Music By Ear

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 07:50 PM

I saw a TV show recently where one guy played the harmonica
with his nose and another played making noises with his mouth

another played a song using his Armpit and another played a tune
thru his cupped hands

another played a melody using the hand and elbow methos

another contestant was 'wolfing' down some pork and beans but i had to leave, and missed that part.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: AggieD
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 10:38 AM

Like many others I find this thread very interesting.

I grew up with music all around me, from the likes of the early pop & rock to classical through to various types of folk music. Singing was always encouraged & even now we still sing together, albeit very casually, & mainly tunes from the shows.

I also took some formal singing lessons & learnt to read music, although I too like many others was very lazy about learning properly & winged it very often.

So to me music, especialy singing, was so natural that I always used to have trouble understanding those people who struggled, especially when it came to just singing along. I often sit & wince at 'harmonies' because I am able to hear when it's not right & lots of people think I'm crazy when I say certain dischords physically hurt my ears, but they do. I have also been singing in a choir, but I am on the point of quiting because I find that so many of them rely totally on the sheet music, don't try to learn their parts & never look at the conductor. Interestingly I find the formal singing far more of a strain than when I freely harmonise in a singaround etc.

I also play a melodeon, mainly for Morris, but also for my own pleasure, & I learn tunes by both ear & from music. However I rarely play the tunes that are written down, my husband tried to play the tunes with me & got very annoyed because I changed the timing & often put embellishments in. Imho this is the way folk music develops. I love listening to different people doing the 'same' song & hearing how they adapt to their own style.

I also love going to as many workshops as I can, especially for voice, I have picked up so many different hints & ideas that I can put into practice.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 08:01 PM

Boy, I've really gotta start proof-reading my stuff before I hit the "Submit" button. I just re-read my post of 23 Jul 06 - 01:00 PM and spotted another goof or two. The big one is that the title of the book Sally put together was "The Seattle Song Circle Song Book," not "The Seattle Center Song Book."

That probably wasn't the fault of the DNS program, I think I just mis-spoke. Sorry, Sally.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 07:52 PM

Yeah, Ron, we often did topics and themes also. Sometimes it was fairly general, such as "sea songs" or "mining songs," and sometimes the theme would get a bit tighter, like "songs of seduction or attempted seduction," for example Greensleeves, Blow the Candles Out, or The Trooper and the Maid. They were often a challenge and got people searching for something that would fit the theme, and that, in turn, frequently had us delving into new areas for material. Very good! Stimulating. Educational. Broadening.

Sometimes someone would try to bung in a song that didn't really fit the theme, and it was always a snort to hear their rationalization for it. Got kind of ingenious sometimes, or at least, pretty entertaining!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 07:18 PM

Oh what the heck..

100

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 07:12 PM

FSGW (Folklore Society of Greater Washington) sings started out similarly--at least I think so---I wasn't present at the creation. But we used to sit around in a circle, starting about 9 on Friday, one day a month at the Ethical Society building and sing--much like Don's arrangement.   There was ostensibly a topic--e.g. " Things with Wings"--any song which mentioned a bird, angel, plane--or any song you could work into that definition by some agonized preface.   Or Parodies-- that was always a smash hit. As was Sea Songs. But the topic changed every month--and was announced in the newsletter a month in advance.

If I recall correctly, there was no light but candlelight--or were the lights turned way down? At any rate, you couldn't see that well. That meant 2 things: 1) people in general had to have their songs memorized and 2) there were lots of chorus songs--since that gave you a chance to think of the next verse--and just cause we all liked them--and liked to throw in harmonies.

And about 12 or 12:30, after almost everybody was gone, we'd sometimes get into rugby songs--they were great--and very inventive. I remember the sad day when our main source for these said he'd turned over a new leaf and wasn't going to do them anymore. Tragically, he was as good as his word.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 06:44 PM

Everyone has their own collection which has its own downside - scrabbling through a folder for the song they were going to sing and can't find when it's their turn. I wouldn't be surprised if you get the same thing happening over there.

Sure we do. :~) (meemeemeemeeeeee!) There are some who can just come out with a complete lyric out of their heads-- and I've had a few at my house to see them actually do it-- but it's like Sorcha said upthread-- you might KNOW a song (lyric, chords) but that doesn't mean you HAVE it.

I forget what thread I said it in (at length), but one benefits from giving some thought to which songs are really solid parts of one's repertoire, and which songs one loves but which are still getting there or may never belong there.

I'm always surprised to "meet" a song that is clearly mine-- I found one this summer and confirmed last night that it is VERY much a song that belongs in my rep. There are a zillion others I "have" as tunes but whose range, etc. make them not really mine to sing, or whose texts are not right for me even in the way their word-shapes fit in my mouth.

But by thinking of these repertoire categories, at least I am narrowing down my "rep" to what would fit in a binder to remind me what they are-- when I get into a song circle I'm often completely not able to recall what songs I might offer. I don't mean that I forget the words-- my mind gets so taken up in the listening part of my brain, hearing others' turns, that the "mental songlist" I might SING doesn't "boot up" at all!

It's handy to be able to blame that on age, but I think it's more a case of just not having DONE it when there's been a chance.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Tootler
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 05:38 PM

Thanks Susan for the links. They were very useful and gave me the info I wanted. I was just curious. Also thanks to Ron for explaining why people get so heated. I understand better now.

We don't really have anything equivalent over here, at least I've not come across anything. What you often find here is people turning up with ring binders or folders full of sheets of dots for tunes or of words of songs - often with chords (myself included <g>). Everyone has their own collection which has its own downside - scrabbling through a folder for the song they were going to sing and can't find when it's their turn. I wouldn't be surprised if you get the same thing happening over there.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 01:04 PM

". . . might light to give it a try."

Looks like I have to do some more training with my Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition program -- or edit a bit more carefully.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 01:00 PM

I thought the way Seattle Song Circle started out back in 1977 was just fine. I'll drift this thread for a moment to explain a system that worked well, in case someone else might light to give it a try.

We got together every Sunday evening at 7:00 or 7:30, I forget which. Unless you were glued to Masterpiece Theatre or something like that, there usually wasn't much else going on on Sunday evenings. The gathering would last for two hours, until 9:00 or 9:00 and then adjourn, which would get people home early enough for a work day on Monday.

We actually sat around in a literal circle. One of the folks found an old unused storefront in the University District that the owner or real estate manager let us use on Sunday evenings (as I recall, somebody knew somebody), so when the group expanded to as many as seventy on some Sunday eves, the circle's circumference increased quite a bit, but there was still sufficient room to form the circle. When we eventually had to give up the storefront, we found other places, like meeting rooms in the Good Shepherd Center. Sunday evenings were good because there would be nothing going on in these places and they would let us use them free.

The circle idea was so that everyone got a chance. We would decide to go either clockwise or counterclockwise, and when your turn came up, you had three options:   1) you could sing, either a solo or you could lead the whole group in something (any chorus song, but sea chanteys were always a good choice; easy for everyone to pick up on and when the whole group got going, they can really sound good); 2) you could request something from someone else ("Hey, Stan, how about 'The Skin Diver and the Mermaid?'"); 3) or you could simply pass ("I got nuthin'.").

It was a good place to pick up new songs. With everyone's agreement, there were usually at least a half-dozen small, battery powered cassette recorders in operation. I have a couple dozen cassettes of some really good stuff, and after several months, Sally Ashford went through her tapes, did some transcribing (words and music, plus a credit for whoever introduced the song to the group), and presented us all with a "Seattle Center Song Book," —not to be used at the meetings, but just for our own enjoyment and so newcomers would know where we'd been. Still got it. That was a lot of work, Sally! Thanks!

These sessions were great. Folks used to drop in from as far north as Vancouver and as far south as Portland.

Dunno why it changed. Too bad.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 12:38 PM

Yes, for RUS (Blue Book) discussion, please use the links in my last post.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 12:09 PM

And quite a few (sometimes heated) threads on the topic (Blue Book AKA Rise Up Singing)--pro and con-- already on the 'Cat. You might want to check them if you have interest.. But we're trying to not let this one be dragged back into that debate.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 12:05 PM

"Blue Book"--(Rise Up Singing)---good book, lots of good songs--but sometimes treated as a "folk hymnal"--e.g. "Please turn to page 34 and sing the second one from the bottom". Not exactly what many of us are looking for in a singaround.

