Playing what you hear for cash: In the United States, Dueling Piano Bars feature two professional musicians who, for the biggest tip, attempt to play whatever the audience requests (they don’t actually duel). “Many of the songs requested do not fall into the typical ‘piano bar’ category, and many dueling piano players pride themselves on their ability to perform songs that are generally not considered as such, like those from hard rock and rap genres.” —Wikipedia
When we experience classical musicians perform, we assume that they have studied a score and practiced a piece diligently for a good deal of time. Expert folk musicians generally don't do this. They hear a tune, work out the details and put their own style into a reproduction in very short order, sometimes in a matter of minutes. They add in variations to the tune based on their vast internal box of tools. Experts in genres like jazz, blues, and bluegrass who improvise song and tune solos do something similar; they hear the piece and improvise a solo that cradles the original melody in a vast set of improv techniques and finds them flying to every nook and cranny of their instrument at high tempos in perfect time. You might have also been at an Irish session where a tune comes up that the local expert doesn’t seem to know. Just as you smugly think, “Thank goodness Mr. or Ms. Know-It-All does not know all!” you watch them pick up there instrument and play confidently along the second time through the tune.
What is going on that separates the experts from our own clumsy struggle to just get the correct notes out at slow tempo? Do these magicians think about the notes they are playing, do they think about theory, are they counting the beats in each measure? Yes, I mean maybe, er… sort of. They have internalized a great deal of their musicianship by decades of practice so that things that once were explicit effort become innate. It doesn't mean that they all learned theory or ever counted time, but they used some form of deep musical immersion to reduce the strife of playing correctly.
Sing, hum, lilt, and fiddle around
Melodeon Bobby Gardiner demonstrates his brilliant lilting.
Most of us know how to imitate a song or melody we hear by singing or humming. We can also recall and reproduce recognizably thousands of songs and tunes we've heard in our lives, from Mary Had a Little Lamb, to a breakfast cereal jingle from our childhood, to a poorly imitated guitar solo of Hotel California. When we do this, we are generally just reproducing what we hear in our minds with our vocal chords. It might be easier to vocalize melodies because we don’t aim for accuracy so much as approximation. Most of us can do the same with instruments to a limited extent. If I asked you to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a harmonica or tin whistle or even on an upright bass, you could probably find the few notes you needed in some random key and play.
A tiny bit of theory goes a long way
How do we make our instruments play the melodies we hear when they are a tune or song melody? How do we play suitable accompaniment chords when we hear that melody, whether or not anyone else is playing chords? How do we, for that matter, even know that the melody is in 4/4 time or 3/4 and whether we are hearing a phrase of 8th notes starting on beat 1 or on the and-of-3? For most of us, it's good to have a basic amount of theory about our genre. What time signatures come up, what rhythms are used, and knowing some basic scale and chord theory helps. You owe it to yourself to acquire this basic information from your teacher and to ask questions about theory when you are confused. Not all folk music teachers know theory, but they can usually tell you something about scale modes, rhythms, and chord progressions.
With a small foundation in theory, we can do the much larger task of learning our instrument and understanding a little better what we are doing when we play. I believe that most music theory needed for folk music (not jazz) can be learned by adults in hours, not months. Here, for example, is two part instructional video on the website Folk Friend. The circle-of-fifths, major versus minor, the notes of each scale type, common chords such as I, IV, V and vi along with their chord tones (notes of the chord), and the basics of time signatures and eighth notes versus quarter notes is about all one needs to know to be theory-aware. Theory is an asset, not a hindrance, when it comes to playing by ear.
From wide-eyed to clear-eyed
Kevin Burke playing the end of the second part of George White’s, which has a classic folk tune I-V-I chord ending (G major, D major, C major). The infamous tune tag “Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits” that everyone knows is a similar I-V-I.
