Learning To Learn By Ear
In the years since I started teaching I have run into many people who tell me they can’t learn by ear. “My son (neighbor, friend, etc.) can pick up anything just by listening to it. He’s gifted.” I am here to tell you that this “gifted” business is absolute hogwash, and this misconception is part of what keeps people from learning to learn by ear. Yes, it does come easier for some people than for others, but most of us have to learn how to do it and I have yet to meet anyone who truly can’t.
Think about it. The skills ear learners use are ones we are all born with and use in our every day lives. We use our sense of pitch to determine the difference between statements and questions, and there are elements of rhythm and timing in everything from walking to brushing your teeth. The only difference is the time and focus put into developing these skills, honing them in directions that are musically relevant. Here are a few exercises that will help you to isolate these separate skills and then combine them to learn by ear.
Listening
The first step in learning a tune by ear is LISTENING. Over, and over…and over. And a few thousand times again after that. Dave Bing, a great West Virginia fiddler said that he listens to a tune for a month before he ever picks up his fiddle to play it. Admittedly, that’s a level of patience most of us just don’t possess, but it does drive home the point: in order to teach yourself a tune by ear you have to know it before you can play it, because unlike reading music, the responsibility for knowing what notes to play, when, and for how long, now rests with your internalized understanding of the tune, not a set of written instructions. So a big part of learning to learn by ear is learning new ways to listen.
Listening for a melody
This may not be Webster's definition, but for the sake of this exercise, you can think of melody as a group of notes that make sense together. They made sense when the tune's composer thought them up, and your job will be easier if they make sense to you before you learn the tune - this means understanding each phrase as an individual component, and how it works in the melody as a whole. What’s a phrase? You can think of it as complete musical thought, or perhaps as one clause of a musical sentence. So just listen for a bit, and then once you feel comfortable with the general flow of the tune, sing along. Remember that your goal is not to sound like Julie Andrews, you’re just trying to get a feel for the tune, so don’t worry about how you sound, just focus on whether or not you are able to follow along. Once this becomes easy, listen a little closer.
· Can you hear the beginning and ending of the A and B parts?
· Can you hear the phrases that make up each part?
· Do all the phrases have distinct starting and ending points, or do some phrases lead into one another? Do some notes seem to function not as a part of a phrases, but as a bridge between phrases?
· Are certain phrases repeated within a part, or recycled in the next part?
This may be obvious to you, and you may already be doing this when you learn your tunes, but it bears repeating. The better you understand the melody the easier you'll be able to anticipate what happens next in the tune, so take the time to explain it to yourself. This doesn’t mean analyzing a tune like a machine – it’s more like reminding yourself of how a story goes before you try to tell it.
Also keep in mind that most – I said most, not all! – fiddle tunes follow a four phrase formula in each part. You have an opening phrase, and then a second phrase that responds to it. Then you return to the first phrase followed by an ending. Sometimes this ending phrase is very similar to the second phrase, but while the second phrase leaves you hanging, waiting for more, the last phrase should set you down feeling like the tune (or the part) is complete. It is also common for the A part and B part to have the same ending, though this is far from a rule.
Listening to the rhythm
Another important part of a tune is the rhythm, and you want to have as firm a hold on that as you do the melody. You sung the melody, so why not sing out a rhythm line? Listen to the tune and either express the rhythm verbally (daaa-da-da-DA-da) or tap out the rhythm with your hand if that’s easier. Keep in mind that we’re talking about the rhythm of the notes, not just tapping on the beat. Now ask yourself:
· Do some of the phrases have the same rhythm (for example, short-short-short-short LONG LONG, or four eighth notes followed by two quarter notes if you are sheet music inclined) even if the notes are different?
· Are there any places where the rhythm is so different or distinct that it helps you keep track of where you’re at in the melody?
· Where is the emphasis? Do you hear the ONE-two-three of a waltz, or the bouncing step in a schottische?
Putting it all together
So now that you’ve improved your understanding of the melody and rhythm separately, try putting them together. Sing the tune again, only this time use a variety of syllables (instead of just “la la la”) so that, sort of like scat singing, you are expressing something rhythmic as well as melodic. (Hint: if it sounds a little ridiculous you're probably doing it right, so let your hair down! J If I were to deedle out Arkansas Traveler it would sound something like “tee-yump-a-deedle dum-da dee-dum daaa ) This is something I almost always do when I'm learning a new tune, and it is especially helpful if you are learning something like a hoedown, where the tune is driven more by rhythm than a melodic line.