Makes it easy for people to show up at a sing--not having learned one song--and lead the group stumbling through a song whose title that person likes.

And really widespread throughout the US.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 23 Jul 06 - 01:09 AM

I used to use a Hewlett Packard calculator with a memory like Don's and I'm familiar with having blank spots suddenly appear in the middle of a song that I used to sing all the time. But then, I remember introducing my brother to someone, quite a few years ago, and having my memory suddenly blank out.
"Jeez! I can remember his bloody surname!" I explained. Since then I've used the experience to explain away all sorts of embarrassing senior moments. And our band regularly used a set sheet on the floor (in fornt of the mic stands but behind the foldbacks) to remind us of what we already knew.

On another aspect of reading music from dots, ABC Radio National (Australia's equivalent to Britain's Beeb and, more or less, to America's NPR) broadcast a program a couple of weeks ago on the Blind Choir, in Australia. Those of you better set up for such access than I can download a podcast of the program (they keep them on their website for 4 weeks) which (from memory, is "Into the Music". I recall hearing one of the members of the choir describe the process of reading the music from Braille, which is OK for picking the notes. Because none of them could see the conductor, however, their listening skills had to be red hot. Most of us who've performed in singing groups will be familiar with the fine pitch control one develops when trying to pitch one's note 'against' someone else's for that perfect harmony. [Who knows, it might have been modal rather than mean.] But the Blind Choir members seemed to believe (and the small excerpt broadcast supported their assertion) that such intense listening meant that they were often tighter as a choir than many sighted ones. Interesting thought.

Cheers, Rowan.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 05:41 PM

Folk singers seem to be stuffed into a bag in which any paper in the vicinity is a no-no.

In a previous thread, I went on at length about how Barbara and I, after being in on the organization of the Seattle Song Circle in 1977, dropped out after a few years when it morphed into sessions in which people came to rehearse songs they were in the process of learning instead of singing songs they had already learned. Then later, it turned into a sort of hymn-sing, with people sitting around singing out of their mandatory copies of Rise Up Singing.

At the first song fests and "hoots" that I attended back in the early Fifties, it was expected that one learn a song before attempting to sing it for other people. This carried over into performance, and when I started singing gigs, I never even thought of appearing before an audience with anything beyond a set-list masking-taped to the side of my guitar. In fact, one or two people even twitted me for that! They seemed to think that if I planned a program for a gig ahead of time instead of just winging it, I was "going commercial." I think if I'd appeared with a song book or a notebook containing lead-sheets, there were at least a couple of people who would have hauled me up before the regiment, cut the buttons off my shirt, broke my guitar across their knee, and marched me around the compound and driven hence in shame and disgrace. But it never occurred to me to need to do so. It was essential that everything be committed to memory.

When I was performing actively, other than learning new songs, I rarely needed to practice because I was singing somewhere, coffeehouse, concert, or whatever, at least three times a week. So people wouldn't get tired of the stuff I did, I made sure to keep rotating my repertoire. I knew somewhere between two and three hundred songs, but since I didn't repeat a song all that often (except when requested), I developed a reputation for knowing thousands of songs. The songs were pretty solidly imprinted in my memory. This didn't mean that I didn't blow it every once in a while (being in the middle of "The Fox," and suddenly discovering the words all dangling down-o!), but it didn't happen very often.

That was then. This is now. Although I have sung a few gigs recently and get together with friends every now and then for a "hoot," I'm not singing anywhere near as often as I used to, so the words to songs sometimes tend to drift off a bit. It seems to be a case of "last in, first out." The songs I first learned seem to be indelible in my memory, but songs I've learned recently are not so firmly entrenched. If for no other reason, I just haven't sung them as much.

I really hate that business of launching into a great song I've learned recently, only to get about three verses into it and suddenly discover that the first line of the fourth verse has Gone South. There I am, gazing up at the ceiling, hoping that the Spirits of Troubadours Past will write the words up there in letters of fire, but, alas, so far that hasn't happened. True, I have achieved Geezerhood, and this may have something to do with it, but other than this, my memory seems to be as sharp as it ever was. I think it's because, as I said, I just haven't sung the newer songs as many times or as often as the earlier ones I learned.

Barbara and I watched the "Down from the Mountain" DVD a few weeks ago. I noticed that on stage there were music stands beside the mike stands. And some of the performers were using them. Both John Hartford and Ralph Stanley (yes, Ralph Stanley!) were definitely reading from whatever was on the music stands (probably lead-sheets). Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss, and Emmylou Harris weren't reading from the music stands, but they did glance at them from time to time. Only the Cox Family and the Peasall Sisters did not.

Therefore, there is precedent. I see no problem with keeping a notebook containing lead-sheets within easy view, as long as it isn't obtrusive and I don't need to do any more that glance at it occasionally if and when the words go fuzzy. As long as I already know the songs thoroughly, no one can justly give me grief for having lead-sheets nearby strictly as a safety net.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Little Robyn
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 05:10 PM

Tootler said -- For some reason I forgot the beginning and after three goes had to have a quick look at the dots.

Our Morris side has a page called Howzitgo which has the name and first 2-4 bars of the A and then the B part of each tune.
Once I have the start, the rest just follows.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 01:40 PM

Tootler, CLICK HERE to land in one of the several threads on the subject-- it has a whole buncha other threads linked at the top of it.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 01:18 PM

I've been singing for over 30 years now and I learned all my songs by ear. I would love to be able to read music - but it has always been a complete mystery to me. I saw a Mandarin Chinese phrase book the other day and reckon that I've got more chance of learning that language than I have of reading music.

I sing English trad. songs which have beautiful tunes that, in my opinion, tend to be ruined by harmonisation - harmony groups and other sorts of choir, please note!!

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Tootler
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 11:04 AM

As long as it's not the "Blue Book" AKA Rise Up Singing AKA the "Blue Book of Death" (as in Blue Screen of Death)

I have seen references to this book in other threads and it seems to generate a lot of heat. Some seem to love it and some hate it.

As someone from t'other side of the pond, perhaps you could enlighten me. What exactly is this book, and how is it used (or not) that generates such heat?

Merely curious.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: *daylia*
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 09:45 AM

I have another question. When is it appropriate to use music and when not. There are some conventions and situations when you expect to see musicians working from written score.

In classical music of all types it is the norm the main exception being g the soloist in a concerto. This is also true of most types of larger ensemble - military bands, brass bands, big bands etc.

Yes -- imagine what a 30-minute symphony would sound like if each player in a 100-or-so piece orchestra was required to perform their part from memory! No matter how seasoned and well-trained the musicians, or how well or long they'd had their parts memorized, under the added pressures of public performance memory is the FIRST thing to fly out the window. Musicians are human beings, not computers!

Even if only half the players had to cut out just once, or contend with just one little memory slip/wrong note or phrase/loss of timing that sounded like doo-doo-- that's a total of 50 unexpected silences/memory slips/doo-doos!

Or approx 2 per minute of music.

Yikes! I wouldn't elect to be the conductor of such an orchestra -- or just even the audience, for that matter.

However, in classical music, soloists of all genres are strongly encouraged to perform for memory. Memory is always one of the final touches when working on new repertoire with my students. Some people memorize music VERY quickly. Play it a couple times through, and they know it! Others find it more of a challenge, and still other students simply refuse to perform without their music.

They want their 'crutch', for confidence. And that's fine by me too. Although I encourage ALL of my students to memorize their favourite repertoire, and most do perform for memory at my in-house recitals and performance classes, I allow my students to bring the music up if they absolutely insist on it.

I'd much rather have them perform with the music than not perform at all!

Funny thing is, I watch them and over half the time these reluctant memorizers don't even LOOK at the music once they;ve started playing!   And when I point this out to them afterwards, they look surprised. "Oh, maybe I didn't that time, but I STILL want my book!" At that point, I can usually convince them to at least try it without the music, and give them another chance to perform without it. And it's wonderful to see the look on those little faces when they realize that they really didn't need the book after all.

BUt I teach them ALL to bring the music with them when performing, even if they have it memorized. They can leave it with me, or leave it on their chair when they go up to play. It's as Tootler says -- For some reason I forgot the beginning and after three goes had to have a quick look at the dots. Once I had done that I was away and did not need to use them again. I think we all forget sometimes and having the dots handy is very useful for those times when you forget.

