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george garside
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strange that a great many very competent accordionists manage to play perfectly well by ear without reference to any theory. Its all down to learning to operate the instrument . Once this has been accomplished you can play any tune you know!. It is rather like a singer operating the gob without being conscious of the movements thereof or the variations in puff that are required. i.e think it and play it!
george :evil:
george :evil:
george garside said:strange that a great many very competent accordionists manage to play perfectly well by ear without reference to any theory. Its all down to learning to operate the instrument . Once this has been accomplished you can play any tune you know!. It is rather like a singer operating the gob without being conscious of the movements thereof or the variations in puff that are required. i.e think it and play it!
george :evil:
Only up to a point I think George. Many people could sing Abide with Me, Many here could put some acceptable chords to it, without too much effort, but to replicate Phil's arrangement at the start of this discussion, that's a bit harder! Theory can help by narrowing possibilities, and by putting a structure on what's going on.
OK, Stradella makes it physically easy, but ask a guitarist who just knows a few chord shapes to accompany an easy song and they may struggle. Tell them that the song is in D so good chords to try are D, G and A, and tell them about the circle of fifths, and they're off to a head start, with the help of some theory
donn
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I think that's kind of skating the proposition though. Which as I understand it is that we could apply theory to better learn a tune by ear. In your example, it seems to me that our guitarist gets a boost from some external source who supplies key, chords, etc., but if theory is to help me learn a tune from a video, who's going to give me the key and chords?
What I actually do, is pick up the accordion, and start poking at it. When the pitches start resembling the source rendition, then I reckon I'm getting close to the key. Etc. It's a skill that takes a bit of time to develop, and I think you could expect a certain intuitive grasp of theory to come along with it. Particularly on the accordion where the Stradella system is arranged like it is, you'd hardly fail to notice that a key comes with a certain set of chords that naturally belong to it.
But ... for example, I recently spent a little time figuring out something called "Valse Ecossaise", in C (or A minor, suit yourself), and the last part spends four measures on a Bb major chord. Not one of the chords belonging to that key, in the simplest view of things, but where it should sound out of place it's actually very beautiful. In other tunes, quite often in let's say the same key, I'll need a D7 where the key would seem to call for a Dm.
I'm sure more theory can be adduced to account for these anomalies, but would it have been easier to learn the tunes if I started by picking up all that theoretical background? Honestly, I don't see why. If I can't hear that it calls for a D7 there, I doubt that the theory can save me, and if I can hear that, then the theory can wait.
Now in the discussion of these matters, some theory-related terminology is sometimes helpful - for example, instead of "Dm if we're in the key of C or A minor", we can say "the II chord is minor." D is the second scale step after C, hence Roman numeral II. But I think it's a stretch to call that "theory" - the only theory in it is that we acknowledge that the key's scale corresponds to a natural series of chords.
What I actually do, is pick up the accordion, and start poking at it. When the pitches start resembling the source rendition, then I reckon I'm getting close to the key. Etc. It's a skill that takes a bit of time to develop, and I think you could expect a certain intuitive grasp of theory to come along with it. Particularly on the accordion where the Stradella system is arranged like it is, you'd hardly fail to notice that a key comes with a certain set of chords that naturally belong to it.
But ... for example, I recently spent a little time figuring out something called "Valse Ecossaise", in C (or A minor, suit yourself), and the last part spends four measures on a Bb major chord. Not one of the chords belonging to that key, in the simplest view of things, but where it should sound out of place it's actually very beautiful. In other tunes, quite often in let's say the same key, I'll need a D7 where the key would seem to call for a Dm.
I'm sure more theory can be adduced to account for these anomalies, but would it have been easier to learn the tunes if I started by picking up all that theoretical background? Honestly, I don't see why. If I can't hear that it calls for a D7 there, I doubt that the theory can save me, and if I can hear that, then the theory can wait.
Now in the discussion of these matters, some theory-related terminology is sometimes helpful - for example, instead of "Dm if we're in the key of C or A minor", we can say "the II chord is minor." D is the second scale step after C, hence Roman numeral II. But I think it's a stretch to call that "theory" - the only theory in it is that we acknowledge that the key's scale corresponds to a natural series of chords.
george garside
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donn said:I ?
What I actually do, is pick up the accordion, and start poking at it.
Spot on Donn! - "poking and prodding" together with CAREFUL & ANALYTICAL listening to what is poked and prodded is a key ingredient to playing by ear. In the early stages a great deal of it can be required but as the skill develops less poking and prodding can be needed as intuition starts to 'inform' the fingers as to where next to go - so to speak!
george
OK, an accordion specific but extremely basic example, suppose you're playing a pattern of notes C# E A on the right hand. You can hunt with your left until you find a nice chord, or a tiny bit of theory will tell you that those are the notes of an A major chord.
Suppose you have C, Eb F# A ?
Suppose you have C, Eb F# A ?
...then the example would possibly be of diminished interest, I guess.
Panya37 said:
So this is the original post, and my point was that it IS a standard Stradella thats being played by Phil C, and hes playing in a way that most of us would aspire to. This sort of links back to a previous Topic of mine asking whether the existence of the free-bass system dilutes interest in the Stradella.
