Hmm, well, I spend a little playing time each day playing favorite tunes I already learned. I rarely just learn it and then don’t play it again?

Also I find that at a jam/session, if somebody starts that tune and I listen to it the first time through, it comes back, Then I can play along during the second time through.

I also found that Just listening to a tune, like on an album or YouTube, will bring it back …
even if you don’t have time to get your fiddle out and actually play through it! If you’re able to hum it, it’s still in there…

Anja, learn to play fiddle in your head. The fingering and to some extent the bowing (tho thats harder). That keeps tunes alive, and maybe even lets you figure new things for them.

Running the rep. Or working on one's repertoire. Even if it's four or five tunes. Run threw them all. It's packback! It's the fun part. I don't run threw 70 or 80 tunes. I just run threw six or seven, every day. Only the ones I like or want to play. It lead me to only learning tunes i like. Unfortunately, there are very few tunes I dislike. But you get the idea. There's "learn mode." Then there's "Play!" Don't forget to Play! Or forget about learn mode for a week, and just play! Why not? There is no law about this.

Repertoire maintenance, and apparently its good mental practice to re-learn tunes.

Thank you , these were all very helpful answers, I know what to do now.

Quincy, maybe you're not learning these tunes as well as you think. To really "know" a tune you have to get it "in your bones" so that it becomes part of you. Getting to the point where you can sort of get through it is not enough. I often have songs or tunes playing in my head while I'm doing other things - not usually fiddle tunes though. I don't know if you're getting that far in your learning process. Just a thought.

I’m not sure if this is something that applies to you or not, but my father once taught me an important lesson that’s stuck with me ever since:

If you’re working on a passage or tune, you’re likely playing until you stop for mistakes and then trying to fix them. If the material is challenging, it takes many attempts before you can play through without making the mistakes. The problem is that many people stop after getting it right once; this is problematic because you’ve played the passage or tune however many times incorrectly and only played it well once. Therefore you have more muscle memory of bad form than good. Once you’ve gotten something to the point where you can play it as you intend, reinforce it by playing it through without any mistakes enough to reinforce it in your brain.

The process of figuring out a tune focuses on the nuts and bolts of its identifiers and mechanics. You might think that those things are exactly what make the tune more memorable, but when you’re zoomed in on the fine details, you’re not necessarily processing the whole. If you go for a walk and focus on every footstep and every nuance in the path, you’ll have a harder time seeing the surroundings and familiarizing yourself with the route.

I think that ability to recognize and synthesize patterns in your head is a big part of it as well. Some of this comes down to natural ability, some of it comes from training. Most people struggle to pick up a tune quickly, but there are some who can hear a whole symphony once and then sit down at the piano and play the whole thing back.  Fritz Kreisler debuted a new piece without ever having played it previously. He read the score while sitting on the train on the way to the concert and learned the piece on the spot without picking up his violin. But stories like those are exceptional and the rest of us mortals need to practice. 

Realizing we're all different in how we learn and how our memories work, I'll toss in my own experience. I need to know a tune well enough to play it slowly and up to speed and be able to perform it or lead it at a jam before I can say I fully know it and remember it. Since I only rarely play on stage anymore, jam sessions have been where the performance element of memory has come into effect.

If we're talking about, how many repetitions are enough. Consider this: While recording yourself isn't the same as playing with others, it offers a way to see/hear oneself from another point of view.
I have found my video recorder sounds better than my built-in sound recorder, on my tablet. So rather than post every video, I create a video then convert it to mp3. Then I just store them to review. It sounds round-a-bout but it works for me.

farmerjones - There are free audio recording apps that record much better quality than a built in sound recorder. One I use is Lexis audio editor - simple and easy to use, at least for Android.

This may be going off-topic but I used to stress about this too, Anja!
So I wanted to add this...

There are basically two categories of tunes:
1. The ones you will lead / start off
2. The ones you will play when other people start them

So category 1, you have to know them stone-cold and hopefully play them quite well.
This requires nailing them, and takes practice...so category 1 winds up being tunes that are your favorites.

Then category 2, it's like somebody starts it and that jogs your memory and you can play along softly, then more confidently as it comes back. This category doesn't require nearly as much practicing...

