Pretty good ain't good enough

[Earl Gamage]

Once your ear gets good enough to hear melodies it's kind of easy to slack and play "kind of" the melody instead of really working at it and getting it really slick. Do ya'll know what I mean?

How do you keep working at it really hard and getting it right?

[mandroid]

There's only so many stars in the sky

[Earl Gamage]

Not a bad answer at all Mandroid.

[Ivan Kelsall]

The same way that ALL the finest musicians do,practice,practice,practice !!.The only difference between me & Chris Thile,(apart from a Loar & a Dude. that is !),is that he possese so much talent that he possibly needs less practice now to get thing dead right. In the begining he most likely needed all the practice he could get,he just got to the finishing post quicker than most.
Strive for perfection ! - you'll never get there,but if you get 90% of it,you'll be ok. All the top players have to 'work at it' to get things right. All the terrific solos,intros. etc.have been worked hard on - nothing worth having comes without effort,
Ivan:mandosmiley:

[Earl Gamage]

Thanks, Ivan, your answer makes sense as well.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi Earl - At last !!! - something i posted 'made sense'. I've been working hard on that. If you don't have it,Adam Steffey's 2 disc.tuition DVD set,is well worth having. On the second disc,he explains how he puts his intros.,solos together,& it aint' a breeze for that guy either - it's still work,work & then a bit more,until he's satisfied with it. Just do the same & you'll be in there with all the rest of us,shredded fingeretips and all,
Ivan:grin:

[Kevin Briggs]

I'll chime in too and say that it's all about practice.

Chris Thile has all of the talent there is to have, but he also said something like he has to practice at least two hours a day just to not get any worse.

Jerry Garcia said once in an interview that he typically practices four to five hours a day. In fact, he once moved with Robert Hunter and drove Hunter out of the living arrangment because, as Hunter reported, Garcia played scales eight hours a day.

In my own experience, I got the point a few years ago where I practiced at least an hour a day, and after doing that for a year or two I was only starting to do things that I thought were "good."

My experience with "Ragtime Annie" is a good exanple of how much practice helps. When I first learned it, I couldn't play the B part at all. I wanted to do a pinku thing there and I just couldn't. So, I practiced it very slow for about three months, and then I tried to speed it up a little bit. After about a year I could play it with my band, and then I had to practice it 5-10 times a day at a reasonable speed just to be able to hang in there.

I think talent is about 25% of it, because we need rhythm, a musical ear, etc. But after that it's all about practicing. I gaurauntee that if we all practiced intensely and with good technique for five hours a day for two years we would be damn good players.

[Andrew DeMarco]

I believe it was Garcia who said "If I don't practice for a day I can tell. If I don't practice for two days the audience can tell."

[Patrick Sylvest]

An accomplished dobro player over on reso-nation.org suggested that when performing, to stick with the most tasteful arrangement you can play well, and not try to jam the newest lick into your playing. With practice, all those licks, scales, and 'do-overs' will show up in your playing in time.

Also, playing things slowly is the best way to get them down. I worked on Thile's version of 'The Fox' for a long time at a molasses pace. I set it aside and hadn't played it for a while (months) and upon returning to it I found that I could play it and sing it at tempo like a memorized verse. Now I feel free to venture a bit outside the standard melody Chris wrote and still stay in time and in tune.

[Fretbear]

There comes a point when you begin to play as you see fit. Your standards first have to become realized, which is to say that you know how you want something (anything) that you play on your mandolin to sound, even something that you are just learning, like a solo or a tune. You cannot play with authority if you don't have any, or if you have not yet begun to trust your musical taste or ear. What I am about to say will probably get me in trouble, but everyone talks about CT as if he is some golden standard to adhere to. I respect him for the virtuoso that he is, but I am not really interested in listening to anything that he does, as it just leaves me cold. I want to like it, I have tried to like it, but it just doesn't move me. That says absolutely nothing about him or even his playing, just about my musical vision and intentions, which I have begun to trust. Music is about being touched and moved; you can do it to yourself when playing as easily as someone else can do it to you or you may do it to someone else. It takes a long time, but it doesn't matter how long it takes, you have to arrive at a place where you play it as you feel it, and then you will be able to stand behind it emotionally and yes, even spiritually, whether it is liked by others or not. In my experience, this truth that you play of yours is what people (who are sensitive enough to recognize it) really want to connect with they listen to music.