This topic has got busy again so heres a few thoughts;
As a conceptual teaching idea, I had an idea of using a little masking tape to delineate an area in the LH, to develop the idea of a Key Cluster; that is to say, the root bass/chord and the 2 rows either side of it to explore the myriad possibilities of just this one small segment of the Stradella system. As its all easily transposable a lot of this only needs to be learnt once. And heres a thought, just by using the 7 notes in a Major scale its possible, using equal note values to have 48 variations (?) a lot anyway, that are all under the fingers and in one place.
It looks like the term Counter-bass is only used in the context of the accordion, this might have the effect of leaving it up a blind alley. I ask pianists what a C/B is and they dont know, a counter-tenor maybe. The overall effect is to isolate knowledge of it.
With regard to the choice of chords, IMO if the melody is the sketch. drawing or outline, then the chords and bass are the colour, the depth and more. They can push the song upward, create a lull and lead in to its conclusion. When I hear a blatantly dodgy chord it sounds toxic to me, I question,why would you do that? Its like smelling milk thats gone off. In fact the people I work with often refer to a chord choice as being bit off, going all the way through to toxic.
donn said:
It’s not necessary to know “Theory” to graduate level, just enough to share ideas and to speak in a common language, using standard terms like Diatonic, relative minor, inversion, whole tone, semitone, alternate bass, etc..
People can make their own choices, if someone feels that theyve reached a wall and cant get past it and want to find a solution, thats one thing, conversely therell be many a player whos happy to be where they are, no problem. Theres no merit in criticising the former though..
BobM.
dunlustin said:
Oh, very good!!
losthobos said:Quit the pontification...BobMs the man...especially where stradellas concerned
Give him his own header and lets get learned
Do me favour!.. :shock:
donn
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It just occurred to me to have a look at the video. Very nice. I'm a bit inspired to pick up my Stradella bass act a little, to where I'd be able to take something like that on some day.
To do that, I certainly would not beef up on my ability to classify major vs. minor, diatonic etc., as that would be no help whatever.
I would start by learning the simplest melodic phrases, and I would try to become comfortable playing them on the left as on the right, gradually expanding the range and complexity of the tunes only when I'm ready. This is only a theory, but I think I set myself back terribly when I picked up the accordion and tried to work out tunes too quickly instead of learning at a pace where I could play competently even if too simply to be any use. What happened was that I could sort of manage these tunes, but I was sort of playing them "by brute force", instead of having learned the accordion well enough to play those tunes first, and the result was that my execution was unmusical and error prone. I'd try to avoid that mistake here and not try to learn to play as Mr. Cunningham can do, right off, when that would be a rather large leap from where I'm at.
I don't think there's any reason one's simple phrases and tunes couldn't be learned from written music - if that helps make it happen, great. But having learned them, the next step is to play them without looking at notes, or thinking about memorized sequences of notes and the associated buttons. It does want to be a bit like singing.
To do that, I certainly would not beef up on my ability to classify major vs. minor, diatonic etc., as that would be no help whatever.
I would start by learning the simplest melodic phrases, and I would try to become comfortable playing them on the left as on the right, gradually expanding the range and complexity of the tunes only when I'm ready. This is only a theory, but I think I set myself back terribly when I picked up the accordion and tried to work out tunes too quickly instead of learning at a pace where I could play competently even if too simply to be any use. What happened was that I could sort of manage these tunes, but I was sort of playing them "by brute force", instead of having learned the accordion well enough to play those tunes first, and the result was that my execution was unmusical and error prone. I'd try to avoid that mistake here and not try to learn to play as Mr. Cunningham can do, right off, when that would be a rather large leap from where I'm at.
I don't think there's any reason one's simple phrases and tunes couldn't be learned from written music - if that helps make it happen, great. But having learned them, the next step is to play them without looking at notes, or thinking about memorized sequences of notes and the associated buttons. It does want to be a bit like singing.
donn said:
Donn, It might not help you specifically, but Ive certainly think that on a printed format i.e. this forum, that using common terms might help to move things along a bit.
And Diatonic, not being any help whatever, why?
BobM.
donn
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For sure, it's easier to discuss things if one has words for them! But I wasn't really thinking about that, as I don't learn to play music by discussing it. I was specifically considering how I'd learn to play in that manner with the left hand.
Note that we were nominally talking about variations on the Stradella bass system, and I think that's where the theoretical terminology actually came up (you could suppose he'd be able to manage with 2 rows, because ...) Now we're having a sort of diffuse discussion about whatever individually gets us going - music theory, learning music by ear, more threads could be picked out I'm sure - but mostly restricted to those of us who'd be interested in what Stradella system Phil Cunningham was playing (given the nominal Subject.) It might cut down on the cross-purposes to start a new thread with a well defined proposition.
Note that we were nominally talking about variations on the Stradella bass system, and I think that's where the theoretical terminology actually came up (you could suppose he'd be able to manage with 2 rows, because ...) Now we're having a sort of diffuse discussion about whatever individually gets us going - music theory, learning music by ear, more threads could be picked out I'm sure - but mostly restricted to those of us who'd be interested in what Stradella system Phil Cunningham was playing (given the nominal Subject.) It might cut down on the cross-purposes to start a new thread with a well defined proposition.
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