Mindless Noodling-- the Link With Real Understanding?

[Doug Hoople]

Another point is that ol' Ludwig primed his inner ear with lots of years of hearing with his then-functioning outer ears.

Beethoven's inner ear was beyond mortal reckoning.

I've long since forgotten the details, but early in his career, while his hearing was intact, he is said to have been struck by a symphony being played at a local orchestra concert. When he got home, he laid it down note by note in musical notation, entirely from memory.

A symphonic movement or, possibly even, an entire symphony, in its entirety? Hours later, and likely having heard other music in the intervening interval? It's true that the typical symphonies of the time were simpler than what we know today, but still...

Word has it that he missed very few notes once he got a chance to compare it to the original.

Beethoven's hearing was already largely gone in 1802, when he wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament complaining bitterly about losing it, and he was completely deaf when he wrote his late masterpieces.

So the 9th Symphony, for example, written in 1824, was, quite literally, a figment of his imagination!!!

THAT's an inner ear!

[mandocrucian]

ol' Ludwig primed his inner ear with lots of years of hearing with his then-functioning outer ears.

Exactly. The whole point is to wire the brain for sonic thinking. You don't learn to speak via reading. You talk first, then learn that the symbols on the page are representation of the sounds. Once you have learned to read, then you can (via the logic circuitry) input new words and how to prounounce them (via the eyes) into the auditory memory with which you mentally talk to yourself. (Perhaps the deaf trained in ASL think with hand symbols?)

It all comes down to what sense is driving the bus? Sure, you can make the mechanical associations between the dots on the stave and the corresponding finger movements, but the ear is the "last to know", being the passive end in the flow chart. It's like typing in tab numbers (or notation) on a computer notational program and then using the midi-playback - but until you've done that, you really don't really know what it's going to sound like.

There are plenty of classical players that are lost without their external visual memory cue cards. They are trained midi-playback machines, insert data and the robot does it's job. I see this all the time in posts on the (mostly classical) Flute-L. Players asking for recommendations for some sort of pop or ethnic (scored arrangement) to play. I know I probably pss-off a bunch of them by saying... "Why don't you just go down to the library and check out a bunch of CDs and listen to them and when you find something you like.....learn it off the CD?" This subservience to published music mentality is really hard for me to fathom. It's all eye-first. And a lot of them have become so hard-wired in this thinking that they may never escape from it.

Everything is all about mental associations. Hand movements, theory, rhythm harmony and the EAR. But the MASTER PROGRAM must be the auditory, if it's to become the real thing. Sol-feg...it's just "names" so that the logical front-lobe can have some sort of handle for mentally manipulating the ideas. Theory... various scales are just bigger "names" (or road-signs) of subsets of pitch sequences. Say "Major scale" and your brain should respond hearing do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do (as if the sol feg are the lyrics to the scale. I've had students who could mechanically play a "minor scale" just fine, but were hard pressed to vocalize the same pitches, even with the instrument in hand. No ear...just muscle memory and memorized frettings.

I wonder, in some of the various "music theory" threads, with the theory terms and debates of the proper terminoligy etc., just how many of the posters are actually mentally audiolizing the materials they are posting about about. Or is it more akin to doing math problems and equations on the blackboard? The mental logic circuitry knows these "baseball stats" but is thinking about them triggering sounds in the mind?

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against using various methods of inputting data - the more inputs, the better everything becomes internalized thoughout the brain and body. You can use visuals, or, kinetic training (drumming or foot-percussion is great for internalizing groove and rhythms). Sing pitches and rhyhms with various syllables or counts, But it all needs to make it's way into the ear. (or the mental audiolization of the ear). Too many people start confusing the tools with what you build. You learn how to use a hammer, but that is only the means to an end - it isn't the doghouse, or the fence or whatever you might build with the tool and the efficiency of weilding the tool.

Aside from the commercial aspects of making money by playing, a "true musician" (imo) could become physically damaged and be unable to still "play" their instrument to any degree. But, at that point, their brain has been wired up as a musician and they'll still have that whether they retire, or quit playing, take up a completely different instrument, or whatever. (and now we're right back to latter day Ludwig!) ymmv

Niles H

[JeffD]

The benefits of listening are gigantic and immediate.

When I "migrated" from what we call Northern Old Time (New England contradance music, French Canadian fiddle tunes, interspersed with some Irish and Scottish)

to Southern Old Time (banjo, fiddle, and lots of pure magic, repeated over and over till you "get it")...

I did a full immersion. For weeks and weeks I listened to nothing else. I filled a 4 gig MP3 with old timey music and listened in the car, at home, at work. I listened passively, while working. I listened actively, trying to pick apart what I liked. I even listened while I played - i.e. I noodled to the music.

The result is that I unconsciously learned and became familiar with a good bit of the "narrative logic" of the music, and so when I pulled out my mandolin and played Susannanah Girls, or Spotted Poney, there was a lot of "musical thinking" informing my playing.

Its not a substitute for playing with others, but listening as much as humanly possible to the stuff you want to play really makes a difference.

It doesn't have to be mandolin music. In fact I could argue that it is better if it isn't, by and large. Its the difference between playing the madolin, and playing the music - on the mandolin.

So in addition to the noodling, listening is probably the best thing one can do to progress without the arbitrary and capricious participation of other people.

[journeybear]

I do spend a fair amount of time just noodling up and down unfamiliar scales. If I hit a "sour" note, I back off, using only my untrained musical ear for what is "sour".

