Learning from CD's

Whistlin'Dixie · Post by **Whistlin'Dixie** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:15 am

I have given this some thought over the past few days.

When learning a tune (reallly, by whatever method) do you learn it "straight" or with the ornaments?

I tend to learn the bare-bones tune, but then find that I have a very difficult time putting in ornaments later. Maybe also because I'm not very good at anything other than the occasional grace note, etc.

When I listen to others' tunes, they sound so much more polished with all the ornaments and slides, but I don't seem to "learn" the tunes very easily that way.

How do y'all do it?

Mary

Dana · Post by **Dana** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:29 am

I'm not much of an Irish musician (learning, though), but I can tell you how I'd do it in classical music. (I taught flute for many years). I'd make sure the student could play the piece well, with good rhythm, intonation and phrasing. Then add in the ornaments. It's often a good idea to seperate out each ornament individually. Start playing it slowly, repeat over and over again, and gradually increase in speed. A metronome is a great taskmaster for this. One you can play the ornament well, you then work on incorporating it into the phrase of the piece, and play that over and over, again starting slow. If you play it cleanly at a slow tempo, you'll have much better luck being able to play it cleanly at a higher tempo.

If this sounds painstaking, it is. It's also, IMO the best way to improve your technique very quickly. If you learn to practice correctly and cleanly, you can really go places with your playing.

Dana

beowulf573 · Post by **beowulf573** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:39 am

I also learn the base tune and then slowly add in ornamentation.

That second part always gives me trouble, it screws up my timing, but I find that learning it plain first really helps to establish a good base rythm.

Slowly it's getting easier. I find tunes are getting easier to learn and ornamentation is slowly becoming second nature. But it's not there yet!

One more thing, I tend to avoid learning music from CDs, for me they tend to be too overproduced and embellished. Nothing wrong with it, just makes it hard for someone at my level to learn.

Right now I usually learn from session recordings or instructional CDs.

Eddie

spittle · Post by **spittle** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:53 am

At least for me (a near total learn-by-ear person), it just takes listening ALOT (CD's and live performances). After a few hundred spins in the CD player, then humming or lip-whistling them to myself for a few weeks, I can suddenly, even on my first attempt, string together the first line of a tune (sometimes with ornaments, or at least grace-notes). By then, I'm totally hooked to work it through cleanly and hitting all the basic notes (refering to sheet music along the way if needed).

Like you said Dixie, many commercial recordings are very fast and highly ornamented. Usually I just break them down by lip-whistling them with little (or no) ornamentation at a very slow tempo. The funny thing is, if you've heard a recording enough times, it's amazing what your fingers will unconciously do if you've internalized the tune. I've surprised myself many a time !

Regards,
- Ryan

Leonard · Post by **Leonard** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 10:16 am

I totally agree with Dana.

When I started the flute, I learned the tunes without the ornamentations. Starting very slowly and getting slowly faster. I also practiced the ornementations on the side.

You'll see, since the ornamentations ask quite always the same fingers to work the same way, they get use to this movement quite fast ( if you first work it slowly, to let them learn it correctly). And slowly, you'll put them into tunes without thinking of it. But first, learn them aside and slowly, to "put them into your fingers".

Hope it helps!

Francois

eilam · Post by **eilam** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:05 am

Mary, I rearn tunes off CD mostly.
I listen to it, till I can wistle or hum it on my own, then I can play it right off.
But, from CD's I end up playing someones version of a certin tune, so lately I've been printing out the dots, and learning the tunes from paper which is new to me, and at times would be really nice to hear how the tune actually is supposed to sound.
Based on Dave Migoya's recommendation, I got that CD player that will slow down tunes, and that opened up hundreds of tunes that before that there was no way in hell I could hear all the notes crammed into that one bar.

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:13 pm

My learning changed with my playing experience. I had to first learn the skeleton, then the ornaments, then different variations.

Between 7 to 10 years of playing the whistle, I noticed that I was learning the tune as a "gestalt" and I could "hear" variations that weren't in the source I was learning from.

After 9 years on the pipes, I learned a tune the other day and the variations just sort of happened.

I think my listening ability has improved as well. I seldom use software to learn from the CD as I can now hear all the notes and ornaments played. Then, I turn it off and practice it (usually in a different key as my C chanter sounds so lovely..) until the tune is "mine".

I still get a cheap buzz when I pick up my flute.....

Post by **Nanohedron** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:39 pm

It's the bones for me, and ornaments come soon after. I try not to copy a recording too closely. Influence is a good thing, but imitation is just imitation, so however much my own style or take on the tune may suck, it's still mine. I can always improve it with time. Or not.

