I was about to start a new thread on learning by ear on the ITM board, which seemed most appropriate, when I found this one via the FAQ post on that board.
Here’s a slightly rewritten version of a post which I did recently on a “newbie thread”. I offer it in a spirit of humility (i.e. I think I’m right), and have suggested to Brother Steve that he might like to incorporate it into his excellent site, but as it may be a bit obscure I’m setting it up here so that others can comment on it and perhaps make it more understandable for the learning-by-ear beginner. It makes more explicit the excellent advice which Peter has already given here.
As regards learning tunes by ear, it helps if you listen “actively” to a tune on a recording. In other words, rather than listen passively to random tunes and hope to pick them up by osmosis (though this can also work), you can learn more effectively by focusing on one tune at a time and figuring out what’s going on in that particular tune. The arranged sound of some well-known groups is OK, but for learning tunes it’s probably better to use solo recordings or recordings in which the accompaniment is relatively subdued.
The essential principle of Irish music is lots of repetition, but with subtle variation. Most two-part tunes are played “AA-BB”, i.e. the first part is played twice, then the second part is played twice, then the whole lot is repeated one or more times in the same AA-BB format (it’s probably best to stick to two-part tunes at first till you have honed your learning-by-ear skills, but the same principles apply even to the big six-and seven-part tunes).
If you listen to the first (or “A”) part of a typical tune, you will notice that it is made up of four “sub-assemblies”, normally about two measures long, though the musical phrases may not correspond exactly to the measures as broken down with bar lines. Let’s call these sub-assemblies or quarters “a1”, “a2”, "a3 "and “a4” (same goes for the B part, as appropriate).
Typically, the “a1” and “a3” quarters are similar to each other or even identical, and there are also similarities between “a2” and “a4”, though there “a4” often differs to a greater extent, to signal that it’s the end of the part. In some tunes, you will notice that “b4” is the same as “a4”.
Armed with this knowledge, listen to the tune again a few times and try to anticipate what’s coming next, i.e. mentally (or even out loud) sing along with the record. You will gradually find that you’re getting most of the notes right, and you can then focus on an ever smaller number of notes which you haven’t quite figured out. This is where you’ll really notice the effect of variation, where the musician is consciously varying bits of the tune which in a simple transcription are shown as identical.
When you have mastered a tune from a particular recording it is still worth while taking the same approach when you hear the same tune being played by someone else (whether live or on a recording). That way you will gradually become aware which bits are essential parts of the tune and which are someone’s variations. But that doesn’t mean that there is a single “right” way to play the tune, because Irish tunes are rather like the meanderings of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in which different pathways intertwine, converge and diverge but you can take any of them as long as they all lead you in the right general direction.
Thankyou so much for everyone’s help!
Erik