I am reasonably sure that this is exactly how scales were invented (or discovered, not sure about that) and formalized. They just sounded right, major or minor. Even the scales used in other cultures developed because they sounded right to their ears. The Greek modes developed the same way. I wish the teacher of the one music theory course I took as an adult (by then the damage was done) had explained modes better so the idjit who couldn't get it didn't waste the class' time for two days - G Mixolydian is not C Ionian starting on G, its notes are equivalent to the notes of the C Ionian starting on G (or something like that). I mention this only because you may come upon some of this while noodling, and wonder what's going on.

I imagine there are a lot of aspiring musicians like me who don't have a deep training in musical theory, but have an idea what sounds "right" to them.

I think playing of any kind is going to be helpful as long as you are open-minded and paying attention. The more you play the more you learn, the more comfortable and familiar you grow with your instrument, the more possibilities occur to you, and the more you HEAR. Many songs have been written around ideas that arose from jams, and that includes what you do by yourself. This is based on instinctive reactions to what you hear. You can express this as what sounds "right" or what doesn't sound "sour," but it's the same.

Dissonance is a whole 'nother can of worms, and I am NOT equipped to talk knowledgeably about this. Atonality, too. It's best to get up to speed with The Beatles before moving on to Zappa.

Am I doomed?

The local Ghost Tours instruct the customers willing to shell out $X to hear their hokum to shout "You're doomed!" at anyone who zazzes them. So naturally I often shout "You're doomed!" at THEM while biking by. Fortunately by the time they get it together to shout back I'm a ways down the road. I recommend doing this only while biking.

But no, you are not doomed (except by your current climate, unless UPS delivers to Antarctica so you can buy a beater and have a mandolin at both locations). Just by virtue of having chosen the mandolin as your instrument shows you have an instinctive feeling for what is important and valuable in this discouraging existence, and that you have good taste.

[billkilpatrick]

... So in addition to the noodling, listening is probably the best thing one can do to progress without the arbitrary and capricious participation of other people.

... and here i had you pegged as a team player!

i agree that listening to other instruments helps one play mandolin better - in my case, piano is particularly good at "explaining" complicated passages to my otherwise sluggish ears and brain.

another "trick" is to stand back from the music a little ... listen to it from another room. technique and embellishment can be overwhelming to me at times - making it difficult to hear the tune for the notes. a little distance puts it all back together.

pasta - call it noodling - for supper tonight! - bill*

[bobby bill]

Beethoven's inner ear was beyond mortal reckoning.

I've long since forgotten the details, but early in his career, while his hearing was intact, he is said to have been struck by a symphony being played at a local orchestra concert. When he got home, he laid it down note by note in musical notation, entirely from memory.

I absolutely agree with the first sentence. I may be mistaken, but I believe the anecdote is about Mozart. Who knows - maybe this anecdote follows several composers around. But it does point out that that having a good ear (ahem, great ear) is only half the equation. Photographic memory, an entirely separate talent, is the other half. Put the two together and look out.

[Doug Hoople]

I absolutely agree with the first sentence. I may be mistaken, but I believe the anecdote is about Mozart. Who knows - maybe this anecdote follows several composers around. But it does point out that that having a good ear (ahem, great ear) is only half the equation. Photographic memory, an entirely separate talent, is the other half. Put the two together and look out.

It was about Beethoven, but it could have been about Mozart, too. He had similar powers of recall.

Both of them were like Bach, also, in that all three of them could improvise in fully-developed complex forms.

For those who might think that Mozart's the lightweight of the three, he quite famously used to improvise Bach-style fugues on the spot to suggested themes in public settings.

All amazing minds and memories.

[yoshka]

Too many people start confusing the tools with what you build. You learn how to use a hammer, but that is only the means to an end - it isn't the doghouse, or the fence or whatever you might build with the tool and the efficiency of weilding the tool.

That is so right.
On the other hand, and in defence of us learners, as we travel down the path of acquiring musical tools for our satchel and learn to use them, we get a feeling of wonder of being able to make these beautiful sounds with them.

Yossi

[Doug Hoople]

That is so right.
On the other hand, and in defence of us learners, as we travel down the path of acquiring musical tools for our satchel and learn to use them, we get a feeling of wonder of being able to make these beautiful sounds with them.

Yossi

Tools are important. I'd hate to drive a nail with my bare hands!

[farmerjones]

Good post Niles.

It speaks to the zen player in me.

[EdHanrahan]

Doomed? If even the top among us is...

In the Fall '08 issue of The Fretboard Journal, Far Side cartoonist & guitarist Gary Larsen relates his interaction with instructor / jazz virtuoso Jim Hall: "... I vented some guitar-related frustration to Jim during a phone conversation, saying I felt like I was doomed to be a student forever. And Jim said, 'We all are.' "

Hope yer all are chuckling as much as I am!

[John McGann]

Doomed? If even the top among us is...

In the Fall '08 issue of The Fretboard Journal, Far Side cartoonist & guitarist Gary Larsen relates his interaction with instructor / jazz virtuoso Jim Hall: "... I vented some guitar-related frustration to Jim during a phone conversation, saying I felt like I was doomed to be a student forever. And Jim said, 'We all are.' "

Hope yer all are chuckling as much as I am!

Wasn't it a young R. Zimmerman who said "Those not busy being born are busy dyin'"?

[billkilpatrick]

Wasn't it a young R. Zimmerman who said "Those not busy being born are busy dyin'"?

... isn't there an "l" in "dyin?"