another ear/dots post..

[Berti66]

by all means, do what feels best for YOU, no matter what the tradition "prescribes".
you can always combine the two, like many do, more than you think....

berti

[Skyclad01]

If you can learn from hearing alone, then you are blessed. You are especially blessed to have been able to escape being taught any "correct ways" to do music that interfered with your ability to learn from hearing.

But, you know, there are different approaches to every subject, and sometimes when we employ other methods or look at things from a different angle, things add up in such a way that the sum is greater than the total of the individual parts. Sometimes, we may achieve insight and understanding that might not have happened otherwise.

No harm will come to you from learning to read the dots, but you might benefit from it. Your understanding of music may deepen and grow and you may achieve insight.

And, who knows, your intellect is sufficient that, armed with the knowledge of dots and what is apparently an extremely good ability to play from ear, you may be the person who is finally able to provide complete notations of existing performances.

For ITM, there isn't much dot-reading to do. You'll learn it far more easily than you think. You'll find it simple and uncomplicated, and you may be surprised to find that the dots only give you a rough outline of the tune--the general shape with the high spots and the lows, and none of the diddling in between. The dots do not represent what you hear in your head--they're not even close. And, often, the dots are incorrect transcriptions or don't match the version of the tune which you're listening to. At that point, you'll understand why I mentioned the need for "complete notations of existing performances" above.

For me, I often use the dots a lot to get the rough outline of the tune (hence the bolded statements above), but they often leave out a lot of the ornamentations at time.

This works well for me because I never could read sheet music, and im still working on matching my fingering with ABC's. So the dots help me get a feel for the tune, and listening gives me a better insight of its construction and at the same time, im traning my ear. So for me, its a case of "the sum is greater than the total of the individual parts"

Even though its always good to learn by ear, as a beginner I dont think any one way is better than the other. Learn with what your comfortable with, but dont restrict yourself to just that one way. It will cause a big handicap to your playing abilitys if do because you'll constantly be relying on it.

Im trying to work it as form of schooling - Tabs + Ear, then graduate to ABC's + Ear, then graduate to by ear alone. (but thats just me).

And thats my 4am rant. Take it or leave it

[CountryKitty]

New to the whistle but thought I'd add my $0.02 (where's the durn cents symbol?!).

While working for an educational software company I learned that brains are wired differently. Some people learn best visually--from reading instructions or seeing it done--while others are auditory learners--learning best from hearing the instructions.

I'm a visual learner; I can use a map to get somewhere but if you tell me the directions I'm lost. My husband is an auditory learner; hand him a map and he hands it back and says 'just tell me how to get there'. (Can you imagine us trying to give one another directions...or trying to find a place? It's actually kinds funny--as long as you don't have to be in the car with us at the time!)

Figure out how YOU best learn anything new...then decide which method would best suit your strengths.

[Wormdiet]

What Tommy and Random Notes said.

I simply cannot (after some years of trying) learn a piece without looking at the dots. Having said that, once the basic notes are in my head, I have little trouble "fooling around" with the piece to improvise, add grace notes, etc. Of course, I also listen to how others play the piece to get a sense of how it should sound.

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Since the objective is to be able to play the music, any way we can get there seems equally valid. Unless you can convince me that there is something mystical or magic about learning only by listening and that I will never be able to express the music properly unless I learn it only by ear, I believe the argument is pointless.

I don;t buy the argument that one can't pick up nuance with a tune learned from dots. . .at some point, any player worth their salt will listen to a sh!teload of music. Whether the skeleton of a tune is internalized via dots or some other method is irrelevant if one actively listens to the music with sensitivity.

BUT.
Learning by ear is superior in the following respect: It allows one to pick up tunes in a session environment quickly and effectively. I simply have never seen a "dots only" person play with the flexibility of an ear learner in that setting.

If one doesn't care about expanding repertoire in that environment, than stick with dots.

As far as learning standard musical notation, I don't believe it can hurt a whit. It can also perhaps help with establishing such concepts as intervals, time values, chord changes, time values, etc.

[Wormdiet]

New to the whistle but thought I'd add my $0.02 (where's the durn cents symbol?!).

While working for an educational software company I learned that brains are wired differently. Some people learn best visually--from reading instructions or seeing it done--while others are auditory learners--learning best from hearing the instructions.

With respect to learning tunes, how much of it is innate and how much of it stems from learned behavior? Can anyone prove the issue either way?

Listening to learn music is a skill that takes practice, just like reading notes.

