tbanjo: Playing By Ear

Showing posts with label Playing By Ear. Show all posts

Thursday, October 29, 2015

A Little Tune Inspired by Is There Anybody Here That Love My Jesus by Medeski, Martin and Wood

I've been listening to some live 1995-1996 Medeski, Martin and Wood recently. The It's A Jungle In Here > Friday Afternoon in the Universe > Shack-man era. This is my favorite period of MMW music. Particularly the tune Is There Anybody Here That Love My Jesus has been floating around in my head all week.

As an amateur hobbyist musician one great thing about reaching the point where trying to figure out something by ear is no longer an incredibly frustrating ordeal but rather a quite pleasant exercise, is that a door opens toward the possibility of personally interpreting the music by some of your favorite artists. Even creating something of your own based on this music. If you are in need of more tunes to learn you can just turn to existing recordings for ideas.

In light of yesterday's announcement that the Secret Keeper (Mary Halvorson and Stephan Crump) "house" concert would now be taking place in a church, I decided that now was as good a time as ever to see what listening to Is There Anybody Here That Love My Jesus could spawn. Here's what came out of my banjo with me playing it.

I obviously wasn't trying to exactly duplicate this piece. For one thing, I don't have the ability. Secondly, I was hearing something a little different with maybe a few more measures or something repeated that doesn't happen in the original composition. This is how it sounded about an hour ago when I recorded it. This is like a first draft. Things could definitely change as time goes on.

I don't know how to play piano properly, but I have an electric keyboard that I use to help me discern certain notes because it has more clarity than my banjo does sometimes. I kind of view the piano as a marimba with my fingers being the mallets. Anyway, it's not heard on this recording thankfully but I used the piano before recording to help with deciding on some of these notes. At other times I just did what I thought I wanted to hear.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Irish Trad - Does It Help To Read Music?

Have you ever seen the lyrics to a favorite song and realized that you were mishearing some of the words? Did you benefit from learning what the correct lyrics were? One example that comes to mind is the Grateful Dead song Franklin’s Tower. I used to think that the words “If you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind” were “If you play nice you’re gonna always win”. What I heard in my head was inferior to the actual poetic lyrics penned by Robert Hunter. Finding this out didn’t in any way take away from my enjoyment of this song that I already loved. It enriched it!

I think the same can be done with caution with Irish tunes. When people say that Irish traditional music is an aural tradition and you should learn by ear and not by notation that is true. You should strive to train your ear to learn this music via osmosis and resist the urge to “cheat” and look at the music too early in the process of learning an individual tune. However, glancing at transcriptions of the music can help clarify some muddy areas and help you grasp and remember the tune better, much in the same way that seeing the lyrics to Franklin’s Tower helped correct the faulty words that my mind’s ear was hearing.

I am trying to learn basic tourist French right now prior to a trip to Quebec this summer. I have some audio instruction “tapes” that I got from the library. Since I am a visual learner (and a fairly good speller) it really helps me comprehend the language better if I can pair the audio with the written. So for me, pairing a written phrasebook with the audio helps give me a more complete picture of the expression. The same holds for music: audio + notation vs. audio only.

Jerry Garcia said, “With records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. Nobody has to fool around with musty old scores, weird notation and scholarship bullshit. You can just go into a record store and pick a century, pick a country, pick anything, and dig it, make it a part of you, add it to the stuff you carry around and see that it’s all music.”

This is definitely the approach I want to take as I continue to learn Irish music and tunes. By listening to the likes of Angelina Carberry, John Carty, Kevin Griffin, Daithi Kearney and Mick O’Connor (slowed down and pitch-corrected as needed) I hope to intuitively get the feel of this music as played on tenor banjo. Ideally, in my case, the years of listening to Jerry Garcia prior to ever playing an instrument can also come through the background of my unconscious when I am attempting to interpret tunes. No harm in that!

Jerry Garica also said “If you’re wondering why in an old-timey band you can’t understand the words very well, it’s because we don’t know them, and we can’t figure them out off the records, so we make up our own as we go along.”

When you can’t understand the exact words you replace them with words of your own choosing based on what fits or what you think it might be. The same is done as a player with your choice of musical notes. You may not like what you see when an Irish tune is written out and may prefer your own way of hearing it. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as your aural version is driven by purity of intent and not held back by your ignorance or skill limitations. You get to choose how “enlightening” you find someone else’s idea of what the notation should be. Use it as an aid, not as a crux.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

The "Blue" and "Orange" Irish Session Tune Books/CDs

I have plenty of other tune-learning play-along books and CDs, so I can't believe I waited this long to get the Blue and Orange Irish Session Tunes books by Sheila Garry and Brid Cranitch. I wish I had gotten these a long time ago because they are among the best compilations I have found designed for the purposes of learning Irish traditional music.

Between the two books there are over 180 tunes: primarily reels and jigs, but a few slides and polkas and one set of hornpipes are included. Make sure you get the CD editions of the books (or just order the CDs and not the books) because the whole point is to listen to the tunes to get the feel of them. The music is done by Sheila Garry who plays fiddle in the Clare style; subtly backed by Brid Cranitch on piano. Sheet music is included in the books but no chords. A listing of the chords being chosen by Brid on piano would have been a nice addition.

The tunes are only played once through, which is a minor nuisance that allows them to fit more on a "CD" (these were recorded in 2003). This also means that as you listen to it a lot more tunes will fill your ears than if they were played multiple times through! Another upside is the tunes are always put together as sets of two or three that flow together with no interruption, so you get an idea of how to smoothly transition from one tune to the next. (This is a feature often ignored by other collections). Just because they put certain tunes together as sets doesn't mean you have to keep them together. Once you have enough of these tunes under your belt you can make up your own sets on the fly!

