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New tunes for old farts


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The good news: I've actually been using my time off during the pandemic to put in consistent, disciplined practice.

 

The bad news: I haven't been reaping the kinds of benefits I'd like and expect from said practice. Specifically, learning new tunes and arrangements is a much slower process than I would have guessed.

 

Suspected cause: linear time and its effects on the human brain and body. I'll be turning 50 in a couple months, and my retention simply isn't what it was 10 or more years ago.

 

So I'm looking for tips â learning approaches, exercises, anything that will aid in getting new information to stick in my brain. All ideas are welcome, be they from the experience of my fellow "seasoned" members or youngsters with their fancy book learnin'. Thanks in advance.

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Josh, dunno if this is useless or not as you play at a much higher level than me.

 

However, simply put - I suffer from the same thing. I am constantly learning new songs for 3 projects and find I can"t retain stuff as I did in my teens, 20"s and 30"s.

 

So I don"t try. I take charts and cheat notes on stage (on a tablet) and shamelessly rely on them.

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The good news: I've actually been using my time off during the pandemic to put in consistent, disciplined practice.

 

The bad news: I haven't been reaping the kinds of benefits I'd like and expect from said practice. Specifically, learning new tunes and arrangements is a much slower process than I would have guessed.

 

Suspected cause: linear time and its effects on the human brain and body. I'll be turning 50 in a couple months, and my retention simply isn't what it was 10 or more years ago.

 

So I'm looking for tips â learning approaches, exercises, anything that will aid in getting new information to stick in my brain. All ideas are welcome, be they from the experience of my fellow "seasoned" members or youngsters with their fancy book learnin'. Thanks in advance.

 

I really enjoyed this clip from Chick about this.

 

[video:youtube]

AvantGrand N2 | ES520 | Gallien-Krueger MK & MP | https://soundcloud.com/pete36251

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Josh, dunno if this is useless or not as you play at a much higher level than me.

 

However, simply put - I suffer from the same thing. I am constantly learning new songs for 3 projects and find I can"t retain stuff as I did in my teens, 20"s and 30"s.

 

So I don"t try. I take charts and cheat notes on stage (on a tablet) and shamelessly rely on them.

 

This exactly.

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I take charts and cheat notes on stage (on a tablet) and shamelessly rely on them.

+1

No shame in compensatory interventions. My memory/recall is definitely not what it used to be. I can no longer bench press 300 lbs. either. That"s life. I"m a better player now than I was back then, and play in three largely keyboard-driven bands. Use charts in all of them, but I"ll accept that trade-off.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

 

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Interesting subject memory. This pandemic allowed more time for practice. Getting old has me looking into trying to play more efficiently to avoid injury. Playing with weight.

Younger days if entered in a competition you have to play without music obviously. Repetition and getting into that flow usually just got it done.

But catch 22 of trying to read more music allows one to play more stuff and get better at sight reading, but I got out of flow of memorizing pieces.

Even though you get old, I'm sure if I applied myself to memorize pieces I could. It's a matter of time and priority. I'm trying to play more pieces to experience playing them, getting them under my fingers and reading them. But, I'm trying to commit to memorizing some pieces per year. Classical side. I'm amazed at how top classical pianists not only play them but from memory.

 

 

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3020891/when-is-a-piece-officially-learned.html#Post3020891

 

Student of Claudio Arrau lectures worth viewing weight subject

 

Yuja Wang amazing technique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgw820VNW0w

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My short term memory has also diminished with time.

I write songs and often have a hard time remembering my own creations!

 

Long term memory is still solid. I know lots of songs - chords, lyrics and melodies - from decades ago, many of them from listening to the radio when I was a kid.

 

Where live performance is concerned, most audiences want a chorus and a danceable beat. They are very flexible regarding other details for the most part.

Repetition is key, our singer will do a song and we'll figure it out on the spot (or almost...).

Then he won't do it again for months. I never seem to really learn those songs.

 

Others we play often and even though they were new to me I've got a version attached to my memory - often without ever listening to the original. Up here close to the Canadian border, Tragically Hip is very popular. I've never really listened to them. We play quite a few of their songs and fairly often. I have listened to those songs, once or twice. We aren't Tragically Hip, we don't really sound like them. We see smiling faces, dancing and tip jar is happy.

The important stuff is covered.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Well, I probably don't play at your level, but I do have to learn lots of new material on a regular basis for the various projects I'm in. I don't like using a cheat sheet -- I either know a song, or I don't. I dislike seeing a live band where everyone's got their nose in a tablet reader. Hey guys -- the audience is out here!!!

