But why do dot readers almost always sound like dot readers? Up until an almost pro level, one can tell. And thats fine if that is what one wants from fiddling. Som fiddlers do enjoy the looser bonds in interpreting tunes and even messing with the sacred melody. The pond is deep and all can enjoy a swim.

Somebody might have already said this, but I'm going to say it anyway, just in case they haven't. I think there are a lot of people who are learning solely from sheet music and not spending enough time listening to the actual fiddler play the tune. I can't remember which person said this, but I got it from somebody here on Fiddle Hangout: "Never confuse the map with the terrain".

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Originally posted by wrench13

But why do dot readers almost always sound like dot readers? Up until an almost pro level, one can tell. And thats fine if that is what one wants from fiddling. Som fiddlers do enjoy the looser bonds in interpreting tunes and even messing with the sacred melody. The pond is deep and all can enjoy a swim.

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Originally posted by wrench13

But why do dot readers almost always sound like dot readers? Up until an almost pro level, one can tell. And thats fine if that is what one wants from fiddling. Som fiddlers do enjoy the looser bonds in interpreting tunes and even messing with the sacred melody. The pond is deep and all can enjoy a swim.

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But do you really know who plays from music and who doesn't, or do you only recognize it when you're hearing players who are obvious? A player who has never played fiddle music will be easy to spot, but how much of that is really to do with the form of learning the tunes and how much is down to lack of familiarity with the style?  I'm fairly confident there are an awful lot of players who go unrecognized for reading music. If you know the patterns well enough, reading isn't a hindrance.

If you were familiar with the speech patterns of a particular dialect, you could read a printed page in that dialect aloud convincingly if you were a talented reader or actor. Actors auditioning for parts have to do this all the time.

I've shared the story of an Irish flute player who went years playing from music at a session in secret without ever being detected. And I've shared the story of Harry Lookofsky, the violinist who played great jazz solos that were written out for him but went undetected as pre-written. The playing and the writing were so good that everyone was convinced it was ingenius natural improvisation. I've even heard his solos described as the best violin jazz ever recorded. These are examples at the basic level and the highest.

Newcomers to any genre sound unlike the regular players, but that's equally true whether they play by ear or from music. It's not some indelible mark left by literacy, it's just unfamiliarity.

I know what you mean when you describe being able to spot people who learned from sheet music, but isn't it somewhat ridiculous for a comment like "I can tell you can read" to be viewed in a negative light? Is illiteracy really the freedom to which anyone should aspire?

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

Every attempt to suggest that playing freely is a critical part of fiddling completely contradicts itself and falls apart with the slightest bit of examination. You can change terminology (don’t call a leader a conductor!) and bring in endless examples of fiddlers who are perceived as playing freely, but every one proves the exact opposite. Every comment about playing the music just reinforces that there are standards and rules that players are expected to follow, even in forms of music that appear more interpretive. Nothing is really entirely made up—it’s just an assembly of different ideas. You might use a different sound or cluster of vowels and consonants to do a scat solo than another performer, but that doesn’t make the performance actually creative; it’s still following the patterns set up by the music itself and the acquired understanding of improvisation taught by others.

Whether one has a formal teacher or not, every player learns from another source. Fiddlers don’t live on islands that have no contact with the rest of the world and they don’t discover the violin without context. They are all influenced by what came before, often from listening to others. Learning to play is then an act of imitation that’s even more direct than trying to learn by reading a book to deduce how it should be done.

“Playing freely” is really just a vacuous phrase that is bandied about to imply that a player is on some more artistic level that’s above the mundane existence of the average musician. This is how fiddlers justify some of their heroes: a fiddler who can’t play in tune or draw a smooth bow stroke to save his life is elevated to the heavens because of a mistaken notion that the playing is creative and free and unhindered by the all-too-human mundanity of “dot-reading.”

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"Learning to play is then an act of imitation that’s even more direct than trying to learn by reading a book to deduce how it should be done."

Exactly, Learning by notation, or through a 3rd party is less direct. Take your pick, or use both...Whatever it takes.

Rich I dont view learning a tunes bones from the dots negatively. Funny, but we had a visiting fiddler from Fla at our local Tues jam, who was a good fiddler - expressive, sophisticated and able to 'play freely'. We did Monroe's "Scotland" fiddle tune. I glanced over and he had called up the dots for it on his phone and actually apologized for using dots, called it 'cheating'. I was like 'Whatever gets you there', and we proceeded to burn the tune up, working and feeding on each others interpretations. Scroll back a year or so, another fiddler sat in, same tune, same scenario with the phone, only what was on the page was EXACTLY what was played, and it sounded it, like a midi file. But that was where they were in their fiddle journey, and that's perfectly OK too. But it was not flowing, expressive or reactive, not what I would say 'playing freely'. All depends on where one is and what one wants to get out of their fiddle playing. In some settings, flowing, expressive and reactive are not desired adjectives, others its kind of expected. A traditional music society jam I went to one time consisted of 15 people with 15 copies of Cole's and the jams were called by tune numbers. DId it sound good? Yes, like an orchestra playing a fiddle tune. Did I fit in? I did not, and I received many a stink eye for not playing the dots, which is why I went once. But again, that fine, its what these folks want to get out of fiddling.

