Tuneworks

Subject: Review: Tuneworks
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 10:31 AM

Anybody get the chance to participate in the Tuneworks programme for people learning to play in sessions? How did you find the experience?

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Mr Happy
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 12:35 PM

I attended all the sessions at Shrewsbury

It's a positive pleasure to play various instruments with others at a proper pace & tempo without the tunes racing headlong into a thrash!

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Brakn
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 08:11 PM

I didn't get to all of them - children's activities came first - you can't help feeling a bit uplifed after playing with so many like minded people. Can't wait for next year. (My youngest was wearing the Man City shirt)

Last year I was on mandolin, my wife whistle and my two boys on violin - you can't get better than that.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 01:13 AM

It must be very rewarding to play with your family. Tuneworks only runs at four festivals,bromyard, warwick, shrewscbury and one other?

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Mo the caller
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 05:44 AM

Tuneworks ran sessions at Chester this year.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 07:57 AM

Tuneworks - as ever brilliant! So inspired by TW at Shrewsbury about 6 or 7 years ago we came back to Chorlton and started our own Beginners Tune Session - now at least Improvers. As a result 150+ have passed through, first at The Beech and now the

Beech Band at The Dulcimer

We have a random mostly acoustic Ceilidh Band of between 15 and 30, a website:
Which is still called Folk at The Beech - until we get to the bottom of changing

And a fb page:
Further details here

We also have our own Tune Book which is downloadable in most formats from the website. We were a whole page in English Dance and Song magazine.

Although we had been running a Singaround for a year or so, we wouldn't have started a Tunes Session if we had not been to the Tuneworks Sessions at Shrewsbury.

I think they are the most important thing happening in UK Folk at the moment. Thousands of people have played together at their Sessions. I would say to anybody who can play 3 tunes slowly: Find two or three others and start your own Beginners Session - it's easy and great fun. You can have all our tune book for free from our website and any more info or whatever. Our cantact details are on there.

Thanks again Tuneworks you have changed my life and a load of peoples lives in Chorlton, South Manchester and beyond!

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 08:18 AM

This may not be the bestplace to have a winge but I think it points to the difference between Tuneworks workshops and some others.

I have been going to Festivals on and off for around 40 years. With the exception of some dance wrokshops most have been a waste of my time and I suspect most other people's.

The workshop leaders generally don't explain what the workshop is about or what we might expect to gain from it.

A case in point was a 'Ceilidh Band' workshop offered at Shrewsbury by 'Polkaworks' - an extremely talented and experienced collection of musicians.

Without any real explanation they kicked off with great little tune called, I think, Villages. We were expected to learn it by ear after three or four times through - and no dots provided. I learned to 'read' very slowly by going to Tuneworks. I have failed to learn by ear for around 40 years. So, the rest of the session was more or less a waste of time.

I suspect all 'Polkaworks' musicians are very good sight readers and use those skills when they search for new tunes. But not for us on that day.Why errect a major barrier to those of us who don't learn by ear?

The reason given was that you cannot really 'get inside a tune' unless you play it by ear. So, all over the country people are learning slightly different versions of tunes by ear. I have no problem with this but when those people meet in other session they are also playing slightly different versions of those tunes. Perhaps somebody explain why this is good?

Carry on Tuneworks you are simply The Dogs B*llocks.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Mo the caller
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 08:25 AM

Other people are doing the same good work.
We were first inspired to start going to sessions by the Spare Parts workshops at Chippenham. They used tunes from the Lewes Favourite , which is online.
And at Whitby George Garside usually runs a 'Slow and Steady session' and May Cheadle an even slower 'Not quite ready for a session'. These don't give out sheet music - though a lot of the tunes played are from the David Oliver collections
(and no-one says you can't take a peep at your books). Both of those are run with the rules that anyone can suggest a tune, if enough people want to play it it is played, led by the one who suggested it unless they want the session leader to, and NO RUSHING.
And google just found a Slow & Steady session at Towersey, run by David Oliver.