When you start playing an instrument, even if you’ve played others before, everything is new and confusing. You’ll learn some tunes and maybe songs and hopefully get some theory, scale, and rhythm drills from your teacher. After the first six months to a year of steady playing, you’ll have enough wherewithal to start analyzing what you are actually playing on your instrument. You'll start seeing the same patterns from tune to tune. You might start identifying scalar runs and arpeggios (1-3-5 note patterns) and that the same chord sequences occur in multiple tunes. A lot of tunes end with a I-V-I chord pattern, for instance. The end of the tune George White’s is a classic example. You will also notice that the patterns are different depending on what key you are playing in. Even if you are capoing chords on a guitar, a I-IV-V in open G does not sound the same as a I-IV-V in capo 3 (B♭) because the chords are different and have a different tonal qualities. You might want to stop and name these B♭ chord tones so that you begin to associate chords with specific notes.
Noodle (when you’re alone)
Danish classical piano comedian genius Victor Borge was known to noodle during his own performances, letting Happy Birthday creep into famous classical pieces.
We need to play a large number of tunes and/or songs so that we can build up a big database of melodic, rhythmic, and chordal patterns in our head. Quality-learning, meaning analyzing what we are actually playing, versus quantity-learning–just playing a lot of stuff–are both essential. I’ve been accused in less than flattering terms of being a quantity player. I like learning every tune and song at a pace that’s just slow enough to allow me to remember and practice everything occasionally. Others thrive on a deep-diving on a song or tune and achieving quality, which I appreciate more and more as I my attention to the detail increases. Nobody knocks anyone for learning something thoroughly, but don’t disparage quantity; hearing and learning a lot is great way to develop your ear.
Some folk musicians are talented site-readers. Here, sisters Brittany & Natalie Haas site-read 176 original, previously unpublished tunes by John Hartford!
Quantity and diversity of music help us internalize patterns. Some musicians practice sight-reading by just turning to a random page and playing. We as ambitious folk musicians need to do the equivalent by hearing a random tune or song and trying to copy the melody. Think of that annoying person in your class or band who is always noodling on their instrument in between the official numbers. They are on to something great; they just ought to be doing it somewhere alone. We all can benefit from using our instrument to interpret the mess of musical space debris floating around in our heads. In addition to the music you are officially learning, try playing the melody of other music in your life. Think of your favorite pop songs. Can you play their choruses? Try it. After you try, take a listen to a recording and then try to play the chorus again in the correct key with a more accurate melody. Even if the key is something weird like A♭, try to play along in the closest key your instrument permits.
Re-Re-Recording
Strangely, one of the best ways to help you hear and imitate music better is to record yourself playing. I started recording myself after I learned a tune or song solo from a recording so that I could hear myself later and avoid the slow process of learning from the recording again. Of course, the original recording is always better than my often error-ridden version, but when I hear myself play it reminds me that I have more or less successfully aurally transformed one run through the tune or song melody to my instrument. Try making a recording of something you play right now. Let an app record you for a few iterations until you have a decent version. Now, do you dare to play the original recording and then listen to your own? Yes, it is a bit embarrassing! Afterward, pick your instrument again and try to play better than your first recording, thinking about what you missed from the original recording in terms of notes or style. Try any or all following:
Put a metronome or backing track on and record again.
Practice more and record tomorrow instead.
Try playing along with the original album recording or your teacher’s recording, using Transpose to slow it down to your speed, as we discussed in last week’s post. Then record again.
Any of these exercises will likely result in a better recorded performance. Recording and comparing is an incredibly powerful technique. It develops your ear’s ability to imitate what you hear with increasing quickness and accuracy.
Conclusion
We need to practice converting melodies to our instrument aurally using a basic amount of theory to recognize patterns in what we are playing. By recognizing patterns, we get faster at hearing a melody and reproducing it correctly and stylishly on our instrument. We also need to aim for quantity and diversity of the melodies that we copy to our instrument. Finally, when we practice our repertoire, we should be brave and record, and then compare, imitate, and record again.
—Andy Likuski