Aha, there you have it. Recapture what you could once do naturally.
I was doin’ okay 'till the 1st wife…
I think it can be hard to learn to play by ear just any old tune you hear and like when you are new to the instrument. You have to give yourself a chance to learn how to play the darn thing. If that requires that a few tunes are “sacrificed” to sheet music, then so be it.
Humans may have an innate ability for language, but children, even older ones like teenagers, have trouble getting their thoughts into words until they have enough vocabulary.
Just keep practicing your ear training at the same time. Eventually you’ll find some tunes that are easy to learn by ear.
Also, don’t underestimate the power of re-learning tunes you already learned. I like to re-learn them by hearing how fiddle or box players play them.
If you can’t do this, the advice won’t help you to figger out how. Learn to play any way you can, and then play and play and play and play.
And eventually, stuff will start making sense. In fact, one day your fingers will startle you completely, by running away without your brain, playing some tune you’ve heard a lot but never learned. Holy sh!t! you’ll think, and as soon as that your fingers get lost again and you’ll sit there thinking, “How did I do that?”
For me, it was listening to my friend trying to learn how to play Lord Inchquin on his harmonica. All he had was mouthharp tab, and at some point I picked up my flute to demonstrate the timing for a roll in irish music (tricky to show in harp tab, I gather!) and my fingers ran away without me to the end of the A part. I was shocked.
ain’t it true! the amazement and then the shock at not being able to repeat it.
How about an “echo” exercise ?
(AKA: follow the leader)
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find a whistle partner + sit back-to-back.
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One person “leads” for a while.
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Leader plays a single note, follower tries to match it. Rinse, repeat.
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Every 5 min or so, leader+follower swap roles.
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Eventually, imitating single notes will be mastered. So, extend, i.e.
a) quicken the pace
b) try 2 notes, then 3 notes, etc.
c) try notes of different durations + rests
Of course, if the sequence of notes used is borrowed from a tune, all the better.
This pattern is aimed at exercising the ear-to-brain-to-finger pathways. Dont rush. Its not a race. Go at a pace that is manageable. It gets easier. When your neurons are ready, you’ll know.
trill
The reason most traditional musicians tell you not to learn tunes from notation is that a notated tune on a page isn’t a tune. It isn’t even the beginnings of a tune. Those notes are telling you nothing about the subtleties of rhythm and tempo, the nuances of ornamentation and variation (without which a tune is not a tune), about the depth of history that has led to the way great players play the tunes or about how you have to listen and interact with others who play that tune. It is very difficult to approach learning tunes by bolting these things on afterwards to your notation-learned tune. Nay, impossible. I suppose a seasoned player may just be able to do it, but it’s a definite no-no for a relative beginner. You can spot a notation-learner a mile off, no matter how technically-accomplished they may be on their instrument. The players of ITM you love listening to have all learned tunes by listening incessantly to ITM and then listening some more. Sometimes you can listen with a lot of arm-waving and pum-pumming, other times you can listen very closely. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re listening. Listen to ITM all day and every day. It’s much better to listen to live music and see it all happening in front of your eyes, a counsel of perfection perhaps, but listening to tons of CDs won’t hurt either. Playing along with CDs is fun but just remember that you are not interacting, and that is a huge and vital element in ITM (and by far the most enjoyable aspect). You have to get this music well and truly under your skin. You may think I’m being of very little practical help, but I believe that listening to ITM until you drive all your friends and family mad is the way. You’ll get to hear a huge range of tunes, simple and difficult. Soon, some will strike your fancy and you be having a go. You’ll almost know them off by heart by that stage because of all the listening so you won’t need the tune-book anyway. You’ll begin to see the structure of ITM tunes. The structure is actually very simple. The music did not grow up to be technically difficult to play because it had to be playable on whatever instruments came to hand by largely untutored players. Phrases are of very regular length and you’ll hear the same little moves cropping up again and again in all kinds of tunes. You’ll soon be fleshing out that skeleton, as long as you keep listening. The simplicity of the structure and the frequent occurrence of certain patterns in tunes are the reasons why, apparently miraculously, people who can’t read a note of music can play thousands of tunes sublimely. It isn’t a miracle at all, or even down to Guinness flowing in the veins - it’s all down to the fact that ITM is simple music at its core. I don’t mean simple in the childish or superficial sense. Twinkle, Twinkle is ludicrously simple, yet Mozart wrote a sublime set of variations on it - and what he wrote was still simple! You’ll hear how good players ornament and vary tunes and see how there are myriad ways of doing it, the only rules being those to do with good taste and leaving the ego at home. You’ll get a feel for the tiny subtleties of the different kinds of tunes, the kind of things notation just can’t handle. The only time I would ever use notation would be to hammer out a specific tiny bit of a tune I was struggling with to see if the book could inspire me to finding a way round the difficulty (I play an instrument with quite a few limitations and have a good few of my own). Otherwise, leave the books on the shelf. You may see notation as a shortcut to learning lots of tunes quickly. The reality is that it’s a shortcut to learning tunes fatally inadequately.
… it’s like playing the harmonica, then!
I spent an hour on that post. Your wit astounds me.
Trill, thank you a lot! This is an exercise I should try during the trip I’m leaving for.
Steve, and all others who advise me to listen: I do listen. A lot. All sorts of ITM - from Flook and Lunasa to Michael Coleman and Seamus Ennis. I don’t know if that helps my playing, but I do that for other reason: I love this music.
It will help your playing. You’ll progress in fits and starts and little breakthroughs. There’s no smooth progression! Everything I’m saying emanates from my own experience as a very late starter. At the age of 40 I could play two polkas, wrong key, and nothing else.
I believe that with listening, it´s like adding a grain of sand to a mound of sand - if you listen a track once, it´s nothing. But after some time of listening (and adding single grains), the difference will be obvious.
For me, listening is a great inspiration - it helps one with ornaments and with overall flow of the music.