learning treble and bass tune technique

[Soulsaver]

I've not settled on a best method. I know if I do the right hand first & run that through a few times, I'm so frustrated with the poor initial result when I add in the LH that I feel that its probably feels better to do both together, very slowly. Which is the most efficient for me? Difficult to assess.

 

[george garside]

A very experienced flying instructor once said to me Dont you find visual memory really important when remembering frequencies?
My blank stare told him I didnt. I have always remembered his words - he saw a picture of the numbers in the air.
Never be surprised how somebody else learns.
Often one method is chosen to suit the tutor (or the Board etc...) Some people succeed but that tells you nothing about those who fail.
As long as you get the right number of (professional) cellists in the available time it doesnt matter. Who cares if some fall by the wayside?
It matters a lot for the rest of us.
Do I think I have an answer - definitely not.

It is much easier to rmember things that you find interesting, enjoyable, humerous etc etc than things that have to be done, are percieved as hard work , dont turn you on, feel you cant do, impossible, not fun, etc etc.

A great many students feel that the latter list applies getting the hang of the bass and unfortunately the matter can be made worse by teachers of an anal disposition who insist that it must be done correctly from square one and that of course the so called correct bass must be mastered.

So much better to do little things on the bass eg just droning 3 chords, doing a bit of UM PA rythm on fundamental and major chord - expanding that the 3 chord trick each of these little stages should give a feeling of chuftness when they start to sound something like OK. This gets rid of the I will never master the bass feeling and it should start to get a bit interesting so will improve all being well.

Steer well clear of so called correct bass or would a diminished chord be better here or there and how do I make the jump to whatever is indicated by the dots --
just enjoy doing a few simple things (even they may not be that simple to a beginner ) and stay in that area until you are genuinely comfortable playing something that sounds half decent on both ends of the box------------------only then start to look at the more complicated stuff and then only if you really want to as its perfectly acceptable to stick to the 3 chord trick or perhaps a moderately expanded version thereof.

george

 

[george garside]

Muscle memory with hands alone tends to miss an important aspect of the coordination memory (I just made that one up).
One hand at a time is like learning to juggle with one ball at a time. It works well until you put all balls together.

I - There is no memory in the hands , feet , balls whether singularly or in pairs, or any other bits of ones anatomy - the memory that sends instructions to the bits is in the brain which operates both the conscious and the autonomic nervous system. The trick is to programme the autonomic nervous system so the appropriate signals go down the arm without the need for conscious decision making. This is done be repetition of a physical task , the amount of repetition required varying of course with the individual. Regular practice of several scales at good speed does just this and should be a lifelong thing. Another useful bit of programming is to pick a tune you know well from memory in all 12 keys i.e start somwhere else on the keyboard and get on with it aka transposing on the hoof. The autonomic system should remember when to divert to a black note! ( dotonlyists should make the effort to memorise one or two everyday tunes so as to try this exercise )

The way I do this when teaching is to tell a student to lose eyes and to randomly put a finger on any key or note on the keyboard. I then ask them to play a scale starting on that key whatever it may be. AS a variation the same random selection of a note is followed by playing a tune they know starting on whatever the random note is. Its not only useful but its fun and thats the most important key to learning.

george

 

[jarvo]

Muscle memory with hands alone tends to miss an important aspect of the coordination memory (I just made that one up).
One hand at a time is like learning to juggle with one ball at a time. It works well until you put all balls together.

I - <HIGHLIGHT highlight=#ffff00>[highlight=#ffff00]There is no memory in the hands , feet , balls whether singularly or in pairs, or any other bits of ones anatomy - the memory that sends instructions to the bits is in the brain which operates both the conscious and the autonomic nervous system.[/highlight]</HIGHLIGHT>The trick is to programme the autonomic nervous system so the appropriate signals go down the arm without the need for conscious decision making. This is done be repetition of a physical task , the amount of repetition required varying of course with the individual. Regular practice of several scales at good speed does just this and should be a lifelong thing. Another useful bit of programming is to pick a tune you know well from memory in all 12 keys i.e start somwhere else on the keyboard and get on with it aka transposing on the hoof. The autonomic system should remember when to divert to a black note! ( dotonlyists should make the effort to memorise one or two everyday tunes so as to try this exercise )

The way I do this when teaching is to tell a student to lose eyes and to randomly put a finger on any key or note on the keyboard. I then ask them to play a scale starting on that key whatever it may be. AS a variation the same random selection of a note is followed by playing a tune they know starting on whatever the random note is. Its not only useful but its fun and thats the most important key to learning.

george

And you called some teachers anal in your previous post...come on George ....every flaming musician in the world calls it muscle memory....we Know there isnt a tiny brain in each of the fingers ........well ,not in the humanoid species digits anyway...whoops.. nearly gave the game away there..