 

My most productive technique is headphone therapy -- put on the headphones, and play along 3-4 times a day for a week or so. After that, I'm usually good to go without any visual aid. After that, I just "know" where the various parts are, and what I'm supposed to do. I'm also very relaxed when playing, as I don't have to concentrate that much. Well, sometimes I do forget what key I'm supposed to start in, but I make that part of the setlist song entry coded into my keyboard, e.g. "Give A Little Bit (D)" or similar. It's working pretty well for me at age 61.

 

There seems to be a limit of how many songs I can keep current using this approach, somewhere between 90-120. Good enough.

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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I think memorizing tunes is a bit like learning names. At first, if you have any aptitude for it, it's easy, since there's only one or two to remember. Over time, it might turn to a dinner party's amount--which, again, if you're good at it at all, you'll probably do OK with, particularly if you already knew some of the people there.

 

You might even be able to remember all the people from the previous dinner party, and the one before that, and the one before that, all while sitting at the current one. That's because of the way we file long-term memory vs situational information.

 

But then we hit a point where it's a crowded-stadium's worth of names. At that point, even if we're fantastic at remembering individual people, we'll still probably struggle beyond a certain number. It doesn't mean we're worse at names, it means the factors have changed and the WAY we remember has to as well.

 

What's more, if you play in a particular genre, the analogy is actually closer to something like: a stadium full of people named Chris, each of whom spells it a little differently, and you have to remember each Chris's spelling idiosyncrasy. At some point, all the hooks we're used to using for retention become useless. Again, it doesn't mean our faculties are failing, it just means they were honed in different circumstances.

 

CowboyNQ suggests finding equanimity with notes and charts, and I'd second that. But I have an interim suggestion, which is, whether or not you ever intend to use it, sit down and MAKE your own after-market chart and/or notes for the songs, sections, or techniques in question. More often than not, the process of decoding the source into something personally meaningful to you, is enough to result in memorization and make the chart itself obsolete.

 

A final point is that our brains are fantastically and sometimes annoyingly efficient. It takes a lot of energy to run this machinery, so the job of the brain is to turn any task it perceives will be repeated, into automatic memory as quickly as possible. It might simply be the case that your COVID practice doesn't carry the same weight of inevitable use as your real-world routine might, so your brain has not hopped on board the automatic memory train.

 

We learn best by 1) learning, 2) accessing the info we learned, and then 3) SHARING that info with someone else. Without a built-in Step 3, you might just literally not be coding the information deeply enough. A way to hack this would be to manufacture a means of "sharing" the information, even if it means setting up a cell phone to videotape a run-through after you think you have it memorized.

 

Also, f*ck you for practicing your way through the pandemic. That kind of impressive dedication to craft is uncalled for. I have played so little that I can't even flip someone the bird without needing to ice my wrist for a week afterward.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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I turned 50 earlier this year, I have had to learn a stack of tunes, in one case 27 tunes of which I knew 2 and had played another 2 maybe 20 years earlier. I'd do the transcription and notes whatever and then before bed each night play over 2 or 3 tunes repeatedly and then hit the sack. Worked a treat for learning lines and riffs, but not when there were just chord changes, so I ended up with an A5 size cheat sheet with a few chord sequences on it. I'm not one for flipping through charts or reading from an iPad. YMMV.

Gig keys: Hammond SKpro, Korg Vox Continental, Crumar Mojo 61, Crumar Mojo Pedals

 

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A couple of thoughts:

 

It's harder (for my brain anyway) to retain info practicing solo. It does a much better job if I'm performing with other people. Gigs (and even rehearsals) seem to throw an "ok this is important" switch on that seems to be lacking here at home. I think you'll notice better retention Josh once things get back to normal.

 

Thought #2: When I used charts my brain switched off it's memory switch, making it very difficult to go back. This was something I noticed doing praise music, which was all off charts. I'd struggle with songs I'd played for years unless the music was in front of me.

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sit down and MAKE your own after-market chart and/or notes for the songs, sections, or techniques in question. More often than not, the process of decoding the source into something personally meaningful to you, is enough to result in memorization and make the chart itself obsolete.
This. Create the chart as a learning process, not as the end product.

 

Cheers, Mike.

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Thanks for the input, everyone.