The context is always key here. In Celtic sessions, most Old time, that 'playing freely' is not appropriate, in Bluegrass, C&W type settings its kind of expected. Imagine a band playing 'Steel Guitar Rag' where every player played the exact same solo, as the tune was written.

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Originally posted by pete_fiddle

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"Learning to play is then an act of imitation that’s even more direct than trying to learn by reading a book to deduce how it should be done."

Exactly, Learning by notation, or through a 3rd party is less direct. Take your pick, or use both...Whatever it takes.

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My point was not that notation is less direct as a means of learning, but that learning by ear requires much more mimicry than playing from notation. Sheet music players are often accused of sounding alike or simply churning out notes slavishly, but ear learners can ONLY learn by copying what they hear. If they can actually copy a good player, they could possibly sound good, but it's like a photocopier--a copy is an approximation of the original but it doesn't have 100% accuracy. The good reader has to make interpretive choices in reading that potentially make for LESS  mimicry. 

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

... ear learners can ONLY learn by copying what they hear. If they can actually copy a good player, they could possibly sound good, but it's like a photocopier--a copy is an approximation of the original but it doesn't have 100% accuracy. The good reader has to make interpretive choices in reading that potentially make for LESS  mimicry. 

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There's something clearly wrong with that assertion. With a little imagination people can hear harmony, chord options, variations in melody, etc. They can In essence teach themselves new things. Even you might argue that some people take what they hear and do something "wrong" with it. People can take in aural information and extrapolate, whether you approve of the  result or not.

And how much has to do with lack of muscle memory rather than lack of understanding of the style, e.g., which licks in your head you prioritized teaching to your fingers? 

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

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Originally posted by wrench13

But why do dot readers almost always sound like dot readers? Up until an almost pro level, one can tell. And thats fine if that is what one wants from fiddling. Som fiddlers do enjoy the looser bonds in interpreting tunes and even messing with the sacred melody. The pond is deep and all can enjoy a swim.

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But do you really know who plays from music and who doesn't, or do you only recognize it when you're hearing players who are obvious? A player who has never played fiddle music will be easy to spot, but how much of that is really to do with the form of learning the tunes and how much is down to lack of familiarity with the style?  I'm fairly confident there are an awful lot of players who go unrecognized for reading music. If you know the patterns well enough, reading isn't a hindrance.

If you were familiar with the speech patterns of a particular dialect, you could read a printed page in that dialect aloud convincingly if you were a talented reader or actor. Actors auditioning for parts have to do this all the time.

I've shared the story of an Irish flute player who went years playing from music at a session in secret without ever being detected. And I've shared the story of Harry Lookofsky, the violinist who played great jazz solos that were written out for him but went undetected as pre-written. The playing and the writing were so good that everyone was convinced it was ingenius natural improvisation. I've even heard his solos described as the best violin jazz ever recorded. These are examples at the basic level and the highest.

Newcomers to any genre sound unlike the regular players, but that's equally true whether they play by ear or from music. It's not some indelible mark left by literacy, it's just unfamiliarity.

I know what you mean when you describe being able to spot people who learned from sheet music, but isn't it somewhat ridiculous for a comment like "I can tell you can read" to be viewed in a negative light? Is illiteracy really the freedom to which anyone should aspire?

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Tunes that we learn comes from all over the place. I may learn a from a piper. The piper may have learnt that tune from an accordion player who in turn may have learnt it from a jews harp. Almost all my repertoire has been leant on some other instrument anyway and I just play it on the fiddle. There is no conscious effort to mimic anything except the tune. It all goes pretty freely as far as I’m concerned. I’ve had opportunities to learn music from other cultures and eventually I have managed to do it and I’m sure it would have sounded like music with a foreign accent to people of that culture. They still liked it and I made it flow and I got to enjoy playing it. Some people even came up to me speaking in Greek which was flattering. The funniest thing was that I doing it on a B&C button accordion.

I think a problem here is treating "learning by ear" vs. "learning by sheet music" as a binary or mutually exclusive.

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Originally posted by Brian Wood

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

... ear learners can ONLY learn by copying what they hear. If they can actually copy a good player, they could possibly sound good, but it's like a photocopier--a copy is an approximation of the original but it doesn't have 100% accuracy. The good reader has to make interpretive choices in reading that potentially make for LESS  mimicry. 

