Taking Your Playing to the Next Level

Friday, October 5, 2007 | Printer Friendly

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When asked how to take one’s playing to the next level, the first thing I think of is… Are you learning by ear or by sheet music? While sheet music is a great resource that we have at our disposal these days, it’s good to remember that Irish traditional music has been for ages and continues to be shared orally… Yes, it’s an “oral tradition” we traddies like to say. Simply put, folks have been learning tunes from other folks for years and years by just hanging out, playing music together in ones kitchens, porches, pubs, etc… When a tune goes by that you dig, you say… “Hey… Teach me that tune would ya?”

So why is that better than just cracking open a tune book you say? Well… think about why you like Irish traditional music in the first place… I’ll give you 2 seconds to think about it… It’s the sound that we like isn’t it!? And when one listens to a favorite player… do you hear them just playing the tune’s notes in succession or are you hearing all the intricacies such as the tone and ornamentation and such? You’re taking it ALL in hopefully, not just the “Dots” of the tune as it might be generally written out in a tune book.

So what’s a girl to do? Sure, you say, I’d love to learn tunes by ear but 1. I don’t have anyone locally to teach me and 2. It’s too hard to learn tunes by ear with CDs and MP3s as the tunes go by too fast to get into the intricacies… Have I got a great tool for you! The Amazing Slow Downer. It’s a computer program that does exactly what it says on the tin. Pop a CD into your computer or open up an MP3 file and voila! You can slow tunes down – amazingly, without affecting the pitch of the recording. Not only that, the program lets you change pitch if you need. This is especially helpful if you are playing on a D whistle and you’re learning a tune where the whistle player on the recording is playing say a Bb whistle. Tune that sucker up and you’re good!

Another great thing about the Amazing Slow Downer is that it gives you the ability to loop sections of a recording. So if you’re trying to figure out how to play a roll like Kevin Crawford or Mary Bergin, you can slow that sucker down to a crawl and loop it to your heart’s content. Just bear in mind that anyone within earshot will think you’re a lunatic! And you probably are.

That’s how I personally took my playing to the next level… Well, that and practicing obsessively and moving to Ireland for a 9-month stay didn’t hurt either… But I’m sure that if you put in a good 30 – 60 minutes in a day, your hard/fun work will pay off.

That leads me to another topic. Listening to one’s self critically. A big step in taking your music to the next level! You’ve seen those folks auditioning on American Idol who think they are absolute divas but we all know they are just plain TERRIBLE. Well, hopefully that analogy is a bit extreme but to varying levels, what we THINK we sound like is probably different than what we ACTUALLY sound like. I’ll write about how we can listen better and use some other tools out there to help us listen.

So, it’s starting to get cold outside. Make yourself a pot of coffee or cup of tea, grab your instrument and download a trial of the Amazing Slow Downer and get yourself started on the rewarding path of learning by ear!

All the best,

Blayne Chastain
Whistle & Drum’s Founder and Fellow Whistle, Flute & Bodhrán Player.
(Also a Hack on the Tenor Banjo)

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