 

Re: using charts... I'm certainly not opposed to that, but I'm dealing with material that's tricky enough that knowing it well enough to read it from a chart is thisclose to knowing it from memory. The Chick video was interesting, as far as the difference between "reading off the chart in your mind" and actually knowing the tune well enough to not need even a mental chart. That second level is the one I'm trying to reach.

 

Re: relying on my ear rather than my brain... That's been my secret weapon for lo these many years. Especially in band situations, being able to hear the next change in my head, figure it out, and play it just in time has allowed me to perpetuate the illusion of "knowing" countless tunes that I didn't actually know in any meaningful sense; I was just familiar enough with them to be able to pick them out by ear a fraction of a second before I needed to. What I'm mostly trying to do now is add tunes to my solo repertoire, so that technique is less applicable.

 

I have an interim suggestion, which is, whether or not you ever intend to use it, sit down and MAKE your own after-market chart and/or notes for the songs, sections, or techniques in question. More often than not, the process of decoding the source into something personally meaningful to you, is enough to result in memorization and make the chart itself obsolete.

 

Funny you should mention that. While this is an issue I've been dealing with for quite a while now, the incident that prompted me to post this was deciding to finally "really" learn Kenny Kirkland's "Steepian Faith" after doing the transcription I posted here recently. I've had the tune half-learned (like, could get through it on a trio gig with the chart in front of me) for over 20 years, so I thought getting it from that state to solidly in my brain and under my fingers would be a relatively short step. Not so much, it turns out. So I worked out, and wrote out, a complete solo piano arrangement of the head, to give myself something concrete to work toward, as a starting place if nothing else. The best way I can describe my progress with it is "asymptotic"; every day I make enough progress that I think I'm as close to having it down as I can possibly be without actually having it down, and then the next day I find yet another way to get just a little closer to having it down without actually being there. Tonight I'm going to bed thinking "I'm SOOO close, tomorrow I'll have it down for sure" â which is exactly what I've gone to bed thinking every night for the past week or so.

 

It might simply be the case that your COVID practice doesn't carry the same weight of inevitable use as your real-world routine might, so your brain has not hopped on board the automatic memory train.

 

Funny, I tried to trick my brain into thinking it had to get the tune down for my last livestream. Apparently my brain is hip to the fact that any such alleged deadlines I've tried to put on it are pulled entirely out of the air and ultimately meaningless, and it failed to fall for my bullshit.

 

Also, f*ck you for practicing your way through the pandemic. That kind of impressive dedication to craft is uncalled for. I have played so little that I can't even flip someone the bird without needing to ice my wrist for a week afterward.

 

Well, we'll see who has the last laugh if it turns out I practiced my way through the pandemic without a damn thing to show for it, while other people at least got to binge-watch literally every episode of Law & Order.

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As I knock on the door of 40 next year (yes I know I'm a youngster compared to many folks here. But I was 26 when I joined this forum!) I have witnessed a dramatic shift in the way my own brain learns material. I can relate to something in literally each of the above comments.

 

I have found the following:

 

-I used to take for granted that I could memorize a piece of classical literature. I did it every year when I was 10-20 years old. Now it is a herculean task that DOES NOT happen automatically. This is partly because I read better than I used to so my lazy brain doesn't bother. But a few years ago I set out to specifically MEMORIZE a Scarlatti sonata. I learned it measure by measure by committing it to memory. And it worked. But it was slow and I actually didn't get beyond the first page because it was technically too much of a challenge.

 

-What Bill H says about the memorization switch being turned off because I'm reading everything rings true for me as well. I read lots of charts even on my top 40 gig now because it's easier. Then I'll have to memorize a tune for whatever reason and it's like 'ugh let's roll up our sleeves' SO MUCH more work. But it's still doable. I did a set 2 years ago at the House of Blues with a cool ska jazz project and I wanted to be visually as powerful as possible so I challenged myself to memorize the whole set. It was a lot of work but I did it. Sadly unlike myself years ago, this material has already all seeped out of my brain and if I had to play the same set today, I'd need to do the work again.

 

-Memorizing standards takes longer now and I don't retain them as much. What a bitch.

 

-Bill Hs other comment about learning in a group setting is right. Moonglow might be able to chime in on this as a psychologist, but I think it's been proven that as social animals humans brains become much more elastic in group settings. It's easier to learn tunes in a group.

