[HANASHIR:1544] Re: code for melodies -Reply

[Adrian A. Durlester <durleste...>]

>Karen, I took 15 (count them - FIFTEEN) years of piano lessons, and
>I'm still MUCH more comfortable learning to play something by ear than
>by notes.

Judy (Git): Someone much closer to Karen than you can say the same thing! ;)

In any case, although I primarily and usually quite easily learn and play
things by ear (and oy does my ear hurt from banging on the keys all day
long), I often have a tendency to hear and play more complicated harmonies
and passing chords than are really in the music. So I sometimes have to look
at a manuscript to see what the simple chord changes really are.

It always amazes me how much simpler the music is than the way I hear it.
Those of you who know him will know why I call this the Shimon Cohen
syndrome! (His advice to me was to never, ever play the same chord in the
same inversion more than once in a piece!) It reminds me of a music theory
teacher I had once, who, each week in class, would require us to take a
simple melody (like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow") and create a chromatic
chord progression that worked, harmonically, with the melody. Do that for a
whole year, and playing I, IV, V becomes next to impossible! During my
post-college years with a Dixieland band, it was a constant challenge to
play simple chordings, where a flat 9 might be about as radical as you could
get. And now that I'm in Nashville, guess I'd better learn to play I, IV and
V straight ahead again.

And, on yet another hand-having had 15 years of solfege and sightreading, I
guess I must enjoy and like working with and learning from a printed music
manuscript too.

Torn between two lovers...

Adrian