Being able to hum a tune is what I am taking for granted, so I forgot about that one. But that ability can be transferred into procedural memory as well (and will be recalled more reliably from there - did you ever find yourself humming some melody to yourself, subconsciously, while mowing the lawn, for instance?)
In other words: You don't know a tune, the tune knows you
Or, in other words yet: You don't know the tune, you are the tune (and do you know yourself?)
the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world
The whole point of developing the ear>hand connections is so you can play what you think, or remember, or are hearing at the moment (if it's an unfamiliar tune, or one that needs refreshing in your memory.)
This is not to say that if you are working up the tune as a performance piece, you won't be wise to take time to work up and practice a version(s) with all the phrasing/ornamentation/doublestop bells and whistles. But your "ear" will direct you to what sounds "right".
As for various patterns applied to etudes/tunes: this is simply the most efficient way to integrate the coordination of the hands with various bowing/slurring patterns (i.e. Down-hammer Down-Up; D-h D-h; DU D-h; D-U-h-u etc. etc.) It's also training your hands to follow the articulation/phrasing in your head/ear. Once you've gotten comfortable with playing various bowings, your ear will take over and start spontaneously mixing them up for the optimum flow for the tune.
There are hundreds or tunes that I know including the ones I've played for ages on mandos. I still "know" the tune even if I can't play it up to performance speed on concert flute without physically practicing it for the digital dexterity. It's just that the hands don't respond quickly enough to the ear/memory on a physically different instrument.
Last edited by mandocrucian; Dec-02-2016 at 9:26am.
Aha, the meta-level. I kind of can do that for doublestop accompaniment (and all chord accompanists in ITM sessions should be able to do something like that in order to not annoy the melody players). This is more generic than just knowing a tune, it's knowing the blueprint of the genre, so to speak.
the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world
I can play it outside my house without totally choking and bursting into tears.
Now that I think - don't quote me on the k Burke material I invoked above going on so much of varying regional styles etc - i dont remember .. probably not...but a superb tutorial for bow stroking : )
My musical goal is to be able to reproduce on the mandolin, anything that I can hear/imagine in my head.
So, I guess I figure I know a tune (fiddle or otherwise) when I can make a series of sounds emanate from the mandolin that do not differ from the (imaginary) sounds emanating from.... wherever they come from...in my head. So, I guess I am only interested in playing a song backwards if that happens to be what I "hear" in my head, and want to reproduce it.... hasn't happened yet. I HAVE played songs in alternative modes/scales at times, but not because I thought, "Hey, lets try this is Dorian..." but rather because I "heard" it differently, played it that way, and later found out that I had "heard" it in a different mode. That is, the understanding happened after the event. I like understanding music, but I like experiencing it and playing it better.
I hasten to say that I have not perfected this ability, by any means--- I am strictly a mediocre mandolinist--- but it is now what I spend my time practicing (often in the context of learning how to play specific songs the way I "hear" them.
If I hear a melody, an ear-worm type melody. By the time I get an instrument in my hands, chances are it will come out in D. Then after playing in D for however long. I'll find out the original version is in the key of X. So i'll move it over to the key of X. I didn't even know this was called transposing, for several years. Some people think it's difficult, I did it out of ignorance or necessity.
I have the problem of curiosity, with things like Music Theory. Sometimes I really have to shut all that off. Like watching a guitar players hands to learn a tune. It's better if I shut my eyes, or turn away. That way my ears will engage and override my eyes.
On the subject of transposing fiddle tunes to different keys - I know I risk angering some of my fellow bluegrassers here - but there are several cases of near identical tunes whose only difference is the key. At Tuesday's jam the fiddler calls "Sally Anne" in A, which is the exact same tune as "Sail Away Ladies" normally played in G. So when you move the intervals of a given fiddle tune to another key do you now "know that tune better" or have you just started to learn a new tune?
