I had a lot of possible names for this workshop (which I suspect will turn into a series): Ear Training Tactics, Tune Infrastructure, Blueprinting, How to Learn, etc. But what I'll try to get at in this workshop is the idea that if you can build a mental (and physical) "scaffold" of a tune before and while you're learning it, you'll be able to both learn AND retain the tune much more efficiently, quickly, and indelibly.

In order to build these "scaffolds", you need to have a bunch of basic but very important ear training and music theory skills, and need to have internalized (eventually, in an automated way) how these physically transfer over to your instrument. We'll discuss those skills, try them out, and go over exercises to help create automatic processes between your ear, your brain, and your fingers.

You'll need to practice these skills for a while before it becomes semi-automatic, but in the second half of the class we'll use a couple case study tunes to diagram how to build mental and physical "scaffolding" for a new-to-you tune...instead of just forcibly trying to learn a hundred or so random notes.

I know this all sounds very mysterious, and that's because it's a very different way of approaching the process of learning, remembering, and being able to recall tunes. Come check it out!

Who's this for: All instrumentalists, although we'll discuss fiddle-specific ways in which the "scaffolding" applies to the physical arrangement of the notes on the instrument.
Level: The concepts are open to all levels. The tunes we'll use as case studies are Advanced Beginner and up (Level 3+). But don't let that stop you if you're Level 2 - you can listen to, rather than playing, these tunes and the concepts will still make sense.