Be wary of the titles of some of the tunes, or at least don't get too hung up on them. On the Blue CD I noticed that "Dark Girl In Blue" was what we call "Denis Murphy's Slide", and "Kaiser's" was "Going to the Well for Water", and "Clare Jig" was "Mug of Brown Ale" and "Humours of Ballinafad" was "Geese in the Bog". This is actually kind of cool because it teaches you that it's more about the tunes than the tune titles. I suggest listening to tunes with unfamiliar titles to see if you recognize the melodies. This is great ear training. Sometimes a new tune is only a mild variation of a tune you already know.

Unlike other play-alongs you'll actually want to listen to these recordings over and over. Sure, it's still scaled back a bit, but it doesn't feel stilted at all. It feels like real music. Sheila's fiddling is endearing and Brid's piano accompaniment is quite lovely in its minimalism. You could randomly pick tunes to learn from these two books and the odds are pretty good that some folks at the session you are going to would be able to play them with you.

Note: The "Red" and "Green" books in this series do not feature Sheila and Brid and are therefore not as good in my opinion. In the Red book the fiddle is played too fast and in a less pleasant, more flashy, manner. In the Green book the tunes are played on tin whistle, which may or may not be a good source instrument for learning tunes if you are a strings player. Start with the Blue and Orange books, and if you need more check out the Red and Green ones.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Sound Advice from Clyde Curley, Co-Author of the Portland Collection Books

When I first got an instrument and discovered fiddle tunes, I felt like I needed some kind of written music - tab or notation - in order to play these melodies. Even though I had no prior music experience, I remember somehow being able to understand and read mandolin tab from, literally, day one, but it's taken me years to come around to trying to play anything by ear.

One of my primary sources for written music is/was The Portland Collection tunebooks, volumes 1 and 2, by Susan Songer and Clyde Curley. I preferred these books over, say the ubiquitous Fiddler's Fakebook, because of Susan and Clyde's clean arrangements and excellent variety of tunes. Thankfully, I would always listen to various different recordings to get the feel of whatever tune I was learning from those books, but the written page was primarily where I got the notes themselves.

In hindsight, I wish that I had focused more on aural skills early on rather than just rely on tab reading because I feel like I would be a lot farther along now if I had persevered through those initial stages of frustration. I always avoided deciphering by ear because A) it seemed impossible, and B) you could instantly start to play a tune by reading the tab, and eventually memorize the notes through repetition.

Due to a sprinkle of ear training and a major paradigm shift, I'm now trying to learn some tunes completely by ear without ever looking at the music, if I can help it. So, it's a little ironic that I turned to some comments that Clyde Curley had written in the introduction to The Portland Collection Volume 2, and in the liner notes of the A Portland Play Along Selection CDs, for inspiration.

If you want to feel the living pulse of traditional music, you need to learn to play these tunes out of your memory as the first priority. This allows you to interact directly with the other musicians in the session or at the party. It helps you pay more attention to the technical challenges of playing your instrument. Essentially, learning the music removes what I believe is an artificial wall between you and what's going on around you and within you. The roots of folk music are in the aural domain, person to person. These roots must be honored and strengthened, I believe, if the spirit of folk music is to survive. The music in this book comes from the people who passed it directly to us, not from other books. It was selected largely because of the pleasure it gives in the playing. I urge you to pass it on by scraping it out on your fiddle or squeezing it through your bellows. Make some noise! This tune book will have served its best purposes if it encourages you to embark on wider, more personal searches that will result in connecting with the vibrating heart of the real thing. (Clyde Curley, from "About this Music" in the Introduction to The Portland Collection Volume 2).

Our goal here is to encourage learning this music by ear. Learning from a printed page may seem quick and easy, but it's not necessarily a fast track to mastering a tune. It may provide instant gratification, but less long-term satisfaction. That comes from storing these beguiling, pleasing arrangements of sounds in your memory banks via the appropriate avenue for sound, namely, the ear. This involves an investment of time and effort, but the rewards will be deep and enduring. (Clyde Curley, from the liner notes to A Portland Play Along Selection).

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

An Excerpt from Matt Glaser's Ear Training for Instrumentalists

This week I've been listening to Matt Glaser's Ear Training for Instrumentalists in the car while driving. Disc Three of this 6-CD Homespun Tapes "audiobook" is where it really gets interesting. Glaser starts that disc by taking a short phrase and playing it in all twelve keys, while traveling in 4ths, pausing between each key so that you can play it back with him. First he plays the phrase in C, then F, then Bb, then Eb, then G#, then C#, then F#, then B, then E, then A, then D, then G. Very cool.

When I got home last night I gave this a shot on mandolin and it sure is an ear and finger buster! I had to use some extra brain power to get through it, although some of it came surprisingly easy. The phrase is do - la - sol, la - sol - mi, sol - mi - re, do. Numerically, this is 1 - 6 - 5, 6 - 5 - 3, 5 - 3 - 2, 8. Listen to the audio sample below and then try this out for yourself!

Matt Glaser

Matt Glaser is the Artistic Director of the American Roots Program at Berklee College of Music, so yeah he knows his stuff and this is a really well thought out teaching of Ear Training. It is a few years old (published in 1999?), but the information it contains is of course timeless. As you might expect, the ear training study overlaps with theory and improvisation. Since it's mostly audio, with only a few printed pages in the booklet, the six disc set is a nice mix of the intellectual and the intuitive.

There are many great tips along the way, including what Matt calls "internal hearing", and I haven't even gotten to the last two CDs yet. This is definitely one of the better music practice book/CD sets I've come across. What a novel concept - a music instruction book that is actually almost 100% audio!