Yes, VERY handy indeed! Can't count how many times even my best memorizers have rescued themselves this way.

FOr festivals, memory is not an option. If you want a mark and a chance to win the awards, you must give your written score to the adjudicator. Students who perform with the music are given a written critique, but no mark.

For Conservatory exams up to Grade 10 level, on any instrument, memory is not a requirement BUT up to 10 marks are allocated for memory (2 per piece). And when you need a 60 just to pass, 10 marks can make a big difference!

For the Performers ARCT exam (the final diploma awarded by the Conservatory, post-Grade 10) memory is a prerequiste. NO memory, no exam, no mark and no diploma. It's that simple -- and the Conservatory puts out an important message for students that way.

Accomplished soloists perform for memory. And that's that!

For my ARCT exam, I had to don a long concert gown (which I hated! ;-) and play about 45 minutes of music in the Royal Conservatory Concert Hall, empty except for the 9 intimidating-looking bone-faced examiners staring at me. (Or, at least they looked bone-faced to me, at 21!) I played an 10-page Bach Prelude and Fugue, a complete 38-page Beethoven Sonata, and 3 somewhat shorter pieces from the Romantic era and the 20th century (Debussy, Liszt, Bartok) for a total of 70-odd pages of music. All fully memorized. That, plus a VERY demanding sight-reading and ear test, was what was required for an ARCT. And Performer's ARCT students need 70, in all parts of the exam, just to pass.

Memory is not required for the Teacher's ARCT though. Go figure!

As for folk music, it doesn't bother me at ALL to watch people using "the dots" as a memory aid for the instrumental parts or song sheets for the lyrics. If they enjoy the experience of performing more that way, why not? If they feel they can do a better job with the lyrics etc in front of them, who does that hurt? No-one! It's the MUSIC I'm there for, not to judge the performer's ability to play for memory or lack thereof! And I feel more comfortable keeping a song sheet handy myself, even if I think I don't need it.

You never know!

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: brioc
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 07:45 AM

I come from a musical family. WE all "learned" various instruments in the course of our childhood.....ie.up to 14.
We sat around the piano and just sang songs or had little dances in the sittingroom. and once or twice a week we went to music school after normal school, and on saturdays for theory.
Today , practically everyone can play an instrument. Some gave it all up and have come back to it 30 years later. You never lose what you once learned, it is amazing. But most of us can play by ear and with sheets.
These days I play ina irish band. one of our members plays flute. She is classically trained, and great at doing technical stuff. but she only reads music, cant begin to do it by ear. for me, it is odd to be on stage playing irish music with musicstands! I never use music on stage, and don't know how you can communicate your song or tune to the audience when you can't look at them.
I wonder what non-musicians, but audiences have to say..........

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,Rev
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 12:45 AM

In Santa Barbara we have an Irish bar that hosts a so-called "session" once a week. I went down there once with a couple of my button accordions, expecting to be able to sit in, and expecting that it would be a by-ear kind of gathering. I was quite taken aback to find that almost everyone who showed up pulled out a ream of sheet music, and they all played ( abit like Irish robots) exactly what was written in front of them. On top of that I was the only buttonbox player amongst about a dozen fiddlers and at least five guitarists. I have to say it was exactly the opposite of my prior experience of an Irish session, and I never went back, but most of the people there seemed very happy and content to do it that way. Different strokes I suppose...
Rev

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Jul 06 - 12:06 AM

I would think there should be no objection to keeping words and/or music to hand in an informal setting. (As long as it's not the "Blue Book" AKA Rise Up Singing AKA the "Blue Book of Death" (as in Blue Screen of Death).

But just a sheet of paper or two can be a good talisman in warding off stage fright--even if you never look at it (which is of course ideal).

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Tootler
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 06:50 PM

An interesting thread, with some good arguments. There seems to be a consensus that being able to read music is a useful skill, but it is not the B all and end all.

I have another question. When is it appropriate to use music and when not. There are some conventions and situations when you expect to see musicians working from written score.

In classical music of all types it is the norm the main exception being g the soloist in a concerto. This is also true of most types of larger ensemble - military bands, brass bands, big bands etc.

In most other types of music it is not the norm to work from sheet music especially with smaller groups.

This is surely just a convention and there are exceptions. I see no harm in working from music if you think it will enhance your performance. Very often it is there as a prompt rather than a reading every note.

Now a more tricky one. What about at your local folk club on a singers night or singaround or at a session - or whatever the equivalent types of event are on the west side of the Pond?

I know last night at the Folk Club I go to regularly it was my turn and I was going to play a tune I know well. For some reason I forgot the beginning and after three goes had to have a quick look at the dots. Once I had done that I was away and did not need to use them again. I think we all forget sometimes and having the dots handy is very useful for those times when you forget. So I don't have strong feelings about using the dots - or keeping a copy of the words of a song to hand. Unlike a play we do not always have a prompter in the wings, so need to keep one with us.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 08:14 PM

Wonderful conversation! Thanks to so many of you for the insights and memory prompts. Dahlia's posting about her teaching is really familiar to me, as it is basically how my daughters are taught (the older on piano and the younger on recorder) when they go to their 'formal' teachers who, while preparing them for AMEB exams where all the things Dahlia described are tested, are trying to get them to enjoy the experience of music. Here the recorder teacher has an advantage over the piano teacher because it's much easier to get a consort together and the tradition doesn't often require more than two pianos at once. There is a great bunch of recorder players (all under 15 years old) in about four groups from just the one teacher and there are three or four recorder teachers (in a population of only 25,000) with similar arrangements. They have a great time!

It wasn't the way I was taught, more's the pity. And, with my 'informal' training by exposure to the folk scene, the stuff they were learning was very familiar to me. I just couldn't read the dots!

Then Dahlia described the march! In Australia we have a tradition (from the Welsh) of Eisteddfod competitions which may not have got across the Atlantic, I don't know. All the music teachers encourage their students as it gives them practice at public performance. Most of the adjudicators take a 'teaching' approach to their adjudicating but even so there can be 'odd' results. Most performers (and, more importantly, their parents) take such oddities in their stride.

I agree with Don's comments about a competent musician being defined (although he didn't get quite so specific) as one who was fluent by ear and by sight. It's one of the reasons why, when someone described me as a musician, I'd most commonly reply that I wasn't a musician, but a person who played music. The technical competence that Tattie describes is still beyond me on the Anglo, although singing unaccompanied in any key within my vocal range is a doddle and I can usually cobble a harmony line within a verse or so, when someone else starts the song, if I know the words.

When I described my conversations at dances, with people who despaired at their own failures, they usually volunteered the comment that they couldn't read music. It seemed to me they thought that reading music was the single most important criterion/hurdle/failure about their inability to play an instrument. It was because of this one thing that I usually responded that "I can't and don't read music." Sometimes I'd even go so far as to say that I deliberately didn't read music, as an attempt to encourage them. But I'd always include in the conversation, later, the comment about learning to read when the inability became an impediment.

Dahlia's descriptions reminded me that many people associate an understanding of music theory and the ability to read scores. As a teacher (of other disciplines) I can quite appreciate her position but my own experience (while not necessarily to be recommended) indicates some viability of other approaches. For some years I was part of a high school system that had respect for innovation and I was in it at the deeply innovative end, teaching in a community school. These can take over every part of your life that is spare and I thought, to give the teaching some 'competition' I'd put myself in a position where I could do some proper research on how people learned to play music.

I already had the required 'anecdotal' stuff (this was after the realisation with the psaltery, the flute and the dulcimer), as well as the required pedagogical, psych and physiological aspects of theory and practice as applied to learning. What I needed was a handle on formal music theory so I enrolled at La Trobe Uni in music. The prospectus said it concentrated on 20th century composition (Fine by me!) and was only 30 mins drive away with most of its classes after work finished for the day. Perfect!

Being able to count on my fingers relatively fast I could apply most of my Anglo playing and harmony singing experience to get through the first year theory tests, even though they wanted all harmonies to use major thirds and fifths. "Strange?" I thought, considering the prospectus and the fact that they had the best collection of Balkan music in Australia at the time. I could ignore the obnoxious pedant lecturer who emphasised that "all folk music was derivative from classical music" although, when during a lecture he demonstrated something on an electric keyboard with the comment "At least it's better than a tin whistle!" my response from the middle of the theatre blistered the paint and his bluster. At the time, our band had a whistle player who rivalled Mary Bergin!