At any group event, you will probably not lead more than 3 - 5 sets unless you are a Tune Hog or unless it's a very small group! So I realized that I just have to have 3-5 favorite sets ready that I've been playing lately, that I know really well and feel confident about starting. I sometimes jot them down on a sticky note before I go. So it's not like you have to have ALL of your tunes at your fingertips ALL the time... more like a handful of favorites that you want to start, and then for the rest somebody else will be leading them - you can "fall in" if it comes back.

( And of course, if you're playing by yourself, it's just for fun - so none of the above applies! )

Anyway plenty of people have crashed their sets due to memory glitch ... the person makes a face, we have a chuckle ... and life goes on :-). People also make "tune smoothies" where they mash parts of different tunes together. That's kind of puzzling - but sometimes sounds quite good :-). I suspect that's even how some "new tunes" got made...

PS That Fritz Kreisler is something else!

I think most of her tunes are in category one, mostly due to lack of others with which to play.


Like others have said, Anja, you have to play what you know if you want to continue to know it. Your tune list isn't long, if you spend 15 minutes to run through everything at least once you'll still have plenty of time in your day to learn new tunes. And if this sounds like unnecessary work, imagine how long it would take to run through a list of 100 tunes   

The issue for me is keeping them apart. I play lots of fiddle tunes and there are plenty of similarities among them. So sometimes I’ll get going on the A part of a tune but the B part is really from a different tune. If I get locked into a wrong sequence I might need to quit that tune, go to something different, and then come back to the original tune later.

It also helps if I go through a tune slowly, then pick up the pace. That means being patient and systematic, things that sometimes I’m not so good at...

If I’m playing with others it’s no big deal, as the group usually gets the A and B parts correct and I can ride along with it.

Maintaining the repertoire is a good idea but it takes time. And it’s less fun (more like work) than ripping on the tunes that most appeal to me at the moment. A weak substitute is to randomly skip down my list of favs, that seems to help keep tunes from disappearing into the bog of my memory.

To be honest, I gotta say it's a bit amusing (or is that maddening?) that the OT genre both spurns improvisation as well as the writing down of the tunes within its canon. It also strikes me that the reason classical music did develop written notation was because the genre, like Old Time, placed so much importance on particular renditions of tunes...something which, ironically, allowed it to achieve the immense complexity that inevitably developed.

I've virtually LIVED with a tune for weeks until I Got it... then, went onto another tune and after a week or two couldn't even remember what previous tune I'd been playing for weeks... Such is life.. So many tunes, so little time......!

I have lists of my tune repertoire, and I've separated the types of tune. I have a list for each type: jigs, reels, polkas and Irish songs which I'll need for Irish gigs. For the Aussie Bush Dance gigs I use the same dance tunes, but I have list of popular Aussie songs. I also have lists of Waltzes, Old Time/Bluesgrass tunes, Americana songs.

And this thread has reminded me that I've been neglecting my list of Gypsy Tunes and light Classical Pieces. And recently I began a list of popular tunes like El Condor Pasa, Apache, etc.

These lists are very important to me because it is impossible to maintain all these tunes in one session. Thus each session is focused on a different list/s, depending on which gigs are coming up, or maybe the 'learn to play' list.

Some times I do forget how to play certain tunes, especially those with tricky bits, but a couple of times through and I've jogged my memory. I've read that relearning tunes has some mental benefits, so it's not all bad to forget.

The "Mental Practice" really works. When I learnt 'Devil's Dream', but this version has seven variations. Not a difficult tune, but getting those variations in the right order took some mental exercise. I actually would go through the tune in my head, hearing the melody, visualising the note placements every night at bed time until I got it.

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Originally posted by TuneWeaver

I've virtually LIVED with a tune for weeks until I Got it... then, went onto another tune and after a week or two couldn't even remember what previous tune I'd been playing for weeks... Such is life.. So many tunes, so little time......!

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Interesting. I have two tunes that I've wanted to get to for some time. Each presents a different challenge -- neither is overwhelmingly difficult, but both required some sustained attention. So for the last month or so I have kept those two tunes at the top of my list and I have touched on them every day, using both mandolin and fiddle. I have given myself no pressure, just allowing these tunes to develop at their own pace. Progress is definitely visible.

