>>: Another learning problem unique to Scottish tunes. Four part pipe
>>: tunes need a special type of learning that seems unique to me.
>> How do piping instructors teach these?
> Many traditions use vocables for transmitting and memorising tunes.
> In pipes teaching this cantairacht(sp?) system is still used by many
> players and as far as I know some army piping is still transmitted
> this way? Learning to diddle or sing the tune along with your tape
> is good preparation for transfer to your instrument. How can you play
> from memory and not be able to sing the tune? In ALP we do not maintain
> that learning by ear is the preffered method, simply that developing
> the skill to do so enhances your ability to play by heart, which is
> always better than playing from paper.
That wasn't what I (and I think Philip) had in mind. Four-part pipe tunes
have different memorization problems than, say, 2-part fiddle strathspeys.
There are a lot of notes to remember and a lot of phrases that are almost
but not quite the same. One approach might be to talk explicitly about
their structure; e.g. a lot of them go ABCB', and the abbreviated notations
common in printed pipe music - "second line of part 2 is also the second
line of part 4" - give a bit more detail.
Whether you use notions of musical form in learning tunes is independent
of whether you learn them from paper or orally. I was wondering how
commonly piping instructors make use of it. It's the norm in pibroch,
so somebody teaching both that and big marches might surely think of
trying the same method in each?
One tune that I find much easier to remember by thinking explicitly of
its form is "Farewell to Nigg" - the final phrase is always the same,
the bit just before it goes AABB, the opening of each part goes ABA'B'.
Yeah, obviously you'll always get there in the end by hearing a tune
over and over again often enough or by playing through the printed
score till the dots get so self-conscious about being stared at they
crawl off the page, but for some tunes, maybe there are more efficient
ways.
BTW, this is why I am such a fussbudget about aligning parallel phrases
in ABC source. It gives you an instant structural analysis of the tune.
Like this (needs more than 80 columns, sorry):
X:1
T:Shuffle and Cut
S:McFarlan MS
M:9/8
L:1/8
K:D
dBG AGF G2 (B|B)GE E2(B A)FD | dBG AGF G2 (B|A)FD D2(B
A)FD:|
afd edc d2 (B|B)GE E2(B A)FD | afd edc d2 (B|A)FD D2(B
A)FD:|
(E/F/G)E (D/E/F)D (E/F/G)(B|B)GE E2(B A)FD |(E/F/G)E (D/E/F)D (E/F/G)(B|A)FD D2(B
A)FD:|
(d/e/f)d (c/d/e)c (B/c/d)(B|B)GE E2(B A)FD |(d/e/f)d (c/d/e)c (B/c/d)(B|A)FD D2(B
A)FD:|
B,2E (E/F/G)E E2 (B|B)GE E2(B A)FD | B,2E (E/F/G)E E2 (B|A)FD D2(B
A)FD:|
G2d F2d E2 (d|B)GE E2(B A)FD | G2d F2d E2 (d|A)FD D2(B
A)FD:|
Knowing its form is
ABAC
DBDC
EBEC
FBFC
GBGC
HBHC
is surely helpful, no? Means you've only got 8 bars to learn instead of 24.
Incidentally, does anyone know of any record of that tune in between 1740
and when O'Neill published a slightly simplified version of it? That's a
long time for a tune to survive in oral tradition, under the same title,
without anybody writing it down.
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