If that's true, then if you're not losing your place or getting tunes confused, it would have to be because you do know them well enough and you are fully concentrating. But I lose concentration lots of times without losing my place or getting tunes confused. Where does that leave me? Do I "know" those tunes and "not know" the other ones where I lose concentration and do get lost?Loren wrote:"Colomon's example of the two similar tunes is spot on. There are a lot of Irish tunes that bear resemblance to other tunes in some portion, enough so that if you're playing one of them and not concentrating fully your muscle memory will lead you right into another tune"
Thank you very much for repeating what I said in an earlier post: If you lose your place or get tunes confused, it's either because you don't know them well enough in the first place, or you weren't fully paying attention (concentrating), while playing.
"All the time" = "On a daily basis". As has been mentioned elsewhere, no one bats 1.000 (even with 'roids).Loren wrote:"Loren, professional musicians do screw up, all the time."
Define "all the time". I don't know of any profession where "Screwing up, all the time" is acceptable.
I don't think anyone's suggesting that Shannon's way of learning tunes (which you are promoting) is wrong, or dismissing it offhand. What we may be reacting to is your apparent assertion that if we have tunes that we consider we've learned, but we haven't learned them via Shannon's method, then if we ever should get lost while playing them, or fall into another tune while playing them, that means we never really learned the tune in the first place. I bet that's what Colomon objects to with his Kiss the Maid Behind the Barrell/Trim the Velvet example.Loren wrote:I find it interesting that rather than actually trying a different method, in an effort to determine it's effectiveness, some here would rather spend the same amount of time, or more, defending their current way of doing things, or avoiding the subject by taking a different tack, and then arguing more.
Easily. Say you've been playing Kiss the Maid Behind the Barrel for 10 years. You know it so well that you can play it in your sleep. Then you decide to learn Trim the Velvet. You spend a day following Shannon's method. You're moving your hands up and down. You're singing. You're playing the tune, maybe even by the end of the day you've learned it. Next day, you're off to the session. Sitting there in the middle of a set of tunes, the fiddler next to you segues into Kiss the Maid Behind the Barrel. You're with him all the way. You're thinking and hearing three bars ahead. Then some attractive female punter jumps up on the bar in your view and starts doing a pole dance, only without the pole and without removing any clothes. (This actually happened once at a session I was in. Only the names of the tunes have been changed to protect the innocent.) Your concentration wanes for a split second, and the next thing you know your muscles, fully conditioned as they are from the previous day's exercise, take you straight into Trim the Velvet. Does that mean you never learned Kiss the Maid Behind the Barrel? Of course not!Loren wrote:For those of you who would like to develop the ability to get tunes confused less often, and improve you ability to learn by ear as well as be able to retain tunes better, and be more "connected to the tunes, consider this: If you are ACCURATELY hearing a tune in your head, while you are playing it (this means being able to "accurately hear a the notes, and even the upcoming phrases before you play them), then how can you get lost or confused while you're playing a tune? It's like having a "teleprompter" in your head - you're hearing in advance, ACCURATELY, what you are going to play in a few seconds from now. Does this makes sense? If so, I ask again, how can you get lost or confused if you are doing this?
Good players get lost in tunes all the time or get sidetracked by other similar-sounding tunes all the time. All the time = on a daily basis. It has nothing to do with how they learned the tunes in the first place, it has everything to do with the fact that Irish music is full of trap doors from one tune into another. If you're playing a lot and it happens too much for your taste, it could mean that you're trying to play tunes you haven't yet really learned. I'll grant you that. But it could just as easily mean the early onset of Alzheimer's. Does Shannon have a recommended treatment for that?
As I said already, I doubt that any of us would deny that Shannon's approach is a great way to learn tunes. The "debate", if there is one, is that this is by no means the only way to learn. And although I don't know Shannon, I'd be willing to bet that unless she's including a serving of her own personal Kool Aid with every lesson she would agree with that.Loren wrote:Please keep in mind, this is not some "theory" or "concept" I've dreamed up (it has nothing to do with me), I'm simply trying to share something that I've learned from a far better player, that I've found hugely beneficial to my own playing and learning. I've taken the time to do this, not because I like debating this crap, but because many folks are not as fortunate as I currently am, to have access to really good instruction - and this is something I can related to, having struggled along myself for so many years with little access to good info.