At $60 suggested retail, it's a little expensive, but there are some used copies on Amazon for under $25. Well worth it, considering the content within is as valuable as several lessons with an instructor. You can also download the audio from Homespun Tapes.

Monday, August 4, 2014

The Importance of Ear Training in Learning Music

Painting by my Mom

I've been playing stringed instruments for about 8 years now, off and on. Since I didn't have any prior music experience when I started - no singing in a choir or piano lessons as a kid - I didn't really know how to go about learning it. I've tried private in-person lessons, Skype lessons, workshops, a music camp. I've looked at numerous instruction books, videos, blogs, and forums. I've memorized tunes and practiced scales and arpeggios, and I've regularly attended many oldtime jams and Irish sessions.

All of that helps, especially the one-on-one lessons, daily focused practice, and getting out to play with others. But over the last 3 weeks since I've been taking two free online music courses*, I feel like the advice I would now give to someone just learning to play music has changed. Now I would say that the single most important aspect to learning music is Ear Training.

*The two free online classes are "Fundamentals of Music Theory" by the University of Edinburgh Reid School of Music and "Developing Your Musicianship" by Berklee College of Music.

Ear Training is not the same as playing by ear. You sometimes hear people say stuff like I don't know anything about theory, I just play by ear. That's only one aspect of it. To me, a broad understanding of music theory also plays a big part in ear training. You should know what a minor 3rd interval is compared to a major 3rd.

You should know the names of all the intervals (all 12 within one octave). Not just the interval names but also the sound that goes with it. So if someone asked you to play a perfect 4th you could do it. And vice versa if someone played a perfect fourth on piano you should be able to recognize it. You should know that a perfect 4th is 5 semitones (or half-steps). For that matter, you should know what a semitone is! Developing a musical vocabulary (theory) allows you to define what it is you're hearing (ear training).

If I could have had the knowledge, patience and perseverance starting out to devote my first few years explicitly on ear training, then I feel like I'd be a lot more advanced than I am now. Here's a comment by a person named Chang that I saw on the I Was Doing All Right jazz Ear Training blog that helps illustrate this importance:

I think a good way to think of theory is like grammar. Grammar gives you a structure for understanding language-based communication.
How does a child learn a language? It is not by learning grammar!
A child learns by LISTENING carefully over and over to others who speak the language. Eventually the child learns to hear the words and each word begins to have a unique signature sound as well as a unique meaning. Then the child tries to mimic the words through his instrument (the vocal apparatus). It can take a while to get it right. (Ever hear a young child trying to say words with Rs?) Then the child learns to combine words in a way that more effectively allows him to communicate what he needs. (eg, "MY toy!")
All of this happens way before any grammar is learned!
If you think about it, if you imagine a CAT in your head and can't think of the word CAT, all the grammar in the world will not enable you to express the idea of a CAT! No knowledge of parts of speech, verb conjugations, or sentence construction will get you to the word CAT!
This is exactly the problem in musical education. The correct place to start is to hear lots and lots of INTERVALS and associate each one with a name. We must be able to tell each one of them apart because each one conveys a different musical idea. This is like learning elementary words like YES, NO, ME, DOG, HOUSE, MOMMY, FOOD, etc.
Then we must learn to hear the difference between unique interval combos (scales, licks, riffs, simple melodies, and simple harmonies). This is equivalent to learning idioms, phrases, and simple sentences (eg, "I AM HUNGRY!"). It is only at that point that theory becomes very useful in helping us arrange our musical 'vocabulary' in much the same way that grammar helps us organize the words we speak or write. If one doesn't have a basic vocabulary, then grammar is absolutely useless! Similarly if you can't hear the difference between the M6 and m7 intervals, or you can't pick out the notes which distinguish the minor from the major scale, then music theory will not be nearly as enriching as it could be.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Lilting Solfege adds "words" and meaning to instrumental tunes

Here’s a fun and helpful exercise that combines the concepts of Lilting and Solfege. It's basically a way of adding "words" to instrumental tunes, which can expose similarities and order across various modes and keys. All you need to do is determine a root or tonic note for a particular tune, then everything falls into place from there. I'm still in the process of developing this idea since I just happened upon it, but here's how I currently understand and explain it.

Lilting is basically Celtic mouth music, used to preserve a tune’s “diddly-dee” without the use of instruments. Experienced traditional musicians say that if you can lilt a tune then quite often you can also play it. To me, lilting just feels like nonsensical gibberish, but by applying Western Music’s Solfege syllables to this practice I can give it meaning and relevance.

In Western Music Theory, Solfege, as I choose to interpret it, is simply assigning a unique syllable to each of the 12 chromatic notes. The 12 syllables I use (in the order of 1 through 12) are: doh, dee, ray, ree, mee, fah, fee, soh, see, lah, lee, tee. From those 12 syllables, you can assign a phonetic sound to every note in a melody, once you determine what the tonic or “doh” is. (You may notice that the Sound of Music "doh-ray-mee-fah-soh-lah-tee-doh" major scale is contained within these 12 syllables. In fact, all scales can be extrapolated from these 12 notes).

Note: I use a non-conventional phonetic three-letter spelling for the Solfege syllables because it helps me to visualize them. I also assume that “doh” is always the tonic note no matter what key or scale we are using (this is called movable solfege). And, for the purposes of this exercise I use the same chromatic scale for both ascending and descending.

All you need to do to get started is determine what note is the tonic for a particular tune. For example, chances are that a tune that resolves to an A note over an Amajor or Aminor chord has “A” as its tonic. In that tune every A note = doh, A# = dee, B = ray, C = ree, C# = mee, D = fah, Eb = fee, E = soh, F= see, F# = lah, G = lee, and G# = tee. In another example, for a tune with a D note as the tonic, you would move the doh so that every D note = doh, Eb = dee, E = ray, and so on.