Worth learning some tunes from either of those collections as they are commonly played in sessions (though there is a bit of a North/South divide in popularity)

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Mr Happy
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 11:02 AM

More comment here:

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Aug 14 - 12:18 AM

Interesting that they want to keep it to 4 festivals ann not spread it to others. Towards th3 final session it was possible to play some without the music.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Vince
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 10:03 AM

We're not keeping it to 4 festivals for any reason other than we've only been booked for four at the moment. Our plans for world domination continue apace mind!

We're keeping our eyes peeled for a place in striking distance for June next year (Chester in May, Warwick in July, Shrewsbury in August, and Bromyard in Sept leaves an obvious gap in our summer!)

Thank you all to the fantastic people who have turned up to our sessions over the years and for all the kind words here and elsewhere.

Vince

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,P
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 05:22 PM

I started with my instrument in time to be able to cope, just about, with the first Tuneworks beginners sessions. Not having been to that many festivals over the years I can't corroborate Les in Chorlton's superlatives but I agree that they are excellent - all strength to them and more of the same please.

However, I don't agree with Les about the Polkaworks 'Ceilidh Band' workshops. Despite being slightly out of my depth but managing to tread water I thought they were excellent. They did explain and demonstrate, on both days, that they themselves were playing the tune in slightly different ways and - if I understood correctly - that amongst that we were supposed to go with what suited our ears and our instruments. Not to all play the same thing off a piece of paper.

Tuneworks is great but I think that the-120-people-in-a-festivel-tent-most-of-whom-are-sight-reading style of playing can only get us so far.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 01:55 AM

1thoroughly enjoyed myslf at tuneworks session help at shrewsbury. Would like to see all festival adopt this approach

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 06:35 AM

Hi P, my main gripe about Plkaworks was that they expected us to learn the tune by ear very quickly. I cannot do that and so was pretty excluded from playing anything from that point on.

As for the mystery that is playing and 'getting inside' tunes by playing them from ear, I am not at all convinced.

Glad you had a good time

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,P
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 07:04 AM

Hi Les. It was too short a time for me too - I was missing a lot out. Though I found the tunes on the second day easier to pick up.

Even after settling down for an evening with their CD, and the dots they handed out at the end, I still have much work to do on the tunes.

However, I went along prepared to just listen if it was too much for me and the explanations and demonstrations would still have been useful.

Maybe it would have been better for all if I had just listened ! However, for me hearing a lot of people playing the same thing from the dots would have distracted from what they were doing.

I don't think that's so much of a problem with Tuneworks. Using the dots or not is one of the things that make it so accessible to so many of us.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 08:50 AM

In the end if people are playing together for dancing they have to do just that listen to each other and play the notes at the same time. Most dances rise to the music and have been doing so for hundreds of years. Few people if any complain and bands - except of they are too loud. Social dance is what it says - Social.

I could go to a wider point about people wanting to keep hold of folk music in a semi-secret place making it more difficult for most of us to learn and play tunes. The exact opposite of TuneWorks.

I have stood for far too long on the edge of quick tunes sessions where people play so quick it's hard to tell what the tunes are and they rarely name them anyway.

TW opened up the world of tune playing for thousands of us. I felt PW had closed it down again

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 08:58 AM

It was good enough just to be playing together as a huge group that had only just met.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Katy from Wath
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 07:46 PM

I came to Shrewsbury for the first time and attended my first ever session. Although I had printed the book and practiced a few of the tunes on my fiddle (recently exhumed after 30+ years) I only just managed to keep up, but I found it so enjoyable and inspiring that I have practised every day since I got home and intend to find a group to practise with in time for next year. I can't wait. THANK-YOU Tuneworks!!

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 01:17 AM

Athe most fun ive had in ages at a folk festival. Thanks all. Pat.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Mo the caller
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 04:06 AM

Les said
"TW opened up the world of tune playing for thousands of us. I felt PW had closed it down again"

I think there are many doors in Folk Music and I know that there are some that I will never go through. Through lack of both ability and application.

Fortunately for us there are some patient people who will share their skills and help us peep through the next door, show us what we need to do to get there.

My grouse is lack of information in Festival Programmes - if the PW session had stated clearly that tunes would be taught by ear you would not have wasted your time.
David Oliver does a good workshop on HOW to learn to play by ear. But the books he publishes also give the dots as well as a CD with the tunes slowly and moderate.