[swampstomper]

Once your ear gets good enough to hear melodies it's kind of easy to slack and play "kind of" the melody instead of really working at it and getting it really slick. Do ya'll know what I mean?

How do you keep working at it really hard and getting it right?

A genius like Monroe hears the entire melody "correctly" but then works it into his own vision. Just listen to the mando solos on Grey Eagle, Sally Goodin, Soldier's Joy -- Greene plays the melody "as it's written" and Mon plays it.... Mon style, that is, for the mandolin as played by Monroe. Is he being lazy? I think not.

Herschel Sizemore, Kenny Baker... listen to those guys, they do not play note-for-note the received version. BUT -- and this agrees with Fretbear -- you have to be able to express what you want, so this does require practice.

For me, I try to get another player's melody and stylings down, as close as I can, so I can see how he's approaching the tune or song. Then after a while when I am sure I'm not just being lazy (to avoid a string crossing, a pinky move etc.) I listen closely and adjust to what sounds best to me.

[gkraushaar]

You need to practice and practice until you get the first tune absolutely right. Then you move on to another tune and work on it, all the while continuing to refine the first tune. Then move on to another. At some point in time, if you're ever going to become a real player, you'll become addicted to playing and working on your craft. The process of learning new tunes will become predictable and efficient. It will take you less and less time to learn new material.

Good luck!

[PurplePlectrum]

I agree with swamstomper. Those styles are not every melody note. BUT there are times when you want it every note and you just have to force yourself there. EarlG... HOW is the question? Your ear has done a lot of work for you. It is so important to find that trouble spot.
Here is HOW....1. Take the notes in front of the spot and the ones behind 2. Play them slower and slower until you don't mess them or the timing up 3. Then Over and Over and Over play it until you do it 10+ times perfectly. 4. Now add more of the melody that leads up to it until that portion is perfect in notes and timing! Should take Only a few minutes.
Now walk away from it and next day do the same thing and the day after and and...until it's YOURS. You have to give your muscles and mind time to accumulate the information and get that muscle memory. For me I am working on Headlight Reel and minor key versions of Cuckoo’s Nest.
If you want a musical part your messing up badly enough it won't cut it to let it settle to that comfort zone of just playing it your way. You have to let your mind and fingers acquire it with time and deliberate practice. PS I'm proud of you!

[Ken Olmstead]

When people find out that I play instruments, the next sentance is generally, "I tried guitar but I just had no musical talent." My response is always the same, "Neither do I." The I tell them that every one is capable of playing an instrument (basically, it has to be a priority to put in years of practice to get anywhere.) Just because you are still struggleing to play Smoke on the Water after a week of practice does not indicate a lack of musical talent!

I believe I have 95% of what Grisman has but I don't have 1/10th of a percent of the practice or experience that he has. The top musicians do have that little extra something (read gift) that takes them to someplace special. It is usually somewhat narrow and they play to their strengths.

I have been able to get any melody I want to a place that I can be proud of with practice. Some take longer than others but I get there IF it is a priority to do it!

[Kevin Briggs]

These are all great comments.

I also get the comment from people, "I tried to learn the guitar but my hands wouldn't work right," or something like that. I tell those people that when I first started playing the guitar when I was 14 years old all I did was sit around a playing "Knockin' on heaven's Door" for about a year. It drove my parents nuts, but I wasn't going to stop playing it until I could switch chords without thinking about it, and until the chords sounded like they did on the CD.

I gaurauntee that Grisman, Bush, Hendrix, and whomever did not pick up an instrument and just start playing incredible music. It takes time on the instrument no matter who you are. Clapton is famous for starting the guitar when he was a young teen and quitting because he "Wasn't any good." He started again when he was 17 or 18 and couldn't put the instrument down, which obviously says more about practice than it does ability.

