It is true that at most tune sessions most people will play from memory. That’s by no means the case all the time – there are sessions more geared towards learning and others which are more relaxed, but sooner or later the fact has to be faced – folk tunes are generally played from memory.

To some this will be a none issue – if you’ve grown up steeped in the tradition, or if you simply have picked up an instrument later in life having never learnt to read music and started to pick out tunes by ear then you’re already embodying the essence of the folk tradition. But if, like me, you’ve come to this music and the session culture as a ‘classical’ musician, used to sitting behind a music stand, and can competently play these tunes with the music in front of you, the idea of committing dozens, if not hundreds of them to memory can be daunting.

So I thought I’d share my experience of having been learning tunes for a few years now, and hopefully it might help anyone who’s decided to take the plunge and go dots free at their next session.

Before I went to a session I’d been playing a lot of tunes with the sheet music in front of me, just as I had other types of music in orchestras, ensembles etc. for decades. But take the music away, and I was stuck. I might have a couple of phrases but never got through the whole tune, even if it was a simple A, B structure with 8 bars in each part. I needed a system.

It’s worth saying at this stage that my main ‘session’ instrument is fiddle, but I’ve developed a bit of a routine of learning tunes on the mandolin before I play them on the fiddle. The main, perhaps only, reason is becuase I can slouch on the sofa in the evening with the mandolin, even with my feet up, and still play. I cannot condone this, it’s really bad for technique and posture. But the violin always feels like more effort and I don’t want to be sitting up straight, with my arms moving loads and fighting gravity after a day at work. My main fiddle practice happens at weekends at days off – if I’m going to play every day mandolin it is. (worth mentioning, as not everyone will know, that standard tuning is the same for both instruments, and so the fingers go in the same place). Once I do have the tune on the mandolin that’s the left hand sorted almost as soon as I pick up the fiddle – but not the right……

So how do you memorise it. Well, this is what I do…….play the tune through several times, just to get the shape of it, and I do indeed (and more so since my last post) try to diddle it between sessions. But to really learn it I play maybe two bars, with the music, and then make a point of looking away from the music and playing it again, and again, and again. Then I add another bar, but don’t just play that new bar…..go right back to the beginning and play everything I’ve learnt up to that point……and keep adding a couple of bars until I’ve got a whole section. There is then no substitute for playing play the tune ad nauseum until it becomes automatic. There’s also a lot to be said for playing it while there’s other stuff going on – TV, Radio, even another completely different piece of music playing. If you can play it in those circumstances it is probably pretty well embedded.

Once I can play the tune, my final stage is to then play lots of other tunes…..and eventually return and try to play the new one again. Usually, at that point, I can’t remember how it starts, but it only needs looking at the first couple of bars, and then, somehow, the whole thing flows from it.

I’ve found this process has got quicker the more I’ve done it, and can now usually get a basic tune embedded in my brain in a single session.

Now, there is a contingent of folk musicians who would frown upon using notated music at all, and say that the music should be learnt by ear – ideally in person, but if not from recordings. I personally don’t believe that you learn it better, or get more ‘inside’ the music by learning in this way – and it’s not always practical. But what is undeniable is that learning the notes is only the start of the journey. Once the notes are in your fingers the real learning starts. It is phrasing, bowing, variation, ornamentation and a myriad of other things that turn the simple, and often repetitive tunes we play in folk sessions into music. It is certainly true to say that that can really only be developed by listening to others, preferably in person, and, secondly, through lots of sheer hard work and practice (much more than it takes to learn the notes).

There’s loads more to say about musical memory of course, and it’s an interesting subject to dig into (I am currently reading Music as medicine by Daniel Levitkin which has a lot to say about it – the subject of a future post no doubt). But for now, I would really advocate to anyone to try to learn something, because not only does it mean you can just pick up an instrument and play, but it’s the key to getting really inside the music.