Kawai C-60 Grand Piano : Hammond A-100 : Hammond SK2 : Yamaha CP4 : Yamaha Montage 7 : Moog Sub 37

 

My latest album: Funky organ, huge horn section

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Funny you should mention that. While this is an issue I've been dealing with for quite a while now, the incident that prompted me to post this was deciding to finally "really" learn Kenny Kirkland's "Steepian Faith" after doing the transcription I posted here recently. I've had the tune half-learned (like, could get through it on a trio gig with the chart in front of me) for over 20 years, so I thought getting it from that state to solidly in my brain and under my fingers would be a relatively short step. Not so much, it turns out. So I worked out, and wrote out, a complete solo piano arrangement of the head, to give myself something concrete to work toward, as a starting place if nothing else. The best way I can describe my progress with it is "asymptotic"; every day I make enough progress that I think I'm as close to having it down as I can possibly be without actually having it down, and then the next day I find yet another way to get just a little closer to having it down without actually being there. Tonight I'm going to bed thinking "I'm SOOO close, tomorrow I'll have it down for sure" â which is exactly what I've got to bed thinking every night for the past week or so.

 

Can I suggest a ninja trick that I use with students when they are close-but-no-cigar? Learn the song or section measure-by-measure or change-by-change BACKWARD--that is, start by mastering the last measure or phrase, then master the second-to-last and play those two together, then the third-to-last and play those three, and so on. This prompts a new engagement with material you *think* you know but might really not. But more important, it has the effect of letting you play into material with which you have stronger and stronger familiarity, so you sort of gain mental momentum as you go. In my experience, it's that moment of mental panic around upcoming trouble spots that throws the whole thing off. This process lets you basically walk out of the ocean as you play, which is an inversion of our usual experience.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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Well, we'll see who has the last laugh if it turns out I practiced my way through the pandemic without a damn thing to show for it, while other people at least got to binge-watch literally every episode of Law & Order.
You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? What? WHAT?
These are only my opinions, not supported by any actual knowledge, experience, or expertise.
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Funny, I tried to trick my brain into thinking it had to get the tune down for my last livestream. Apparently my brain is hip to the fact that any such alleged deadlines I've tried to put on it are pulled entirely out of the air and ultimately meaningless, and it failed to fall for my bullshit.

Damn, I would love to watch you and your own brain fighting. :stooges:

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Can I suggest a ninja trick that I use with students when they are close-but-no-cigar? Learn the song or section measure-by-measure or change-by-change BACKWARD--that is, start by mastering the last measure or phrase, then master the second-to-last and play those two together, then the third-to-last and play those three, and so on.

 

I just tried this with the last A section of the tune, and it really was surprisingly helpful. Thanks for that. I don't know if this is true for others, but for me a big part of the learning process is simply going through the tune enough to discover all the different ways I can screw it up, and then figuring out how not to do them. Things like, "While I'm holding down this note with this finger, I need to shift this other finger over slightly, because if I don't it won't make the next jump." This exercise is a good way to expose more of those weak points and figure out how to address them. Good stuff!

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I either know a song, or I don't. I dislike seeing a live band where everyone's got their nose in a tablet reader. Hey guys -- the audience is out here!!!

 

My most productive technique is headphone therapy -- put on the headphones, and play along 3-4 times a day for a week or so. After that, I'm usually good to go without any visual aid. After that, I just "know" where the various parts are, and what I'm supposed to do.

 

There was a thread that touched on this same idea a couple of months ago. People were saying they wanted/needed sheet music to play. Others knew the music and played it without external aids. To be honest, I found the thread troubling because...I mean...how can you say you know how to play a song if you have to have sheet music? The conundrum stayed with me for weeks. I eventually came to a partial resolution by saying that there are people who approach music such as classical, where it's normal and expected to have the music in front of you at all times, and there are people who play rock or jazz or country who don't play with sheet music--memorizing at least two or three hours worth of music. What's the difference in mental process? Is the sheet music a crutch? Yes, classical musicians are perfectly capable of memorizing their parts, after all, the pianist featured in a piano concerto doesn't typically have sheet music in front of them. No matter how I approached the problem, I kept circling back to the idea that the sheet music (or laptop or whatever) is an addendum to the musician's internal memory. Nay, it's a replacement. If they've been taught that paper is where notes are kept, not neurons, then that's the way they approach music. Others learn to depend on their aural memory; they know in their gut what notes come next. I'm not sure that it's possible to take someone who was trained to use external aids and retrain them to feel it in their gut. It will never feel natural to them to play without something telling them what comes next.

 

I want to make clear that I'm not entirely happy with this analysis. It's still a work in progress. But...it seems to me that there's a fundamental truth here if I can only get at it. Why are some people perfectly comfortable playing things from inside their heads while others are unable to do so? If you take away the sheet music, can someone not play that piece of music? Can they truly say they "know" that piece of music if they can't play it unaided? I'm not sure how to resolve this.