An exercise analogy is fitting here. I am not a natural runner, and for me to get in shape is like torture. However, a few years ago I id it. I got to the point where i could run five or six miles and talk on my cell phone the whole time. I could do it at five in the morning, 10 at night, cold out, hot out, whatever. It took me about three months to get in shape, but it was possible, and I could do eight minute miles the whole way. It's not because I am a natural athlete, i just worked at it, and I could hang in there with just about anyone at the time. Unfortunately, my hip started acting up and I stopped running, so now I'm a slug again.

Make sense?

[Randi Gormley]

I find that really liking a piece gives me the initial incentive to practice it for hours, trying to get the tune right, the rhythm right and the fingering without thinking. My problem has been that once I get used to a tune, it gets kinda boring and that incentive to play it a million times goes away. Then I'll play it with someone else, and it's a whole different tune, and I'll get charged up again. In between times, I keep playing it (slogging through it if I have to) just to keep it in my head, because when all else fails, i think about the fact that me and the mando make music together and that's just such a cool thing that it keeps me returning to working on stuff.

[Nick Triesch]

There is always the question of talent. No one hear talks about it but if you don't have talent, you can practice 12 hours a day and still only play "part" of the songs. I know that I hit the talent wall years ago. I can play many songs but I know in my heart that I'll never be a really good mandolin player. Just life dude. Nick

[Rogapesh]

A good friend of mine sits first chair in a prestigious international orchestra. We've had this conversation many times. We both came to the conclusion that talented people are a dime a dozen, the people who have the self discipline to perfect their art are the rare shining stars.

Unfortunately, this little tidbit of opinion doesn't make me feel THAT much better when I've sat practicing the same five measures over and over and don't feel like I've gotten much better.:crying:

[Big Joe]

First, practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. If you practice and practice a bad technique or pattern you will drum that bad into your style. Work to perfect all the little things so you can become the best you are capable.

Second, listen to as much music...especially mandolin music as you can. You won't figure it all out the first time, or the tenth, or the hundredth, but at some point it will begin to come together. You will begin to hear all those little things that just seemed to be in the background. You will find these little things cropping into your playing. That is what really makes the difference. The little things. Practicing proper technique with a continual developing ear will make your playing substantially better and you may not even recognize the growth until that "moment' when you say "Wow... I finally got it".

Third, practice with visualization. When you can't put your instrument in your hand, close your eyes and picture the fretboard and your fingers going where it should. As you learn to visualize you will begin to see the fretboard in a different way and begin to recognize sounds that relate to the instrument. You will see where to start and where to go and then when you go to the mandolin it will be there. I think some of the best practice I've done is visualizing. Like anything else, it takes a bit to get to where you see everything and hear it right, but it will come.

Just keep playing and listening. About the time you think you can't possibly stand playing that song one more time you will find it finally came together. I also find that there are times I will stop playing a particular piece that has tormented me and after not doing it for a period of time I will try again and it will just be there. Sometimes when you work too hard on something it develops a mental block and the best way to overcome that is to stop concentrating on it. In many cases you've already done the practice, you have it burned into your brain and you have just overstressed yourself on that tune. Stop for a bit and let it just become natural. You will be playing along and all of a sudden you will realize you are playing it... and playing it right. Just what you wanted to earlier but could not do. It will then be a part of your repertoire from then on.

The most important thing is to just keep playing, and playing, and playing until it just becomes second nature. You will come to the point where you will just play without having to concentrate on the what or the tune. It will just begin to be there. That only comes with time and developing the muscle memory and the ear memory to just know where to play what you hear. Hope this helps. Oh... works on any instrument you play.

[Mike Bromley]

Just because you are still struggleing to play Smoke on the Water after a week of practice does not indicate a lack of musical talent!

Amen, Ken!

Time! Time! Time!

As one ages, one realizes he has less and less of it.....

...that doesn't stop me from bashing away until the water is cleared of smoke.


Oh... works on any instrument you play.

That is certainly true. And, even if you concentrate on one in particular, the other ones benefit. It's that direct communication from heart to fingers that benefits.

