Standard notation or By Ear for New Tunes

[Mandobart]

The problem with standard notation is that you get very little in the way of interpretation. Learning by ear gives you that, but it's someone else's interpretation....

With actual sheet music there are directions on dynamics (crescendo, decrescendo, forte, fortissimo, etc.) There are also terms for the mood or feeling (agitato, dolce, vivace, etc.). It's still anyone's guess what a long dead composer really had in his mind when he/she wrote the piece.

When learning a piece by ear, I can hear and mimic how the player is performing the piece, but even if that player is the composer I still am not in her head understanding exactly what she intended. But...that's why we call it interpretation. The feeling I get from a song may be different than the one intended by the composer, and may be different than what the audience gets when either of us play it. Often the feeling and interpretation on a studio version gets changed greatly when performed live.

Iif you want the exact original, get the original song/album whatever you choose, and don't listen to live music.

That's why I insert my own interpretation, whether by ear or off the sheet.

[Ken_P]

The problem with standard notation is that you get very little in the way of interpretation. Learning by ear gives you that, but it's someone else's interpretation, not necessarily the original composer's. For modern compositions we're lucky to have recordings by the original authors, but for Beethoven it's any one's guess.

You're supposed to bring your on interpretation to those pieces, though. Beethoven, to use your example (and because he's my favorite ), added much more detail to his scores than anyone before him, but you can find literally hundreds if not thousands of different, equally compelling, versions of all of his most famous pieces. Music would get pretty boring after a while if everybody played it exactly the same!

[Ivan Kelsall]

Absolutely correct Ken. Although,as we all know one man's (woman's ) interpretation will differ from another's.But isn't that the sheer beauty of it ?.There is no totally 100%,absolutely perfect interpretation of any piece of music,although we might believe that one particular interpretation is exactly that for us.Other's may equally like a different interpretation. I have dozens of differing performances of Piano Concertos by Beethoven/Tchajkovsky/Rachmaninov etc.,all of which i enjoy immensely.That doesn't mean to say that i don't have a 'favourite' amongst them.
Personally,regarding what we might regard as 'standard' tunes,as long as you don't go too far out & totally loose the basic melody,i think that all interpretations are valid. Unfortunately,i've heard a few of the new 'super pickers' totally loose the foundation of the melody that they're supposed to be playing - too much techno-picking & too little tune (IMHO),
Ivan

[Dfyngravity]

Both are very beneficial to learning music, but both are not necessary. Personally, I would recommend learning by ear and reading music. For me that is the best way I know how to learn songs. If I have a recording and the sheet music, learning the song is much faster. In fact, even if I just have the chords and a recording helps tremendously. I know that there people, as in the keyboard player in my band, that can listen to a song once and be able to play it/ figure it out in just minuets but I am not blessed with that good of ears. So for me I like to have the sheet music to get the notes under my fingers and the recording to really get the groove/ feel of the song and how it should be played.

So, yeah.....both for me. Why limit yourself?

[Loretta Callahan]

Clearly, there isn't one way to learn music; I think most folks would agree on that. What I'm realizing, however, is that I'm less inclined to read anything as much as I used to; music, books, etc. I was a voracious reader all through my childhood and adult life. What I'm noticing now (thanks to this thread) is that I retain things better from hearing, rather than reading. Not sure if my reading dance card just got too full; I'm just older ... or whatever.

My genre of choice is Irish Trad mostly, with some old timey tossed in. These were passed on through an aural tradition I'm finding out. The invention of notation is wonderful for helping to preserve the music, but I think I'll chug along aurally and keep notation going as a backup ..... for now. Things change. I might feel differently in a year or so.

[Tim2723]

You're supposed to bring your on interpretation to those pieces, though. Beethoven, to use your example (and because he's my favorite ), added much more detail to his scores than anyone before him, but you can find literally hundreds if not thousands of different, equally compelling, versions of all of his most famous pieces. Music would get pretty boring after a while if everybody played it exactly the same!

