It’s been mentioned that under stress when playing you revert to the way you first learnt a tune even if you have since learnt different tricks for it.
If this is true, and I rather think it is, would you be wise to put off learning a special new tune until you have the skills to play it reasonably well the first time?
If so, which tunes should you save til you can play half decent?
Nah-- if you like a tune, start learning it. You’ll pick up new skills in the process. Take it slow and easy, especially on the harder bits.
Definitely keep learning new tunes. If your experience is like mine, you may find that the old tune sounds better even if neglected for a while, because technique improves, even though playing other songs. Also, new tunes will expose you to new timings, intervals and rhythms, which will increase your musical “vocabulary,” and your confidence will continue to improve.
I cant claim to be an experienced enough player to answer for definite, but I can sympathise with this view. However perhaps I could suggest that there need not be anything ‘magical’ or irrevocable about this phenomena. When you learn a new tune you probably play it more often and more intensively than at any subsequent time. The habits of the fingers are set deeply. Later when you embellish (add tricks?) you probably do not practice anywhere near as much as when first learning the tune. I would suggest that if you put as much practice into the embellishments then that is what you will play when under performance stress.
Just my opinion.
Yes, learn the tune now. Part of the magic of music is learning a song you love and hearing it come out of your instrument.
I’ve learned all my instruments informally. I have a couple of questions.
Are you learning one tune at a time and only moving on to another tune after you master a tune? Do you play other tunes and songs for fun? Is there a difference between learning and playing?
Learning and playing are essentially the same for me, once I learned how to listen faster.
My learning system (Thanks Ennis):
7 segments of listening
7 segments of practicing
7 segments of playing
Then you are in real trouble…
I agree with markbell. I have gone back and revisited tunes that I had learned in the past but was a little too advanced for me at the time. The second time around some of the problems that I had on the first try seemed to have gone away.
I’m a dreadful magpie, I hear a tune and I want to try it, so I listen, I try and play along then I dig out the dots and the whole thing usually comes together that way.
I’m very guilty of not really really learning a tune properly before moving on.
But I do go back over old tunes, especially if I have not been able to keep up in a session on a tune I thought I knew. I’ll always give those a going over and this is how I’ve improved.
I really only play for fun for my own amusement. With no one but myself to please I can do what I like. 
When I had to play some tunes for a performance, I hated them by the end of the month. But I suppose I can play them, if only I wanted to 
i would take quality over quantity though, especially if you plan to play in a session. I also believe that practising ornaments etc should be a major part of the learning experience. Short rolls, long rolls all the way up and down with crans included etc. Its way to easy just playing our favourite tunes we know 
I think I’m the one who mentioned stress and reversion – though it occurs to me that many people on this board probably don’t ever play under really stressful conditions, like for a wedding (and I know for a fact that a number do). A related thing I’ve read (though I don’t know if it’s true or not) is that for each time you practice something wrong, you have to practice it 10x to un-learn and re-learn correctly.
I am currently working on some tunes that are well beyond my abilities. My plan is to never learn them incorrectly. I can only play them at about 30% of up-to-speed. But that’s how fast I can play them without making mistakes, and I want to play them properly some day, so I won’t go any faster until “some day” arrives. 
Naomi’s Fancy quit playing weddings because of the stress involved. They mainly book fun gigs.
If you can cover expenses plus a bit in the pocket and have fun, that is better pay than lots more money, stress and unreasonable conditions with little or no fun.
the adage we’ve all heard all our lives is “practice makes perfect.” i disagree with that emphatically. if you practice mistakes you perfect the mistakes. the reality is that “perfect practice makes perfect.”
be well,
jim
Somewhere I read “practice makes permanent”.
I’m not far enough on to have anything much to revert from, but listening to other versions usually changes the way I play a tune, and trying to play along with them almost always does. I think some of it sticks. I’m avoiding stress though. 
Much to be said about quality of learning, practice and playing, but I’ll leave that aside for now.
The more tunes you expose yourself to (listening and learning) the more phrases and strings of notes you’ll have in your head and under your fingers. New tunes will also help to polish and refine old tunes.
That said, let’s talk about practice. Sometimes you get to a point where you are as good as you are going to be at this moment in time and hammering the same tune under your fingers in the same way only makes it that more permanent in your muscle memory (and more frustrating). I typically spend a few weeks really working on a tune (not necessarily neglecting learning or practicing others) to make for a fluent and confident playing of that tune but at some point you have to let it be what it is for the time being until you develop additional skills to bring it to the next level. I believe that many of those skills are found in learning new tunes which introduce your fingers and brain to more and more segments of notes and strings of phrases. Harping on the same tune over and over again makes for very narrowed skill development. While you don’t want to be an inch deep and a mile wide on your repertoire (playing many tunes poorly) there is a balance to be found so try broadening the scope a bit. Just a quick thought on the matter.
I agree with you to some extent, but perhaps to a different degree. As a competing highland bagpipe player, I spent all of last season working on just a few tunes. That’s day after day, practicing an hour a day, six days a week (not counting lessons or band practice), for six months.
Tunes can get stale, especially if you’re working on them on your own. Usually I can only make progress on my tunes following lessons with my teacher. I can work on those things that are pointed out as needing work, but that’s it – I can’t generally find things to improve when left to my own devices.
Highland piping is different from ITM. A lot of highland pipers probably can’t toss out more than 20 tunes without really stopping to think. There are some who can play 45 to 90 minutes, but not a whole lot.
If I’m listening to a beginner on any instrument, I’d rather hear one tune played well then 12 made a mess of.
I’ve put off learning the tunes that weren’t easy. Life’s too short to struggle on tunes too hard to play. Eventually, some of the ones I thought were hard initially don’t seem that way now so now I’m ready to learn them. This goes for a lot of my initial favorites. I really wanted to learn them but I have waited. Some I’m still waiting…
… and it is because of this difference that the two (ITM & HPiping) should not be compared. I still don’t believe that going over the same tune for an extended period of time while forsaking the learning of new tunes is going to do much for your playing in general, nor the playing of that particular tune.
Again, I pair this with the advice that you shouldn’t go crazy learning new tune after tune without spending a reasonable amount of time to prepare and practice each properly.
It is the balance betwixt these two that needs to be found IMO.
Wouldn’t be very interesting to compare if they were the same
It kind of depends on your objective. When I want to improve my playing, I slow down tunes I already know and work on phrasing, pulse and ornamentation. This is where the big payoff is.
When I want to improve my ability to partake in a session, I pop the next one off the stack of FHT (frequently-heard-tunes) that I’m not yet competent to join in on. Of course, the more tunes I learn, the longer that list seems to grow. 