Playing by ear

merlinthedog · Post by **merlinthedog** » Fri Aug 24, 2001 7:26 pm

Technology can help. I have found the amazing slower downer program for the macintosh allows you to listen to a song slowed down at the same pitch - very useful in figuring out key phrases of a tune. PCs must have something similar.

LKtz · Post by **LKtz** » Fri Aug 24, 2001 8:37 pm

Speaking of playing by ear, I have tried and really sucked big time. I am not great at instruments, but yet I still try to play the flute and whistle. All I have to ask is how the hell do you guys do it??? I can kind of learn a song from another person but that person has to go really slow and sometimes tell what notes they are play but when it comes to trying to learn a song by ear off a record, it's almost like forget it! No wait it is forget it. Well, I am off to try figuring marry had alittle lamb

Caryn

PS any tips would be very helpful, and I am not dissing learning by ear in any way, I am just envious because I have yet to be able to do it!

TonyHiggins · Post by **TonyHiggins** » Fri Aug 24, 2001 9:03 pm

All I have to ask is how the hell do you guys do it??? I can kind of learn a song from another person but that person has to go really slow and sometimes tell what notes they are play but when it comes to trying to learn a song by ear off a record, it's almost like forget it!

It may come to you a bit at a time after you get used to playing the instrument. Memorize a few tunes and play them without looking at printed notes. Then you'll get a sense of where the notes are in your fingers.

On the other hand, some peoples' brains just don't work that way and they have to read printed music. If that's not cool and traditional, but that's what you need to do, then do it. Enjoyment of the music comes before keeping your critics happy.

I have to listen to a tune quite a few times before I can learn it by ear. That slow down software may be a good training device for your ears. I think it's fabulous for learning difficult tunes. Some passages I never figure out without slowing them down. Easier ones come after repeated listening. Be kinder to yourself.
Tony

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 9:56 am

Mark J above spoke just about the most sensible words I have come across on this board so far. Fair play to you!

I think it is sensible to become used to the music you want to play (I automatically assume trad Irish, but have been give stick over that before). Listen to good players (on any instrument) and get the feel the language of the music. Listening to a lot of music will result in learning the tunes by osmosis rather than deliberately having to sit down to learn the notes. At some stage you may be able to sit down in a session and play along with tunes you have never heard before (yes, OK that will take a long while).
An example of learning the language by osmosis: I am presently teaching a twelve year old girl the pipes. It takes her about ten minutes to learn the notes of a tune, by ear.
But then, she has been playing the whistle since she was four and her mother is the best whistle player I know of(certainly the most tasteful one). My pupil grew up (well, she still is I suppose)hearing good music all the time, all her life, and we're talking at a level of let's say Paddy Canny playing in the kitchen here.
Speaking of which, I am not completely in agreement with Mark J's statement that Clare whistleplaying is not very heavily ornamented, listen to Willie Clancy's whistle-playing, extremely lively and full of ideas, variation and all that. It seems deceptively simple, yet there are few that are able to match that playing. And maybe that is true mastery of the music, using your abilities to let the music speak without the ego of the player getting in the way by layering the music with displays of fancy fingerwork that serve only to show off.
I could give a few examples of that but won't as this is a very polite discussion area. Now get off the internet back to your practice.

[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2001-08-25 12:50 ]

Mark_J · Post by **Mark_J** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 11:37 am

On 2001-08-25 11:56, Peter Laban wrote:
. . . Speaking of which, I am not completely in agreement with Mark J's statement that Clare whistleplaying is not very heavily ornamented, listen to Willie Clancy's whistle-playing, extremely lively and full of ideas, variation and all that. It seems deceptively simple, yet there are few that are able to match that playing. Is there nicer music?

Peter, thanks for correcting me. I have in the past confused others by my use of the word "Ornamentation." I think using G. Cotter's tutor which separates variation from ornamentation (meaning cuts rolls strikes and glissando) has got me using the word differently than most folks.

If you don't mind me pumping you for information, would you mind starting a thread about the Counties Galway & Clare styles? Being newer to the tradition (my great grandfather was the last to know the tradition well), I have had to rely on lectures, the internet and books to tell me what to look for in listening material. So far, I am basing my opinions on material from:

GALWAY:
Jack and Fr. Charlie Coen
Mike Rafferty
Paddy Carty

CLARE:
Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin
Siobhan Kelly
Elizabeth Crotty
the Russell brothers
Bernard O'Sullivan & Tommy McMahon
Paddy Canny

With the regional styles being blurred in recent times, I usually do not try to learn about regional styles by listening to recent recordings. Do you have any tips for "who/what" to listen to so as to learn more. Even specific things to listen FOR in recordings would be a huge help.

Thanks much.

