How do you learn to pick the melody out?

[Shana Aisenberg]

[QUOTE]I asked a guy how much he wanted for teaching the Mandolin and he said "fifty dollars a session" (which for you math wiz's is $200 a month), and I just can't afford that kinda expense myself......

I charge $45 per hour for music lessons, this seems to be right along the lines of what other professionals (such as carpenter, electrician or plumber) charge for their time. I also accept students who wish to take lessons less frequently, every other week, once a month, etc. Perhaps this is an option...

Seth

[DSDarr]

There is a small percentage of people in the world who truly can't carry a tune in a bucket.

If one of those people were to tell me that they can "hear the tune correctly in their head; they just can't sing it," and if there wasn't anything physically wrong with their vocal cords, I would be extremely skeptical that they really are hearing the tune correctly in their head.

We're not talking about singing "well," we're just talking about getting the intervals close enough so that someone else could at least recognize it as a perfectly awful rendition of "Happy Birthday." In other words, good enough to demonstrate that you do indeed know how the tune goes.

Being able to tell whether an instrument is in tune or not is a completely different skill than being able to recognize and reproduce intervals.

Let's put it this way -- I can pick out Happy Birthday and similar tunes with no real problem on a mandolin. I can figure out fiddle tunes (in a basic unornamented way) on a mandolin as well, albeit it much slower than Happy Birthday, Oh Suzanna, etc. I can't sing any of them. And trying to use singing to aid my ear -> instrument connection seems like a waste of time because it adds an additional layer of complexity that just slows down the process. For what's it worth I can (and have) picked out tunes like Happy Birthday, Oh Suzanna, up and down the neck and can (for the most part) play them in any key I want to... with a minimal amount of trial and error.

David

[DSDarr]

Even folks who profess that they "can't carry a tune in a bucket" can learn to sing. One has to start at the beginning, slowly learning to sing one interval at a time.

The question for me then is the time involved -- is it worthwhile for me to learn to sing? I don't really want to sing at this point in life (just shy of 50 years old). I've always been told that I can not. I just want to improve my ability to pick up tunes on the mandolin by ear.

David

[rsgars]

The question for me then is the time involved -- is it worthwhile for me to learn to sing? I don't really want to sing at this point in life (just shy of 50 years old). I've always been told that I can not. I just want to improve my ability to pick up tunes on the mandolin by ear.

David

Hey, I represent that comment!! I turned 50 . . . today. I am a singer. Does that mean I have to stop now?

[DSDarr]

The question for me then is the time involved -- is it worthwhile for me to learn to sing? I don't really want to sing at this point in life (just shy of 50 years old). I've always been told that I can not. I just want to improve my ability to pick up tunes on the mandolin by ear.

David

Hey, I represent that comment!! I turned 50 . . . today. I am a singer. Does that mean I have to stop now?

Of course not. But do I have to learn??

-David

p.s. I am now playing Happy Birthday to you on the mandolin....

[August Watters]

is it worthwhile for me to learn to sing? #I've always been told that I can not.

Since I'm an ear training teacher I have plenty of experience with folks who have difficulty reproducing a pitch vocally. It's not unusual to have a well-developed sense of pitch recognition and ability to find pitches on an instrument, while not being able to reproduce the same pitches vocally. Most people can do it without thinking about it, so it can be difficult to understand how this skill isn't second-nature for everyone.

Still, I agree with what Seth said: ANYONE can learn to sing. There are specific methods to build the ability to recognize reproduce pitches and intervals, and gain the vocal control to sing whatever's in the ear. It's hard work for someone who can't match pitch, but it's also a big payoff.

There's still the issue though of whether it's worth the time investment. #I have some sympathy for folks who have limited time and energy for music study, and want to concentrate on instrumental skills. For those students, I work on pitch reproduction on the instrument. But I don't recommend this path for most.

August W
www.augustwatters.com

[rsgars]

p.s. I am now playing Happy Birthday to you on the mandolin....

Thanks!

[mandocrucian]

There is a difference between "thinking the tune" and actually "vocalizing the tune" #(either with or without the instrument). As soon as you begin to vocalize, you turn on the lights in several other rooms in the brain. Now more mental wiring is involved in the entire process. The tune is being burned in deeper and in more circuits.

Also, when you vocalize, you won't be holding your breath! Doesn't sound like much, but you'd be surprised how many people start to hold their breath when they are concentrating. #Result, instant ratcheting up tension in the body.

Third - the voice is the amplifier for mental thought. If there's a lot going on up on the bandstand, you can easily get distracted and lose the thread of the solo were wer playing, or were about to play. #Your thoughts literally get drowned out. #Vocalizing is a way of magnifying your thoughts and focusing on them as an anti-distraction technique. Watch footage of any good jazz guitarist, and I'll bet you can see them vocalizing what they are playing.

