOW the tune: what does it say to you, or, perhaps more accurately, what does it bring out in you? Of all the arts music is the most directly expressive of feeling because it is the least concept-oriented. One of the beauties of the folk tradition is that while one might feel a certain obligation to retain the essential truths of the tradition itself, the musician is not encumbered by the “original intent” of any composer; it’s all up to you to find an essential meaning–something vital–in the music and to convey that to an audience. So, having learned to play the notes of a melody, one is then faced with the question: what feeling or range of feelings and meanings does this tune suggest to me or bring out in me? And how do I go about expressing these properly? For example, I often find that the B part of a tune brings out a sense of yearning and aspiration; it’s usually the high part and it aspires higher and higher, more and more urgently, to some indefinable goal of human existence, one that can never quite be expressed fully. Or you can find humor in tunes, or joyful exuberance. In other words, you can find and express whatever is there in yourself to be found.
What you find, of course, can and probably will change as one gets to know the tune more intimately; it will also change day to day since one’s playing is an immediate expression of one’s intelligence and heart.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but you know how it is. . .
Jon Michaels
[ This Message was edited by: Jon-M on 2002-04-22 09:43 ]