And furthermore, what is this three chord trick term that you use .

...it kind of disparages any music which is content to use three chords....(and you can probably synthesise most classical music down to three chords)....its basically All you need................more chords might be more expansive and fuller but three will catch the bus and be musically viable........not tricky ....not a performing prancing pony , not a three ring circus and definitely not triple tricky...... {} :ch

 

[bocsa]

Quote: ...play a scale starting on that key whatever it may be....

Good stuff George! As a recovering, dotonlyist I'll be giving it a try.

I've avoided the bass over several decades but lately the awareness of the left hand has improved. I'm convinced that that is down to starting the English Concertina which, as you probably know, requires the left hand and right to work together Right or wrong it's working for me ... :b

 

[george garside]

Jarvo, far from disparaging any music that uses only 3 chords I am strongly advocating it both as a way of getting the hang of playing both ends together and as an 'all you need'' modus operandi for those who are happy with it. What I refer to as the 3 chord trick plus is using the basic 3 chords but perhaps venturing up or down an extra one or two rows ( in stradella terms).

As I play mostly by ear and sometimes from 'treble only'' written music I use it extensively myself to provide all that is necessary for both harmony and rhythm. That is not of course to disparage those who wish to play more complicated bass arrangements that to me might be interesting for the player but don't always add much to the perfoemance from a listeners point of view and certainly would not enthuse dancers who are expecting rhythm to be king!


george

 

[dunlustin]

Isn't the flashpoint here the word "trick" which suggests something not very worthy that no self-respecting player would ever consider?
Replace "trick" with the word "harmony" and perhaps it sounds better.
If there is a danger that I have suffered from, it's learning a tune and then just bashing out a mindless and semi-random selection of oom-pahs as an accompaniment - something a mate of mine called "tuned percussion" about 40 years ago. Probably fairer to say semi-tuned. Once done, I've found it really hard to get away from the thoughtless thumping or as George puts, knowing when to still the L-hand.
Increasingly I find it useful to play just the L-hand and hum along with it. Doing without chords can help I think too.

 

[jarvo]

Yes it's the word "trick" that is disparaging ...NOT three chords ........nothing wrong with just three chords ...Johhny Cash ,Chuck Berry, The Blues ,Country,....AND Western . Status Quo and many, many, many others all make great use of just three chords....and me.....but I just call it a tune ....not a "trick" I know where you are coming from George , but you play into the hands of the musical intelligentsia (they think !) when you use the term "trick".......unless of course you refer to Beethovens 5th Symphony as a Many Chorded Illusion ! :lol:


CJ

 

[donn]

I - There is no memory in the hands , feet , balls whether singularly or in pairs, or any other bits of ones anatomy - the memory that sends instructions to the bits is in the brain which operates both the conscious and the autonomic nervous system. The trick is to programme the autonomic nervous system so the appropriate signals go down the arm without the need for conscious decision making.

And you called some teachers anal in your previous post...come on George ....every flaming musician in the world calls it muscle memory.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but we use the autonomic nervous system for things like breathing and sneezing. Im pretty sure its of no use in music, except inasmuch as we need to keep breathing etc. What we treat as `unconscious mastery of a musical instrument is really quite conscious and has a lot in common with other mental and physical skills, however inscrutable and mysterious it may be. Varies from one individual to another, but whether its true or not I think of these as the `right brain (right cerebral hemisphere) controlled faculties, where analytical activities that present a more transparent narrative are left brain. When they follow brain activity patterns in actual people, some have more rigorous separation between the hemispheric functions, and some have a more generally distributed pattern of activity across both sides for the same task; differences like that could relate to the obvious individual differences in learning styles etc.

At any rate, wherever these faculties are located in the brain doesnt change the fact, theyre developed with massive repetition. And I think its safe to say, repetition of the right thing - repetition of errors for example wont help a bit. Thats a real weakness for me, my `left brain will pick up a wrong note as eagerly as the right one, and I wonder if sometimes Im better off, or worse off, after a practice session that didnt go so well.

Thats my point with with the chords. Some people here may bridle at the use of words like correct, and from a certain musical perspective it might seem like 3 major chords is all the proletariat really needs, but if youre learning a tune that certainly and clearly calls for something else, its hard for me to see how youd be ahead to learn to play the wrong chords first, and then unlearn them and learn the right ones.

