The MUSIC
PAGE
has tunes as sound and picture files so that you can
listen to them and look at the dots. We hope that this proves to
be a good way for you to learn new tunes, in addition to the help below.
LEARNING
NEW TUNES.
There
are several ways for you to learn new tunes. Most people at BFG
learn the tunes by coming down to the hall on Fridays. This is
probably the best way as you will hear the tunes for real and will be
able to work with others to improve. However you may also like to
use music including the BFG tune books. Tune book one is available on
line (see below) and a new book is on its way. There is a Book
One CD
available too, but not on line as yet. Another way is learn is
direct
from CDs. This may not sound easy at first because of the speed at
which tunes are played by the professionals. But you can slow the music
down by using
software on your PC. There is help on this below. Slowing down
music you want to play to a speed of your choice is a really good
way to learn. It also helps later when
you want to learn tunes from the playing of others at sessions,
workshops and so on. You may already have software for this on
your PC
but don't know it.
Music
Book One.
We have produced a tune book
with 52 tunes arranged in 22 sets. The book is accompanied by a
CD on
which the tunes are played slowly to help learners to do so by
ear.
The book is £10 to non-members and £7.50 to members.
The book contains
some additions to normal music notation, including colour coding and
numbers t indicate which finger should be used for easn note.
There
are a few tunes for beginners right through to some of the simpler
ceilidh band music we play. The book covers the basic repertoire
we
currently use for gigs - therefore it is pretty essential for members.
This book replaces our old Tune Book One, but you can still download
that here.
The old book is written in software called Melody Assistant which can can
downloaded from the Links
page. This is a low
priced commercial software package but obviously we cannot give you any
assurance that it is suitable for your computer. It works for us. The
tune book is downloaded as a zipped file and all you will need to do is
to unzip the file - this will give you the book in one folder. You then
have to load each file into Melody Assistant for printing on a colour
printer. (Clicking on the unzipped files probably won't work - you have
to open them up from within Melody Assistant.) There is also an
introduction (a Word 6 file) which contains a statement of what it's
all about as far as BFG is concerned and a list of contents.
You are welcome to use the music - feedback on how you get on would be
nice.
Slowing down your CDs and learning by ear.
There
are a number of software options, but the bit of software we use most
is called the Amazing Slow Downer.
It slows down the
music without changing its pitch, so you can play along in the right
key. You can select sections and
repeat them or play entire tracks. It uses the CD, or WAV and MP3 files
from your PC hard drive. Its easy to install, very cheap and well
supported. (See Links
page for download site). Download and trial of the software
is
free. Members who want help with this should ask Andrew or Pete.
However, if you want to try this method without using a download
you
will find that Windows Media Player
(versions 9+) has a similar
feature, although a bit less flexible. You will need the music to
be on your hard drive as an MP3 or midi file as media Player cannot
slow the music directly
from the CD or WAV files. (Some Midi files are available on the Music Page.) To see the slowing
down facility in Media Player you may need to go the the View menu,
select Enhancements then select Play Speed Settngs. this will bring up
a slide bar and other speed controls. Whatever you choose we
strongly recommend slowing down music as a way of learning to play by
ear.
What next?
We are always looking for
new ways (or old ways we didn't know about) to help learning and as we
find them more information will be put here.