My side of the ridge Sally Ann and Sail Away Ladies are not the same tune, not exactly even the same chord progression.
Until you can remember the title and the melody at the same time....... R/
I love hanging out with mandolin nerds . . . . . Thanks peeps ...
I was messing around last night and "dang" they are pretty close. I never noticed that. I learned them separately, I decorate them separately with separate emphasis, and nobody has thought they heard one when I played the other, and yet when I put them next to each other, I can see how they are related.
It's my fault for not learning from the dots, but Sally Goodin, Katy Hill, and Jenny Lynn, and to some extent Sally Jonson. While yes, they are in different keys, I have to play them in their respective key to separate them melodically. I think Mr. Monroe commented, or rather did not comment upon such, at one time.
So you'll get no trouble from me Bart.
I thought Sally Johnson and Katy Hill were identical melodies and both in G, only the title differed east or west of the Mississippi River.
Lost Indian and Cherokee Shuffle (D and A) are essentially the same numbers, with slight emphasis diffs.
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Here is what Dawg has to say about these 2 tunes, from his cool little book 10 Tunes in 9 Keys....and it looks like an Em is in Sally Johnson
....you can play it on the fiddle??
Northfield Big Mon
Royce Burt Fiddle
Martin D-18
My story is similar to Foldedpath's and I agree with his statement about opportunity cost. I started out as a guitarist and have a decent facility with scales, harmonic structure, ability to play single lines and chords all over the neck, transpose, etc. In many ways I came to the mandolin to not do that, I wanted to play only what I wanted to play for the pleasure of playing it. When I decided to play Traditional Irish Music the mandolin, in which I had no previous interest,was a good choice as I had the technical facility of fretted strings but the tuning and fingering wouldn't allow me to just fall back on what I already knew. The mandolin, which I've come to love, was simply a tool...a means to a specific end.
I've had opportunities to play outside the idiom with some outstanding musicians and I take that very seriously and learn what I need to know as well as I can play it. But I can't for the life of me see what I would really gain sitting around playing The Green Fields of Rosbeigh in all 12 keys up and down the neck. I admire that some people can do that, but I really don't "care". I'd rather listen to 12 different versions of the tune played on various instruments and incorporate the variations, ornaments and phrasing while playing the tune in ways people are actually going to play it.
I'm on the wrong side of 60 too and I could learn a lot of tunes that have actual currency in my chosen idiom in the time it would take me to satisfy some grim,abstract construct of what constitutes "musicianship".
Steve
I've never really understood this emphasis on singing. If I can't sing a tune it's because of my lack of singing ability, I suppose - which is one reason I've concentrated on playing instrumental music on the guitar and mandolin.
Actually, what attracted me to fiddle tunes 50 years ago was the high degree of mobility that makes them all but impossible to sing, even when transposed to a lower octave. And my main motive for learning the mandolin, after about 10 years of guitar, was the advantage of tuning in fifths- on the guitar there were too many string crossings.
My main source was Howdy Forrester's album "Fancy Fiddlin' Country Style" and the first tunes I transposed were Brilliancy, with a total range of two octaves plus a fourth, and Rutland's Reel, which covers two octaves within the first four bars, and has a descending two-octave run over little more than one bar. Quite a challenge for even a well-trained singer and out of reach for me. Anyway, these tunes, with their combination of arpeggios and scale-wise movement helped me build a repertoire for soloing in an old-time and bluegrass context. Today I'm not that interested in that stuff anymore, I'm looking for a greater variety of note values, rest, and phrasing devices, and sometimes a more percussive approach to soloing
The idea is not so much about the aural product of singing - indeed, it could be hummed, grunted, or any sound one makes - but rather, that one conceptualizes (intervals, melodies, etc); typically, 'singing' is the most direct path for techne to express psyche. The same pedagogic emphasis - of singing - exists in jazz, for bassists and drummers, for example. So, it's not so much about your vocal technical chops as it is about cognition.
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