Crap, did'nt expect that

[crookedtune]

How's this for silly memory tricks:

Key
No sharps: C
One sharp: G
Two sharps: D
Three sharps: A
Four sharps: E

Pneumonic? Well, I use: "Call Good Dogs All Eddie". (Isn't it obvious?)

[WyoBadger]

On behalf of elementary music teachers everywhere, I humbly appologize.

Tom

[ElPollo]

I use a much more simpler system for remembering.

If you put the treble and bass clefs together on a sheet, you use 1 ekstra shared line between them. That's the C. Then you just go up or down from that.

[pancelticpiper]

Since I had Folk Music and Dances of Ireland by Breandan Breathnach out anyway, I thought I'd see what he says about all of this:
"Here it is necessary to repeat that traditional music can be learned properly only by ear..."
"When a printed text is used, as an aid to memory, in acquiring a grouping of notes which the ear refused to pick up, or later to add to one's repertoire, the text should not be regarded as sacrosanct, since a version of a tune acquires no particular validity by being committed to print. The setting played may have been good or bad; the transcription may be accurate but skeletal, defective although detailed."

[mutepointe]

I don't want to start the sheet music wars again (did it end by the way?) but I think it's ironic that he wrote something in words about downplaying writing something in music. Why didn't he just tell each and every one of us?

[Inthewind]

It takes me a lot longer to learn an air than a reel or a jig. But once the shape of the air is internalised you have great freedom within the structure.

It's funny, but it works just the opposite way for me. Reels tend to send my head "reeling"!

I played brass instruments for 30 years, so I find slow airs easy to learn from sheet music-I do listen to different versions to get a sense of tempo (which is almost never written down) and add my own touches once I get the basic piece down.

I'm still a beginner, and the reels and jigs are harder to learn for me so I have to break them down into sections and work on each for a while before I can put them together into a whole tune. I do pick up some things by ear, but it may be a curse of my early training that it's easier for me to "see" the notes, even if just in my head.

[sbfluter]

I learned to read music as a child by taking piano lessons. They did not teach it in school.

I forgot most of it, much to my horror. I didn't think you could forget how to read music.

What I did to bring it back was I got one of those beginner recorder books. It was so basic that the first tune in it was the first tune I ever learned on the piano. A tune comprised of one note played at different rhythms! I went through the whole book in a day or two and my memory was jiggled free enough to keep going on my own.

I do find the aires (the ones that aren't just simple songs) impossible to learn from sheet music. I find them difficult to learn by ear as well. I don't have enough mastery over the instrument yet, nor do I have enough confidence to be so expressive.

[Madpiper]

BTW, what is the book you got?

Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland by Tomas Ocanainn

Thanks for bringing this subject up. I have a question. How did you and so many people go through life not learning to read music? Did you not go to grade school?

At my old school, unless you took band, which was not required, no, you did not learn to read music. However I was in band, so I did get the basics of notes, its just I'm so rusty that I need outside help to really actually remember, after all, I have not applied that knowlege for years. Also, it might just be me, but slow air notes look... different. Or maybe its just been too long.

I would say that with slow airs more than anything you need to hear them. If you read the music you will only get a vague approximation of what it's supposed to sound like. I think that book has a CD that goes with it. Or try "The Session"

Yes, it has a CD, two of them, every song on it, and sometimes two or three examples for the harder ones. I am very glad I have the examples, it makes learning the music much easier on me. I think I would have disliked trying without them.

Thanks for the tips and links, I have found them invaluable! Now I just gotts beat it all back in my brain.

[MaryC]

Thanks for bringing this subject up. I have a question. How did you and so many people go through life not learning to read music? Did you not go to grade school? I can understand not being able to read Bass Clef or know music theory but weren't we all taught how to read the Treble Clef in Grade School?

No, I don't think we were all taught to read the treble clef in grade school. I suspect that even among those who were exposed to such teaching in school there are a good many who didn't retain it, or really learn to apply it on a practical level.

Agreed.

We were taught the very basic staff in secondary school (age 14), but in the six week elective (one class per week), we didn't get as far as accidentals or key signatures. Without these, I just didn't have enough info to figure out how things worked by myself, even. Didn't pick 'em up until I did a course on intro-to-keyboard-playing for adults, about 15 years after leaving school.

[talasiga]

There are only two things one needs to remember to work out sharps or flats in key signatures:-

1. the semitones in sequence ie. A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A
or A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A
2. The interval values of the major scale measured in semitones ie
2212221

And two other things to render the result so that it is expressed according to Western music theory convention
a) every diatonic key signature must only have one form of a letter in its spelling
b) and only one type of qualification (# or b) in its spelling.

eg. Thats why the major scale of C# which is
C# D# F F# G# A# C C# (that is from C# you measure the semitones as 2212221)
is properly (conventionally) expressed as
Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C Db
or
C# D# E# F# G# A# B# C#

[iwanttotoot]

I read music but that's because I play the piano. It's not hard at all, a few minutes a day and you'll get the hang of it. It wasn't taught in school for me unless you took a music class with the community center.

They did teach us how to answer the phone in third grade though.

I still get on peoples case when they call my house and don't identify themselves first.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Off track...but

...There are a lot of good recordings out there. The great uilleann piper Mick O Brien has a wonderful CD consisting entirely of airs called The Ancient Voice of Ireland.
...

It was a track of this album that introduced me to ITM. Down by the Sally Gardens, played on whistle and pipes sounded like I was in heaven. I have not heard Mick O'Brien mentioned anywhere else.

[wvwhistler]

Here's a link that may help a bit. It certainly helped me out.

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... highlight=

[toughknot]

Thanks for bringing this subject up. I have a question. How did you and so many people go through life not learning to read music? Did you not go to grade school? I can understand not being able to read Bass Clef or know music theory but weren't we all taught how to read the Treble Clef in Grade School?

Some of us weren't too interested and as it wasn't required to graduate from third grade we slipped through.

Edited to add. Music and art prorams have been severely cut in U.S. schools since then.

[jkrazy52]

Music education (band) in my school started in 5th grade. However, only the students whose parents could afford to buy or rent an instrument were able to take advantage of the program. The school was too poor to supply instruments on the grade school level. We even managed to skip over the dreaded recorder class most people seemed to have endured.

(Yes, I did take band .... played clarinet, baritone horn & trombone.)