Something I do....

[Barbara Shultz]

One of my 'practice' strategies.... I'll take a tune that I know, whether it's one I've picked up from someone else, out of a book, or figured out from a CD. Then, I'll find as many different recordings of it as I can. Then, I work on playing along with the different recordings. I find that this keeps me on my toes.... if I've got the basic tune in my muscle memory, then playing it in different settings, helps keep my ear listening for the little differences in each recording. It really gets interesting if you find it in a different key, and can figure it out there, as well!

This keeps me from getting locked into just ONE way to play a tune, and sharpens my ability to 'go with the flow'!

Another fun practice strategy is to take a tune I know, and then go up and down the scale, and play it in different keys. Even if you don't know what key you are playing it in, if it's playing in your head, and you just pick any old note to start it on, its usually not that hard to just close your eyes, and let your fingers find the right notes!

Anyone else do this?



Barb

[John Flynn]

Yeah, I do that, sort of. I think it's a good approach. I find every recording of a tune I can get my hands on and listen to each extensively. Then I pick the one I like the best and I try to really get that one down solid, before trying to conquer another one. Then I take parts of other versions that I like and loop them in Transcribe! and learn those parts until I can play along with them also. So I wind up with my favorite arrangement as the base and variations from others that I can change up to make things more interesting. Tanscribe! and TablEdit both help a lot, because I can sync up different versions into the same key and the same tempo if I choose to.

A challenge I've run into is that a lot of the tunes I want to learn are esoteric and often there is only one recording of them, sometimes only a recording I've made from a live performance. Two caveats are that sometimes there is only one version of the tune I like at all and sometimes a tune comes with its own variations. But your approach seems like a very good way to go.

[woodwizard]

Yup! I kinda do that too. Pick a tune you like ... find as many versions as possible ... study-practice-study-practice. As John mentioned sometimes it's pretty hard to find very many versions of Old Time fiddle tunes especially. I think it's a good way to practice.