Hello Everybody,
You Braves have some system to remember all those tunes, licks etc. ?
Do you use tablature of some kind or just plain musical notation? or the real traditional way ?(no notation at all) ... I was just wondering!

I use tablatures, 'cause I don't read solfeggio. But I prefer my ears and my heart also.

It's like you said: the traditional way - no notation at all.

Occasionally, you will see a form of tablature used, but that is only capable of representing the skeleton of a tune. Typically, the embellishments are left off, which means the real heart and soul of the tune are missing.

-David

sometimes i will use the 'hm, now how does this go?' method

or have someone else in the band hum it for me :)

wle

That's right. If you strip a Cajun tune of the extras, you hardly recognize what's it all about.
But with notes you can write out timing, double stops, bounces and all sorts of embellishments. No # or b needed! So that's what I('m trying to) do.

you in the folk music business, bud

you better get used to nothing being written down and playing by memory

otherwise, well, progress is going to be slow, let;s just say..


after a while you start to realize that there are only so many fancy tricks in the universe

when you learn one, you start to hear it in other songs

pretty soon you don;t have to really learn a whole tune from scratch any more, because a lot of it will be either easy, or if it;s hard, something you already learned from another song

also, the diatonic accordion is sort of an advantage
since it only plays in one key, the mistakes you can make are sort of limited
and since some things are difficult or impossible, those things usually aren;t done
songs written for it, tend to feature the things that are easy to do, or at least possible!

diatonic also makes writing in the actual key of the music kind of clumsy, unless you just notate everything in C or G

i mean, who can switch between a C, D or Bflat accordion, and remember right off the bat what the 8 pull button is?
i just tend to think of that note as B, even though on a Bflat accordion, it;s A, and on a D, it;s C#

wle.

Peer,

sometimes tablature can be helpful. Try Eric Martin's. (Believe nowadays a cd is enclosed). Very complete, every note is written down.

Not easy for beginners, either to slow (with too many notes) or to fast; talking of the tape i had. First hear the tune and if you cannot find the licks, try to read the notation. Problem is that the notation is: "every note" is written down, so hear and read and find the important notes first.

G

Well Larry,that's exactly what I do: writing everything down in C and G (that's what I meant with: no # or b needed).
I've been in the music business for more than 30 years, so playing from memory is not really new to me ;o) (I use notation only every now and then as a reminder, especially for songs or Irish tunes).
But with Cajun music, I'm still in a sort of learning stage, and here notation comes in handy for me. It kind of forces me to figure out what's going on, especially with the timing. So I was wondering if I were the only one! (which seems so)
Thank you Braves for your comments! All very interesting.

I find that music, tabs, videos and recording are helpful, especially for tricky passages.

But in the end, I play the measure or phrase over and over until it has been commited to memory.

Being able to find the notes on the accordion does not hurt you but it is only an assist. Learning to play "by ear" is the goal in my opinion.

I used only numbers to learn the songs.
In the beginning I can't remember what to play and with the numbers(pull) and underlined numbers (push) it works. Now I can do more without notation and do it by listening.
In link 2 you can see the way I do it.

Two things I find problematic with accordion tab, is it seems there are as many versions as there are accordions. And, unlike guitar tab, for instance, rarely a system for notating note length. For me personally, I'm brutal at remembering titles, so a quick listen on my ipod or a quick glance at sheet music let's me go 'ah, now I remember". Nothing beats looping an audio track for driving home a lick.

Steve

I only use a list with the titles, the accordion type, the tonality, and the number of vocal couplets. The songs are grouped by type (two-step, waltz, blues, polka, zydeco, or other). Example:
La Chandelle Est Allumée [D/Bm-2].

This quote is for the banjo, but fits.
"Notes! There are no notes on an accordion, you just play the darn thing!"

My opinion is; (and it's a particularly stinky one) ...

If you can't learn Cajun or zydeco music by listening... your heart ain't into it.

~R!CK

If you go to the same church every Sunday for 50 years and sing out of the same hymn book that whole time, you will memorize every one of those hymns, words and music, whether you read music or not. You may just need to hear the prelude on some of the less favorite ones. Of course, after 50 years you may start forgetting some of them, as well. I think this is how you learn any music. You got to keep doing it over and over and still you may not get it right.
No easy answer, except lots of time & practice.
JB

Hi, I tend to hang in the camp of playing by ear, using notation rarely for registration and archiving, which is a great help. Tabs come in for me for teaching & learning guitars, banjo's etc. where there are more of the same old note to be found across the fretboard. - If you really want to learn a tune on an accordion its better to learn the straight melody from the fiddle or vocals, without to many embellishments, and by heart first. One of the reasons I like Joel Sonnier, he plays pretty melody based a lot. - On accordions and 5 string banjos you'll mostly end up with "lick" based tricks & treats anyway, f.i. for accordion i find it difficult at times to distinguish B parts from various tunes especially if they move in to the upper region of the 10 keys. - for the ones who want to improve their melodic feel and abilities, why don't you start with some relatively simple Irish tunes, or maybe Arkinsaw Traveller? - At someones request i posted a pretty simple Irish jig about a year ago just after I bought my first Louisiana built "Deutsche Harmonika", see link #2. I did it on a D accordion, but if someone wants a slower version in C, I could give it a try ... Or maybe Uncle Peer? He gave me some quite adequate basic notation sheets he made of cajun tunes which I found very useful then. He recorded some of them on the Utube too, see link #3. - nout

True dat, JB... but let's say you go to several different churches every Sunday for 50 years... then what? Or what if you choose to stay home and watch cooking shows every Sunday for 50 years.... then what? What about guys who golf on Sundays? I bet they still slice tu le ton son ton.