Example: Lilting Solfege for the tune Doon the Brae (in Am)

For this exercise, it helps to use a sheet music tunebook such as The Portland Collection Volume I or II. Once you figure out what a tune’s tonic is (typically the note that the melody resolves to), make that note the “doh” and then from there you can pencil in a solfege syllable to every single note in the melody. You don’t have to worry about “accidentals” because since you have a syllable for every single one of the 12 possible chromatic notes, you automatically have a solfege syllable for every note that could be in the tune.

Tip: don’t get hung up on key signature. A tune in D-mixolydian can look like it has a G key signature due to the one sharp in the treble clef, while still resolving to a D note in the melody. In this case D would be your tonic “doh” and you don’t even need to worry about what key or mode the tune is in. If a tune with D as the tonic happened to have a C-natural note in it, then the solfege name for that note would be “lee” (indicating a flattened 7^th note in the scale).

Once you have a Solfege syllable penciled in for every note in the melody, try singing those Solfege notes in the proper pitch, in time with the tune’s rhythm. Also try singing this while playing the tune on your instrument. With enough practice, soon you’ll be able to easily lilt the Solfege melody for any tune that you know all the notes for.

One of the many benefits of doing this exercise is you’ll start to notice commonalities and patterns in ways that had never been synchronized before. For instance, make note of the Solfege notes that occur at chord changes to see if any rules of thumb come together. In the above picture for Doon the Brae, note how it changes to the ii chord (G) on the "fah" note, the V chord (Em) on the "ray" note, and the I chord (Am) on either the "doh", "ree" or "soh" notes.

This exercise will also help you to hear intervals, and it has a way of providing "words" for instrumental tunes which will allow you to apply the same structure to all tunes regardless of key, which will help bring them together.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Grateful Dead, Phish and Medeski, Martin and Wood Repertoire Tape

In his book Primacy of the Ear, Ran Blake recommends the creation of a personal listening recording that exemplifies your musical direction and illuminates areas in which you especially need work. Blake says that each selection should be short - one or two minutes at the longest. These are not just melodies to memorize; it's your own personalized soundscape.

Inspired by this concept, I created a playlist consisting of snippets of Grateful Dead, Phish and Medeski, Martin and Wood songs. I've uploaded the audio as one long track. I've also posted the snippets to YouTube as two different "videos". Read on for the song list sequence.

Grateful Dead
Uncle John's Band intro - Dozin' at the Knick
Uncle John's Band jam one - Dozin' at the Knick
Uncle John's Band jam two - Dozin' at the Knick
Fire on the Mountain intro - Crimson, White and Indigo
Althea outro - Without A Net
Bird Song - Reckoning

Phish
Bathtub Gin melody after "we love to take a bath" - Hampton Comes Alive
Lizards solo - New Year's Eve 12/31/95
Divided Sky "section after silent segment" - Hampton Comes Alive
Theme from the Bottom intro - Billy Breathes
Weigh intro - Rift

Medeski, Martin and Wood
Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down "head" - Radiolarians III
Where's Sly? "head" - It's A Jungle In Here
Is There Anybody Here That Loves My Jesus intro - Shackman

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Musical Goal for 2014: Make My Influences My Influences

My musical goal for 2014 is to put in the work necessary so that my influences can become my influences. What this really means is to focus on becoming an ear player so that things I hear my favorite musicians doing can be replicated and absorbed.

The traditional tunes I've been playing are not really an influence because I didn't listen to that kind of music before playing it, I just kinda started into it because the tunes were readily available in mandolin tab and fiddler's fake books, they fit well under the (GDAE tuned tenor banjo) fingers, and at the beginning didn't require anything more than a straight run through the melody at the proper rhythm.

No real analysis, sense of harmony or special arrangements were required to read the notation and bring these tunes "to life". The benefit of playing all these tunes is that my fingers have gotten used to making the movements, but I haven't made the connection between finger placements and the sound that results.

Jerry Garcia

The music I listened to prior to getting a tenor banjo hasn't really found a way to merge with the way I've been learning music. I'd like to change that. The two bands I've listened to the most in my life are Phish and The Grateful Dead. I feel like if I develop the ability where I can analyze the music these groups have made, especially the the theory of their melodic improvisations, then I'll be able to apply that in lots of areas. In Phish it's more of a group effort with special attention paid to guitarist Trey Anastasio, but with The Grateful Dead it's Jerry Garcia's guitar leads that are of primary concern.

Trey Anastasio

I'm drawn to melodies which is part of the reason I'm playing tenor banjo, I think. Another musician whose playing I would like to find a way to make into an influence is jazz guitarist Grant Green. I'm not really a fan of jazz in the classic sense, but I've always been fond of Grant Green, who plays very clean melodic lines. It's funny that a lot of these guys are guitar players but I don't play guitar. I think they could just as easily be horn players, if I had been exposed to that music or if it were more prevalent.

Grant Green

Tortoise and Medeski Martin and Wood are two other groups from whom I'd like to extract some musical knowledge. But it could be something as simple as transcribing little bits from, say a Culture reggae song or a pop song by Arcade Fire or MGMT. I'd like to get to the point where I can hear a chunk of melody and then instantly play it on my tenor banjo or ukulele while understanding the nature of the notes in terms of music theory.