I heard a TV programme by Kathryn Tickle a few years back, about how she goes into schools in the NE and teaches pupils to learn both by ear and by reading music. Although this was not how I learnt I think it is ideal.

Les also said
"So, all over the country people are learning slightly different versions of tunes by ear. I have no problem with this but when those people meet in other session they are also playing slightly different versions of those tunes. Perhaps somebody explain why this is good?"
I'm not sure what the alternative is.
Learning different versions from different books?
Learning the same version - but who gets to dictate WHICH book is used?

People need to learn enough 'ear' skills, and session manners, to listen to the person who starts a tune in a session and either play the version that they start, keep quiet in the bits that are different, or recognise if the two versions 'go' together.
Tunes always have changed over time, look at Old Morpeth Rant, and the present version. Someone played OMR in the Conservative club at Whitby and not everyone was listening, there were 2 versions of the A music going on.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 04:32 AM

Hi Mo, I was refering to people learning tunes in sessions by ear - not from music.

The mantra from the learning by ear people (LBEP?) seems to be that the dots are not enough, well maybe that's true. But all over the country people are learning slightly different versions by ear. When they gather at festivals I guess the some people are meeting different people and are together playing slightly different versions of Speed the Plough or what ever.

As I said - I have no problem with this but it doesn't look or sound like something beyond the dots.

I have not learned a dance tune by ear for around 40 years but via Tuneworks I have learned to play from the dots in about a year. I now know that most country dance tunes are quite simple and easy to play.

But still around the LBEP exists an air of mystery concerning The Dots Are Not Enough (TDANE) - LBE lets you into deeper knowledge and some how the fine detail of playing these tunes for dances, who in my experience always have more fun than anybody else in the folkie world, will make better dancers and dancing. It's Social Dance for goodness sake - Social is the most important word.

Thanks for Tune works for stripping away the b*llshit and leading thousands of us into playing great little tunes

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,P
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 05:19 AM

Les - So you disagree with the 'Learning to play' paragraphs in the introduction' in the Tuneworks tune book ?

Yes Mo, I think helping us 'peep through the next door' is a good way of putting it.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 06:54 AM

I only have the tunes section of the 2010 edition of the tW book. But I will go and read what it says in a while

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 08:18 AM

Hi Guest P, I guess you are refering to this:

Learning tunes
Gaining a credible session repertoire is not to be taken lightly. It will take over parts of your life, and there will always be tunes you "need to get round to learning." Traditional music was never meant to be learned from a book – so why produce a book of tunes? Well, the world is a very different place from that in which these tunes were first played – where access to musicians with a wide repertoire was easier and song and dance were well-earned entertainment for most.
If you would rather learn the tunes by listening to them, www.folktunefinder.com has a function for hearing the tune as audio. Listen to as many versions of the tunes as you can lay your hands on. Online resources, such as YouTube, Napster, Spotify and the like, often make this easier than tracking down albums. Use the musical notation as a guide if you need it but aim to make the tune your own. Be influenced by all the different versions you hear. Don't expect anyone to play the tune in exactly the way you have learned it; but instead pat yourself on the back for being part of a living tradition where traditional tunes are being crafted and shaped by modern hands.

This does indeed offer some of the usual confusing advice about learning tunes. It refers to "Gaining a credible session repertoire" But these are dance tunes - sessions are probably a post war invention - and an excellent one at that - but hardly traditional.

"Traditional music was never meant to be learned from a book". Meant by whom? Ever since Playford musicians have been playing from, writing, buying and swapping tune books - and learning them from each other by ear. Just as we do know.

" Be influenced by all the different versions you hear.Don't expect anyone to play the tune in exactly the way you have learned it" As I have said - I have no problem with this except it must lead to 10 people in a room playing maybe 10 versions of Speed the Plough. Who cares? Well any group of people hopping to play for dance will probably have a problem.

I repeat, the issue for me is the mystery that surrounds learning by ear that pretends to lead us into some better understanding of dance tunes - often played by people crammed in a small room, playing too quickly and nobody dancing antway.

