| Song Learning Preference |
| Key, and Count and let’s play |
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58% |
[ 7 ] |
| Tuning and Tab and I can learn it |
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8% |
[ 1 ] |
| Really, truly, honestly, it doesn’t matter to me. |
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33% |
[ 4 ] |
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| Total Votes : 12 |
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| Author |
Topic: What’s your preferred learning style |
Allan Revich
From:
Victoria, BC
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Posted 23 Mar 2020 8:08 pm |
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Here’s my hypothesis:
Most musicians fall into one of two camps when it comes to learning and playing new material. For lap steel players they’re
1) Give me the key, the tempo, and a bass line, I’ll figure it out.
2) Give me the tuning and the tab, and I’ll learn anything.
Accepting of course that most people who’ve been playing a while are comfortable with either of these if necessary, but I think that even accomplished players probably have a preference.
Understanding that for certain songs, sheet music or detailed tabs are the only way, such as in classical music, and that many tab learners can let loose with improvised parts once they have the song under their belt.
So here’s the poll.
_________________
Current Tunings:
6 String | G – D G D G B D
7 String | G9 – D G B D F A D
https://papadafoe.com/lap-steel-tuning-database |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 23 Mar 2020 9:59 pm
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If the song is completely new to me, I’ll take anything I can get my hands on - recordings, videos, chord charts, sheet music, tab - to get as inside the tune as possible. Then punch in some backing tracks and work it up to tempo.
Maybe that’s closer to #2 than #1, but I think it’s #3. |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 24 Mar 2020 1:15 am
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I'm like Fred - I look for as many angles as possible.
I'm naturally a #2, but working with #1s has obliged me to become a #3.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 24 Mar 2020 1:18 am
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#4 - whatever works & is available, or I'll make up something for myself. If it's simple or something I know or can immediately hear the changes, I just wing it. For most bands I'm in, I keep an alphabetized song list with key, time sig, and song structure, including solo placement and sometimes snippets of a number chart for stuff that's tricky, as a pdf on a cheap Android pad. Once I've learned a tune, that's what I go by. I can generally fit 15-20 songs on one page, and the pad fits into a holder that clamps to the right leg of my steel.
I generally pick up melodies quickly. I never use tab to learn a song, nor does anybody I work with. I'll use it occasionally, but only if there's some specific steel part I can't figure out for myself after really trying hard. Occasionally a lead sheet will be available - I can read them slowly, my sight-reading chops are not up to speed. Working on sight reading is something I probably oughta be working on while we're holed up right now.
If nothing reasonable is available and the song is not clear to me, I listen and make some type of number chart. If it's a strongly vocal-oriented song, and especially if I'm singing the tune, I generally make a lyric chart with chord numbers in front of the words where the harmony changes. I often make a standard Nashville type chart with bars and timing, especially if the rhythm section doesn't know the tune and they need to get acquainted quickly. Sometimes I have to translate numbers to chords if the people I'm working with can't read a number chart. In some situations I'm working in, I need to provide something for rest of the band. Sometimes the other people provide something for me.
I wish more musicians had a uniform and logical method of communicating musical ideas, but that's often not the case. |
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Nic Neufeld
From:
Kansas City, Missouri
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Posted 24 Mar 2020 10:26 am
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I'm naturally a #1. It's my comfort zone. I was always self-taught, primarily, as a musician, up until about a decade ago where I started learning Hindustani classical music (and the teaching methodologies there are formal and more rigid), and then later when I started taking lessons from Ke Kula Mele.
What I found is that if I stay in #1 mode primarily, there are a lot of areas where I won't progress...because I'm not being pushed into it or forced. I've learned a lot of elaborate arrangements from my teacher, that my poor addled brain is not going to be able to recall verbatim, but having been taught them I've learned licks, vamps, slants, techniques, and all sorts of stuff that I likely would not have spontaneously come upon.
That said, I'm constantly working on figuring out ways to play various songs. Being "spoonfed" tabs/arrangements isn't my natural approach but I've found it super beneficial to advance me in techniques that I otherwise would not have tried...so ultimately I have a bigger toolbox when I do sit down with a random song and just want to sort out how to do it on my own. So a solid vote for #3...#1 by nature but very appreciative of the benefits of #2.
_________________
Waikīkī, at night when the shadows are falling
I hear the rolling surf calling
Calling and calling to me |
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David Ball
From:
North Carolina High Country
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Posted 24 Mar 2020 2:44 pm
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I've always been more of a #1 than anything else. Even when I was playing classical music, I was still playing mostly by ear. I'm a horrible sight reader. I'd learn the music off the chart until I had it in my head, and then played it from there with only an occasional glance at the music from then on.
An additional question/thought--I've always been a visual learner on everything but music. I take a lot of notes. Once I've taken the note, I rarely have to go back to it, since it's now stuck in my mind having seen it.
But with music, it's the other way around. Seeing it does nothing for me at all. I have to hear it.
I've asked a lot of other musicians over the years about how they learn, and nearly everyone I've asked have had a similar pattern. The great sight readers were auditory learners in everything else--never had to take a note. They actually absorbed the lectures. The great "play by ear" folks were note takers and visual learners in the non-musical areas.
What do you think?
Dave |
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Allan Revich
From:
Victoria, BC
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Posted 24 Mar 2020 6:24 pm
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| David Ball wrote: |
I've always been more of a #1 than anything else. Even when I was playing classical music, I was still playing mostly by ear. I'm a horrible sight reader. I'd learn the music off the chart until I had it in my head, and then played it from there with only an occasional glance at the music from then on.
An additional question/thought--I've always been a visual learner on everything but music. I take a lot of notes. Once I've taken the note, I rarely have to go back to it, since it's now stuck in my mind having seen it.
But with music, it's the other way around. Seeing it does nothing for me at all. I have to hear it.
I've asked a lot of other musicians over the years about how they learn, and nearly everyone I've asked have had a similar pattern. The great sight readers were auditory learners in everything else--never had to take a note. They actually absorbed the lectures. The great "play by ear" folks were note takers and visual learners in the non-musical areas.
What do you think?
Dave |
That’s really interesting Dave. I’d never given much thought to those art/music/note taking relationships. I’m also mostly a visual thinker. Even with music, I visualize a piano keyboard when I’m thinking about interval relationships. As for note taking, I don’t do a lot for music, but I do a little. In college though, I went to every lecture and always took good notes. I seldom used my notes later, but I found that by listening and taking notes, I was able to retain quite a lot. |
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