As a dancer, caller, contra & square dance musician, as well as a music teacher
of fiddle, guitar, mandolin, I recommend highly memorizing tunes. As someone
who learns both by ear and reading music, I can say, as others have told me,
when you learn by ear it's easier to memorize a tune. But, two things:
1) As a leader of community bands in the San Francisco Bay Area, I say, anyway
that gets you playing is good. Yes, work to memorize tunes! Develop your ear.
Learn how to vary a tune. But do what you need to do to get out there and play.
In my teaching I always remind students that dots on a page is the skeleton of
the tune. It's up to us to put the flesh on it.
2) I do learn tunes from dots. But as someone who didn't focus on music until
my twenties, and as someone who took up fiddle in my 30s, I didn't grow up
reading music. Thus I'm slow at the reading of notes. Having worked with the
likes of Shira Kammen, and lately, Audrey Knuth, it's quite evident that
growing up with reading music makes dots so much more accessible. It's quite
wonderful to stick the music of a tune you like or wrote in front of a
band-mate and hear them take off with it. I've witnessed this with both Shira &
Audrey. (And one could mention there are those of us who can see a piece of
sheet music--even an orchestral score and hear it as they gaze. How I wish! See
Oliver Sacks, "Musicophilia.")
I've also had the experience of writing a tune, Flopping Chicken, and had bands
honor me with playing it at dances. That's a tune that has a lot of room for
playing--improvisation. Hearing the band follow the page didn't do it justice.
I felt totally appreciated that they learned my tune, loved having it played at
the dance, and wished that fiddler could get off the page, even a little bit...
This comes down to ability and flexibility.
So, my long answer says:
For most of us, getting off the page is good.
For all of us, learning to vary and improvise is good.*
For many of us, dots as a reminder isn't bad
For some of us, dots for new to us tunes are great!
For all of us, do what you need to take the next step in playing.
* Improvising: every genre of music has improvising rules. Here are a few I've
noticed.
Classical: rules are pretty constrained. the conductor or chamber
musician can increase tempos, decide on dynamics, and a wee-bit more
Irish, Scottish, Celtic: is it a held note, a bowed triplet, or a role?
Or do we steal time from this note and give it to that note? And melodic
variation is common.
Old-Time: Steal time from many notes, hold them over the bar line, add
in blue notes, add rhythmic shuffles
Bluegrass: Improvise in myriad ways, just don't lose the sense of the
melody.
Jazz: Too many types of jazz to comment other than to say, it can get
totally out of the box...
And, in the modern contra world, many of us do some of this to all genres...
I occasionally play for English dances. We have an open band dance in Berkeley
(the one in California). There I wish sight reading was innate. I've gotten
better at it. But there's a genre where the caller can put the music in front
of you and you're expected to be able to play it.
~Erik Hoffman
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Hinds
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2019 3:54 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Musicians] Dots
I’d like to know people’s opinion of using music while playing for a contra
dance. Is it easier to create excitement if the musicians play by ear?
Thanks in advance for your opinion, Tom Hinds
Sent from my iPad
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