Mark Johnston

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 12:15 pm

Mark, wasn't 'correcting' really. Your use of the term is correct. It's just that in Willie Clancy's music there's just such a richness in ornamentation/embellishment (and changing ornamentation from one playing to the next is a large part of 'variation' so in my mind they are very close)that I had to mention it. The music is alive with (multiple)rolls, triplets, wonderful sliding f(naturals), little stops and all sorts of things combined with a lovely feel for melodic and rythmic variation. This also holds true for the (fiddle) music of Bobby Casey (which is closely related to Willie's in many ways) and other players, there's a lot going on in John Kelly's, Joe Ryan's and Paddy Canny's fiddle music too.
But even within the areas you mention, there would be players using different styles of ornamentation or even very little ornamentation at all. Micho and Packie Russell (and to a degree Gussie as well, even the three brothers were not quite the same) were ofcourse minimalist artists, cutting the music down to it's essentials, yet making it speak through a beautiful timing.
As you said yourself, rhythm, timing and swing and above all phrasing are most important and ornamentation and variation should only be there to support and enhance those. They are a means, not a purpose.
Maybe this is not the place to go into it too deeply. In whistle terms I would be thinking of the late Willie Clancy and Martin Talty, related players like J.C Talty (who played the flute in the Tulla for 25 years and who still is a lovely whistleplayer), Michael Falsey, the late Tommy mcCarthy(his whistleplaying as much as his concertinaplaying and piping)and my great favourite, Brid Donohue. Ofcourse there is another school: Micho, John Killourhy from the Doolin/Liscannor area and the late Joe Bane from the East being probably the most well known (I no doubt miss a few here: fluteplayers Seamus and Michael Hynes from Kilshanny just come to mind). They all have things in common that make them recognisable 'Clare' players allthough their use of ornamentation may vary from one player to the next.

[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2001-08-25 19:59 ]

Wandering_Whistler · Post by **Wandering_Whistler** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 4:45 pm

On 2001-08-25 11:56, Peter Laban wrote:
If you don't mind me pumping you for information, would you mind starting a thread about the Counties Galway & Clare styles?

I would certainly be interested in reading a thread on this topic...when I recently played at Mr. C's Irish Pub in Houston, the Irish bartender commented almost immediately that I played "like someone from Galway". I didn't get the impression that it was a bad thing

Greg

WhistlingGypsy · Post by **WhistlingGypsy** » Sat Aug 25, 2001 6:37 pm

Quote:

On 2001-08-24 08:28, WhistlingGypsy wrote:

Yeah Mark, it's really simple and it doesn't
matter which key of whistle you are playing in
'Doe' is always xxx xxx and 'Re' is always oxx
xxx and so on...if you are playing in the base
key of the whistle i.e. playing in D on a D
whistle.

If you are playiing in G on a D whistle then
'Doe' is ooo xxx and 'Re' is ooo oxx etc. etc.

This works if you're playing only, say,
songs in D on a D whistle. There are also
plenty of songs in G and Em played on a D
whistle. Learning a bit of theory and other
keys just gives you more options. But the
do-re-mi is, as Julie Andrews said, a very
good place to start.

Not true really. It doesnt matter which key you are playing in 'Doe' is always the first note of the scale, so whether you are playing in 'D' on a D Whislte, 'G' on a D whistle or 'A' on a D whistle (for example), so long as you know which key you're in you can play any tune in this format. Of course this is true for any whistle - 'C' 'Bb' whatever...

Cheers

Gerry

[ This Message was edited by: whistlinggypsy on 2001-08-25 20:39 ]

[ This Message was edited by: on 2001-08-25 20:41 ]

[ This Message was edited by: on 2001-08-25 20:43 ]

cj · Post by cj » Mon Aug 27, 2001 11:58 am

I was referring to the fingerings when I said that method wouldn't always work. I realize "do" is always the first note of the scale. Also, the fingerings will be different on a minor scale. Like you said, knowing what key you're in and a little about keys, major and minor, helps a lot.

[ This Message was edited by: cj on 2001-08-27 13:59 ]

[ This Message was edited by: cj on 2001-08-27 14:03 ]

JohnPalmer · Post by **JohnPalmer** » Mon Aug 27, 2001 3:52 pm

Hello,

I keep hearing people say that they need to listen to a song over and over in order to play by ear. That takes too much time. For me, playing by ear is done not by the amount of listenings but by the amount of time spent thinking about the song. The song needs to be heard in your head and then you play it on the imaginary instrument that's also in your head. I used to play trumpet, yet I still think of melodies on the trumpet and even move my fingers to push the imaginary valves. Sure, you are, in a sense, listening to the song over and over, but it is being played in your head where it can be slowed down and taken apart, to figure out what the notes are. And those with the naturally born gift of playing by ear, they can play a song as soon as they know it, after maybe four hearings.

jomac · Post by **jomac** » Mon Aug 27, 2001 4:28 pm

The way I learned to play by ear was to take simple songs I knew - nursery rhymes, Christmas songs, whatever, and count scale steps from one note to the next in the song. After a while, I didn't have to count scales steps anymore, I could recognize the intervals immediately. This is how to play what's in your head. Once you can do that, all you got to do is get the desired song in your head, by repeated listening.