Medeski, Martin and Wood

I don't believe in the phrases "I'm tone deaf" or "I can't play by ear". Music is a skill which can be learned and constantly improved upon. I'm also going to be taking lessons throughout 2014 (and beyond?), letting the instructors teach me what they think is best, understanding my musical goals, and diligently following the advice and teachings.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Using Common Songs to Hear Intervals

There's a lot of information online regarding the use of song associations for interval training. So, I set out to find ascending and descending examples for all the intervals from a minor 2nd through an octave. Here's what I came up with:

Minor 2nd (one half step)
Ascending: Jaws Theme
Descending: Joy to the World

Major 2nd (2 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: Happy Birthday or Frere Jacques/Fray Felipe
Descending: Mary Had a Little Lamb

Minor 3rd (3 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: So Long, Farewell (Sound of Music)
Descending: Frosty the Snowman

Major 3rd (4 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Descending: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Perfect 4th (5 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: Here Comes the Bride or Oh Christmas Tree
Descending: Old MacDonald Had a Farm

Augmented 4th/Tritone (6 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: The Simpsons theme
Descending: Black Sabbath Black Sabbath

Perfect 5th (7 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Descending: Flintstones

Minor 6th (8 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: The Entertainer (3rd and 4th notes)
Descending: no example found ("doh-mee" descending solfege)

Major 6th (9 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: old NBC theme or Hush Little Baby
Descending: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Minor 7th (10 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: Star Trek theme
Descending: no example found - please help

Major 7th (11 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: Take On Me
Descending: no example found - please help

Octave/Perfect 8th (12 half steps or semitones)
Ascending: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Descending: There's No Business Like Show Business (2nd and 3rd notes)

Some of these song associations are so ingrained that they are super easy to hear. In other cases I struggled to find familiar examples; as in I can't really imagine the Star Trek theme for an ascending minor 7th. Some of the wider descending intervals must not be very common at all, because I found no usable examples for a descending minor 6th, descending minor 7th or descending major 7th.

If you know of other intervals examples, especially any that might be found in Grateful Dead or Phish songs, please share them.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Christmas Songs Are Great for Developing Your Ear

The ear training study continues. I've only been at it a few days, but I'm already seeing results. Last night before going to bed I decided I would try to pluck out Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas on tenor banjo. It actually came to me quite easily and I went to sleep feeling like I had it under the fingers.

This morning when I woke up I got out my recently strung up baritone ukulele, which I don't yet know how to play and which is tuned differently than the tenor banjo, and worked on picking the same melody in the same key (A) on the baritone uke. As I was figuring it out on my lefty baritone uke, Laura got out her baritone uke and started to add chords behind the melody I was playing. Just as we were starting to get it (or maybe a tad bit before) I clicked Record on an iPad app to capture it while it was still fresh. Below is the recording.

As soon as I get done typing this I'm going to practice singing the solfege syllables along with the melody as I play it. I started with the note "A" when playing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas on tenor banjo, so I continued with playing it in A when switching to baritone uke. Here are those solfege syllables as I hear them:

Have (doh) your (mee) self (soh) a (doh)
Mer (soh) ry (fah) lit (mee) tle (ray) Christ (doh) mas (ray)
Let (doh) your (mee) heart (soh) be (doh) gay (soh)
From (doh) now (mee) on (soh) our (doh)
Troub (mee) les (ray) will (doh) be (tee)
Miles (lah) a (tee) way (doh).

I could have that wrong since I played it by ear and haven't looked up the notation. In case you're wondering, the "doh-ray-mee-fah-soh-lah-tee-doh" for the key of A-major is A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A. Singing these syllables as you're playing the melody is great practice. You can do it with any melody you hear or play.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Ready For More Music Lessons

I'm ready to resume private music lessons with a new teacher or teacher(s) to address some critical weaknesses in my playing. My first lesson is tonight and I have another one scheduled with a different instructor next week!

The area most in need of work (in my perception) is ear training. For example, I struggle with hearing the chord changes in a simple fiddle tune like Soldier's Joy (it's complete guesswork), and playing a common melody such as For He's A Jolly Good Fellow by ear is a challenge. I flounder all over the place not knowing if I've found the right notes or not.

Technique I'm already fairly decent at because I have memorized basic versions of over 100 tunes that I got from tune books and other written sources. Theory is also something I'm relatively comfortable with and fascinated by. For someone who primarily plays traditional music - historically passed down by untrained musicians - the words "dorian" and "mixolydian" don't give me brain freeze. But, trying to pick out Happy Birthday or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by ear can cause me immense frustration.

Music Teacher Jan DeWeese

Back in March when I took a couple one-on-one lessons at an Irish music workshop, the instructor was under the impression that he was providing instruction on "Irish tenor banjo". That was, I suppose, correct, but what I'm really trying gain in any situation like that is musicianship skills that will apply across the board. Even though I mostly play Irish and Appalachian tunes on tenor banjo, the musicians who really inspire me are guys like Jerry Garcia, Trey Anastasio, Bela Fleck, John Medeski and Bill Frisell -- artists who transcend genres and have an open-minded and original outlook toward music and complete command of their chosen instruments.

There’s a music teacher in Portland, OR named Jan DeWeese who places music theory at the center of his teaching method, emphasizing the cultural roots of the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic elements of music. DeWeese states that “European traditions leading to classical music gave us our chordal foundations, Irish tunes delivered the melodic invention of bluegrass, and through the Malian blues and the African diasporas in Cuba and Haiti came the polyrhythmics of ragtime and New Orleans jazz. It's here that much of my music theory teaching now focuses.”