 

[george garside]

I think I picked up the term 3 chord trick form guitarists many years ago. Funny thing is I have always interpreted the 'trick'' bit of the phrase as meaning 'magic trick' rather than something disparaging. and it is something magic in the sense that many of the musical intelligencia just can't do it on the hoof!

george :mrgreen: ('cos being able to do it on the hoof is environmentally friendly as it saves paper and hence trees! :lol: )

 

[george garside]

else, its hard for me to see how youd be ahead to learn to play the wrong chords first, and then unlearn them and learn the right ones.

[/quote]


but the wrong chords could be right and the right chords could be wrong and there may be a better way than either - depending on who arranged a particular rendition of a tune

George ( in stirring mode!)

 

[Anyanka]

....every flaming musician in the world calls it muscle memory....

I dont.

And I flinch when other people use that phrase, because it gives the wrong impression of how memory works. However, usually I just keep quiet.

 

[Glenn]

I think the term muscle memory, although anatomically wrong, does help the reader understand that it is a state of mind where concious control is given over to a good amount of sub-conscious motoric movements.

 

[donn]

I think the term muscle memory, although anatomically wrong, does help the reader understand that it is a state of mind where concious control is given over to a good amount of sub-conscious motoric movements.

Id argue that such a state of mind is pretty rare though, unless you count moments like when you accidentally touch something hot and for a fraction of a second your conscious control is really given over to reflexes. It isnt how we make music, a great deal of it is cerebral stuff that goes far beyond simple motor control. I guess the importance of this is that in order to play well, we need to cultivate a variety of neuromuscular functions, and maybe the term `muscle memory does serve us rather poorly if it oversimplifies that, aside from just the question of whether its anatomically accurate.

 

[dunlustin]

I have never liked the expression "muscle memory" but I think it's still worth running through the Wikipedia entry.
One thing I don't agree with is the notion that repeatedly making mistakes amounts always to poor learning.
Years ago when studying to be a teacher I came across the expression "spiral learning." The idea is that you make successive, closer approaches to the "right" way in a spiral - each piece of learning gets more accurate.
I find this much more credible than the mechanistic notion that we proceed by very small bits each of which must be perfectly accurate. Perhaps it just appeals to my slapdash nature?
Anyway it is back to the idea that there is no one right way to learn.

Are people deliberately misunderstanding the simple to complex approach suggested by some?
eg: If a tune in C has the odd Aminor chord in it, there's no harm done keeping the Cmajor going till you're more confident
Also: If the L-hand is supposed to go /C C7 C7 G / C C7 G C7/ where's the harm in just going C Cmajor etc till more confident?

 

[george garside]

I have never liked the learn.

Are people deliberately misunderstanding the simple to complex approach suggested by some?
eg: If a tune in C has the odd Aminor chord in it, theres no harm done keeping the Cmajor going till youre more confident
Also: If the L-hand is supposed to go /C C7 C7 G / C C7 G C7/ wheres the harm in just going C Cmajor etc till more confident?

seconded! particularly as there are boxes that dont have a row of 7ths or should owners of such boxes refrain from playing anything with a 7th in it!
george

 

[donn]

but the 'wrong' chords could be right and the 'right' chords could be wrong and there may be a better way than either - depending on who arranged a particular rendition of a tune

Well, to be sure, if you're truly uncertain which chords a tune calls for, then it might very well make sense to start with the ones most conveniently at hand.

That's different from the accordion player who disdains to use minor chords. I've seen some of that, and of course it doesn't sound so great. If you don't want to be that person, then I have a hard time believing that learning to play the tune wrong, then learning to play it right, is the easy way.

 

[bocsa]

There's one important physiological element that has overarching importance...

Yer lugs! if it sounds right, it's a good'un

Do bear in mind that the body standing next to you will have their own unique take on your sound...

Add in the fact that you can't please all of the peeps all of the time and you'll swiftly conclude that you'd best

Please yourself*

* (Avoid semantics if you can)

 

[jarvo]

Theres one important physiological element that has overarching importance... Yer lugs! if it sounds right, its a goodun

Do bear in mind that the body standing next to you will have their own unique take on your sound...

Add in the fact that you cant please all of the peeps all of the time and youll swiftly conclude that youd best

Please yourself*

* (Avoid semantics if you can)

To borrow a salutary tale from Banjo lore. A student approached a banjo guru and asked how he should play the banjo....

The reply was - kid , its your banjo, play it any way you damned please

Refreshing.

 

[george garside]

indeed! but it sometimes helps t get a second opinion from a friend or perhaps to record it so you can listen to it to check that you really are playing it the way you want it to sound



George