Have you ever used a song or song riff ("Whole Lotta Love", "If Six Was Nine", "Sweet Home Alabama" etc.) to mentally block out the voice of someone you didn't want to listen to? #They are yapping at you, so you start to mentally sing "School's Out" or "You're So Vain" in your head to drown them out? #It works.

(Personally, it doesn't make a bit of difference to me if anyone wants to sing or not sing.)

NH

[Michael H Geimer]

Even though I started playing music twenty years ago, I didn't start singing until about 3-4 years ago.

But, for years and years I would 'test' my Mental Ear with simple tunes. I remember walking home one night with 'White X-mas' in my head, trying desperately to find each and every note in my mind. It didn't matter if I knew what the *name* of that note was, what mattered was that I could hold the sound of each note steady in my brain. This is what Niles (et al) is talking about.

Try *thinking* your way through Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do ... now do it backwards. Do it again. DO it everyday.

At this point ... I have a decent ear. Not superb, but perfectly serviceable. I'm doing today what the original poster hopes to do someday, and I got there by practicing the same advice that's all over this thread.

- Benig

[Jim Broyles]

The question for me then is the time involved -- is it worthwhile for me to learn to sing? I don't really want to sing at this point in life (just shy of 50 years old). I've always been told that I can not. I just want to improve my ability to pick up tunes on the mandolin by ear.

David

Hey, I represent that comment!! I turned 50 . . . today. I am a singer. Does that mean I have to stop now?

Of course not. But do I have to learn??

-David

p.s. I am now playing Happy Birthday to you on the mandolin....

Uh, yeah, if you want to learn to pick out tunes on the mandolin by ear. We're not talking operatic training here, just learning to replicate vocally the musical intervals you hear.
Not being a wise guy, just giving you my honest opinion. By the way, how old will you be if you don't learn to sing?

[Soupy1957]

kyblue>>>perhaps it is because you are a "gal" that you get a break on the price? I say that because it's sometimes true, that's all. It's ok, I'm learnin on my own I guess......just not as fast or as perfect as I would like.
-Soupy1957

[arbarnhart]

Soupy,

I would keep looking around for lessons. I go every two to three weeks and my teacher is a good player from a local band. I take "half hour" lessons for $25. I quoted "half hour" because they always run at least 45 min and sometimes over an hour. I asked him about that one time and he said it is because he likes the mando so much (it is the instrument he plays in the band). When he gives a banjo lesson, he watches the clock like a hawk.

[John Flynn]

I've tried the "sing it first" method. I went through the Brad Davis method and also tried my own spin. I'm OK at it. I can sing a melody, just fine. I am even OK at regular singing. My issue is that I find a cumbersome extra step for learning tunes on the mando. It is easier for me to just pick the tune out. Like everything else, that gets easier the more I do it. The instructors I've had, including two of my favorite musicians, don't learn tunes by singing them either. They just start pickin'.

Here is my take: My main mando-mentor, Curtis Buckhannon, says, "You have to really listen to a tune to learn it. You have to get the tune in your head." I think there are different ways to do that.

I am sure the "singing the melody" works for some people better than others, but what it is really doing is forcing you to really listen to the tune and get it in your head. It may be a good first step to "jump start" some people on ear learning. But it seems to be a step you can start skipping at some point. Alos, it is well documented that there are different learning styles. The singing may work for some and not others.

[Avi Ziv]

As important as the vocalizing part is for me - I should point out that I don't consider it a requirement to learning the fingering. For me, the singing is the easiest way to *validate* that I Know the tune. The learning part is done mostly by deep listening. Once I can sing it, however, I know that it's been absorbed and then the transfer to the instrument is easier for me. The sequence is not totally rigid. Sometime it goes like this: Someone as the session (ITM) plays a new tune. I manage to pick up some key phrases but not the whole thing. I go back and find a recording of the tune (and/or the "dots") and start listening and filling in the gaps with actual playing. Along the way, I make sure that I can vocalize the whole tune even when I turn off the recording. Often I arrive at knowing the tune inside of me and in my fingers at the same time or close to it. I have proven to myself that I could teach my fingers to play a tune by reading sheet music and/or repeating what others are doings. However, it feels disconnected to me (from Me) and I don't feel that I *own* that tune or that I can really control what I do so well unless I can vocalize it. One side benefit is that when I know the tune deep inside of me, I can transfer it to other instruments (penny whistle, piano etc) easier too. Yes - there are many ways to learn music. This method works for some of us. It may not feel natural at first, but when I think back of my transition from saxophone to mandolin - that did not feel natural or comfortable at all either. Now it does.

No dogma. Just sharing experiences.

Avi

[arbarnhart]

For the other folks who don't sing well...

