I’m learning Jimmy Ward’s Jig, which isn’t difficult at all, until I get to the very end of the B part, and at that point I want to fire my fingers and hire a new set.
For the love of Pete, why can’t I do dcA GEA DEDD? [aside: will someone tell me how ABC format deals with upper and lower octaves so I can describe these things properly? First D is in upper register, all the rest are in first octave.] My brain knows perfectly well that I’m doing AGEA, but my fingers do NOT want to go back to that A.
Along the sames lines, equally frustrating, is the middle section of the B part of Hughie Shortie. Here I can’t get my brain to register going from A down one little note to G, then walk back up the scale. I can’t haul myself away from taking the A down to F# and D, as in the very end of part B.
Now the kicker to all this is that if I practice either of these irritating little sections, I do just fine…until I try to encorporate them into the whole again. Then I’m back to pausing to figure out whether I’m doing this variation or that variation of the B part, and I invariably end up doing the wrong one.
Of course I’m able to play the rest of these two pieces nearly up to speed, but frustrate myself by trying to hold back to the speed of my weakest phrases.
Just needed to vent. . .thanks for listening. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
[editted to correct the notes]____________
Tyghress
…And I go on, pursuing through the hours,
Another tiger, the one not found in verse.
Jorge Luis Borges
[ This Message was edited by: tyghress on 2002-01-25 09:10 ]
Not sure how to address your difficulty Tyghress but the snippet looks more like the ending of “Garret Barry’s” than that of the tune most commonly called “Jimmy Ward’s”.
Also, in ABC, your c# should be in lower-case. Uppercase C# is below the bottom D. Hope you get some helpful answers.
Took me awhile to figure out what you just said StevieJ…but I think what you’re saying is the lower octave is in Upper Case and the second octave is in Lower Case. I’m not big on ABC cause if I had my way..it would be the other way around.
Tyghress - I have the same problem with playing d d e c# a…my fingers get spastic on that e c# and I too can go over it and over it and it will be fine until I try the whole tune again…very frustrating! Gm
Make a joyful noise!
[ This Message was edited by: Grannymouse on 2002-01-25 09:07 ]
Tyghress,
sounds like the practicing-the-wrong-notes syndrome. Basically what you are up against is the muscle memory of your fingers from some other earlier phrase you learned, and from your botched practicing: your fingers remember where to mess up and think its part of the tune :roll: . Try this (sorry, it’s not going to be very exciting):
Use a metronome (important!) and set it at a snails pace, then play the whole B-part. The tempo has to be slow enough for you not to mess up, ever. Then play that thing over and over going from the part you play easily into the part that trips you up (which it won’t at this tempo). Do not do it impatiently or mindlessly but focus on your fingers, conscious of the fact that you are creating muscle memory. Maybe try imagining that you are watching your fingers from above. When you think you have it down completely, play it another dozen times or so. Then slowly pick up the tempo.
Peter, you’re right, Cnat, not #. I’m amending my original post. Another case of fingers doing one thing and brain doing another.
Steve, thanks for the mini ABC lesson. Maybe a new thread on ABC notation for those of us who haven’t done our homework. . .BTW, what does D2 mean?
Bloomfield, you’re right, but it is FRUSTRATING. Half of me says just skip the blasted note and get on with it. I get all sorts of snarly about this.
GM, we will persevere, won’t we. But if I don’t improve on these soon I may do something rash. Tyghre is really getting tired of that one phrase over and over and over and over and over, only to hear me try it in the tune, screw up, and HONK in frustration.
\
Tyghress
…And I go on, pursuing through the hours,
Another tiger, the one not found in verse.
Jorge Luis Borges
[ This Message was edited by: tyghress on 2002-01-25 09:19 ]
going back to that A comes from the pipes, some chanter find it hard to go from E to D s o a lot of pipers insert that a (it’s easier to hit the right D from A), you can leave it out so if it’s a problem, consider the run I gave, it’s closer to the way Jimmy Ward had it anyway
T, I know the FRUSTRATION. I have this bit in St. Anne’s Reel, a little run that always wants to end up on g, but ought to end up on a. I can force the fingers to do the a now, but there is that lingering hesitation that just makes me want to ram my whistle down St. Anne’s throat… um, I mean, that makes me want to have a cup of soothing herbal tea.
Maybe a new thread on ABC notation for those of us who haven’t done our homework. . .
I don’t care a lot for ABC but it’s convenient for sending tunes in emails and stuff like that. Try looking at the example on the ABC home page. You can coordinate the ABC with the music notation there. There are a lot of rules but don’t try to learn them all at once. It’s a good idea to try writing out a simple une in ABC making sure you can convert it to notation.