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There's something clearly wrong with that assertion. With a little imagination people can hear harmony, chord options, variations in melody, etc. They can In essence teach themselves new things. Even you might argue that some people take what they hear and do something "wrong" with it. People can take in aural information and extrapolate, whether you approve of the  result or not.

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Yes, people can extrapolate, but that’s something that can be done either way. The point is that in learning by ear, one can only do so by copying what’s heard. If you hear one thing and play another, then you’re not learning a tune well and it’s a sign of a bad ear. You don’t win the game of telephone by changing the words, just as you don’t improve fiddling by trying to modify tunes. I agree that players tend to be much worse at it than they believe, and that’s a reason why there are so many similar tunes and versions. It’s not all artistic license, it’s often just inability to keep things straight.

I haven’t suggested that learning by ear is a method that should never be used, just that it’s a myth that it leads to any greater freedom. Ideally, I’d like to see players be able to learn both ways and place the real focus on playing the instrument well and making the emotional connection with the audience that the music is supposed to establish.

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

Yes, people can extrapolate, but that’s something that can be done either way. The point is that in learning by ear, one can only do so by copying what’s heard. If you hear one thing and play another, then you’re not learning a tune well and it’s a sign of a bad ear. You don’t win the game of telephone by changing the words, just as you don’t improve fiddling by trying to modify tunes. I agree that players tend to be much worse at it than they believe, and that’s a reason why there are so many similar tunes and versions. It’s not all artistic license, it’s often just inability to keep things straight.

I haven’t suggested that learning by ear is a method that should never be used, just that it’s a myth that it leads to any greater freedom. Ideally, I’d like to see players be able to learn both ways and place the real focus on playing the instrument well and making the emotional connection with the audience that the music is supposed to establish.

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" just that it’s a myth that it leads to any greater freedom." 

That myth has followed people around the world for a very long time, i would suggest before notation tried to encapsulate it. And probably monetise it at the same time.

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Originally posted by pete_fiddle

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

Yes, people can extrapolate, but that’s something that can be done either way. The point is that in learning by ear, one can only do so by copying what’s heard. If you hear one thing and play another, then you’re not learning a tune well and it’s a sign of a bad ear. You don’t win the game of telephone by changing the words, just as you don’t improve fiddling by trying to modify tunes. I agree that players tend to be much worse at it than they believe, and that’s a reason why there are so many similar tunes and versions. It’s not all artistic license, it’s often just inability to keep things straight.

I haven’t suggested that learning by ear is a method that should never be used, just that it’s a myth that it leads to any greater freedom. Ideally, I’d like to see players be able to learn both ways and place the real focus on playing the instrument well and making the emotional connection with the audience that the music is supposed to establish.

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" just that it’s a myth that it leads to any greater freedom." 

That myth has followed people around the world for a very long time, i would suggest before notation tried to encapsulate it. And probably monetise it at the same time.

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Again, that's just myth. The adoption of musical notation allowed the development of Western music. There would be no Old Time without plainchant. You really can't make much of an argument about music before the time of written music because no one knows much about it. The medieval scholars tried to piece together the Greek modes, but even the most erudite scholars in the world couldn't fully resurrect them because there wasn't enough information--and the Greeks left behind a lot more clues. Everything we know about Western music today came from those scholars. We can't really even comprehend music that came before it without the framework  that came later. 

Chicken or the egg

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Originally posted by pete_fiddle

Chicken or the egg

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Not quite, because you can see both the chicken and the egg. Asking which came first is a philosophical quandary, but both quantities are known thoroughly at the present. Pre-written music is a mystery and no one actually knows much of anything about what it sounded like. It's about like finding an unidentified and unhatched egg and imagining what the  parent birds looked like just by glancing at its shell. 

On music, I think the 2000 yr old man said "You drop a rock 3 times - dat's a valtz".

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

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Originally posted by pete_fiddle

Chicken or the egg

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Not quite, because you can see both the chicken and the egg. Asking which came first is a philosophical quandary, but both quantities are known thoroughly at the present. Pre-written music is a mystery and no one actually knows much of anything about what it sounded like. It's about like finding an unidentified and unhatched egg and imagining what the  parent birds looked like just by glancing at its shell. 

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It looked like food...The fact it existed is enough

"Pre-written music is a mystery and no one actually knows much of anything about what it sounded like."

In the case of plainsong, it's possible to imagine that it sounded similar to what it sounded like after notation was invented and applied to it. But yeah, what a Cro-Magnon war chant or bone flute melody sounded like is anybody's guess.

With a known history extending back to 1400 B.C.E., is there really any point in arguing that musical notation is a newer form of tune transmission than learning by ear? Again, all Western forms of music stem from the Middle Ages, so the aural tradition is pretty closely related to that of notation at this point, whether it’s acknowledged or not.