I mentioned earlier that the suggestion in the ear training CD to use "hums" with note sounds like "da de de de dum" helped me some. I was thinking it over and experimenting with my singing - trying to sing things and paying attention to what goes wrong. It is mostly trying to get inflection into words or changing pitch during a word or phrase that throws me off. Also my timing will get off and because it is words I try to catch up instead of skipping a few like I would if I were playing an instrument. Single syllable meaningless "words" like "da", "de", "bom", "dum", "pum", etc are amazingly easier to do, as in possible. I just wanted to post again to be clear about that. Give it a try with some common melodies and you may be surprised how well you can do this even if you can't sing.

[AlanN]

Slightly off topic, but can apply to vocals.

I find that when I pick/sing with *very good* musicians, I pick/sing/sound that much better, almost like night and day in terms of my abilities. When picking with marginal/less experienced/*poor* musicians, I don't pick/sing/sound nearly as good.

The old axiom applies: You're only as good as the weakest link.

[jmcgann]

$45 per hour for music lessons, this seems to be right along the lines of what other professionals (such as carpenter, electrician or plumber)

Not professionals in a big city like Boston-not sure about carpenters, but electrians and plumbers are $125 an hour up here!

There are music teachers who charge $45 a HALF hour here as well...and some more, and some less...depends on the professional credentials...

If you can't hear what you are playing, then it's just mechanical finger patterns. The "soul" that a lot of self-taught folks champion is hard to put into your playing if you can't HEAR what you are playing. Singing (even bad singing; my voice is of less than average quality, but I love to sing harmony and can alsmost do it in tune most of the time) will REALLY HELP YOUR PICKING (actually, it will really help your musicianship, because it teaches you to hear). Singing as in being able to match pitch you plunk out, one at a time...not virtuoso singing but the kind of singing that comes naturally to the youngest children.

Wind and brass and bowed instrument players have to hear their notes to play in tune. We mando, guitar and banjo people have it too easy with tuners and frets- Niles and I are going to come to your house, rip out your frets, take away your tuners (don't argue, Niles is a martial artist too), and make you play double helixatonic scales at dotted whole note =405 until we are satified.

Love, Officer McGann, The Music Policeman

[Shana Aisenberg]

[QUOTE] Niles and I are going to come to your house, rip out your frets, take away your tuners (don't argue, Niles is a martial artist too), and make you play double helixatonic scales at dotted whole note =405 until we are satified.[QUOTE]

You're being way too easy on folks. Let's just make em play the violin:D

Seth

[kyblue]

kyblue>>>perhaps it is because you are a "gal" that you get a break on the price?

Ha, you gotta be kidding? And, considering what a pain I am to teach, I'm surprised I'm not charged a premium.

No, I pay $105 a month, for a 45 minute lesson each week, factored into the rate are specific weeks the instructor takes off - 8 or so a year. I haven't done the math, but I think the hourly rate would work out to about $40 per hour.

Another part of the equation is that I'm in Kentucky, and the cost of living is cheaper here than a lot of places (in God's country, imagine that!) so things tend to be leass expensive. This is pretty much representative of the going rate in this part of the country, and you can get cheaper but I do take from a pro.

And, mine is a commitment to a monthly fee to the instructor to keep my slot, regardless on how much I might choose to bug out out him for various reasons ( like IBMA next week!.) I've had other instructors where you pay at the lesson for that lesson (those in my experience are travelling pros that are rarely going to be available for a lesson!)

Paula

[mandocrucian]

Adding "language" (lyrics, sol-fa, rhythmic counting, etc.) #to the vocalizing activates additional parts of the brain. This burns in another (additional) level of neural associations. So you can start with sonic pitch (diddle dee dee, dooby doo - the meaningless syallables), get that in your head and add the layer of informational encoding with "do-re-mi", or "1 & #& 3 & 4a&" or "Ta-ka-di-mi" and various mnemonic systems (either traditional from various world traditions, or ones you invent yourself for keeping track of specific functions or phrasing). The analytical part of the brain (commonly referred to as "left-brain") needs language (of some sort) to become involved in the whole process. It just can not register nonsense syllables.

I see comments which, to me, indicate that some folks are trying to get too specific about a process, or looking at an idea with tunnelvision. You don't have to "sing it first" all the time. You can learn something off tab/notation and get it in your fingers (to some degree) and then "Hum" the notes your fingers are telling you to. #In this case, the sound of the instrument is cuing the voice - helping to train it "to hear" the new material. Jerry Coker and other jazz educators talk about this process in books like Patterns For Jazz.