[talasiga]

.......
There are counterexamples to Talasiga's proposition that someone who learns by dots is locked into playing off the page for life. Quite a few talented players have come from classical training to cross over into jazz.
.........
Roger

I don't really know any such musicians who did not FIRST have exposure and interaction with music PRIOR to learning the dots. If, as a child (or a beginner, in general) one has been thrown in the water, either by dint of cultural currents or as an act of rebellion, the learning of dots will not impede them.

"Nobody" makes a good lover by first reading and applying a manual. It is innate and natural response to the impetus of love or passion. Some of us are naturally great lovers. Others of us may recognise deficits and need instruction or therapy but this can only be fruitful after some initial exposure and interaction in conjugal pastimes.

So, once again, those who read my posts intelligently will discern that they are not a diatribe against sheet music but an attempt to contextualise their use within a broader learning scope. Thanks.

[boomerang]

A case scenario,
Whilst at a session a great tune is played that captures your imagination, you want to learn it badly,
But if you are anything like me by the end of the session i have already forgotten how it goes,
This happens to me all the time, the only thing left to do is to ask the name again and search for the dots,
From the dots its easy to get the "guts" of the tune
I find once the tune stays in my head, i can throw away the dots and start having fun with the "mood" or "feeling " of the tune and add sufficient ornamentation that best enhances the tune within the confines of my ability.

I honestly believe that playing by ear is a good thing, but the process can be fast or very slow depending on the music and just how comfortable you are with your instrument, and musical innovation,
there is no right or wrong, as all people are different in their ability to adapt.
Personally i would be lost with out dots, and the learning of so many great tunes would be painfully slow, yet there are tunes i noodle around with that come very easy,

i fool around composing tunes when i am in the mood, without notation they would be lost forever in no time, but down on paper they will last and not be forgotten,
I dont believe you could possibly do any harm by learning notation,
but thats my opinion
Regards
David

[CountryKitty]

New to the whistle but thought I'd add my $0.02 (where's the durn cents symbol?!).

While working for an educational software company I learned that brains are wired differently. Some people learn best visually--from reading instructions or seeing it done--while others are auditory learners--learning best from hearing the instructions.

With respect to learning tunes, how much of it is innate and how much of it stems from learned behavior? Can anyone prove the issue either way?

Listening to learn music is a skill that takes practice, just like reading notes.

A good question. At one time I would have considered learned to be more influential than innate behavior...but I've run across behaviors in my kids that would seem to refute that. For example, my son displayed a distinct fear of snakes when he was just a toddler--even after I showed him that it was fake he insisted 'it gonna get 'oo! Wet's get outa here!' I love the things and would catch them and play with them as a kid (umm...okay, I admit it, still do), but his father and grandmother fear them. I've seen hubby jump when a snake was unexpectedly displayed on TV. But at the time I saw our son afraid of one, hubby was working horrendous hours, night shift, and we were living in town. I racked my brains for a time when Ben could've seen a snake or even a toy snake while in his Dad's prescence and never could. I had been almost exclusively the care-giver with the kids from the time Ben was born.
My sister's husband died when their daughter was only a few months old and she too seems to have traits that she could not have gotten from seeing them. In fact, one or 2 traits my sis didn't even know her hubby had had as a child til she mentioned the niece's behavior to his Mom, who'd forgotten til then.

At any rate, whether learned or innate, if a person finds that he or she learns better by one method than another, isn't it best to go with what works for them? At least at first.

[Brewster]

As a trumpet player who has been playing sheet music for 32 years (has it been that long since I was a young'un in elementary school?), my natural inclination is to go to sheet music. Playing by ear is much more difficult, but it's probably due to unfamiliarity with the process more than anything else.

One advantage to playing with sheet music is that you can pick up anything (songbook, hymnal, etc.) and play it. You are not dependent on someone else, be it at a session or Mike McGoldrick on CD, to play it for you. As someone already said here, once you learn the bones of the piece from sheet music, you can embellish to your heart's content.

[Wormdiet]

A case scenario,
Whilst at a session a great tune is played that captures your imagination, you want to learn it badly,
But if you are anything like me by the end of the session i have already forgotten how it goes,
This happens to me all the time, the only thing left to do is to ask the name again and search for the dots,
From the dots its easy to get the "guts" of the tune

I respectfully disagree, actually.

www.thesession.org

Download the ABC files, get a software reader, and listen to it! Just about all the standards exist there in some format. The other option is to bring a recording device to sessions.

Or, whenever you hear a tune you like at a session, noodle quietly in the corner. After enough repetitions you'll get it. After enough tunes learned this way, it becomes much easier and quicker. Really.

I made a resolution in July to learn strictly by ear for a year. My repertoire has grown from around 45 or so "sessionable" tunes to more than twice that, easily. In addition to a great many additional tunes I can follow along with if somebody else leads.