My best experience of that course was trying to write scores for other performers in what we called the brake drum, broken glass and prepared piano workshop. Finally I understood what dots were about, because we couldn't use them and had to resort to other written communication on the score. During this exercise I remembered Peter Parkhill's NFF workshop in '73 on Percy Grainger (currently the subject of a museum display in Sydney) and his collecting and transcription. Percy was apparently (I know you afficionados will correct me if I'm wrong) the first to use wax cylinders to make field recordings of 'traditional' singers, in the 1890s, when most were using the sol-fa method.

Grainger transcribed a piece (unfortunately the title escapes me) where every grace note and rhythm change was displayed in minute detail. Where the sol-fa method gave the item a key and a time signature and the classicists described the singer as 'off-key', Grainger showed half a dozen scale changes and rhythm variations in every half stanza, all repeated faithfully in subsequent verses. In the brake drum workshop I started to understand notation but I can still only read "on my fingers". Sigh.

The final straw in my participation in that music course came when the pedant lecturer told me, during a conversation about musical experience, "I don't care what you think you already know about music! You are an empty vessel which WE will fill up with what is important!" Well, that was entirely antithetical to everything I understood about learning anf teaching so I just walked out. I still needed to give the community school some competition so, at enrollment time the next year I fronted up looking for something where my existing knowledge could contribute formally. I chose Prehistory (I already was an ecologist with an understanding of oral history) and the Music desk was adjacent to Prehistory's. The Head of Dept was there and he asked why I wasn't continuing. I explained that they weren't really implementing their prospectus. He commented (with some resignation in his voice) that most of their music students came straight from high school, had been taught that music started with Bach and finished with Beethoven, were highly resistant to attempts to widen their horizons, and ended up as teachers in schools who thought the same as the students. I was unsurprised when I heard some years later that that Dept had folded. Meanwhile, I had become an archaeologist. And I've been too busy to keep at the dots.

I don't mean to divert the thread, but the abilities and attitudes of those of you like Don and Dahlia are not universally applied. There are all too many with experiences like mine. I'm lucky in that I've had a context in which I've been able to develop despite initial drawbacks and, while I thank Jerry for his respect, it is really the others I've sung and played with, both formally and informally (especially the latter) to whom the respect should be directed. I keep my ear to the ground and nose to the grindstone; it's difficult to read the dots when doing so but, you all know the score.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: *daylia*
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 12:10 PM

Yikes, sorry bout the bold font. :-( I didn't want to risk losing the whole post using hte preview feature to check the html -- that's how I lost it yesterday I think.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: *daylia*
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 12:08 PM

Well here I sit, waiting out a cancelled lesson, and pondering Kaleea's insights about the 'acceptability' of playing by ear in different cultures and time periods. Thanks, Kaleea!

Notation is one tool which helps us be able to share this aural experience we call Music with others.

Yes, and it's important to realize that it's only a tool, NOT a master, and certainly not the be-all and end-all of music! As some of you have pointed out, written music is fallible (not always accurate) and limited as to how much information it can convey. ANd a written score always lends itself very easily to individual interpretation and variation, depending on the 'comfort level' of the performer (and/or their teacher). For better or for worse.

Today, as Kaleea pointed out, attitudes toward music and how to teach/learn it have become more lenient. This creates problems sometimes when preparing students for exams/festivals. Some highly qualified examiners/adjudicators have their own unique stylistic interpretations and take extreme liberties with the written score. They prefer the music 'their way' and penalize children for playing what's written on the page!

This frustrates me to no end as a teacher! What am I supposed to do -- teach the kids to how to read the music accurately and follow the score carefully, only to tell them they can perform it either the way it's written or, if they prefer, any old way they please?

Case in point -- last spring one of my 8 year old beginners performed a little piece called "A 16th Century March" at the local festival. It's very cute piece, very short, very popular with the kids.

The March tempo is clearly marked at the top of the score: quarter note = MM at 120 (metronome speed). That tempo works perfectly for the march style, and it's easy to handle for the kids too. My student had practiced diligently with the metronome -- his timing was perfect, and he knew that little piece inside out.

Did a wonderful job at the festival - no slips, perfect memory, dynamics and timing were awesome, and his individual interpretation/feelings did come through like a charm as he played. He did me proud -- some artistry, for an 8 year old I thought!

But when the adjudicator stood up to talk to the kids and give out the marks/awards, she told him he should have played it twice as fast! A little more work on appropriate style and tempo and you'll have a great piece, she said.

And then proceeded to give him one of the lowest marks in that class. He was crestfallen, nad I was, uh, quite QUITE upset! I knew he'd played that piece at precisely the tempo indicated by the editor on the written score - which IS indeed, a march tempo! And perfectly 'in style' with that piece, imo!

So I went up to her desk and called her on it, in person, after the class was over. I showed her the tempo indication on the music -- MM at 120. I demonstrated that tempo to her, marching with my feet left, right, left, right. Yes, that's a perfect march tempo! Then I doubled it as she'd instructed my student to do --- leftrightleftright -- it was ridiculous!

That wasn't a march, it was running on the spot!!

Well, she said patronizingly, this is a 16th Century March. They did everything MUCH differently in that day and age. Oh, really, I said? That's news to me! What, people marched THAT quickly in the 16th century? In those 2-ton suits of armour, no less?

What were they, human being or ants, pray tell?!?

ANd besides, if the kids are to play it at 240 not 120, why isn't it MARKED as 240 on the score? Am I supposed to teach my students to follow the score, or not?

Well, she said, shifting uncomfortably and patting at her hair, I KNOW Mr. So-and-so and Ms So-and-so, the editors of this piece. They are my personal friends -- I work with them at the Glenn Gould Professional School at the Royal Conservatory. They are my colleagues.

Well, at that point my blood was boiling. But instead of yelling "IS THAT SUPPOSED TO IMPRESS ME? WELL, IT DOESN'T!!!" at her, I just turned around and walked out. The adjudicator's decisions and marks are final anyway; there was no point in arguing with her and obviously no room for discussion. And I didn't want to risk her penalizing the rest of my students for the duration of the festival, just because I dared to take her to task on her so-called 'educated' (but musically ridiculous imo!) tastes and opinions.

Which happened anyway.

Oh well, I warned them all the best I could    :-(

I understood her attitude better when I cooled down enough to ponder where she was coming from -- the Glenn Gould Professional School, no less. Glenn Gould is one of Canada's most famous and most eccentric pianists. He is best known for his unique interpretations of J.S. Bach's work -- for instance, he recorded every one of Bach's 2 and 3-part Inventions at least twice as fast as anyone had ever heard them before.

I remember listening to his recordings as a kid learning Bach Inventions, and I didn't like it at all. I still don't. He plays so incredibly fast you can't even hear the different parts, the imitation, and how they weave together -- it's just one big
blur. As far as I;m concerned, at that tempo the awesome complexity and beauty of Bach's work is lost -- the piece is over before the listener can even begin to appreciate it. For that reason, I've never used him as a 'role model' for my students and I probably never will.

But to each their own. Thanks for listening ...

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 09:42 AM

In 2004 Sheffield City Morris went to the World Folkloriade in Hungary. Some member's daughters were Irish dancers and needed a fiddle player. One of our members wives is a classical fiddle player and played for them but it took her ages to learn a tune by memory - and she was doing other things she never normally did. She played stood up, by herself and in the open air. She found all this very difficult.

And she was good enough for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra!!

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: *daylia*
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 09:34 AM

K, I'll give this another go! As a piano teacher, here's how I approach ear training with absolute beginners, be they 6 or 66. Hope a piano-centered approach is useful here.

HINT: at first you'll need a musical buddy with a reliably trained ear - and plenty of patience - to help with these exercises at first. And please remember that my students are also learning how to play the instrument (ie technique, scales, pieces) AND the basics of music theory at the same time, at their first lessons. All this works together for a complete musical education. You can't understand the ear training exercises without a workable knowledge of the music theory behind them!