Through learning by ear, DeWeese helps his students break free from rote dependence on notated collections. He emphasizes that understanding the harmonic (European), melodic (Celtic), and rhythmic (African) features of each is central to this learning process. Jan DeWeese isn’t local to me, so he’s not the instructor that I’ll be using, but I’m hoping that the teachers I work have a similar approach!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

The Fiddlin’ Banjo Billy Mathews and Paddy O’Brien Tune Collections

I wanted to quickly point out two audio tune collections worth looking into – one by a fiddler/banjo player from the Ozarks (Fiddlin’ Banjo Billy Mathews’ 500 Fiddle Tunes Project) and the other by an Irish accordion player from County Offaly (The Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection).

Fiddlin' Banjo Billy Mathews

500 Fiddle Tunes Project

Fiddlin’ Banjo Billy Mathews is an old-time musician from the Ozark Mountains. He has traveled extensively throughout the Midwest for over 40 years, picking up tunes along the way. Billy has recently finished recording a collection of his favorite 500 fiddle tunes, with the goal of doing another 500 soon. The idea is to present a reasonable rendition of the tune - not too fast, pretty much straight up with very little ornamentation - to provide a resource for learning these tunes by ear.

For the entire Banjo Billy tune list click HERE.

Click HERE to order the 500 Fiddle Tunes Project.

County Offaly Paddy O'Brien

Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection

The Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection is a compilation of 1,000 Irish tunes from the repertoire of Paddy O’Brien of County Offaly, an All-Ireland accordion champion. In more than five decades as a musician, Paddy has gained a reputation as a walking encyclopedia of Irish music. It’s estimated that he carries in his head the melodies of more than 3,000 Irish tunes. Created especially for serious students of Irish music, this unique collection can help today’s players learn Irish music the way it was traditionally handed down - by ear.

For the entire Paddy O’Brien tune list click HERE.

Click HERE to order the Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

A Transcription Project

I would say that my play-by-ear abilities are about a 2 or 3 out of 10. Pretty dismal for someone learning play traditional music. So, earlier this evening I put together a playlist of tunes that would be good to learn, but are ones that I have not yet looked at the sheet music for. My typical way of learning a tune is to listen to the recording paired with the sheet music, and then figure it out that way. Although I find looking at the sheet music helpful, it makes a visual, not aural, connection in the brain that I can't shake.

For this project I have specifically chosen recordings for which I have the matching sheet music, but am resisting the temptation to glance at the dots. I've selected some chestnuts that have been on my "to learn" list, with the goal of listening to them in the car, on the stereo at home, and on the iPad, until the melodies become very familiar.

I'll play along with the tracks from this playlist, eventually attempting to transcribe the tunes by writing out the notes I'm playing. Once I have my transcription where I want it, I'll compare it to the actual sheet music to see how far off I was. I'm hoping this proves to be a good practice method. I can definitely move my fingers along with a fast recording, but making the notes I am playing match the music is another story.

Some of the tunes on my list include Campbell's Farewell to Redgap, Hollow Poplar, and Green Castle Hornpipe from The Mandolin of Norman Blake DVD. For lack of a better idea, I pointed the digital recorder at the speakers and made MP3 recordings of these tracks straight from the DVD. This turned out well, and now I have the audio on CD and on my iPad.

Another oldtime tune I'll be working on is Shady Grove from Alan Jabbour's A Henry Reed Reunion album. It's not the same as the bluegrass Shady Grove, but almost every single time this tune has come on when I've been listening to this CD, I've had to check and see what the title was because I liked it so much. Each time it was Henry Reed's Shady Grove, so that made the list. I have the book of Alan Jabbour's transcriptions for when I'm ready to compare my attempt at an interpretation to his.

I also included Stay All Night, which is similar to Waterbound, and Lost Everything, a fiddle tune written by James Leva. These come from the Portland Play Along Selection...not my favorite source for tunes but these particular recordings are OK to work with and the notes are in the Portland Collection books. That covers the oldtime tunes.

For Irish jigs, I first selected the medley of Farwell to Gurteen/John Joe Gardiner's off of Angelina Carberry's An Traiisiun Beo CD simply because I happen to have a photocopy of her personal transcription of these tunes. Angelina is my favorite Irish tenor banjo player, and if this experiment proves to be fruitful, I'd like to figure out additional tunes from this album, sans the sheet music.

I have a nice recording of Leitrim Fancy that I converted to MP3 from YouTube. I figure this tune is universal enough that this version would generally match any notation I have for it. The other jig I included was The Rambling Pitchfork, from the Dusty Banjos Live at the Crane CD. There's an excellent tunebook called "10 Years of Tunes" that goes along with the Dusty Banjos CD, so I've got the notes to Rambling Pitchfork when I need it.

For Irish reels, I'll start with The Green Mountain. Again, this tune is ubiquitous enough that almost any version would work assuming it's in the right key. I went with the one off the Mick O'Connor and Tony Mac Gabhann CD Doorways and Windowsills. This tune has been calling out to me so now is my chance to work on it.

Additional Irish reels include Rolling in the Ryegrass (Dusty Banjos' Live at the Crane), The Concertina Reel (Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann), and Golden Keyboard (PJ Berthoud's Irish Mandolin Playing guide). Finally, in the miscellaneous category, I have Stack of Barley from Joe Carr's School of Mandolin - Irish Mandolin, Top of the Maol, as played by Dan Neely on his Mighty Augusta Ceili Band repertory page, as well as Maggie in the Wood and Ballydesmond Polka No. 2 from Brian Connolly's Play Tunes on the Irish Tenor Banjo.

I don't always know beforehand what key these tunes are in, so that in and of itself is a challenge to begin with. Identifying the tonal center, then getting the general shape of the tune, figuring out certain progressions or patterns, and taking it from there. I'll be curious to see how close my transcriptions come to the actual notes being played!

