🎻 The practicing goal I gave up on a long time ago

Hi Reader!

Tell me if you've been in these shoes before. You open up a tune book like the O'Neill's collection (which has 1000 tunes in it if you're not familiar), and think "okay now I'm going to learn every single one of these tunes."

After all, if you trained in the Suzuki method or another violin method that relied on progressing through a series of books, isn't that what we're used to?

Learn every tune in the book, and then we can move on to the next level.

It's certainly how I used to operate! Except with Irish music, it doesn't really work that way.

Think about all the people in the world right now composing new tunes. Colin Farrell writes a new tune a day to keep his tune writing skills active and build a habit for himself. Liz Carroll just released her third collection of tunes earlier in the year (which you'll be hearing more about in the next episode of the Find Your Lilt podcast soon 😉). Back in 2022, Jackie Daly and Matt Cranitch put out a book containing 226 new tunes Jackie wrote.

And there's more where that came from!

The point is, learning all the tunes is perhaps not the most achievable goal. But I also think you and I are probably already on the same page about that.

Maybe what you want instead is to know enough tunes. Enough tunes to join a session and play more often than not (though personally I enjoy a mix where I can pick up new tunes or just sit back and listen).

Enough tunes to build your own sets and have plenty of options to choose from.

Enough tunes to say you've put in a lot of hours getting to know this music and are playing with a lilt and style that is characteristic of this music.

Weekly Tune Library Update

We've had several new Tune Library members join in the past couple of weeks, so a big welcome and thank you to you, if that's you, Reader!

This is a secret part of my weekly newsletter that only appears for Tune Library members, and is usually where I share any new video updates or ask for tune/bonus content requests.

While I'm happy to put up new tutorials anytime, I also recognize there are a ton of videos already in the library. So it's nice to have seasons where you can explore what's already there without needing to keep up with every single new video.

And in keeping with this newsletter's topic, nor should you feel pressure to learn every tune -- that's why getting comfortable with phrases and intervals is so key! The more tunes in the library you work with, the more you naturally build your phrasing bank!

I talk about learning phrases and intervals a lot, and often start off with scales as an example since they're methodical, repetitive and don't have a ton of moving parts to keep straight.

Then for phrasing, I'll typically do a scale pattern if it's bowing-related.

But for phrasing retention and building a collection of familiar phrases, I turn to the tunes themselves. Where do the patterns come up?

One favorite resource a student told me about years ago is Folk Tune Finder. You can make this into a fun exercise by typing in the first few notes of a tune and see all the different results you get!

Here's an example of two descending fifths -- and there would be a lot of other results if I just typed the first three notes:

Happy practicing this week! And if you're open to sharing, I'd love to hear what "knowing enough tunes" means to you!

~Hannah