But you don't want to vocalize so much, that you "have to hum" when you play. (John Hartford did that as a kid, and while he may have cut off the volume, there's a lot of weird grimaces and mouth movements that has become involuntarily). In other words, don't self-program yourself to a degree that you can't control it anymore. #(Moderation in all things)

Most (non-singers) can't fully register the nuances in vocalists' deliveries, because the lyrics activate the language centers of the brain to such a degree that it overpowers the right-brain listening. The lyrics dominate the mental receptivity. But if you want to begin to really appreciate the phrasing/timing/intonation of vocalists, it helps to remove the "language element" so that you can listen to a singer the same way you would listen to a sax plyer or guitarist, etc. How? Listen to people that use a language you have no understanding of - unintelligible lyrics revert to being a form of instrumental music. There have been time periods where I was listening to far more music in foreign languages (Greek, Hungarian, Swedish, Japanese, Thai, etc. etc.) than in English. But that allowed me to start to "hear" English language vocalists in a different way, without the language content blocking out other aspects.

Of course, if you are a real "singer", you're aware of this stuff because you've got to get it out and it's part of the singers' technique. So vocalists can play-like-they-sing or sing-like-they-play much more readily because it all gets blended together in the mind. Or there can be a difference between the way someone plays a "fiddle tune" and they way they accompany a song with "vocalize playing". A great example of this might be Curley Ray Cline. #I don't care for his fiddle-tune playing, but the backup work or song solos is something else - like Ralph Stanley (vocal) on an instrument.

The more advanced you become as a player, the more it all becomes about the mental rather than the physical. But you don't need to train your hands up to a certain level before you become aware of the other things happening. (i.e. your hands take up so much of your attention, that it overpowers and drowns out other stuff). There is "playing" music and there is playing a specific instrument and while the two overlap, they aren't the same thing.

If there are any neurologists out there, I'd like to hear what you have to say from the medical/scientific perspective on all this.

Niles H

[Bob DeVellis]

Lots of good observations. arbarnhart and Improziv seem to have experiences similar to mine to some degree.

I think two different meanings of "vocalization" have found their way into this discussion and maybe it's worth sorting them out. "Internal vocalization," (sometimes referred to as subvocalization) or playing the tune in your head, is not what I have a problem with. I do that all the time and I agree it's a good test of knowing the tune. I usually get the tune into my head and into my fingers pretty much at the same time, each supporting the other. What I suggested didn't work for me is singing or humming the tune out loud and trying to match notes to the sound my vocal chords were producing. My vocal chords aren't sufficiently reliable, although obviously others don't have that problem. But the "internal pitch" is usually pretty good and, in fact, I do use that as a guide. Also, I use recorded sources as well to validate that my internal "recoding" is accurate. Often, it's correct in the overall shape but not in the details until I do more and more critical listening, paying particular attention to the details I'm not sure of. Going to notation at this point helps me a lot too and, if it's available, I'll check it out. I think this process is pretty similar to what others are describing.

It's the "voice as pitch standard" part that I don't find working for me and that I seem to be able to work my way around without too much difficulty. So, really, all I was suggesting is that for me, the singing-out-loud part seems neither essential nor helpful. I'm not suggesting that as a universal principle, just saying that's how it works for me. I can certainly do a recognizable rendering of most of the tunes I play or have heard for my entire life (like Happy Birthday) but I wouldn't recommend that you tune your piano to it.

I think Niles makes a good point about engaging cross-modal mechanisms (like voice and thought) as a way to strengthen the neural representation of a melody but it seems reasonable to conclude that if the different channels are discrepant (i.e., if one is inacurate), it would equally degrade that representation. So, how well that works may depend on which modes are most reliable. For me, the aural (hearing what's on the recoding, for example), subvocal (vocalizing in my mind but not out loud), and manual (finding the notes on the mando) linkage seems to be the most efficient combination, having tried others on multiple occasions. In fact, I often also whistle the tune, which I'm surprised no one has mentioned. My whistling is more in the range of a mandolin than my voice.

I also agree with AlanN that producing the correct pitch is a lot easier when there's a reliable "other source" like a bunch of good players or singers. Then, it's just a matter of detecting and removing pitch discrepancies. Seems to work well, especially with "continuous pitch" instruments like unfretted strings or voice. I think people learning fiddle really feel that intonation is easier when they're playing with other good players.

Interesting discussions.

[Ken Sager]

Gees, you folks think too much. Play it, sing it, think it, pick it, whatever. Just listen hard first, figure it out second, play it third. If it helps you to sing it, sing it. If it helps you to clap it, clap it. If it helps you to find the tab on the internet, find the tab on the internet. If you get stuck on any of these steps ask for help. Just try not to argue with someone who is helping.

There you go.

Big love to all,
Ken

[jmcgann]

you folks think too much.

Right...what was I thinking?!?!?!

[arbarnhart]

you folks think too much.

Right...what was I thinking?!?!?!

I was disappointed in my public speaking, so I tried giving up thinking before talking once. That didn't go over so well...

[brianf]

If you pick the notes out of the chords you are holding, many of the notes you want are already fingered. So are the double stops you might wish to pick.