🎻 I could have looked it up on The Session, but here's what happened instead

Hi Reader!

At the risk of sounding cheeky, music and the brain has been... well, on my brain this week!

I'm borrowing a book from my parents (Reversing Alzheimers by Dr. Heather Sandison) partly for ideas on how to be supportive for people experiencing cognitive decline, and partly for preventative measure and ways to keep my brain healthy even "early" here in my 30s.

My family has a history of Alzheimer's or similar forms of dementia on both sides, which I've witnessed personally in some of my grandparents' final years. I always marveled that my grandmother knew every single word to The Sound of Music long after she couldn't say any of our names, and that my grandfather would light up and clap along in time whenever I launched into a rollicking set of reels when visiting.

I'm not a neuroscientist, but Molly Gebrian is (and she's also a professional violist)! If you're curious about the music and brain connection like I am, this page is a good rabbit hole to go down.

Several of my students have told me that they're playing/taking up the fiddle in retirement to keep their brains active. But for all ages, I suspect it's a contributing factor of some sort!

It's also a really powerful motivator. Just like days that I don't want to go to the gym, I have days where I don't want to practice or don't want to do challenging practice.

But if I remember that I'm old enough to start losing muscle tissue that I don't strengthen by lifting heavy things, it gets me out of the apartment.

And when I think about performing a challenging activity like learning tunes by ear and how that's going to give my brain a chance to stay healthy, suddenly my practice goal pivots.

Last week I mentioned I'm working through Aidan Connolly and Bryan O'Leary's new album, The Groves of Gneeveguilla. It's chock full of Sliabh Luachra tunes, quite a few of which are new to me.

So there I was on a Monday afternoon, playing away through the first two tracks of polkas and slides. I've always found these types of tunes a bit easier to pick up by ear possibly due to their shorter phrasing.

The third track on the album has three reels. Which is where it gets more challenging! Especially since I didn't know any of the three beforehand.

I am taking this track one tune at a time, and the productivity nerd in me wants to speed through and get the notes under my fingers like yesterday.

But I thought about Dr. Heather's book, and how doing a task that is challenging for your brain is good for you.

I could have easily pulled up The Brosna Reel on the Session and used it as a second learning tool (visual + audio) to play along with Aidan and Bryan. And I thought about it.

But if I did that, I know I won't remember the reel for as long... and it wouldn't really be a challenge for me at this point.

I still wanted to get the tune down, but instead of looking at sheet music that someone else wrote, I decided to shorthand the notes Colin Farrell/Kevin Crawford style -- which if you're not familiar with how they notate tunes, they write the note name ABCDE etc and include a dash above or below to indicate which octave the note is played in.

It's still a challenging notation method for me to read as quickly as sheet music, but the act of notating Aidan and Bryan's version meant I was doing some really deep listening to write the notes down exactly as I heard them.

Side note: I recommend doing this type of exercise in pencil... our brains like to fill in gaps with a note sequence that makes sense but isn't actually being played. 🙃

I'd love for you to keep this mindset of embracing the challenge in mind when it comes time for our Spring Lilt-Up workshops in a couple weeks, Reader! While I will provide sheet music after the fact, during our first class we're going to work on ear training for our two tunes.

Excited to see you on May 2nd! Thank you for registering for this event!

By this time next week, I'll hopefully have Blackwater Banks (the next reel in Aidan + Bryan's album) under my fingers! What tunes are you working on this week?

Happy playing!

~Hannah