I understand what you mean and your point is well taken, but the other side of that coin is that if we were able to ask Beethoven he'd likely say we were doing it wrong because it wasn't what he wanted (which is why he added so much detailed instruction. He didn't want us interpreting him). But you are right. Even with all his detailed direction we still can never be perfectly sure what Beethoven really wanted. That's the problem with music as a written language. History records that many early composers were disappointed at times with a conductor's interpretation of their music.

Oddly enough, experience demonstrates that it's learning by ear which is far more likely to have people arguing about what is 'right' because they learned a tune a certain way and that other interpretations are 'wrong'. With Beethoven we embrace all the different interpretations because it is left to us to interpret, but with recorded music we know the original intent, or at least believe we do.

Consider for a moment the advent of 'slow-downer' software and similar learning technologies. Do we slow down the latest hot lick to interpret it our own way or to reproduce it precisely? A hundred years ago there were no 'cover bands' working diligently to replicate every note and nuance of another popular group by listening endlessly to a record.

I predict that the problem (if indeed it is a problem) will only increase with time. Now that we have accurately recorded music our descendants will know exactly how great-great-great grandpa played the tune and they will have even less room for interpretation. If that's true, then perhaps music will become even more 'boring'.

[Jim Garber]

I am not 100% sure that even Beethoven added so much specific instruction to his scores. There are, for instance, many editions of the Beethoven Sonatinas for Mandolin and Piano with indications for fingerings and dynamics, etc. Much of this was added way after LvB's original edition and was added by various editors and interpreters. I had one edition with really stupid IMHO fingerings and then I found an urtext edition with no markings at all which may have been closer to the original.

[Tim2723]

That's true Jim, but as Ken points out, Beethoven added more direction than others before him. Many have amplified on that over time, but the basic idea that Beethoven tried harder than others to get his points across is valid. It's also important to realize that a manuscript may not have as much direction as the final published work, even though the composer adds that direction at the time. When a work is published after the composer's death, we can be certain. The problem is, of course, that we can't ask Beethoven.

[rgray]

For me, the ear comes first to identify desired tunes and how they generally sound. Tab then provides fretting and picking mechanics. Back to ear for how to apply those mechanics so what I play sounds something like what I heard. Over to notation written above the tab to remind me of rhythm and timing. Then just back-n-forth between all three as I practice until I can play what I believe sounds like the tune without any visual cues, either alone or accompanying the original tune recording.

[Loretta Callahan]

Pretty much the way I'm leaning, Bob .....

For me, the ear comes first to identify desired tunes and how they generally sound. Tab then provides fretting and picking mechanics. Back to ear for how to apply those mechanics so what I play sounds something like what I heard. Over to notation written above the tab to remind me of rhythm and timing. Then just back-n-forth between all three as I practice until I can play what I believe sounds like the tune without any visual cues, either alone or accompanying the original tune recording.

[bratsche]

For me, it depends on how complex the tune is, and how quickly I want or need to learn it (provided I don't have the sheet music.) My fastest learning track is actually to transcribe such a piece (by ear) into notation software, print it out, and then really learn it by reading, studying and playing it. Minus the printed part, it would take me just way too many "listens" to get it down in my head quickly, and I'd likely get earworms from it, too.

I recognize that there's an extremely strong sight component to my particular learning and memorization ability, being in general a visual thinker and learner. I find it a lot easier to memorize something that's written down and I can see in my mind's eye, and I'm also able to recover from playing lapses more quickly by remembering what the music "looks like" as well as how it sounds.

I seldom consciously think in terms of "dotted quarter note", "eighth notes", "triplets" etc. any more than I consciously pay attention to what is a "verb", "adjective" or "preposition" while speaking. They (the note values themselves, not the names we give them) are just parts of the vocabulary, as it were.

bratsche

[August Watters]

The problem is, of course, that we can't ask Beethoven.

Beethoven's music has been reinterpreted through generations of publishers, each who added their own contributions. This was standard practice until recently, when people started to realize that perhaps we should get back to the original scores and see if we can actually identify the composer's intent, without looking at it through the lens of everything that came after.

What's important, I think, is that there's an incredible, exciting, world of music passed down to us, if we just dip into it and try to understand it on its own terms. Beethoven was a great improviser; would he really want us to have less of that joy?