Learning Tunes

[catsittingstill]

So I got a book of tunes for Contra Dancing, called The Portland Collection (who knew that Portland was such a hotbed of Contra Dancing?).
And while I was paging through it I found a tune called "Old Grey Cat". Well, with a name like that, I had to try it. It is in E Dorian, oddly enough, and I really like it so I am in the process of learning it. Here are a couple of people playing it on youtube (much faster than I can right now).
When I started seriously working with the mandolin, gosh about twelve years ago now, it used to take me ages to learn a tune. Now I can pick it up in a couple of days.
I was expecting practicing to make me better at playing the tunes I knew. I wasn't expecting it to make me better at learning tunes.

Comments

[alatefeline]

That's a very enjoyable tune. I'm happy that your music practice is working so well for you.

[catsittingstill]

Yes it is fun, isn't it? I can't play it anywhere near that fast, of course.

It's kind of a startlement to look back now and then and realize how I have improved, and in what areas.

[alatefeline]

It's great that you have the perspective to see that! I'm hopeful that now I've picked up blogging it will help me to have more of that sort of perspective going forward, as my physical memorabilia tends to be evocative but terribly disorganized.