None of this changes my view of Tuneworks - their workshops use dots and thousands of us have learned to play the tunes as a result. I have peeped through doors for 40 years. What Tuneworks have done is to abandon the door and most of the walls - fan bl**dy -tastic

We use our own tunebook - and people learn by ear also - just as the have always done

Best wishes

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 09:51 AM

I repeat, the issue for me is the mystery that surrounds learning by ear that pretends to lead us into some better understanding of dance tunes - often played by people crammed in a small room, playing too quickly and nobody dancing antway.

There is no mystery about learning tunes by ear. You listen, you play. Simples. And, in my experience, learning this way gives you a different approach to learning a tune. I have many times seen traditional musicians pick up tunes by ear, it a quick process that centers around identifying the structure of the melody, followed by the filling in of that structure. It is completely different from approaching a tune as a string of notes, learned by heart and enables you, for one, to 'play' with the way you fill in the notes, bringing the tune to life rather than repeating it verbatim as learned each time.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: selby
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 10:15 AM

I dont understand playing by ear it does not work for me. So therefore I learn by notation repetition. now that becomes a problem as I play the tune i have learned and started, to be told I am playing it wrong by someone who learns by ear. There are some people that can play by ear and there are an awful lot who THINK they can.
Critisism and intolerance helps neither cause but etiquette says you listen and join in what is being played by the starter. I think Tuneworks very well and the people involved do very well to get a large number of people playing in tune in TIME
Keith

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 10:37 AM

Guest above was me.

Speaking for myself: I take my tunes anywhere I can, notation or otherwise so I wouldn't dismiss either way out of hand. There's a lot to be said for keeping an open mind about it and acknowledging both eye and ear learning are skills that are beneficial and important to your musicianship.

FWIW, I don't think notation carries a better guarantee for learning a 'correct' version, with tunes being learned from the interwebs and all that. I do think there's a lot to be said for keeping an open ear and adapting your version to the group you're playing with. Flexibility rather than rigidly sticking to what you're used to doing and just rolling that off all the time.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 10:41 AM

Ok Ms/Mr Guest,

"There is no mystery about learning tunes by ear. You listen, you play"

I think we get that but most of us cannot do it in sessions or on just a few repeats at a slow tempo - As Keith says "it does not work for me" - it hasn't worked for me either.

You can go on saying things like "bringing the tune to life rather than repeating it verbatim as learned each time" but I am not sure what it really means.

I guess most of us who have learned to play from dots, either as children or in my own case at about 60, we learn phrase by phrase until we remember it then we play with other people trying to get the tempo and so on as best we can.

"I have many times seen traditional musicians pick up tunes by ear," So have I, although I doubt we can agree on what a "traditional musician" is. I have many times seen people in sessions pick up tunes after one or two hearings but let me say again - many of us cannot, is that clear? - we have tried and we cannot do it.

Let me repeat another point: These are dance tunes for dancing. You can play them very quick without saying what they are - but please remember that playing for dancing is traditional playing in sessions probably post war

Best wishes

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 11:18 AM

Well Les, you keep repeating the same thing so yes, it is pretty clear.

I suggested keeping an open mind about the pros and cons of either method. That would be a good start. Now is that at least clear?

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 11:27 AM

Sorry Peter I shouldn't have gone into patronising rant mode - no need at all.

"FWIW, I don't think notation carries a better guarantee for learning a 'correct' version, with tunes being learned from the interwebs and all that"

Neither do I.

I do think there's a lot to be said for keeping an open ear and adapting your version to the group you're playing with.

Most of us only wish we could.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,P
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 12:11 PM

Les, one of the 'treats' for me of the Polkaworks workshop was being able to 'keep an ear open' for what six experienced musicians playing in a tight band, without amplification in a smallish room were doing.

They were playing the same 'version' of the tune, but, as they made a point of demonstrating they, were often not playing the same notes, and not the same each time through (which they said was useful to dancers). Unless someone wrote out a six 'voice' score only the ears - aided in that case by an explanation - are going to deliver that to the brain.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 12:15 PM

I, in turn, should probably have given it five minutes and a few deep breaths before I replied.

I think the point I am trying to make is that learning by ear is a valuable skill. It can be daunting but it's also a skill that can be learned. Ofcourse as with any skill, some will be better at it than others but that shouldn't be a reason to shy away from trying.