And what about guys like me who just turn the phone off and sleep in?

I still manage to sneak in an episode of Iron Chef -- tu le ton son ton.

I think this whole notation thing is purely overrated. I also believe that if any accordion squanker wants have a reason to have their game, they should enlist the services of a bassist, guitarist, and drummer.... then book gigs. There's nothing like pressure to *make* an accordion player sweat... and learn!

Having a public performance on the books will do wonders for your skills. That's the bootcamp approach needed to take it from the living room to the streets.... from the unpolished stone to the sanguine ornament.

Have faith,

~R!CK

Absolutely, Rick!
Until you perform, and I don't care if it's for Auntie Mabel and Uncle Harold on the back porch or in a dope-smoke filled, noise-ridden juke joint cramed to the hilt with tatooed and pierced freakoids, you will always just be a hobbyist hiding in your little room.
And the only reason to go to 50 different churchs for 50 years is to check out a new set of babes.
And who in the heck would eat cream of octopus soup, anyway.
Amen.
JB

aye, as we accordion players are hell bound anyway, but let me remind you that the soup they serve there is quite a bit hotter i'm afraid ..... nout

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Replying to:

Absolutely, Rick!
Until you perform, and I don't care if it's for Auntie Mabel and Uncle Harold on the back porch or in a dope-smoke filled, noise-ridden juke joint cramed to the hilt with tatooed and pierced freakoids, you will always just be a hobbyist hiding in your little room.
And the only reason to go to 50 different churchs for 50 years is to check out a new set of babes.
And who in the heck would eat cream of octopus soup, anyway.
Amen.
JB

Someone mentioned Irish...Those guys seem to have ONE way of playing a song, every note and embelishment has a RIGHT way to play it. One of the wonderful things about Cajun music is there is no RIGHT way. Sure there is the "Cajun Sound", but there are almost as many versions of some songs as there are players who also rarely play anything exactly the same way twice. I think that is one of the sad things about recorded music. Many people can play faithfully to the record, but never really get the feeling behind it. Thus the superiority of live performance.

Capt. E

Not sure where you are getting the information about Irish music. Irish tunes are all about variation and should never be played the same way twice. The Scots pipes are pretty much wedded to note music with no variation. Irish songs, I'm not into, as I just do the tunes.


.... Ed

I'm glad to be wrong. I was given the impression somewhere that Irish music was much more codafied, also one of the groups here in Austin seems very rigid in their acceptance of "variations" on songs. Probably should tell them to go blow up a stump.

I don't hardly know squat about Irish music, but I used to hang around with a lot of musicians who were into it. Maybe they were not representative, but they all had their sheet music, and that was pretty much how they played it.

Maybe this was all a big misunderstanding on my part, but to be honest, the fact that Irish music *appeared* to be all codifed was one of the reasons I preferred Cajun to Irish.

-David

I think that in general, people lump Irish, Scottish, Celtic and Cape Breton music into one category just as it is often done with Cajun, Creole and Zydeco. I, too, had that misconception about Irish music for many years until I had the opportunity to meet many different groups while traveling. Typical tunes of these genres tend to vary greatly in the way they are played from artist to artist, I think what lends to the appearance of rigid structure is that we sometimes hear multiple instruments playing in unison. THAT is not easy to do without hard work and discipline.

Oh my Gosh.

Look what my friend Michael has done in Lafayette, Louisiana. He's a wonderful piper and musician and good to see him bring to super cultures together.


see link #1 !!!!!



..... Ed


PS: One of the worst things to Irish music was writing it out in notation as it gave new comers the idea it could be only played one way.

I think you do what ever it takes to learn a tune.


Separate the "practice" from "playing tunes".

Practice what you don't know (till you learn it) and play what you know.

.....Ed

to me the real sport of playing music on a stage is play what you don't know in a manner nobody notices, and get away with that & the money too as a bonus - nout

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Replying to:

I think you do what ever it takes to learn a tune.


Separate the "practice" from "playing tunes".

Practice what you don't know (till you learn it) and play what you know.

.....Ed

Money?! Really?! Where?

May I have another bowl of... soup... please?



R!CK

I learned a long time ago when faking it, if you turn and give the drum a dirty look, the crowd assumes he's the source of dischord. In other words, go with the odds

Steve

Shhhh!!Nout!! I thought this was our little secret??
But, to make a long story short:

Q: Do you braves use notation?
A: No.

Thank you all!