Organising tune learning

I want to find a better way to organise what tunes I already know, what tunes I'm learning, and what tunes I want to learn. I don't have any system at present other than pieces of paper in folders, cds and sound files and the occasional list. I also want to organise my tunes such that they are easy to put into sets and so then play out (great practise - perhaps the best practise).

My score is already split into country and then vague tune type - the Irish tunes most of all. That has: old harp tunes, dance tunes that I've been taught by harpers, airs, dance tunes in general, songs. I'm collecting more and more dance tunes so I think I need a new way to separate these out. The obvious thing to do is to split them into rhythms - jigs, reels, hornpipes, etc... That's certainly ok for archival purposes, but doesn't solve the ongoing tune management.

Mmm back to the drawing board... maybe a list stuck on the wall? Can you tell organisation isn't my strong point...!

Learning tunes by ear

I love playing within the aural tradition because after a while it becomes very easy to take on new music, new tunes. Once you've got an established technique, if you can hear a tune accurately, then you can reproduce it. That said you have to be able to retain and reimagine the tune to be able to play it - until you can play with it, it's not yet your music. The nicest bit is that you can just absorb tunes passively, have the music on in the background and gradually the tune just becomes a landscape you know intimately. Bizarrely this can be just as helpful in helping you to learn tunes as really focused attention, so right now I get to learn tunes and write... wooo!

I've been up to the Edinburgh harp festival a few times now and the tune teaching method for trad stuff is as follows...

• hear tune about 4 times through
• teacher plays first phrase a few times, you have a go getting it
• few minutes practice while teacher comes and checks everyone has it
• go through rest of phrases in the same way, often taught by hand shape and certainly broken down into small easy chunks
• all the time consolidate what you know, through group playing or listening to teacher play again
• once melody is stitched together, add bass hand

Throughout the learning process you hear a bit, try it, hear it again, refine it. The teacher may slow it down for you if you've not caught a bit, or show you a tiny fragment at a time.

I don't like learning tunes from dots anymore because the dots don't give me the groove. This is my tune learning method from a recording...

• get familiar with tune, hearing it lots in whatever setting
• use an audio program to work phrase by phrase, listening and trying and listening and refining and listening again
• possibly use audio programs to slow it to hear where the ornaments are / any really tricky bits
• possibly transcribe it - very useful for setting fingering (I often transcribe tunes I've been taught by ear for this reason)
  
• if I have slowed it down at any point, listen to track at full speed again and get the groove at that pace (rhythmic emphasis changes at different tempo)

They're pretty similar methods really, just with different sources. I always prefer learning from a real person because they will spot problems with your technique, you'll get a better sense of the style (all those tiny variations...) and they'll pick up anything that you've misinterpreted. It's just nicer too!

English vs Irish styles part 1

There's so much to think about for this... there will be differences at various layers of the music. I'm going to analyse what I hear and try to take it apart. I hope that through making conscious observations I can target my attention more closely on different features. At the same time I just have to listen and listen and listen again - I will not get an instinctive ability with the different through conscious listening. It is an unconscious skill I am building.

Things that I know are different between Irish & English:

• numbers of notes within a tune
  
• length of phrases
• phrases even or irregular?
• jerky or flowing
• common modes and chords used
• rhythmic patterns - more on this below
  
• ornamentation
• mood evoked or energy summoned up
  

Things that are different just within the rhythm aspect:

• speed
• different rhythmic patterns (best thought of grouped in dances)
• "swing"
• placement of emphasis within beat - to the back or the front?
• does the rhythm sit back or push forward?
• how a tune grooves

Even now I am sure that I will remember and summon up a particular set of rhythmic patterns most easily through recalling emotive ideas - that particular rhythmic pattern will evoke this emotional response best remembered via this image. Oh the complexity of finding language tags for memories that have no words...