It seems an obvious thing to say but listening to the musicians you are playing with and being able to respond on the fly to what they are doing are essential skills if you want to play half decent music, for it's own sake or for dancers, and you will only be able to acquire those skills by training your ears.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 12:23 PM

"being able to respond on the fly to what they are doing are essential skills if you want to play half decent music,"
Does this mean the 20 odd Ceilidhs we have played for and the 150+ Sessions we have played in have been less than half decent?

"and you will only be able to acquire those skills by training your ears" I only speak for myself but I have spent 40 years failing to do this.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Mo the caller
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 01:29 PM

When you say you can't play by ear, what do you mean?

I too learnt too read music, and certainly when I started going to sessions could not 'pick up' an unknown tune and join in.

But if I picked up my recorder and noodled I could 'find' a tune that I already knew well.
I bet most people could find 3 Blind Mice (with a few wrong notes on the way).

We started going to a Session at Audlem (with our hanful of tunes learnt from the David Oliver book). Very friendly crowd, great when they all raised the roof if we started Winster Gallop. Some of them sang (and didn't mind instruments), and I found I could join in with Whisky in the Jar, once I'd figured out the key (or someone had raised the appropriate number of fingers).
Many tunes have little runs and repeated bits which you can join in with.

With practise the intervals between notes translate from brain to fingers more easily. After all singing by ear always comes sooner than singing from the dots.

I still can't join in with an unknown tune and play every note, but then I can't sight read fluently and at speed either.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 02 Sep 14 - 01:48 PM

i mean I cannot learn tunes by listening to them - unless they are very simple or/and very slow

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Mr Happy
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 12:48 PM

IMO, if you can hear a song & learn by ear [as almost all folk do!] then you can learn to transfer this skill to learning 'stand alone' tunes by ear

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 01:05 PM

Most country dance tunes have a lot more notes per bar and not matter how many times I try I don't hear them all and I cannot play them.

Show me the dots to a jig and I can work throught the tune and play it from memory in a week or so.

This thread is too long for anybody to care enough to read it all and follow the decussion.

Well done anyway Tune works you are still brilliant

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 01:45 PM

'Most country dance tunes have a lot more notes per bar and not matter how many times I try I don't hear them all and I cannot play them.'

I think that touches nicely on what I was saying before about the different learning strategies. When learning a tune by ear you pick up the structure of the tune first, then pick the important notes (the ones that carry the melody if you like) and at the third pass you fill in the rest, connecting up the important bits.

It's something that can be learned, if the will is there. If you can pick up a song, or Twinkle Twinkle, you can pick up,say, the Bear Dance and with a bit of practice, you build it up from there.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,P
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 04:50 PM

For clarity this is one of the tunes Polkaworks taught on the second day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gLrwBeHNu4

That's not really a lot of notes is it ?

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,P
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 04:57 PM

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,P
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 04:59 PM

Though the jigs on the first day did have more notes.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 05:08 PM

Yes, that was simple. But still, as Les says, some people would find it hard or would be simply hesitant to even try, especially in a group setting. Personally I would think that breaking up the tune into short musical phrases and some gentle coaxing would put it within reach of anybody with some basic competence on their instrument of choice.

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Vince H
Date: 02 Sep 15 - 02:59 PM

I'm giving this thread a bump, as we've nearly finished our festival season for the year, and I hope we responded to the comments here in the way we've presented the workshops this year with a greater emphasis on getting rid of the dots, without losing them entirely.

We're always looking for feedback (whether positive so we can put it on the website, or negative so we know what we need to think about for next year)

It was great to see you all at Chester, Festival at the Edge, Warwick and Shrewsbury, looking forward to Bromyard to round off the summer.

Vince (the miserable* guitarist in Tuneworks)

* actually I love it, but you can't tell through the beard

Subject: RE: Tuneworks
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 03 Sep 15 - 03:49 AM

The books are brilliant. I wonder if it would be possible before the event to publish perhaps on your website the tunes that you are most likely to play. This would give less confident readers chance to go through them, before they arrive at the session, rather than trying to go through every tune in quite a long book.

Great sessions please keep it up..