First, I see if the student can differentiate between musical pitches - the very first step in playing by ear! I have them look away from the piano, tell them to listen VERY carefully, play two notes and ask if they sounded the same or different. If they ace this (and most do), great! We go on to the next step. If not, I work on tone matching till they can hear the differences themselves.

For tone matching, I play a key that's comfortably within their voice range and ask them to sing it back to me. If they're in tune, wonderful!   If not, I play the key again while singing the correct pitch and indicating whether they need to sing "higher" or "lower"; they adjust their voice till they get the unison. Unisons have a most satisfying, deep resonance – it usually doesn't take long before they can recognize this and match tones without assistance.

And we work on recognizing "higher" and "lower": I have them turn around, play two keys and ask which sounded higher. If they get it right, great! If not, I practice with them till they can. I start very simply, using two notes an octave apart. Most people can hear this! Then I narrow it down very gradually, using smaller and smaller intervals, until they can answer accurately even when the two notes are only a semitone apart. And I have them sing the notes too, so they can feel the physical differences in producing the higher or lower tones they are hearing.

Once they have "higher" and "lower" down, we start working on scales and intervals – the basic building blocks of all Western music. I teach them to play the easiest scales on the piano, having them sing them as they play (using doh-re-mi). Then we work with just the first three notes of the scale (doh-re-mi) – I have them turn around, tell them what key I'm in, and play a very simple 4-note melody for them twice, using just those 3 keys. I tell them I can start on any of the three, so they must listen VERY carefully to whether the notes move higher or lower. If they hum the little melody the second time I play it, they can hear/feel those differences more readily.

Once they can echo back a three-note tune accurately, I extend it to the first five notes of the scale, then the first five plus the upper octave, and on and on. And eventually, with time and practice, they're accurately playing back complicated melodies using the whole scale and beyond.
:-).

To play back a melody accurately, one must be able to recognize intervals too – so we start with the simplest. I show them how chords are formed by playing the first, third, and fifth notes of the scale at the same time. We find, play and sing those intervals using the different scales they've learned ie doh-me (major third) and doh-soh (perfect fifth).   I have them practice "finding" the intervals with their own voice ie I give them the doh and ask them to sing up the scale (without using the piano as a guide) to mi. They hold the "mi", I play it on the piano. If it matches, great!   If not, we practice till it does.

Once they can do this, they are WELL on their way to developing accurate 'relative pitch' – even the ones who insisted they were tone deaf!   :-)

Then we do the same thing with "soh", till they can sing a perfect fifth accurately from a given 'doh'.   We practice differientating between the 3rd and the 5th, till they can identify them accurately by ear when I play them on the piano (without looking, of course). The upper octave is next; and eventually all the other degrees of the scale are added.   And I have students practice the scale exercises, on their own at home (ie give themselves the doh, sing up or down to the desired interval, check it with the piano).

Singing the scale and/or using bits of familiar songs for reference is very helpful in recognizing/singing intervals by ear ie

a minor 2nd (semitone) is the theme from Jaws
a major 2nd is Happy Birthday
a minor 3rd is O Canada
a major 3rd is Doh a Deer (a female deer)
a perfect 4th is Here Comes the Bride
a p5 is Twinkle Twinkle
a +6 is My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean
a p8 is Over the Rainbow   

etc etc.

Sometimes I have to twist arms to get students to sing at their piano lessons, and some people just refuse to sing at all. :-(    This is more common with those over the age of 8 or so - another incentive to starting music lessons as early as possible!    For students who won't sing, ear training is more challenging (for the teacher, anyway!), takes longer and the results are usually more limited – but progress can still be made using just the piano (or other instrument as the case may be).

There's MUCH more to ear training – students move on from intervals to identifying chord qualities (majors, minors, 7ths, inversions etc), cadences and other chord progressions by ear. And this is only about developing an accurate sense of pitch – I haven't even touched on the other fundamental element of music here yet, which is TIMING.

There's a whole different set of graded exercises for rhythm which I present alongside the pitch exercises. But I think this is more than enough for now. So thanks to all for asking, and for your supportive comments! I enjoy reading about your personal musical history and experiences and I want to respond to some of your great stories above but I'm out of time again. I'll be back so please keep 'em comin! And thanks for the thread, Jerry.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 08:06 AM

So I can now play in G,D,A,C majors and A,B and E minor (seven keys so far) but then the guitarist reaches for his capo and goes into C sharp or B flat -NOT very friendly keys for a B/C button accordion! I do have all the notes there, but it's just learning all the other keys!
I once met a brilliant whistle player who just carried the one whistle in his inside jacket pocket, unlike those who carry a large package of whistles in different keys. He said, "I can play in any key, I know all my sharps and flats" so there's a challenge for me on my accordion.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 11:01 PM

To be an accomplished ear musician - learn to play in at least five different keys and always be ready to follow the lead vocalist or the brass. Training Suggestions have been posted in previous threads.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

You are truly taxing upon other musicians....when you expect them to play in "your key." The only ones offered this liberty are vocalists.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 10:54 PM

Kaleea, I think what your prof told you about playing by ear being considered "uncouth" and all that was indeed true, but it had to have been limited to a coterie of the more ignorant and hard-nosed music "educators" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, perhaps more in American than in Europe. But hardly to composers and musicians themselves. Lots of private teachers, particularly of piano, seem to feel (or, at least, used to feel) that way.

During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, it was common for people of the middle and upper classes to get together for a musical evening and, basically, jam. The host would bring forth a "case of viols," someone else would tune up a lute, and one of the guests would bring a box of recorders. They would sit around a table with copies of the music, usually just the melody line. Someone would play, or perhaps sing, the melody, while the person with the viola da gamba filled in a bass line, someone with a sopranino recorder would do a high obbligato, and those with the other viols, recorders, and a lute or two would fill in the middle parts. What they were playing would probably—could probably—never be played the same way twice.

This sort of playing was where modern "Early Music" groups such as the New York Pro Musica and the Baltimore Consort draw their inspiration. Later, composers took these small instrumental ensembles, wrote parts that had previously had been improvised, and what we now call "chamber music" got its start. During most of the history of music, improvisation has been an important—in some cases, essential—part of a musician's tool-kit, including amateur musicians.

They tell the story of how Beethoven was invited to some nobleman's home to play for his guests, and when he arrived, he discovered that another composer, whom he, with apparently good reason, regarded as an unimaginative, sycophantic little twit, had also been invited to perform. Beethoven was steamed! The twit had written a string quartet, and the quartet was played first. When Beethoven's turn came, he made a great show of flopping the manuscript for the piano sonata he had planned to play on the floor beside the piano, then reached over and took the part the twit had written for the second violin off the second violinist's music stand, and proceeded to improvise a "theme and variations" from in for half an hour—brilliantly!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Alba
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 10:02 PM

" There is no reason for ear methodologists or paper methodologists to think one method better than the other. There is every reason to respect those who have the knowledge of either & or both.
After all this brouhaha, our audiences are listening to our Music."

Bravo Kaleea:)
Best Wishes to You as always
Jude

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Kaleea
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 09:42 PM

jeepers, creepers! I, also, hit "submit message" a couple of days ago, but it didn't get posted either. OK, I'll try to reremember what I remembered.