Again, the point being that learning by ear is a skill that can be practiced until it becomes much easier. With the advent of modern, free, digital tune catalogs, downloadable albums, voice recordes, etc. there is no reason to *need* dots unless the tune is impossibly obscure.

[IDAwHOa]

Amarji,
Not a month goes by without some flautist or whistle player coming to me amazed by my ability to play along and improvise on music I have never heard before.

Left Brain and Right Brain

Left Brain is our logical side and is where the figuring part of us resides.
Right Brain is our romanic side and is where the artistic side of us resides.

I have been a technician/mechanic for most all of my life and find myself deeply entrenched in the left side of my brain. Although music is an artistic, read Right Brained, type activity, I think that the dots are processed in the left side of the brain since, in essense, they are a fixed, "mechanical" representation of the sound. I think this is why I feel so comfortable reading music for the most part.

I am learning though. Just to support the "listen, listen, listen" advice, I am starting to have familiar songs fall off my finger tips from time to time. This has only just started to happen after 2 YEARS of just tooting around and playing nonsensical notes that sort of sound good in the sequence that I am playing them. Every once in a while I will happen on a sequence that has a familiar syntax and my fingers seem to do a fair job at finding the rest of the notes. With focussed thinking, I can sometimes find the rest of the song. If it is familiar enough, it sticks. If not, I have to wait until the next time it just happens along in my tooting. The first time this happened it was a little ditty from a cartoon I watched A LOT as a child. Does this make all my cartoon watching as a child a worthwhile activity now?

It is my feeling that this is because I am, at a subconscience level, becoming more and more familiar with the diatonic scale and opening neural paths to my Right Brain that did not exist before.

Not sure if I said anything valuable, but I would hope and think there is room for both aspects of learning music. Also, I think there is hope for those of us who seem to be hoplessly lost in one or the other to cross over and become more talented at this wonderful thing called music.

[Jonathan]

This sure does come up a lot. Not sure why
I can't see a single advantage to learning from sheet music. But hey that's just me. It seems that a lot of people who refuse to learn tunes by ear haven't ever put in enough time trying to do it. Yes maybe it's hard at first for a lot of people, but it gets easier and easier the more tunes you learn. If you have time, have a look at this essay by Chris Smith: http://coyotebanjo.com/music-52.html
Pretty much sums it up

[colomon]

Download the ABC files, get a software reader, and listen to it!

Ack! This is the worst of all possible worlds.

The entire point of emphasizing listening is that you are listening to skilled musicians immersed with the style you want to learn. If you're going to play with poor style learning only from sheet music, imagine how much worse the computer which knows nothing whatsoever about traditional music is goiing to sound -- and that's what you'd be using as your model for learning!

[Wormdiet]

Download the ABC files, get a software reader, and listen to it!

Ack! This is the worst of all possible worlds.

The entire point of emphasizing listening is that you are listening to skilled musicians immersed with the style you want to learn. If you're going to play with poor style learning only from sheet music, imagine how much worse the computer which knows nothing whatsoever about traditional music is goiing to sound -- and that's what you'd be using as your model for learning!

Well, I need to disagree again. The assumption is that folks will be listening to as much music as possible, live or recorded. For the purposes of picking up nuance, obviously ABC's lack as much as sheet music. But they do train the ear to hear the skeleton of a tune. IE, learning it. An ABC won't tell you how Harry Bradley plays a tune, but neither will dots.

All things being equal, obviously listening to real players is the best solution. In the absence of that luxury, which is better, ABC files or dots?
ABC files win out. Why? Because that's how one picks up tunes in the flesh - by hearing them. Some of us can't afford to maintain a huge library of recordings from one particular style. I envy those that can.

Then again, I shamefully admit to liking cranns, Matt Molloy, and Solas, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

[Jennie]

Human memory used to be totally wired to aural/oral tradition. So I can see your concern, Amar, that when you learn the dots you will have some loss of innocence, in a sense. And you'll wonder whether your concept of a tune will become linked to the dots and lose its spontaneity. Though since we use symbols for language to a great extent already in this modern world, maybe it's a moot point.

I love teaching and learning tunes by ear, and by watching fingers. But for that I need either live music or recordings. Fellow Irish musicians are hard to find where I am, and sometimes I want to be unencumbered by modern technology.

Dots have these advantages for me: they are technology free, and can be used when I'm all alone. When my batteries are low or my CD scratched, or when I want to create a tune from a silent space, a tune book is so companionable. It never replaces really hearing the tunes in their natural habitat. But with a little imagination and flexibility it can help.

Jennie