relying on the written note

[monkey587]

I rely on the written note, but I try to get it off the paper and into my head as quickly as I can.

For new players, it is very tempting to try to get as much into our heads as possible. What does it accomplish, though? We end up with a ton of information that we don't know how to process. Something you will frequently hear from "the pros" is that it's better to know 10 tunes really well than to sortof know 100.

I swore off dots for learning irish music altogether about a year and half ago. Initially, my rate of learning went down from several a week to maybe one or two a month. The music goes by so fast, that it became really difficult... but I persevered. When I went to sessions or listened to recordings, if I heard a tune I wanted to know, I would pay more attention to it rather than just making note of the name and looking up the dots on thesession.org (and learning the crappy version some self-designated expert posted there).

I was forced to get over my beginnerish insecurity about how few tunes I knew and what people might think of me if I wasn't playing all of the tunes. Eventually. I realized that the big shots don't seem to mind me at all and treat me as an equal, because if I don't know a tune, I don't play, and when I do know one, I play it pretty well.

I'm not going to say that after a few months of struggling that I started learning dozens of tunes a day with my improved attention-paying skills. But I feel like I am learning tunes at a comfortable pace, that I know them better than I knew the ones that I learned from dots, and that I play them better, too.

Ultimately, I regret learning so many tunes from dots, because the ones that I've forgotten seem to be gone, and if I want to learn them again I will be starting over from (almost) scratch. The ones that I learned by ear, I retain better as long as I enjoy them, and even if I haven't played them in a while, they are mostly still there.

I also regret that early on, I was so resistant to the cliche tunes and only wanted to learn the "cool" ones, which were usually too complex for my not-so-dextrous beginner fingers. I would have been better off learning The Mountain Road and the Kesh Jig and spending all that time getting the rhythm and tone just right... Just like I wish that all the time and money that went into researching and purchasing "good" whistles had been spent learning how to play the "bad" feadog that I bought first (which is now my favorite D whistle)

I can usually figure out simple melodies (like hymns) by ear. I find it amazing that one would be able to learn a jig or a reel just by hearing it. (I'm not doubting it, just marveling at it.) Honestly, I can't even always tell the individual songs apart.

It's exactly the same skill, it just takes practice. Eventually you'll be able to tell them apart, eventually you'll be able to learn them by ear... Just don't try to rush through things that take time to develop or you'll stunt your growth.

[fancypiper]

After a while, you learn how to listen faster and sometimes, a tune will just jump under your fingers without having to learn it.

That's when you know your ears are better for music than are your eyes.

[Susu]

I've been thinking about this for a while and have recently started trying to learn The South Wind by ear alone.
It seems to me that, when learning by ear, there is at least one less step that needs to be made in getting the song from your brain to the instrument:
People who can read (text, not music) by seeing several words at once and interpreting them as a complete idea, read much faster than those who have to look at each word, translate it into a sound in their head, put a few of those sounds together and then come up with a single idea.
That's sort of a reverse analogy to what goes on when you read music: You look at a dot, convert that to a fingering, figure out how to get your fingers from where they are to where they need to go and then move your fingers. If you "memorize the dots" you will always have this inefficient translation going on in your head.
When you learn by ear, I think that you end up not so much memorizing the individual fingerings for each note, but rather the movements of your fingers between the notes. It becomes a much more fluid and cohesive whole.

Or, I could be completely wrong.

[MTGuru]

Or, I could be completely wrong.

No, not really. But I think it's risky to make broad assumptions about what goes on in people's heads when they're reading or playing music. Different people may have different cognitive styles and process the same input differently to achieve the same result. When I read dots, I hear the music in my mind's ear, and that's a big part what gets translated to the instrument. It's less mechanical than a "that dot equals that note" sort of thing.

When you learn by ear, I think that you end up not so much memorizing the individual fingerings for each note, but rather the movements of your fingers between the notes. It becomes a much more fluid and cohesive whole.

I agree! But I'd go further to say that can be true whether you're learning by ear or eye. I also think good musicians tend to learn and internalize the intervals and contours of a melody as much as the notes themselves. When that gets tied to the flow of finger movements you describe, it makes for a powerful, multi-pronged approach.

[walrii]

We should maybe define "learning by ear." If we "learn by ear" while listening to Grandpa play the whistle, we learn not only by hearing the music but also by watching Grandpa's fingers, hearing Grandpa's critique of our own playing and listening to Grandpa slow down his playing so we can catch the ornament and see his fingers move. In short, we are participating in a multi-faceted learning experience - which is generally the best way to learn things.

People all over the world have "learned by ear" from Grandpa and Uncle George and Aunt Mabele and Grog the Neanderthal in the cave next door. That's how trad/folk music got here. If we don't have a Grandpa or a Grog in our family, we go to a session or find a teacher or a mentor. (What's the difference between a teacher and a mentor? About $50 per hour.)

If we don't have a session handy or a whistle teacher in town, we can learn just by listening to a tune over and over and over then playing it, listening some more, playing some more, etc. Some people can pick up a tune quickly this way but most of us need more help. We slow down the tune with software, watch videos of experts playing the tune and, yes, look at the dots to see where the tune goes.

Learning any complex task is usually best accomplished by attacking it with as many senses from as many directions as possible. Sitting at Gandpa's knee or on Grog's rock would be great. Hanging out at sessions and finding a mentor among the musicians is a close second. For the rest of us, videos, mp3s, software, dots, concerts and books can all help.

[falkbeer]

I look at sheet music as written language and hearing music like hearing the language spoken. If a person spoke no English (or whatever language), never heard it spoken, and was told only what sound each letter represented, then proceeded to form words from the letter combinations, well, the result would be obvious. Even hearing a new language spoken, it's difficult or impossible to speak with the native's accent. Of course, the best result will come from as much hearing as possible. (Actually, a combination of hearing and trying.)
Tony

The comparison Mr. Higgins did in his mail between spoken language and music is very interesting and true. Even though I have a music education I often find i hard to "pronounce" some musical genres if I first haven´t heard the piece or if I´m not familiar with the genre. Some languages are easier to pronounce "on sight" - spanish and finnish for example. If you are familiar with the rules for spanish pronounciation there are seldom or never any question on how to pronouncate the word. English on the other hand is a bit trickier - imagine someone seeing the word "ENOUGH" (I´nAf) for the first time! Both with foreign langauages and foreign musical genres I think one should try to absorb a general feel for the language or the music and then try to develope your own style. My own background is in classical music and swedish folk music. I speak english with an accent and I play ITM with an accent too! I often use the same kind of embellishments I use in swedish folk music and often with phrasing and rythmical accents too.