Down the road there are two tunes on the Norman and Nancy Blake/Boys of the Lough album Rising Fawn Gathering that I'd like to learn - Castleberry's March and Joe Bane's - but since there's no sheet music to refer to for these I'm going to put off attempting to learn them until I get a little bet better at replication. I'll start with ones that I have the notation to match the music, so that I can actually compare my transcription to the proper one.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Whew! Now, what to work on next?

It's been a busy last couple of days...playing in Petersburg on Friday evening, Ashland Saturday morning, and Midnight Brewery Saturday afternoon in a four hour session that was one of the best I've ever taken part in. I'm going to take today to rest and recuperate, and think of some things to work on next.

Petersburg performance, 6/14/13.
Me, Margaret, Kathy, Ken and Mark (L to R). Photo by Willie Graham.

For the last week or more I was pretty focused on better learning the tunes in the Petersburg set list. Still some work to do there, but it allowed me to get better acquainted with a dozen or so standard Irish tunes that I should have already known. Now that that's done, I can turn my attention to a few other things.

These of course include continuing to work on various trebles, triplets, hammer-ons, small chords/double stops and arpeggio variations, along with scale exercises. Enda Scahill covers this really well in his Irish Banjo Tutor and the concepts can be applied to all tunes once you grasp them. Another good exercise to transposing tunes to a lower or higher octave, and/or transposing certain phrases or tunes into other keys or modes.

Mighty Session at Midnight Brewery 6/15/13!
15 musicians and counting! Photo by Rick Sanderson.

I'd also like to direct my attention to improving my play-by-ear abilities. It could just be playing along to midi files of common melodies such as When the Saints Go Marching In, or I might just jump to playing along with actual recordings. For example, I just started listening to a great album by Norman and Nancy Blake with the Boys of the Lough called Rising Fawn Gathering. It's got some nice tunes on it that I haven't heard before. I don't even want to know the names of the tunes, what key they are in, or anything about them. I just want to listen and play along with a couple of them, trying to figure it out by ear.

I dig it when fiddlers get into Liz Carroll or accordion players get into Jacky Daly, for example, and then learn a lot of their tunes. I'm almost ready for an influence like that. Mine would be Angelina Carberry's An Traidisiun Beo CD. I'd like to eventually make it a ritual of trying to soak up the tunes on that album, in her style. For Oldtime, I could do the same type of thing with the Alan Jabbour and Ken Perlman album Southern Summits.

Now that I have a mandolin, it may be time to watch and learn from Norman Blake's oldtime mandolin DVD as well as Carl Jones' mandolin DVD, and Mike Seeger's CD/book on oldtime mandolin. Anything I get from these can be applied to tenor banjo, my main instrument. But it might be easier to initially learn on mandolin...the instrument the instructions are intended for.

Finally, or maybe at the top of my list, is learning the reel The Green Mountain. It keeps showing up on CDs I am listening to. I'm not sure if people locally play it, but I've got so many great versions of it collected - completely by random - that the tune must be calling out to me. Today however, I am just going to relax and watch the US Open golf tournament with my dad. I might play a little bit this evening to keep my fingers moving and continue my pledge to practice every day, but I will start fresh and focused tomorrow ready to apply some of the above mentioned tactics.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

We Are Going For A Walk Now: A Play-By-Ear Musical Analogy

Take the sentence "We are going for a walk now”. If someone said that to me I would have no problem understanding it. Now imagine "We are going for a walk now” as a musical phrase. My aural skills are much more rudimentary when it comes to music, so chances are that I wouldn’t have completely understood the meaning of that musical sentence and would struggle with playing a similar phrase that conveys the same meaning.

Even if I was able to figure out how to play something close to "We are going for a walk now”, I would not be able to control whether I played it with a Southern accent or an Irish accent, or no accent at all. I’m not even sure I’d even be able to tell if the person who said it to me was Irish or American. I also may not notice a change in emphasis like "We are going for a walk? Now???". And I definitely wouldn't be able to automatically add a variation like "You and I will be taking a stroll at this time".

But at least I'm starting to recognize that playing by ear is more than just regurgitating the sentence "We are going for a walk now", and more than even knowing the meaning of that sentence. It's also about guessing where a person might be from based on his accent, being able to tell whether he is happy or angry, and knowing whether he is asking a question or making a statement (and probably much more than that too). The same listening skills that allow me to pick up on all this when someone is speaking gives me hope that I can also apply them to music.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Practice and Lesson Tips from Fiddler Laurie Hart

Laurie Hart

The content of this post is courtesy of Laurie Hart, a fiddler in Ithaca, NY who specializes in the traditional dance music of Europe and North America. She was kind enough to let me share some of her lesson and practice tips here. Be sure to visit Laurie's site at lauriehartfiddle.com

The importance of review and listening in learning to play traditional music.
Systematic review and daily listening can improve your playing dramatically. Using a repertoire chart and recordings can speed up your learning and make lesson time more fun and efficient. Another benefit of review is that it gives you a satisfying way to warm up, and ensures that you are ready to play several tunes when any sort of opportunity arises, be it a jam session, a visit with relatives, a talent show or recital.

Laurie Hart says she developed these ideas while mulling over ways to help aspiring fiddlers play more skillfully and make faster progress, and while reading some of the Suzuki violin literature. (Suzuki is a very successful method for learning violin by ear.) Laurie is particularly inspired by a book called Teaching from the Balance Point by Edward Kreitman. She decided to write these ideas out for all of her students since they apply to people of all ages and at all skill levels. She use these methods herself for learning to play new instruments and to prepare for gigs on the fiddle.

How to use a repertoire chart
The chart is a way to keep track of what tunes you are working on and to make sure old tunes don't get neglected. After all, it is a lot of work to learn a tune; you might as well enjoy it once you know it! The chart also helps you to begin any tune easily and to communicate with other people (say at a session) about your repertoire.

