Learning new music ...

Wizard

Let's be provocative.

Last few posts have touched on how best to learn a new song.
Tabs? Music notation? By ear? etc ...

People sometimes apologise for not being able to 'read' music ... as if there's some music guru judging us for the way we do things.
There isn't.
Written music is nothing more than a means to and end.
Even our instruments are primarily just a means to an end.
Need to focus on what we're trying to do here - make music.

ANY notated version is going to lose something - since music is art, and art can't be fully codified.
(how would you ever notate the 'feel' of a blues number?)

My personal view is you've got to get the music into your head first.
Whether you hear it from your own composition, or hear it from someone else playing it.
I personally think it's preferable to be able to sing it or hum it.
"If you can say it, you can play it"

Any stuff written down is just a little 'helper' to supplement the missing information
... like what the notes are.
... or the tempo
... or which pickups the lead guitarist is using
... or which amplifier is being used

So ... listen to Gilmour playing it.
Decide what he did wrong and how you can improve it
(where IS that evil grin icon?),
modify it in your mind ... and play it.

Use whatever scheme you like to fill in the gaps - tabs etc.
Tabs, for example, contain MORE information than sheet music since there are many ways of playing the same chord.

In West Africa there is no such thing as anything written.
There's a whole caste of society, called the Jeli, who are responsible for maintaining and preserving the music and the culture.
They sing it to each other and play it to each other.
In their society you are regarded as completely incompetent if you have to write it down.
You are expected to have the skills to hear it being sung or played and immediately be able to play it.

DaFiz

Searching online for chords or lyrics comes up with some strange results, so I play along with the original and soon figure out which is the correct option.
I battled years ago and gave up on some songs, now I find them on chordsearch
and play along, suddenly more able than before. I want the chords and lyrics, not the tabs or notation which is written in even more variations methinx. :-\

Ray

Nah! I think it is good to be able to notate what you play. Also to be able to read music notation. Being new to guitar I am enjoying having notation and tab below. If notated well, then you can 'read' the 'feel' to an extent. That is what notation can do which helps a bit more that some oke warbling a tune in your ear.

FatBoy

Once I like a song enough that I'd want to play it, I'll search for some chords, until I find the ones that sound right to me, and then try to do my own take on the song.

Neps

I've always tried to play stuff by ear, but in some cases where I'm faarrr too lazy to spend a day to figure it out.. googling tabs becomes my friend.. I personaly blame 'shape of my heart' by Sting for this..

However, notating my own songs is a bit of a tricky situation, I'll just have a chord sequance written down somewhere and then expand around that. I've never been known to play something the same, which has been the cause of me not playing guitar in a band for a while. For some arb reason some people want you to play the SAME riff each and every time, which I find boring. So I stick to drums, cause no guitarist is going to tell me 'your kick on the 2nd bar.. umm, can you make that triplett a 4 to the floor into the chorus..'

But learning new styles.. well there tabs do help a bit. Getting diffrent flavoured chords that I would never have thought about, and playing a different scale opposed to my normal go to.

Wizard wrote: In West Africa there is no such thing as anything written.
There's a whole caste of society, called the Jeli, who are responsible for maintaining and preserving the music and the culture.
They sing it to each other and play it to each other.
In their society you are regarded as completely incompetent if you have to write it down.
You are expected to have the skills to hear it being sung or played and immediately be able to play it.

Jeli.. Do they also give Ice Cream at the shows.. sorry, I just had to.. Quite a cool tribal name :bopping:

[deleted]

Coming from the Complete opposite end of the spectrum where, when I started playing guitar, I would be given a song I had never heard before. I would then have to "unearth " the notes like an archeologist, finding all the right positions and eventualy get the feel of the song, And THEN decide if I liked it. This was the "orthodox" way of doing things. I did try to go find songs that I liked and learn them on my own, but I was caught out and a teacher actualy yelled at me (sniff sniff).

Fortunately I love guitar a lot and have moved on from that. I've found some good ways that include most of the ideas that you guys have been throwing around. It's a mish mash of finding the "feel" of the song; I do that by figuring out what kind of harmony it needs, ie, simple/complex, fast/slow and call/response dynamics. Once I've got that it's very simple to go over the "elaborations", which are the actual notes. This I will use the sheet music for, out of habit and because there are paterns that I recognise. Often I will then use the tabs, once I've gotten used to the melodic patern of the song.

Something I also do is try to watch as many videos and recordings I can find of the song I want to learn. That is UBBER helpfull. Soon I will be recording myself aswell, which I've heard is very helpfull.

Wizard

Neps wrote: Jeli.. Do they also give Ice Cream at the shows

The french called them Griots ... which doesn't go as well with Ice Cream ?

Wizard

Viccy wrote: ... I would be given a song I had never heard before. I would then have to "unearth " the notes like an archeologist, finding all the right positions and eventualy get the feel of the song, And THEN decide if I liked it.

I know that experience.
I used to ask my teacher to play the piece so I could hear what it sounded like.
This was frowned up - I had to figure out what it sounded like from the music.
You can gather I was never an expert at sight reading

[deleted]

Strangely enough neither was I. Luckily I've gotten better through sheer obstinacy.

Byron

ARg! I feel bad about this all the time lol. I just can't work out music by ear. well, a handful of riffs yeah, but not too often.I guess I'm also lazy at going about it too.

After playing for few years does it become much easier?

Lieutenat-J

Lets be realistic we're not Jimi Hendrix... ?

But you can train yourself to play to play music by ear
It also depends on what style of music you play, but after a while yes it does get easier after a few years, because you have been hearing the same notes and chords being played day in day out while practising

But also with all the affects we have today it can tricky

Gearhead

It would be a bit hard to be Jimi and to use a computer, being dead and all. Also typing might be seriously impaired because you'd be using the keyboard upside down (which some say would be why you have such interesting tone in your posts). Well actually, being Jimi you would have set fire to the keyboard long ago.

Heath

Honestly if it wasn't for tabs / Sheet music / GUITAR pro , i don't think i ever would have learnt to play the guitar , it was only tell later in my playing that i started working stuff out myself nowadays , i generally just look at tabs to get a feel for the progression and then do my own thing .

Byron

Do you professional musician guys make use of tabs ever? Like Ive wondered ; If you fiddling around and you come up with a riff do you write it in the tablature format?

[deleted]

Well, it's difficult to define "professional". People's credibility is often based on varying standards. I think if someone were composing music for the general public to perform they'd need to add in the keysignature. I've come across "modern music" where it's hard to define a key, and is more often than not a headache to play and listen to. The more "playable" the music the better, and sometimes tabs alone are not sufficient.

A bit of info you're probably well aware of, but historically guitar music was only written in tabs. They changed over to sheet music for good reason I assume. Probably had something to do with accesibility to other musicians.

What I would find even more helpfull is if composers added the harmony for their pieces (I know you get that with some popular music).
I guess they don't do it coz it's not expected of them, or it might reveal their secret formulas.