Do you think you’re ready to start work on your new tune? Turn off the recording and see if you can sing the tune by yourself. It is not cheating to use the recording to help jump start your memory, but you will have the best shot at learning a tune once you can keep it going by yourself. If you can do that, you know you've got the melody - with its rhythm, phrasing, etc - internalized. Remember, you are in the driver’s seat now, there isn’t a piece of paper giving you directions, so it’s important that you know where you are going.
A few more ways to listen…
There are really only three things a melody can do at any given time—go higher than the previous note, lower than the previous note, or playing the same note again. Yes, you do need to know how much higher or lower the melody has jumped, but a good starting point is just learning to listen for these three movements. Here’s an exercise that might help with that.
As you listen to the tune try to be aware of the rise and fall of the pitch, or simply put, whether the note you are singing now is higher or lower than the one just before it. For the sake of visualizing this rise and fall, try holding your hand out in front of you and moving it with the melody; up as the notes get higher, down when they descend and holding where you are for the repeated notes. If you feel that some of these distances between notes are larger than others, show it in your hand movements. Clearly, as you improve your ear this part of the process won’t be necessary, but forcing yourself to express the motion of the sounds through tangible motion of your body can help improve your focus early on.
If you feel you’re having a hard time understanding the concept of high and low pitches, think of the high squeal of a tea kettle and the low rumble of thunder. Try humming (or playing) two different notes, the 2nd higher than the first. Try it again with different notes. Now go the other way; the second note being lower than the first. The ability to identify whether one note was higher or lower than the one before it is an important part of ear learning, but it’s also something you already know how to do. Ask aloud “I can play by ear?” Now tell yourself (a statement, not a question) “I can play by ear.” What’s the difference? When you ask a question you end on a higher pitch, and when you make a statement you end on a lower one.
Putting Fingers to Notes
What we’ve covered so far is meant to help you listen to music in a different way; to bring awareness to the different musical elements that are right in front of you. Everything you would see on the sheet music is right there for you ears to "read", if you know how to listen for it.
Once you know what’s going on in the tune you still have to figure out how to transfer this wealth of information to your fingers. This is a matter of making connections. Through repetition, trial and error, and awareness you can achieve an understanding that creates a sound map, or simply put, "when I put my finger here, this is the sound I get." For those of you that read notes, you already have this kind of musical connection, only your connection is between the marks you see on the page and the movements they represent. Folks who play by ear have a connection between the notes that they hear and the motions that make them. The notes are the product of a specific motion, a specific location in space. Don’t think you are capable of finding that location? Close your eyes and touch your left shoulder. Found it, huh? Over time the instrument just feels like an extension of yourself, and you know its anatomy as well as your own.
Not your cup of tea? Here’s another way to think about it. When you first learned to talk all you learned were sounds—individual sounds, without meaning or structure. Once know what movements make what sounds, the notes of the instrument become much like any sound you verbalize. You know the individual sounds, and you know how they come together to form words, so you could very easily repeat something you hear someone else say. When you play by ear music is just like that, you are repeating things you’ve heard other fiddlers say and add on your own comments as you go.
In the end, it’s largely a matter of trail and error, but with a focus. When you try to find the next note in a tune and you don’t get it on the first try, you aren’t failing, you’re just learning what the note you’re looking for doesn’t sound like. This may sound overly optimistic, but what you are doing is training your brain to hunt for notes. Is it over here? No, too high. Over there? Nope, too low, so it MUST be somewhere in-between! If you can learn to see your first attempts as excursions into the musical underbrush instead of a test marked “pass” or “fail”, you will get further faster. Learn music like you did your first language; listening to those who have already mastered it and trying this and that to replicate what you hear.
Music Theory and Accelerating Your Learning Through Patterns
The longer you play fiddle, the more you will begin to notice patters. Ever notice that the lower octave of a G scale (starting on the open G string) has the same fingering as a D scale, just on different strings? Or how Soldier’s Joy, Harvest Home Hornpipe, Buffalo Gals, Tennessee Waltz, and countless other D tunes revolve around same group of notes? These patterns have names and logical explanations you can learn about by studying music theory. Though some people associate music theory knowledge with classical training, I believe a good foundation in theory is even more important to an ear learner and traditional music player. When there isn’t a piece of paper to look to for sharps and flats, it’s really important to know what notes belong in a given key. The greater amount of music you hear can be broken down it to pretty clear patterns of scales and arpeggios, so if you don’t know what these are, I really recommend you learn about them.
I hope this has given you something to think about, and if you ever have questions about ear-learning, or anything else, feel free to send questions to fiddleteacher@hotmail.com
© Sarah Comer, 2008