 

I saw a YouTube video of Rick Wakeman & entourage playing...Journey To The Center Of The Earth, perhaps? Everyone was well rehearsed and in the moment, except for the vocalist. He had an iPad or something on a stand next to him and was clearly sight reading his part. Not only was there the visual of him not fully engaging with the audience, but his performance was perfunctory. He hit all the notes, but there was no there, there, so to speak. Stilted. He wasn't part of the flow of the performance. In short, he stuck out like a sore thumb. I remember scratching my head and wondering how it had come to this. Had the vocalist not been able to make rehearsals? Could Wakeman not afford a competent vocalist? Did the original vocalist fall ill and the replacement had to show up on such short notice that there was no time to learn the part? The guy just didn't fit for whatever reason. Then another option came to me. What if the vocalist was "classically trained" and simply couldn't get in the groove? There is no groove in classical. You sing what's on the page, period. But in a rock context, that sort of performance doesn't work well. What's the backstory? I have no idea. These are all suppositions on my part. Still, I couldn't help but feel that it was related to the philosophical conundrum I'd been trying to unravel.

 

For my part, I just listen to a tune. I play along with it. Then I know it. If I'm in front of an audience, I want to connect with them. That means eye contact. That means reacting to their reactions, each feeding off the other. I can't see any other way of doing things, but clearly there are others who feel that external aids are normal.

 

I'm still trying to understand this.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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I remember an interview with bassist Lee Sklar who says his memory for tunes isn't that great. He got the call a week or two before a Toto tour when Mike Porcaro got real sick. He said they said no charts on stage and but they have charts if he wants to use them to learn the tunes. Lee told them, charts are like heroin, if you give him some I'll never get off of them. So give me the CD's and a setlist and I'll learn the show.
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Ellis Marsalis once told me something similar about memory versus reading. He said he had always felt pretty good about his ability to learn tunes quickly, but then at some point he got a theater gig playing in the pit band for a musical. The show had a long run, so he was playing it multiple nights per week for months. But then a few months into it he went to play one of the songs from it from memory and realized he couldn't do it. Having the score in front of him night after night prevented him from having to commit any of it to memory, so he hadn't. But he said realizing it was kind of a shock; he just kind of assumed he knew it after playing it repeatedly for so long, and was surprised to realize that he didn't.
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Leland Sklar ... charts are like heroin, if you give him some I'll never get off of them.

Ellis Marsalis ... Having the score in front of him night after night prevented him from having to commit any of it to memory, so he hadn't.
I learned this a long time ago. I might use a chart to figure out a chord change or correct notes. I'm pretty good at sight reading single note lines (result of clarinet lessons as a kid) or chord changes from chord symbols, but if I want to be able to play a tune without a chart in front of me, I have to practice it without a chart in front of me. Simple as that.
These are only my opinions, not supported by any actual knowledge, experience, or expertise.
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...charts are like heroin, if you give him some I'll never get off of them. So give me the CD's and a setlist and I'll learn the show.

 

A bit more brutal than I was putting it, but...

 

Question: Okay, so people have sheet music in front of them and they're playing the music encoded thereon. There's a fork in the road, mentally. Are they playing the piece just to be playing it or are they trying to learn it? Well...that's the problem. The notes come off the page, flow through the fingers and they're gone. The brain is engaged, but only on a superficial level. It's possible to "learn" music from pages, but I would suggest that it's not as easy. I have a dim recollection of a classical musician (piano or violin? can't remember) preparing for a concerto, saying that they practiced the piece, reading it, but then they went and listened to every recording they could find. I didn't think about it at the time--at least not in the current context--but what if the actual listening was the part that cemented the performance in the brain? Music is, by definition, an auditory experience. Maybe it takes hearing it to make it "real" to the brain. Yeah, yeah...Beethoven could supposedly hear the written notes in his mind...blah, blah, blah...I ain't Beethoven and I strongly suspect that none of the members of this board are on his level. Besides, being deaf, he had no choice.

 

I want to make clear that I'm not trying to run down written music. I'm just exploring the notion that it's not an ideal system for learning (in the memorization sense) a given piece of music.

 

Or, to put it in other words: The map is not the terrain.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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I want to make clear that I'm not trying to run down written music. I'm just exploring the notion that it's not an ideal system for learning (in the memorization sense) a given piece of music.