Mixed traditions: different accents

As a singer and harper (associated repertoires: Irish, Scottish, Welsh) but one who is also English I find there are many musical directions I could take. For now, I'm going to listen to everything that comes my way, and mainly focus on English and Irish style. I can't see myself stopping playing either tradition and I want to do them both well.

I find I know how I want to arrange, I know what chords I'd like to use, I can explore that for myself. What I'm looking for are just the right phrasing shapes and rhythmic gestures that make each tradition dance and make each really distinctive. I've always responded to harmony first so I'm finding it quite strange to listen to music just for the phrasing. I really like rhythm though so I'm looking forward to a new challenge.

I aim to develop two different styles (one English, one Irish) and be able to switch between them at will. I'm comparing this to cultivating a foreign accent - you start by copying, maybe analyse or note certain features, then through layers of listening and feedback trying to get a sense of the shapes behind the language. Gradually the phrasing becomes familiar, accent becomes less foreign and your voice comes through again.

I feel like I have three accents - my natural accent that is just what comes out if I don't think about it (informed by classical training and my personal sense of drama and movement), the very beginnings of an Irish accent and the very beginnings of an English accent. I'm expecting I will get a little bit of phrasing "bleed" between my styles but hope over time that can either be eliminated or made to be somehow complimentary. I will always be an English harper playing Irish music and I think that can be a positive thing. I have always felt that different traditions summon up different "energies" - each take the music to a set of different places. Why would you not want a wider palette to choose from?

Operation recovery

Part of why I started this blog is to distract myself while I get well after a recent hand op. One of my finger joints had ceased up so the docs did what they could to release it and the rest is down to me.

Recovery goes:
wound heals (done)
start working passive movement
active movement
control
strength
passive movt - I can move the stump with my left hand
active movt - my right hand can pull the stump in
control - fine movt achieved
strength - weights, lifting, carrying at odd angles

All while being as relaxed and getting as much sensory feed back as poss

There's still a fair way to go,b ut it gets easier to live with at each stage. I can't say that overall it's less painful yet but the feeling is still changing and as long as it does that's ok.

While music is stopped via my hands it's coming out all the place elsewhere... like a river at a dam. It's fascinating.

A folk sound world

I love the mix of a folkie or trad sound world. It's like organic food - not as instant hit sweet as over-processed pop or as totally smooth as Classical; way more satisfying than both. Real instruments making real sounds.

There is a place for loads of timbre differences - roughness, raspy sounds, nasal, reedy. There's also a lot of sweetness, resonance, warmth.

I also like the feel you get from such personal interpretations of melodies, both the momentum of a good tune and the floating space, the touching gesture of a slow air. Yum yum.

Being a musician... with a deformed hand

I hadn't planned to mention this on my blog, but I realised that I couldn't write anymore without mentioning my hand.

I was born with a deformed right hand (giant middle finger and deformed ring finger) and have had several operations for corrective surgery. I rarely draw attention to it, certainly never when I'm performing. I want any audience to listen to me and judge me on how I play and sing, not what my hands are like.

In general I just get on with life and don't pay much attention to having different hands. In terms of musicianship I don't think it matters: I just have a different tool kit. As long as I can get what I want from that toolkit, then it's ok. Music is pretty forgiving of disability - it's all about what you can bring to the sound and what you do with what you've got.

I am more conscious of my hand more when I'm teaching because I am demonstrating. That said once I know a pupil it doesn't matter, we just get on with communicating. As I have one hand that functions normally that is my model for others. I've learnt to play twice, once RH melody, once LH melody (I play LH melody, in trad harp that has 60-80% of the work).

Sometimes doing a job which is so dependant on my (deformed) hands still strikes me low. I don't know any other disabled musicians personally, though they clearly exist. I feel it odd that my vocation is at such odds with my body but then I remember that there are also disabled athletes and dancers and I feel much better.

Future Link - musicians with disabilities
CandoCo Dance Company - is a contemporary dance company of disabled and non-disabled dancers.