[CES]

The same way that ALL the finest musicians do,practice,practice,practice !!.The only difference between me & Chris Thile,(apart from a Loar & a Dude. that is !),is that he possese so much talent that he possibly needs less practice now to get thing dead right. In the begining he most likely needed all the practice he could get,he just got to the finishing post quicker than most.
Strive for perfection ! - you'll never get there,but if you get 90% of it,you'll be ok. All the top players have to 'work at it' to get things right. All the terrific solos,intros. etc.have been worked hard on - nothing worth having comes without effort,
Ivan:mandosmiley:

Ivan, I agree with your post but would also take it one step further...Thile (or Marshall, or Bush, or Grisman, or Steffey, etc) not only have the gift, but also the desire (which ultimately becomes the NEED) to practice. The guy who finished first in our senior class in college was scary smart, but worked his butt off too, even though he could've probably slid by on lecture time and cramming alone. On the other hand, there are a couple of guys I played high school ball with who had pro level size and talent but didn't have the work ethic...I don't think either of them played more than a year in college. I think it's the combination of talent and work ethic that separate the really good ones from the great ones (just my .02, of course, and lacking the talent I'm certainly no authority and am probably not 1/1000th the musician you are!!).

With mandolin, I don't have the gift. Of that I'm certain. But, I'm making progress because I'm willing to work at it. Of late I'm trying to focus my practice time to make it more productive (ie, Joe's advice to practice perfectly), which I hope will accelerate my progress. But, I could practice 18 hours a day for years and still wouldn't have that something extra that the great ones have. I'm OK with that, as my talents lie elsewhere, but I think your advice to "practice, practice, practice" is on the money...ESPECIALLY when the epractice isn't necessarily fun!!

[OldSausage]

I find that an attitude of the utmost humility is the most helpful thing in getting a tune right and appreciating what one can learn from others.

If only I had one.

[Patrick Market]

Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers has been discussed in this forum several times. It's a good read.

I'd finish the book sometime, but instead I'm trying feverishly to get in my 10,000 hours of practice, practice, practice...

[red7flag]

Unlike Thile, I was born with a minimal of musical talent. My talent in no way represents my love and respect for music. I have worked very hard to become a mediocre player, with a bit above average musical writing skills. When I jam with the great players, the difference is very apparent. I will never get to their level, nor should I try. I have to work hard to hone my skills on my own level. I just love playing with those born with great talent. I can see many things that I just never will be able to do. That being said, I realize that many things I can do now, I thought I could never do as little as five years ago. But Chris Thile is not losing any sleep that I will replace him.

[Austin Koerner]

I think things are coming together in my mind. I've been spending a lot of time wondering what a "good" musician is. It definitely is not what I thought it was a couple years ago. There was a thread a little while ago and someone said something like "the reason a lot of people play around the melody is because they can't play the actual melody". That really turned my mind set around. It made me realize a lot of things. Simple melodies I can figure out on the fly, but most of the time (if it's bluegrass) I'll forget the melody that I'm soloing over by the chorus if it's not a song I know. Usually I'll have to work at it for a minute or two, or thirty.

[Charley wild]

To the Op I'd say that I have always played a "kind of melody" on any instrument I've played. Good enough for me. In fact I played non-pedal steel for years in a Country band playing a "kind of melody" and I never heard one complaint from anybody including other steel players. Most of the other steel players in the area were better than I was anyway, so I figured the burden was on them to get the melody exact. I never worried about it. Sometimes being not so great has it's compensations.

[Elliot Luber]

Play what you think is the melody against a recording to correct it.

[farmerjones]

There's two pathes to this in my way of thinking:

What is right? If you're "speaking" music as a language, a simple sentence has simple structure and repeating it is, . . simple. Conveying complex ideas can have many varied points of view, yet the original point must come across. So however you say it still counts

The second rings along the line of Santiago's reply:
Analytically speaking, you start with a goal. An ideal, or a "model."
Work toward the goal or model, by correcting what is not right. Or to make a canoe, chop down a tree, and cut away everything that's not a canoe.

Granted, the last way is not how we speak and type, but it is how many people work toward day to day goals.

Personally, i'm the king of easy tunes & songs. Call me lazy. But one man's simple tune is another's beloved. Non-musicians don't know what is hard and what is easy, so why not do easy well? Don't pass over or dismis easy tunes.
Give them repsect because somebody (lots of folks) love them. Those are the ones you need to know second nature. In taking the easy way, i've found that the more difficult tunes are just relatives of the easy tunes, anyway. Big Joe's right. Frame the last paragraph. Practice enough to get to the point that playing is second nature. Easier to type than committ to but, if you're picking instead of doing something you should, like chores, you're on your way.:)

[JeffD]

There is a huge difference between adding your own decorations and custom licks to a tune because they fit so well and better express the tune, and adding them because you can't play the tune correctly.