Michel · Post by **Michel** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 2:43 pm

Nice topic Mary.Actually I think that a very important thing is learning how
to listen, focus your efforts on trying to understand quickly what the fluteplayer
(or other musician) is doing.
Personally I begin to practice a tune when I memorized the whole melody and I can lilt it.
Generally when I lilt it I know where I want to put slides,rolls etc...
then I pick the flute and play slowly the tune and practice the more difficult passages.
Then I slowly increase the speed until I find the right speed.Then I play the tune
and search the right spots to breath, and choose were is better
a short incisive phrase and were a long phrase would be spot on. then I play the tune and try to find the right spot to place a nice variation (eventually).
Playing a tune while reducing ornamentation to a minimum may be a good
thing, if you now how to give to the tune the right feeling.Sometime using too much ornamentation seems only a way to get around the inner weaknesses of the flute.Noel O'Donoghue (who plays with band Moher) is
terrific on that-he almost don't use rolls, but he gets a fabulous solid powerful and swinging flute playing.

Whistlin'Dixie · Post by **Whistlin'Dixie** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 3:35 pm

Gosh, everyone, such good advice!!!! I'm glad to know that I'm somewhat on the right track! I'll keep practicing those ornaments......

It's funny about some of those CD's too. I was listening to one in my car one day when I said to myself, "That tune sounds vaguely familiar".... I checked and yep, you guessed it, it was one of those tunes I played almost every single day!!! Rendered unrecognizable by me, I guess!

Mary

Blackbeer · Post by **Blackbeer** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 4:25 pm

I think the secret of learning by ear is to be able to make the tune your own. I learn all the music I know by ear. I listen to it as many times as needed to get the tune in my head. Then there is some mental stuff that goes on, mainly to decide if I like the tune well enough to learn it and stuff like that. When its in my head I don`t listen to the sorce again until I am happy with how I play it or am going to be happy with the way I play it. The ornaments just happen where there is space for them. I don`t do a lot of it anyway. Trad music is like that. It is made to pass on by ear. It is ment to express the individual feelings of the person playing it. Therefore there is no reason for it to sound the same from player to player. I mean why play something that doesn`t move you, that doesn`t say something that you don`t have the words for, to express some emotion that needs expressing. Thats what music is all about for me anyway.
Last night I was diddling around with my flute and out poped an old tune that I used to sing 30 some add years ago. It`s called Do na. Realy great song and sounds great on the flute. It took all of 5 minutes to find it on the holes. It was in my head and now its in my flute. Thats why I spend hours just fiddleing around with the flute and whistle, something always comes out that has been locked away for years. Way to much fun.

Tom

Tradman · Post by **Tradman** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 5:44 pm

spittle wrote:At least for me (a near total learn-by-ear person), it just takes listening ALOT (CD's and live performances). After a few hundred spins in the CD player, then humming or lip-whistling them to myself for a few weeks, I can suddenly, even on my first attempt, string together the first line of a tune (sometimes with ornaments, or at least grace-notes). By then, I'm totally hooked to work it through cleanly and hitting all the basic notes (refering to sheet music along the way if needed).

Like you said Dixie, many commercial recordings are very fast and highly ornamented. Usually I just break them down by lip-whistling them with little (or no) ornamentation at a very slow tempo. The funny thing is, if you've heard a recording enough times, it's amazing what your fingers will unconciously do if you've internalized the tune. I've surprised myself many a time !

Regards,
- Ryan

If I were to post my technique, it would be exactly as Ryan wrote it above. Thanks Ryan, we learn exactly alike!

fancypiper · Post by **fancypiper** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 6:58 pm

Before I got my computer and I was driving a lot, I made "drive yourself crazy" tapes, with every recording of the tune I could find, looped over and over and I would listen to it while going somewhere in my vehicle.

Now, I have most of my music collection converted to oggvorbis on the computer and I use my multimedia player to make a playlist similar to that.

I put it on as background music when I go to bed, hoping it will be a painless learning experience (but I still take two weeks to get a nine note sequence down right), but it is still slow progress.

So many tunes and so few braincells left....

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 6:41 am

Hi Everyone!
Alot of great advice! I'm still working on learning stuff by ear.

I did find a new CD set put out by Skip Healy. "Have Ye This One" is a mix of reels, marches, jigs, hornpipes and waltzes. Each tune is played three time times thru. The 1st time is the bare bones basic tune - no ornements, just straight forward, and played a little slower than "normal"; the 2nd time thru the tempo picks up a bit and some ornements are added; and the 3rd time thru is the Skip Healy or "Skip-ified" version. The best part is that by the 3rd time thru you'll have a good idea of how or where to add ornements! And for those of you who need printed music...there is a companion book.

I'm not sure if he's posted it on his web site yet
www.skiphealy.com
but if you e-mail him, I'm sure he'll be able to help!

Crystal

dmcr35 · Post by **dmcr35** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 9:25 am

In my humble? opinion, ornaments are one of the characteristics that make a tune yours. Trying to copy a tune verbatim from a CD, even if done perfectly, is just that - a copy. Besides, who wants to play like Matt Molloy?

I try to learn the basic tune, which can certainly take a while, and then after I have it down, investigate further to fine the best spots for breathing and then for ornaments. However, these can change depending on my mood. I seldom breathe or insert ornaments into the repeats at the same spots in order to keep things interesting.

Dave McRitchie
Toronto, Canada

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Learning from CD's

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