I'm a "Classicly" trained educator (Popeye would say "edjooma-cator) who grew up playing & singing-reading Music at school & church & by ear the rest of the time at home & wherever. I have played with many fine Musicians over the years, some who play with & some who play without using Music.
I spoke to one of my professors in college about this very subject. She told me that a few decades ago, it was the train of thought that playing "by ear" was considered uncouth & certainly not encouraged. Improvising was really naughty-it led to such evils as--Jazz!! This ridiculous notion came about over time mainly because the rich & royals & sometimes The Church, wanted to separate themselves from the lower classes by hiring composers & Musicians to write & play high falutin' Music.   Nevermind that the great composers often used folk tunes for their works. Somehow this notion crept into the late 18th & 20th century working classes who had pianos at home. More separation so that some could feel superior to others.
Then, in more recent times, the Music educators have realized the value of ear training, & it is encouraged by most of us-but evidently not by all. My Mus Theory prof was quite thorough & ear training was as important as the dots on the pages. AFter all, we had to hear the intervals & chords & all the other Musical concepts to be able to understand them well enough to write them down.
Any great concert Musician must be able to play dozens of pages of those dots & all the other scratchings without the printed Music before an audience. Without a good (well-trained) "ear" this would not be possible. Music can only be experienced by the audience by hearing it. It is an aural experience.
In earlier eras, persons who were blinded when young were often sent to study Music so as to be able to make what living they could. The modern schools for blind persons have the benefit of Braile. Did you ever wonder how & what exactly those ancient blind ones studied? They studied all of those complicated Music theory concepts & the difficult instrumental technique, but did it without paper. Turlough O'Carolan comes to mind. Fortunately, for those of us who could never hear him play his harp way back then, his son notated much of his work.
Notation is one tool which helps us be able to share this aural experience we call Music with others.
There is no reason for ear methodologists or paper methodologists to think one method better than the other. There is every reason to respect those who have the knowledge of either & or both.
AFter all this brouhaha, our audiences are listening to our Music.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 08:45 PM

I learned to read music, along with playing the piano, from the age of 6, so having music in front of me and reading it comes as second nature to me. I did memorise some pieces for school concerts, etc, but otherwise usually had the music in front of me. As I have become more involved in folk music and especially in circles where learning by ear is encouraged, I do this double translation in my mind's eye - hear sound/visualise dots on page/play.
It used to be that if I heard a CD track that I liked, I would sit down with the pause button at the ready and transcribe what I heard to paper, then learn it from the dots. I've just realised that the last tune I heard that I wanted to learn I HAVE NOT written down, and I'm out there playing it: am I winning at last?
I still believe that being able to read music is a positive advantage: you can open a tune book and try out all the tunes rather than wait around for someone to come and play you something over and over till you get it. Or if you see a song with interesting words that you don't know, you can read the melody if it is written down.
As far as harmony singing goes I sing alto, so am used to NOT singing the main melody, and I agree with other posters that this gives you a sense of what fits with the main tune, and harmonising comes fairly easily to me (without paper music)

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 03:31 PM

I have to agree with GUEST,Rev, that a lot of "paper trained" musicians are afraid to try to play without music. Frankly, I think this is the fault of their teachers, insisting that they play the notes—as written, all the notes, and nothing but the notes. I think memorization is absolutely essential for a concert soloist, and memorization, improvisation, and a certain measure of just "piddling around" should be a standard part of any musician's musical education. Otherwise, they're limited in their musical skills.

I've had a lot of guitar students with prior formal musical training. Some of them have no problem playing without written music and pick up improvising and song accompaniment with no problem. But others, when I try to get them to just goof around with a simple picking pattern while changing chords (no sheet music), act as if they're creeping along a six inch ledge a thousand feet from the canyon floor. Afraid of making a mistake. I have to try to convince them that in this context, it's impossible to make a mistake, and even if it were, it would not mean the end of the world. Within my experience, this kind of fear seems to be an individual thing.

I currently have a guitar student who had lots of piano lessons when she was younger, and she plays the piano quite well. She wants to use the guitar for song accompaniment, but she wanted to learn some classic guitar as well. We've just about completed Aaron Shearer's Classic Guitar Technique, Vol. I, and she can play the exercises and the easy Sor, Carulli, and Aguado studies pretty well—from the music in Shearer's manual. But I'm going to start her memorizing something fairly easy, and pry her loose from the written music. In fact, we're not going to use written music at all. The piece "Romance de Amor" by anonymous (just about every classic guitarist plays it, and a lot of folkies have even taken a shot at it) falls into the easy to easy-intermediate category and I think she's at a point where technically she can handle it. I'm going to show it to her, a measure at a time, and have her learn it that way, without notes to go by. Have her think of it as a sequence of finger positions and movements. If she can manage that, then it shouldn't be too hard to get her improvising chord changes and right-hand patterns. At least that's the plan.

With classically trained singers, I can't see what the problem would be for a classically trained singer to sing folk songs. I've had a fair amount of classical training and folk songs are about all I sing. More often than not, it's the song that has a problem with the singer. I once heard a well-known operatic tenor doing "Lord Randal," giving it the full Italian opera treatment like Edgardo in the final act of Lucia di Lammermoor, singing his last aria with the dagger in his chest. Great in Lucia. A gawdawful way to do "Lord Randal! But I've also heard opera singers do folk songs very well. Their renditions wouldn't make an ethnic purist happy, but they were very tasty nonetheless. It, too, seems to be an individual thing.

As to the relative longevity of careers, I'm not sure I agree that folk singers necessarily have longer careers than classical singers. On the one hand, classically trained singers, particularly opera singers, work pretty hard, often having to sing, without amplification, over a full symphony orchestra going full blast. That's a heck of a lot harder than singing over a single guitar or banjo, so there would be good reason for an opera singer's voice to poop out fairly early. They're kind of like athletes in a way. But on the other hand, you have singers like the Russian basso Mark Reisen. I've seen a film clip of him on the Classic Arts Showcase channel singing the role of Prince Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the age of 90. He was so feeble he could hardly walk around the stage without holding onto someone's arm, but his voice was as rich and full as it ever was. Amazing! Pete Seeger is 87, and his voice started to go at least a decade ago. Although he handled his voice fairly well, he did tend to sing "tight," and that can do it.

When soprano Beverly Sills retired, she still sounded darn good. Someone asked her why she was retiring when she sounded like she was still at the top of her game. She responded that she could notice that singing wasn't quite as easy as it once was and she wanted to retire before the audiences started noticing it too. She went on to say, "I'd rather have people ask, 'Why did she retire?' rather than have them ask, 'Why doesn't she retire?'" Smart lady!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,maryrrf
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 01:35 PM

I would guess that there would be a fair number of classically trained musicians who've just been programmed by their instructors to not play anything that isn't written down. I think the best case scenario is being able to read music and play by the notes but also to play by ear, and there are quite a number of folks who can do that. Wish I had learned to read music when I was younger and I suppose I could still do it, but the truth is I just don't feel like putting forth the effort at this point. I can work out guitar arrangements by ear but my son, who reads music and has taken numerous music theory classes, can work out in a few minutes what it might take me days to figure out.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 12:58 PM

Musically I guess I was sort of a late bloomer. I didn't have any kind of music lessons when I was a kid. But with various kinds of music on the radio, both my sisters and I picked up popular songs and various other kinds of music. Then there were the campfire sings at Scout camp, that sort of thing. Nothing out of the ordinary. But I think I just got used to picking stuff up by ear.

My more-or-less formal musical education began when I was about eighteen. A friend of mine liked opera, and he was a great admirer of the Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli (JEE-lee). Someplace along the line he learned that he was a tenor. He went berzerk and started taking voice lessons from a retired Metropolitan Opera soprano who was living and teaching in Seattle. Just for the hell of it, I decided to take some lessons from her too. I turned out that I'm a bass or bass-baritone (e.g., Ezio Pinza, Gordon Bok). Mrs. Bianchi had me singing a few easy songs (early opera, Monteverdi and such), but for the most part, I went around blatting tenor arias—several keys down.

I learned the tunes to arias just by listening to records, but I started trying to read music. I had a friend, Jon Berg, a couple of years older than me, who was majoring in music at the University of Washington. Cello. He sat me down at a piano one day and said, "If you're going to do music, you'd better learn something about it. Let's start with the rule for major scales," which he then explained, "Half-steps between three and four and seven and eight; all the rest are whole steps," and demonstrated on the piano. He had me repeat the rule for major scales ("half-steps between three and four and seven and eight; all the rest are whole steps.") until he was pretty sure I had it. Various times over the next several days the phone would ring. "Firth? Berg here. What is the rule for major scales?" To which I would respond, "half-steps between three and four and seven and eight; all the rest are whole steps." He would then say, "Very good! Carry on." and hang up. Then he started on the various permutations of the minor scales (natural, harmonic, and melodic).

In the meantime, my reading improved and I could sit down at the piano (which I couldn't play) and pick out the melody lines with one finger to songs that I wanted to learn but hadn't heard. Once I had the tune in my ear, I didn't really need the sheet music any more.

Then, when I was twenty-one, I fell in with questionable companions (Claire Hess, Walt Robertson, Sandy Paton, Dick Landberg, etc.) and got very interested in folk music. First Claire and then Walt started me off on the guitar, and I started learning songs right, left, and center. I preferred to hear other people sing them first or pick them up off recordings, but by then I could read sufficiently well (but not very well) to be able to pick out tunes on the piano—or on the guitar (I figured it would be a smart idea to learn where the notes are on the fingerboard, at least in the first position).