Write down on scrap paper all the tunes you know (or sort of know). If you have a large repertoire, start with 5 to 20 of your best tunes or tunes you are particularly interested in. You may eventually keep separate lists for different instruments or different styles (old-time, Irish, etc.). By all means include the tunes you will be performing or jamming on in the foreseeable future. If you have a hard time remembering how the tunes start, listen to your recordings and jot down the first few notes of the tune, either in music notation on a bit of staff paper, or by using letter names or fingering numbers.

Play through the tunes and sort them to A and B lists. The A list is for tunes you can play through pretty well and steadily, even if slowly. Put tunes on the B list if you forget some of the notes, don't know the rhythm, or lack technique to play accurately.

Write down your A list tunes on a sheet of lined paper, including the starting notes if needed. Review all the A list tunes several times a week, daily if at all possible. Play each tune three times through. This doesn't take very long: one time through a typical tune takes only half a minute at speed. Always follow the tune's repeat structure. This ensures that you know the transitions between the parts and from the end to the beginning. Put a check mark next to the title each time you review a tune at home between lessons. Keep the list in your case so we can use it at each lesson.

Jot down your B list on the bottom or back of the chart. Pick just one tune from your B list, and work on it over several days (see practice tips below) until you can add it to the A list. Then start on a new B list tune. Recopy your list whenever it gets filled with checkmarks. By then you'll probably have new favorite tunes anyway.

Even though fiddle tunes sound great at any speed, if you intend to play with others or for dancing, you'll need to gradually increase the speed of the tunes on your A list until you reach target speed. Target speed for reels and jigs is 116-120 beats per minute for the half note. Note on your chart what speed is comfortable for you for each tune on your A list, using a metronome. Then move the metronome up a notch and see if you can hold the tune together. Use the practice tips in the sidebar to go over the rough spots until the whole tune can be played at the faster tempo.

How to make use of recordings
Spend time every day listening to great players and to the tunes you are working on so you get the form, style, tone, pitches and rhythms in your ear. With today's portable devices you should be able to listen in your car, while exercising, in different rooms of your house, at your computer and perhaps at work.

Use iTunes or Windows Media Player to organize your recordings into playlists which match your A and B lists. Use an iPod/mp3-player or make CDs of the resulting playlists so you can listen to them easily. Go ahead and mix in recordings of good players on any instrument, not just the one you are learning. For example, for learning Irish music it is helpful to listen to uillean pipers and flute-players, and for learning bluegrass, to listen to banjo and guitar breaks.

Passive listening: Listen in the car, while eating or doing chores or homework, before sleeping, at work and anytime. Also get out to concerts, dances, sessions, music camps and festivals as much as possible. This can be fun and inspirational! Listen to a couple hours a day of great players in the style you want to focus on: commercial recordings as well as your lesson tunes.

Active listening: This takes place with instrument in hand to help you work on the details of a tune, and also away from the instrument as you study your recordings and become an authority on the tunes you play and the tunes you plan to learn next. Listen to your tunes until you can sing, hum or whistle them accurately (shift octaves if it goes past your range). Even if singing is not your strong point, listen until you can show what direction the notes move with your hand, and until you can tap the rhythm of the notes. You should also be able to find the downbeats, distinguish whether a tune is in 3/4 or 4/4 time, tap your foot steadily while listening, count the beats and measures, and walk around the room to the beat.

Practice tips for most fun and best progress
--Slow down! Most people tend to practice tricky spots too fast. You must be able to play a passage slowly before you speed it up.
--Don't just practice UNTIL you get it right, and then move on to something else. Instead, practice WHEN you get it right. Repeat the passage ten times correctly to wipe out all the times you muffed it. Then hope you get it right tomorrow on the first try.
--Record yourself. Listen for what's good about your playing, and also listen for passages to improve (missed notes, tone, intonation, rhythm, etc.). Recording is a way to document and take pride in your progress and to get used to performing.
--Keep the practice of reviewing tunes rewarding and interesting by focussing on one aspect on each tune, or on a different aspect each time through the tune.

You might think about these aspects (but not all at once!)
--your posture and how you hold your instrument
--releasing tension in the hands or shoulders
--tapping your foot while you play
--making a beautiful tone
--keeping a steady rhythm
--rhythmic accents and lift
--crisp ornaments
--adding drones and double stops

Thanks again to Laurie for these tips! By the way, she has recorded some full-speed and slowed-down versions of tunes for learning by ear located here: lauriehartfiddle.com/blog.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Very Slow Sessions: Irish Music from France

In my never ending search for Irish session tunes on the web, I came across a French site called Very Slow Sessions Paris Musique Irelandaise. I don't read French, so I don't know what all the content is, but there are several tunes with notation and mp3 audio files on the site.

It might not be cool to get your blarney second hand from French sources, but it doesn't bother me. Check it out! Plus, if you understand French then there appears to be a lot of additional information that might be of interest.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Irish Session Tunes from the Foinn Seisiún Series

Foinn Seisiún is a series of music books and recordings produced by Comhaltas containing traditional Irish tunes arranged in sets. There are 4 volumes available now, and each volume contains the notation to more than 100 tunes. These tunes form the core repertoire for Irish sessions the world over. Comhaltas has made several recordings from Books 1, 2 and 3 available on their site for streaming and free download. I believe the recordings were made by the Kilfenora Ceili Band and the Tulla Ceili Band, so it doesn't get much more authentic than that! These are great for playing by ear or for pairing with other written sources. Enjoy!

BOOK 1 TUNE LIST

BOOK 2 TUNES

Book 3 selections (arranged in sets)

Pages