"Correctly" is a challenging word, and we needn't get into that hot button here. With enough listening and with familiarity, once can usually discern which parts of a recorded or written out tune are reflections of the particular musician's style more than the tune itself. What I like to do is go back to the most effecient version of the tune as being closest to "authentic", effecient being the least number of unnecessary notes; but no fewer.

In OT there is a tradition of announcing with the tune name who's version you are playing. Seems a rational approach, especially if its not obvious what the bare bones tune includes.

[Earl Gamage]

You guys are amazingly knowledgeable and thoughtful. I love it. Thanks

I have always agreed with the "do easy stuff well" approach. We are fortunate that simpler music is also enjoyable so we don't have to be Ricky Skaggs or Chris Thiele to enjoy playing and even for others to enjoy hearing us.

[mandocrucian]

If you can't play the melody (which means it's not really in your head), how can you expect to play "off of" the melody?

And if you don't know what your starting point is, how can you understand how you've deviated from it, and why it works (or not), and the different ways you can deviate/embellish/manipulate/syncopate/etc. on/from the basic idea?

NH

[CES]

Farmer,

Totally agree that there's beauty in simpler music, and it's funny how many of my non-musician friends and my kids think I'm a pretty good player. I'm to a point where just playing the melody line of a fiddle tune is often not enough for me when I'm playing alone, but no one seems to complain about them, and I often catch my kids humming or singing them after I've been practicing.

There's a reason 3 chord country and rock are popular, and some of my favorite songs have ridiculously simple structures. I'm getting into a Celtic book of late, and a lot of the beauty in the songs I've learned thus far (I'm still at the beginning of the book) lies not in their complexity but in phrasing and the proverbial space between the notes. There are some tough songs in the book I'm using, and I'm looking forward to them, but there's nothing wrong with the ones I've learned so far...

[AlanN]

Butch stressed this also: Know Thy Melody.

Doesn't mean you *have* to play it exactly, but knowing it is key to coming up with convincing takes on a given tune.

[Charley wild]

If you can't play the melody (which means it's not really in your head), how can you expect to play "off of" the melody?

And if you don't know what your starting point is, how can you understand how you've deviated from it, and why it works (or not), and the different ways you can deviate/embellish/manipulate/syncopate/etc. on/from the basic idea?

NH

I always had a basic sense of the melody. How difficult are most three chord Country or Bluegrass songs? ( I played dobro as well as non-pedal steel) Most of the tunes you can just play simple arpeggios and get away with it. I just was never a slave to the melody. Any solo I played, the melody was there...sort of. I played off the melody more often than not just out of boredom. On the mandolin I can't flatpick because of medical issues so I don't worry about. But when I could flatpick years ago I never worried about either. Again, I've NEVER had anybody at a gig, jam or otherwise chastise me for the way I play. I'VE always enjoyed my own way of playing and that's all I care about. :grin:

[JeffD]

I am a slave to the melody, in this sense: I let the melody dicate what I am going to play, either straight tune or altered, ornamentation or improvisation, the melody is really in charge. Knowledge of the melody informs all of the playing.

Two tunes I became quite tired of: Fishers Hornpipe and Soldier's Joy. In a band situation I needed to come up with something more interesting that fit the tune, in a jam I would just sit it out.

I have since found both tunes kind of neat again, I guess I just needed to air them out.

[D C Blood]

Andrew (post 8). I believe that might have been Arthur Rubenstein, the concert pianist, who said that. :)
And Big Joe (" When you can't put your instrument in your hand, close your eyes and picture the fretboard and your fingers going where it should.")...Just don't do it while you're driving... :grin:

[red7flag]

I have a friend that will get the chord structure and noodle around the structure and maybe tangentially get a piece of the melody. Fun stuff, but not really the song. I wish I could use what he does to add to the melody that I will play. I tend to be a bit rigid and would like to loosen up. I would like to be half way between our approaches.