A couple of years later I got really serious, deciding that I wanted to do concerts and such. I took more voice lessons from Mrs. Bianchi and then from a couple of other teachers, and started taking classic guitar lessons. Finally, I went back the university and changed my major to music (from English Lit.). It was at the U. of W. School of Music that I started learning music theory—chord structure, harmony, the usual musician's tool-kit.

I'm still a lousy reader, but I'm better than I used to be. I can look at a song that I've never heard and pretty much figure out what it sounds like without having to pick it out on an instrument, but I can't just pick something up and sing it off at sight. And with the guitar, I can read a easy pieces of classical music off fairly well, until it starts going way up the fingerboard. But then, ever real sharp classic guitarists usually have to work things out ahead of time, since a lot of the notes occur several places on the fingerboard, and where you would want to play a particular note depends on what leads up to it and what follows.

When learning songs, it's easier for me to pick it up off a record than it is to learn it from sheet music or a song book, but I can do it. Reading is very handy to be able to do.

My wife, Barbara, had years of piano lessons when she was a kid and she plays very well. But her teacher never had her memorize anything, and she's stuck without the music. But she sings well, and has no trouble picking up songs by ear.

I think it's foolish for a person who wants to do music to refuse to learn to read music or to learn a bit of music theory for fear of sullying their aura of folk purity. But it's just as foolish for a classically trained musician not to try to get away from the written music and learn to improvise and just mess around. Without being a little adventurous, neither musician knows what's really possible for them.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Alba
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 12:50 PM

These days I play by Ear.
Don't sight read very much anymore unless I am involved in someone else's project and they give me Manuscript that I have to learn before recording.

I did, for a while, join a really great choir. The project required strict sight reading.
Trouble was I couldn't attend the weekly rehearsals due to my own Music commitments so I decided it was unfair to "pop in" when I had time when the other Members where working so hard at the rehearsals every week. (The Conductor felt that way too:)
It was a pretty complicated piece they were working on by Zoltan Kodály and to be honest I was so out of touch with sight reading I knew I wouldn't be up to scratch and have it in my head by the performance deadline.
[Sight reading for such a performance, to me, is kind of like learning a Script for a Play, you work at getting it off by heart till you can put the Script down. It seems like you will never be able to get those words in your head, words that are so vital to the other cast members as cues and for timing but the more you all rehearse, the more the words stick, until finally...Viola. No Script!:)]
Back to the choir.....
I attended their Concert, full choir and symphony Orchestra and it was simply was wonderful and I felt a pang of regret that I wasn't part of it.(and maybe a tad put out by the fact that I was most definitely not indispensable...heehee)
Maybe when I have time to commit I will try for a place in the choir again. Maybe...* smile *
I find that Sight Readers at sessions tend to be less inclined to improvise. A few years back I had the pleasure of going to dinner at a friend's house in Denmark. Her partner is a classical violinist. Myself and a few other Trad musicians, that were there slso, got out our instruments and struck up a few tunes later in the evening. Peter, the violinist, sat listening closely but even though we asked him to play with us, he said he couldn't join in as he knew none of the tunes we were playing and he said he was amazed that we could all play together by ear even though some of us had never played together before. He couldn't "get" the Session concept at all.
However after a while Peter produced his Violin and proceeded to play for Mozart for us. It was, in a word, sublime. That's when none of us could join in with him and where left to sit and listen in awe at this wonderful Musician's beautiful playing...**smile**
So to me, I guess whatever path you use to find your way into the Joy of Music....it's a case of...
Either way, as long as you play:)
Have a good one Folks.
Jude

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: wysiwyg
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 10:29 AM

That's a VERY cool site, daylia!

~S~

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: *daylia*
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 10:24 AM

Oh ARRRRRGGHHHHH I just spent a couple hours on a post re basic ear training exercises, previewed it, went to submit it -- and it didn't take. Hit submit again, and I lost the whole !@#$#*$! thing!   

AAARRRGGGGHHHH   that's what I get for not saving it on wordperfect first!

Anyways, so sorry I haven't time to re-do it all again right now. I'll be back later, but in the meantime if you're interested, check out this excellent ear-training and music theory site I found yesterday:

Click on "Trainers" -- the ear exercises are at the bottom. They offer everything from basic tone-identification to recognizing complicated jazz chords by ear. WOw -- I LOVE a challenge!! ANd the site can play an ear-training "teacher" or "helper" role for absolute beginners, at least to some extent.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 07:31 AM

Back to the organisation of the brain.

It is well known that we have several different kinds of memory. For myself, I find it easy to play by ear a tune I have learned by ear (Aural memory), but if I learn something from the dots (visual memory), I find it difficult to play without them.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 06:02 AM

Great posts:

Just a couple of comments. Yes, I took lessons from Dave Van Ronk.I was 29 years old at the time. I took lessons for about 3 months. Before that, I took lessons for 3 or 4 weeks back when I was about 15. That was it for lessons. Everything else, I figured out by myself. In high school I was playing fairly sophisticated chord progressions (clumsily) doing my attempt at playing jazz, not having any idea what the chords were. My approach was very simple. I could hear the music in my head. It was only a matter of figuring out how to put my fingers in the right place so that it came out of the guitar. Before the guitar, I bought a mandolin at a pawn shop and figured out a few tunes on that without a book or lessons. Years later, when I was in my mid twenties, I bought a violin and learned to play fiddle tunes well enough to perform with a friend of mine who played hammered dulcimer. It helped a lot that he played real loud, I must admit. I took two lessons on banjo. In all of those years, I never tried to reproduce music from recordings. I always heard the music in my head and wanted to play what I already heard.

Again, I don't recommend this approach to learning. And I don't say this with pride. We all have different gifts. Some people can do things with ease that are very daunting to me. Hopefully they realize that they are "gifted." Funny, the phrase "a gifted musician" doesn't always translate into realizing that the ability is a gift. It's up to the individual to be grateful for the gift and use it wisely. I'm sure everyone in here has known people who were gifted, and wasted the gift. Meanwhile, others struggle for years to learn what someone else could learn in minutes. I have the greatest respect for Rowan for persisting for so many years to break down the learning code on instruments. That had to be done out of love for the music. Only love could keep someone going that long with so many disappointments.

Many years ago, I met someone at a conference who was familiar with some articles I'd written. We hit it off immediately. Early in the conversation when he was telling me that he had kept all the articles, I thanked him and immediately downplayed them. I told him that I figure that if I can do something, it's no big deal. He l;aughed, because he felt the same way. He had a great visual gift for creating innovative, interactive exhibits. I've always felt that way, and on the plus side, it's a hedge against getting puffed up about something you're doing that others appreciate. It never seems like a big deal to me. On the minus side, it can make you insensitive to how difficult something can be for someone else. Nothing is more down-putting than being told by someone who can do something with ease that "It's easy, what's wrong with you?"

"Easy for you, deeficult for me." (remember who used to say that?)

If something comes easily, it's nothing to take pride in. It should just make you grateful. Then, it's up to you to honor and nurture the gift and use it well.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,Rowan
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 03:57 AM

Great discussion. Utmost admiration for the eloquence and abilities!
Dahlia's posting of the bits of the brain activated by particular musical activities reminded me of a televised discussion, between (I seem to recall) Andre Previn and Peter Cook, broadcast (in Australia) some years ago. Both were describing their methods of acquiring 'performance fluency' of relatively demanding piano pieces.

Andre played a particular piece (the name of which I couldn't begin to remember) that he'd described as having presented him with a serious learning task when he first attempted it; he described many of the processes Dahlia listed. He then went on to say that he'd been playing it for so long that the level of concentration required had diminshed to the extent that he could play it while having a couple of conversations at the same time. He demonstrated this and commented that the processes had probably been so automated that a series of short-cuts had been hard-wired and that he expected that very few (by comparison) parts of the brain were actually involved during his currrent playing of it.

Peter Cook then suggested that all the hard wiring would count for nought if he were now required to play the piece in a quite different key that he'd never associated with the piece. And then suggested Andre play it in such a key.

It was quite obvious that all the brain areas that had been short circuited before were now being brought into play again (sorry!!!) as he went through this new learning process. I might add there was no sheet music involved.