People often refer to “finger memory”, which allows them to play tunes as if on automatic pilot.
I once had a fiddle student for whom learning the fiddle was a tremendous struggle. He somehow managed to learn tunes by drilling himself over and over and over until he had them down.
The trouble was, they then seemed to be hardwired into his brain or body or both! If he had learned a mistake, which he often did, or if I tried to show him a variation, it was almost impossible for him to unlearn the finger pattern he had internalized so well.
I came to the conclusion that he was learning the tunes almost exclusively by “finger memory” and that his ear was not doing its job. Obviously finger memory is important, but the ear has to be running the show.
Don’t know how this will help you Tyghress but maybe you’ve got some passages “hardwired”.
All of the comments above I’ll agree with. My additional contribution: RELAX!!!
My guess as that when you practice, you’re relaxing pretty well, but when you try to nail it in the tune you tense up. My own capabilities vary wildly, depending on whether I’m relaxed. For instance, when relaxed, I can roll on A and B no problem, at any speed, but when I tense up I couldn’t do it to save my life.
So now I’m trying to remember, when I approach A and B rolls in tunes, to scream RELAX in my mind. Then I sort of let my whole body go limp (but not so I collapse in my chair), and my fingers relax, and the rolls just pop out.
On the topic of abc’s, the abc home page has a downloadable tutorial that explains every possible code in abc format. You can write out abc tunes in detail with this info. If you can’t find it, email me and I’ll email you the file. Also, putting an abc file into an abc player and reading what’s going on while it’s playing will tell you what’s what, to a point. That’s the less painful was of figuring it out.
Tony
I still don’t understand why more people don’t get on to the numerical tablature. When I’m playing in another key…like a Bn or A…it’s so much easier if I’ve written in numerically than trying to figure where is D or F etc. I usually wind up playing by ear but if that fails…I just write down the numbers…does anybody else understand this? I know Dave Parkhurst does! Gm
On 2002-01-25 23:47, Grannymouse wrote:
I still don’t understand why more people don’t get on to the numerical tablature. When I’m playing in another key…like a Bn or A…it’s so much easier if I’ve written in numerically than trying to figure where is D or F etc. I usually wind up playing by ear but if that fails…I just write down the numbers…does anybody else understand this? I know Dave Parkhurst does! Gm
Off topic, but just to chime in that numerical tablature is something most Chinese trad music orchestras use as well (they call it “simplified notation”). It basically shows you the note intervals using numbers and it does make note reading very easy.
I often find little snippets of a tune that just don’t fit under my fingers naturally. What works for me is isolate just that little part (maybe the last two bars of the tune in this case), and invest several minutes just on that part, playing it over and over. Play it slowly enough at first that you can play it right pretty much every time, then speed it up gradually. Then back up just a few notes, to put it in context (maybe the last three bars here), and repeat that a whole bunch of times. Then do the whole B part a few times. It’s hard to do all this without tensing up, but try. Keep it slow enough to do it right – every error reinforces itself.
What’s interesting is that, at first, this helps only a little bit. But let it rest a day or two and then try it again. I usually find a big improvement, like the brain has rewired itself in my speep.
(By the way, I think StevieJ made a good point about not going overboard relying on “finger memory”. I use this kind of repetitive practice only to get over knotty little technical problems – not to learn tunes.)
On 2002-01-25 23:47, Grannymouse wrote:
I still don’t understand why more people don’t get on to the numerical tablature. When I’m playing in another key…like a Bn or A…it’s so much easier if I’ve written in numerically than trying to figure where is D or F etc. I usually wind up playing by ear but if that fails…I just write down the numbers…does anybody else understand this? I know Dave Parkhurst does! Gm
Yes, I know what you mean. I’ve still got about 10 copies of that Susato fingering chart that is floating around: in the car, by my nightstand, posted on the refridgerator, next to the toilet- you know - the one that shows xxx xxo 12 different times with 12 different names depending on what key whistle you are playing…
It’s been awhile since I was in Vegas or Nashville, but you’ll find that quite a few musicians around the US currently understand a numbering system for chords (I, IV, V) and also to designate key signatures (The peace sign is the key of D, if you hold your two fingers down it’s to show the key of Bb - used quite a bit to quickly launch into tunes in different keys to accommodate a singer).
This is also how solfege works - a moveable DO, RE, MI is easier than trying to remember 12 different names for the same scale tones when singing.
Another example from western notation: the movable C clef, where our Alto and Tenor clefs came from. Rename the notes on the page, not on the instrument. Makes perfect sense, but somehow, the whistle and recorder community never reaped the benefits. Probably because there aren’t a lot of Pennywhistle Concertos
