[Harp-L] Playing in your head and reading music

[Michael Snowden]

I never got particularly good sight-reading on the harp, but I suspect there is a level of "conventional note to Diatonic harp" transcription that does not exist if you ALWAYS play eg a C chromatic.  Clarinet players have a similar problem.  Music is often written "for the notes" assuming there is only one key of clarinet: But if you have perfect pitch, then you hear the note is wrong.

As a guitarist, my sight reading got pretty good.  What I found was that my reading actually got better when I could read a while phrase - one hand movement, one plucking pattern, rather than lots of individual notes.  Harmonica licks are like that - you play and visualise the whole lick, not just the individual movements. 

    On Monday, 19 December 2016, 14:26, Tin Lizzie <TrackHarpL at xxxxx> wrote:
 

 Hi, Aongus!

I am not a neuro-scientist, but I have a keen layman’s interest in that kind of stuff.  I heard someone say, once, “I could never learn to juggle well until I tried to  *talk*  and juggle at the same time.”  Something about forcing your brain to ‘automate’ a skill by increasing the workload with an added skill.  So, clearly, we should all start playing harmonica while riding unicycles!

Tin Lizzie


On Dec 19, 2016, at 8:56 AM, Aongus Mac Canawrote:

> Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 11:27:17 -0000
> From: "Aongus Mac Cana" <amaccana at xxxxx>
> To: "Harp-L List" <harp-l at xxxxx>
> Subject: [Harp-L] Playing in your head and reading music
> Message-ID: <002a01d259ea$db1213a0$91363ae0$@net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;    charset="us-ascii"
> 
> I don't know if there are any Neuro-Scientists on this  list, but I am
> fascinated by how you can get skills like driving, playing golf, reading and
> playing music into the "automatic pilot" section of your "chip" .
> 
> <snip>

> Do these geriatric ramblings ring a bell with any of you guys?
> 
> Beannachtai
> 
> Aongus Mac Cana