It was a demonstration of an idea that got me interested in exploring a few things about music. When I was 6 I'd been sent off by my parents (both dancers but unable to play the piano we had; my mother could sing G&S by memory though) to a piano teacher who was a real tartar. By the time I was 8 I was getting very short-sighted and my parents, thing that reading sheet music was the cause, ended my piano-learning torture. It wasn't but, even if I'd been able to enlighten them I'd have kept my mouth firmly shut.

As I grew up I was a bit envious of friends who could play instruments. One mate was learning flute but I couldn't get a single note out of it. Later on guitars became 'the go' but I could never even tune one properly let alone play a recognisable tune. But I had great fun singing around campfires and singing around the piano when a very accomplished neighbour visited. Lots of 1890s to 1950s stuff and even some "trad."

Riding to uni on my pushbike I found a mouthorgan (a decent Hohner) which I cleaned up but I coudn't figure it out. I went to Mawson for a year ("everybody learns to play an instrument there" we were told) but the recorder my sister gave me was unfathomable, as was the Hohner C melodeon. But I could lead any singing quite happily. When I got back to Melbourne I got right into singing "unaccompanied harmonies" (these days more fashionably called a cappella) and had a great time. Most people learned parts by standing beind (or next to, if you could) someone who was singing the part you wanted to learn.

A few English concertinas appeared, usually used to accompany singing, and I thought I'd like to learn such a compact accompanying instrument. I mentioned this to a friend and he gave me a lovely Hohner C melodeon with the comment "I don't want any money, Just play me a couple of tunes as payment." What a millstone! All the tunes I had in my head (there was always at least one!) were dance tunes, full of notes and impossible. It sat on my bookshelf accusingly.

We got invaded by Adelaide tin whistlers at one stage so I thought I'd try one. Well, 10 minutes for a verse of Amazing Grace was very off-putting. Being a bit of a dancer I used to go the the Yarralumla Woolshed dances (in Canberra; for you northern hemisphere people Canberra is about 8 hours' drive north of Melbourne) and was asked to join a very accomplished a cappella group. I'm sure some of the group could read music but I never saw any sheets of dots, although the comprehension of theory was formidable. The best songs were for singing without instruments although a couple of the group played mouthorgan and accordion. They kept such playing for tune sessions and dances. By this time I'd cracked the lagerphone, which was handy for the latter but verboten for the former. But I did an enormous amount of intent listening to a very wide range of folk music, as it was the only way I could learn either tunes or songs.

The mouthorgan player started teaching himself accordion and found a white laminex Anglo 20 button concer. On one of my monthly visits I started exploring it and got keen.   "Take it for the month" he said. What a godsend! The tune I learned (to a song still only in the oral tradition for the next ten years, I'm told) got me so excited that I rang him on the STD and played it to him. "Ah," he replied, "The reason I was able to get into it and the accordion so easily is because I already played the mouthorgan. They all use the same system." So I pulled out the mouthorgan and melodeon and applied a bit of logic and ended up by playing all three, although I tend to learn on the concer.

We ultimately performed as a rather popular bush-dance band and, as a dancer & teacher I became the caller & MC. The mouthorgan player ultimately acquired competence on a wide variety of instruments, which enabled me to 'have a go' on things as different as lap dulcimer, bowed psaltery and what the Irish call 'concert flute' and classical musicians call 'simple system flute. I found I could get a tune out of each of these in about ten minutes, which started me thinking about how people learn to play music. It seemed to me that, once I'd hard wired many of the learning circuits involved with the concer, transfer to mouthorgan or melodeon ought to be relatively straightforward, as the mechanics are similar. To transfer to things as different from the concertina and each other as flute, psaltery and dulcimer seemed to suggest that there was more fundamental wiring being connected.

When that group went its separate ways another in Melbourne took over its mantle and was sought after by dancers for the next ten years. During breaks, I lost count of the number of times I was asked 'how long I'd been playing' and 'how I'd learned' usually followed by a tale of how 'they'd tried to learn an instrument' (usually a guitar) but the exercise had defeated them. They regarded the fact that I hadn't started playing a concertina until I was 32 as testament to talent that I'm sure I don't possess.

I suspect that what had defeated almost all of them was that there are at least three things being learned at the same time when one starts to learn an instrument. I suspect the first is 'how tunes actually work, their structure and what makes them tick'. Some of us take it for granted but it has to be learned. Then they have to learn the mechanics and ergonomics of the particular instrument. On top of that they also have to learn to read dots. Any one of these by itself can be daunting but they try all three at once.

On top of that, most people seem to have a history of being put down when learning, which makes the task even more difficult. Even with encouragement, Dahlia and many of the posters above have indicated the monumental nature tasks involved so it's no wonder so many give up with a sense of defeat.

I tried to encourage them with the notion that you didn't have to read music to be able to play it, that they should try an instrument that suited them rather than conform to popular notions, that they should find a place with no critical audience, to listen intently to lots of music of the type they wanted to play and just have a go; forget about sheet music until they'd become confident with some tunes.

"But I don't know any tunes!"
"You know 'Happy Birthday' don't you?"
"Yes"
"Well, try that, then a few hymns you learned at Sunday School, anything that strikes your fancy. When you find that you need to read music to learn a tune, then you can teach yourself how to read it."

This may seem to be a bit different to the main part of the thread but many of us were not as fortunate as some of you who've learned at the feet of the great masters. As another put it, I'm not recommending my path over others as 'the best approach' but describing it as one that worked for me and may work well for some. My daughters are learning formally (and doing well at Eisteddfods) but I make sure they get exposed to everything the National and Nariel can offer them. That way they'll be far better than I ever will.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jul 06 - 10:21 PM

Isn't that the truth, Ron.

I asked my brother, the classical composer and pianist (he was offered a world-renowned career op. in his teens), about this. He is quite a bit older than me and was much more serious at it. Went on to get a masters in theory composition. Anyway, he said they had it *pounded* into their heads they had to use the music and, then, of course (I DO remember this bit from my orchestra days! Hated it!) they had to memorise it in order to play for competitions, solo performances, etc. He had no problem playing his own music without any dots, but they didn't allow that, at the time.

He thinks it may not be as rigid now, but doesn't really know.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Jul 06 - 10:15 PM

It's true, Kat--it sure is easy to take things for granted, and not realize how lucky we are to have been given musical gifts--through no merit of our own.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jul 06 - 06:43 PM

I wasn't ever told I would be terrible if I didn't use the notes, BUT one has to have a good ear in order to play the violin or any stringed instrument for that matter. What I don't understand is someone with that good of an ear NOT being able to play by ear. I don't remember it being any kind of problem in the school orchestras I played in from 2nd grade on through high school. Makes me more and more convinced I have a lot to be thankfull for.

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: GUEST,Rev
Date: 18 Jul 06 - 05:15 PM

A theme that keeps recurring in these posts is that the so-called "paper trained" musicians are "afraid" or "scared" to try playing without music. Maybe that's the crux of the problem. At some point in their training they were made to believe that they would sound bad or foolish if they went off the paper, and so they became unwilling to take the risk of playing "without a net." I dated a woman for a while who was a classically trained violinist, and loved Old Time. We played in a band and he insisted that she wanted to try to learn everything by ear. Once she learned the tune she played beautifully, but the learning process, even for the simplest fiddle tunes, was agonizing and frustrating. I can imagine why people who are well-trained musicians would balk at putting themselves through such a humbling experience.

Maybe this would be a good topic for another thread, but it's reminiscent of the typical statement one often hears from classically-trained singers, that they're reluctant to sing in a folk style because they're afraid that they will hurt their voice. As far as I know folk singers tend to have much longer careers than classical singers and have far fewer vocal problems. It seems that maybe fear of folk music is instilled in some classical players!

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: Little Robyn
Date: 18 Jul 06 - 03:46 PM

Daylia, that's brilliant! Thank you.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Music By Ear
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 Jul 06 - 12:44 PM

Daylia: I think if you converted quotes to plain text in a text editor they would paste without the weird symbols.

Yes, I echo Pete's request for an effective approach to developing how to learn by ear. It's not as though, as I said earlier, I can't do it with the voice. Brain to larynx works (though reluctantly). Brain to fingers doesn't. I'm too scared not to write it down first.