That's about to change. I want to focus on just two or three tunes per week and study them phrase by phrase. I may use tab and notation as a shortcut, but by the end of the week I intend to be off the paper and have the tunes fully ingested, even if this requires rote memorization note by note.
When you cut out all the frills and fluff of someone else’s arrangement of a tune and you are left with the very heart of a tune - its melody. That is what you need to memorize to truly know a tune and create your own way of playing it.
Memory is flexible. It allows you to take new techniques and tricks you've learned and apply them to old tunes almost automatically, allowing your interpretations to grow and change.

Turn hard parts into an exercise and/or figure out a workaround or your own way of playing that section.
After you’ve memorized lots of tunes you'll find it easier pick up new ones since there are only so many forms and every tune is a combination of bits and pieces of other tunes. This makes it easier to internalize any new tune, since playing a new tune is just a matter of taking stuff you already know
and re-assembling it in a new way. Eventually when you hear certain tags, turnarounds or passages you will be able to associate the pattern of notes from having learned them in earlier phrases. In this way you begin to learn exponentially.
So, what two tunes to start with this week? I'll think I'll do Banish Misfortune and Old Mother Flanagan. Both of them get played locally and would be good ones to know. Banish Misfortune is a three-part Irish jig in D mixolydian. There's a pretty fast version of it on YouTube by fiddler Ian Walsh. I grabbed the audio and slowed it down using the Amazing Slow Downer. Old Mother Flanagan is usually a three part old-timey tune in the key of A, although the B and C parts are shorter in length than the A part. One source is the Fuzzy Mountain String Band version. I have two or three other practice versions as well. Sometimes the B and C parts of Old Mother Flanagan are combined.
So, what two tunes to start with this week? I'll think I'll do Banish Misfortune and Old Mother Flanagan. Both of them get played locally and would be good ones to know. Banish Misfortune is a three-part Irish jig in D mixolydian. There's a pretty fast version of it on YouTube by fiddler Ian Walsh. I grabbed the audio and slowed it down using the Amazing Slow Downer. Old Mother Flanagan is usually a three part old-timey tune in the key of A, although the B and C parts are shorter in length than the A part. One source is the Fuzzy Mountain String Band version. I have two or three other practice versions as well. Sometimes the B and C parts of Old Mother Flanagan are combined.
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