 

I've noticed that people's reactions to the very concept of written music notation are funny, and can provoke a good deal of defensiveness. At one end of the spectrum are people who eschew the whole idea because "I just wanna play what I feel, man." At the other end are people who regard our current system of notation as some sort of perfect and untouchable holy grail. While I'm more toward the latter end than the former, I hold an opinion that's really unpopular among the folks at the far end of it: while I agree that our system is an impressively useful and comprehensive one that's been honed over time to optimum efficiency by some of the greatest minds in history, I also believe it never would have evolved if the people who invented it had the resources and technology we have today. If everybody from the Renaissance forward had been walking around with devices that could record and instantly share audio, video, and some sort of encoded note-by-note instructions like MIDI, then no one would ever have bothered to start drawing lines on a piece of paper and say "Okay, this line means this note, and this shape means hold it for this long." The very idea would seem absurd. If someone tried it, other people would say "Dude, why are you inventing this entire arbitrary, off-puttingly complex system to encode and then decode a skeletal representation of information that we can already easily share directly?" I'm sure it seemed like a great idea to people whose only resources were ink and goat skin, because under those circumstances it really was the best option available. But throw smartphones into the picture and no one would have bothered.

 

And that leads to the other, even more unpopular opinion: if the human species manages to continue at something close to its current level of technological development for a few more generations (which I regard as a very big "if," but that's another matter), music notation as we know it will die out because more efficient and intuitive ways of communicating the same information will render it obsolete. The people like us who think it's great because we developed an emotional attachment to it through all the effort we put in to master it back when the other kids were going to parties and getting laid will grow old and die, and the people who come after us won't form those same irrational attachments because they'll have no need to. There will still be a handful of people who understand notation, but they'll be as rare and socially deviant as people who have conversations in Latin today.

 

So there you go. If your idea of a fun afternoon's entertainment is really pissing off a bunch of old white people in music conservatories, I've just given you the means to do it.

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[i hold an opinion that's [i]really[/i] unpopular among the folks at the far end of it: while I agree that our system is an impressively useful and comprehensive one that's been honed over time to optimum efficiency by some of the greatest minds in history, I also believe it never would have evolved if the people who invented it had the resources and technology we have today. If everybody from the Renaissance forward had been walking around with devices that could record and instantly share audio, video, and some sort of encoded note-by-note instructions like MIDI, then no one would ever have bothered to start drawing lines on a piece of paper and say "Okay, this line means this note, and this shape means hold it for this long." The very idea would seem absurd. If someone tried it, other people would say "Dude, why are you inventing this entire arbitrary, off-puttingly complex system to encode and then decode a skeletal representation of information that we can already easily share directly?" I'm sure it seemed like a great idea to people whose only resources were ink and parchment, because under those circumstances it really was the best option available. But throw smartphones into the picture and no one would have bothered.
I love thought-provoking opinions like this.

 

I absolutely agree that as a means of conveying music *reproduction* ("how does that song go?"), written manuscript is a product of its age, and would not evolve today with that goal in mind.

 

But I suspect that there would still be a demand for music *performance* (from both musicians and audience). MP3 on a smartphone doesn't achieve that, because as a wise sage once said "pressing play does not constitute live performance".

 

Discuss, with reference to kids on lawns.

 

Cheers, Mike.

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In fact, there are several systems of music notation in current and frequent use today â "old-fashioned" notation, lead sheets, chord charts, Nashville numbering charts, guitar tablature, etc. And nowadays (he says, in old fart language) we read them on our tablets, smart phones, ipads. We even have specialized gear to hold and feed these notation systems into our computers or to play live, and software that will either play the music notation or receive the music in electronic form and convert it into music notation. Eventually, I expect to have a direct connection into my brain so that I don't have to read or write music ... or even play it on an instrument. It will be the true Think System⢠from the old Music Man musical.
These are only my opinions, not supported by any actual knowledge, experience, or expertise.
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I absolutely agree that as a means of conveying music *reproduction* ("how does that song go?"), written manuscript is a product of its age, and would not evolve today with that goal in mind.

 

But I suspect that there would still be a demand for music *performance* (from both musicians and audience). MP3 on a smartphone doesn't achieve that, because as a wise sage once said "pressing play does not constitute live performance".

 

I agree, and maybe I was unclear. I'm not saying live performance will be replaced by MP3s on your smartphone. I'm saying that as a means to learn how a given piece of music goes, written notation will be replaced by YouTube tutorials on your smartphone, and the future evolutions thereof.

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