I don't know how long it will take to get these tunes to the level of my best favorites, but it has been a very pleasant experience so far -- in a way, it's the opposite of serious, goal-directed work that requires discipline, timelines, etc.

And I do expect that both of these tunes will eventually become mainstays that I can continue to play and polish forever...

I forget how to play anything i've ever played...not entirely forget, but I have to work through it and remember stuff or re-figure it out before I can play it, unless I happened to have played it recently.

I agree you have to keep your repertory "warm," so to speak. You have to cycle through everything you know on a regular basis or, if you're a mere mortal, you will forget not only HOW to play them but even WHAT you have played. I used to keep my repertory warm until I was about 30 years old...by then I just knew too many tunes and ballads and songs and such to keep a standing practice cycle going, plus being too busy to play that much anyway.

So...if you know an amount of tunes that you can cycle through and play on a regular basis, given your time you have to spend on them...you will remember them. Otherwise...you get to figure them out over and over again...lol. At least that's my experience.

I have found that playing with a jam/group usually involves many of the same tunes week after week. So you focus on those tunes. When you play alone all time, you try to maintain too large a repertoire of tunes. You don't know which tunes you will be playing with others.

Once when we were playing on some tall ship, someone back stage offered me a hit of some medical grade weed. Now, I don't usually get high before playing these days (its been a decade at least), but I was OK lets see what this is like. BIG mistake. First tune, I tried starting it 4 or 5 times only to totally blank out. The boys were laughing their butts off, and we moved on to another tune, but wow - like hitting a brick wall! Does that count?

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Originally posted by wrench13

Once when we were playing on some tall ship, someone back stage offered me a hit of some medical grade weed. Now, I don't usually get high before playing these days (its been a decade at least), but I was OK lets see what this is like. BIG mistake. First tune, I tried starting it 4 or 5 times only to totally blank out. The boys were laughing their butts off, and we moved on to another tune, but wow - like hitting a brick wall! Does that count?

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Originally posted by ChickenMan

quote:

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Originally posted by wrench13

Once when we were playing on some tall ship, someone back stage offered me a hit of some medical grade weed. Now, I don't usually get high before playing these days (its been a decade at least), but I was OK lets see what this is like. BIG mistake. First tune, I tried starting it 4 or 5 times only to totally blank out. The boys were laughing their butts off, and we moved on to another tune, but wow - like hitting a brick wall! Does that count?

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Take heart those who forget tunes!  Could be worse.  I have an almost pathological forgetfullness when it comes to lyrics!  Played with this guy in a duo for like 10 years, classic rock, C&W, swing just about anything.  I sang the Stones 'You Cant Always Get What You Want' that whole time, but if he didn;t feed me the first line every time - I went blank!   Hell, I forget the lyrics to a tune I wrote myself and the boys have to feed me the first line all the time!  I tell you I am an endless source of amusement to my crew!   There must be a medical name for this condition - and it ain't AL's Hymer, as my crew calls it. 

It's because tunes are easy to learn. Hum them, diddle them, lilt them or whatever. Playing them is the difficult part.

That takes technique and musical knowledge. And an understanding of the structure and meaning of the tune.

And an intimate, personal and subjective knowledge of what you are doing to try to make the tune live.

in short, they have to become part of you. 

if they mean nothing to you then you stand a good chance of forgetting them.

I have to disagree that you stand a good chance of forgetting tunes that mean nothing to you. I have suddenly remembered tunes I hadn't played for 40 years or more sometimes, sit down and play them and they touch me so deeply I cry all the way through. They mean everything to me...but still, if I don't have time to keep up with them and play them on a regular basis, then they slip out of my ordinary life until something brings them back up...maybe a few decades later. I love them all. They do mean everything to me.  But I'm not going to remember all of them all of the time because there are so many obligations and mecessary things to be done one can't devote that much attention to the music they love.

Peggy, they mean so much to you that you cry all the way through....That's why you haven't forgotten them, and love them so much. A quick dusting off, and they mean as much or even more now than they did then... They are part of you.