I have just started playing the fiddle after wanting to learn as a child and failing the test you had to take at primary school for free lessons! Ive had 2 lessons in all, am learning the Kesh. Any general tips welcome....
Learn the Kesh Jig in D as well as G.
What's the point? Well, it will help you to feel for tunes as intervals of notes and stop you getting in to the habbit of remembering them as patterns on the fingerboard
Hmm... Ilig just made me think of something there.
A lot of beginning fiddle players use strips of tape on the fingerboard to learn where the notes are. Do you do this?
You should, of course, do as your teacher says, but I personally don't recommend using strips of tape. By doing this, you're learning where the notes are visually, rather than aurally.
If you can learn to finger the correct note by how it sounds, it'll help develop your ear and sense of pitch. This might be trickier, but it will be better for you in the long run.
Also, it's never too early to get used to using a shoulder rest. If you ever want to play in positions, you'll need one.
Good luck with the Kesh. It's a good jig. Don't worry about learning it in different keys for the moment (that will come in time). Just concentrate on tone and timing.
Thanks everyone thats great I will keep up the practice! Oh and I dont use tape I correct with my fingers have a pretty good sense of pitch so think this will help!
Like you been learning fiddle, but for three years now. I will give you some tips that either have really helped me, or that I realised were really good tips when they were given but ignored them till I realised they actually were good advice!
Also please realise that I am not giving you advice as any kind of expert or authority on the fiddle, but as a fellow learner who is just a bit further down the road.
I have not climbed the steep hill, but i have found the beginning of the path. Okay grasshopper!
The fiddle should rest on the first nuckle of the left hand.
Arch your fingers over the strings like little hammers, tying not to lift them too far away from the strings.
Keep you nails short! saves replacing the strings and helps intonation.
The left hand should not grip the fiddle - you don't hold your fiddle up, you stand under it.
Let the weight of your bow arm come down through your arm on to the bow. Difficult to try and explain, but the key is to realise that the bow hand must be relaxed, but must not just glide over the strings with a feathery contact.
The bow moves across the strings not from the shoulder, but from the elbow and wrist.
The shoulder moves only to change strings.
SLUR! doesnt matter at first how, but try not to get into the habit of each note having its own bow each time.
Don't delay trying to vary and ornament your tunes, the longer you leave it the harder it will be.
DO try to ornament and vary your tunes, a tune is more than a row of notes.
The rythum of the tune is what makes it become more than a row of notes.
Can I explain the rythum ?- can't even spell it. Listen to it, absorb it, go to workshops and ask about it. try not to spend your life worrying about it.
The fiddle is difficult. Irish music is difficult. There will never be a time when you are completey the master of each.
Read that twice, say it out loud and then realise this -
The sooner you enjoy playing music on your fiddle the sooner your playing will improve, enjoy playing today realising that it will probably mean you will play better tomorow.
Get to as many sessions as you can - ask to record the tunes and listen to them on the way to work, at work, on the way home from work, whilst cooking the tea, sell the television and listen while eating your tea., before you go to sleep,while sleeping - you get the message!
Spend one whole lesson recording your teacher playing sets of tunes that you want to learn.
listen to that recording loads!
Realise that you WILL one day be able to play as fast as they play at the session.
Realise that the day will dawn when you realise you probably dont want to play tunes that fast.
Read the archive on this board, type in a word that you want to find out about eg pulse, drive roll etc and wonder at the knowledge that people have put into this site.
Dont take everything that is said here to heart. For example, the Kesh gets a lot of abuse on this site as a tune that noone likes and noone does or should play - ever. Now I took this to heart and at a session in a festival in Scotland which the White Heart Band were hosting ( great bunch of lads lovely music) they played all the old tunes, drowsy maggie, kesh, soldiers joy, masons apron etc.
Now I thought that they were taking the mickey - based on what I have read here, and when I meet the fiddler later on for a chat I couldn't get over how much he said he had enoyed playing in that session. They had been playing all the tunes that they thought every one would know so every one could play together.
What I am trying to say is that you should play tunes you like to play in the manner that you like to play them. BUT you must also repect the tunes that other people like to play and try to join them in the playing of their tunes in the way that they like to play them.
Umm, started out meaning to pop in a couple of tips and its turned into a lecture........
One last bit of advice -
Dont give up - dont think that another istrument would be easier, stick with the fiddle. The things that makes it difficult in the beginning are the same things that make it such an expressive lovely addictive thing to play in the future.
Oh and one more - if you get pain anywhere while playing, stop. Straight away. its tempting to think that the pain will go but you must not force your body to fit the fiddle. Wait till you can play with out pain and then practice often for short periods rather than long ones.
When I first started (as a middle-aged adult several years ago) one thing I found very helpful (in addition to all the other really good suggestions made) was to play in front of a mirror. It allowed me to see if I was keeping my bow straight across the strings, whether I was moving my elbow back and forth too much, whether my left wrist was straight, etc. It was important to me to build "muscle memory" and to do it correctly.
Not bad at all that. lots of lovely useful stuff. Well done clunk.
Best bits:
"Don't delay trying to vary and ornament your tunes, the longer you leave it the harder it will be."
and
"try not to get into the habit of each note having its own bow each time."
However:
The fiddle is really not that difficult. Yeah it's harder at first than tooting a tin whistle or twonking a banjo. But in the grand scheme of things, playing diddley music on the fiddle is really not the most demanding of hobbies. This is important. It frees up your ceativity and allows you to concentrate on the subtleties of the music, it allows you very quickly to escape the suffocation of technique.
Good advice, Clunk. I'd like to add one thing to your comment about holding the fiddle up --- for the love of mike, o ye beginning fiddlers, don't don't DON'T elevate your left shoulder to hold the fiddle in place. I was taught to do this when I started playing, and at the tender age of 5 didn't realize there might be consequences to developing that sort of habitual bad posture. Now in my 40s I'm coping with an occluded nerve that causes severe unpredictable tremors in my left hand. I can barely play --- or type, hence my recent absence from the yellow board --- until the occlusion reverses. That's a long slow process (luckily the damage shows good signs of being reparable). I'll never know for sure, but I'd bet the old hitch in my shoulder contributed to the problem.
One other tip, Jessica --- for some reason fiddlers tend to be fairly rabid perfectionists, and to be hard on themselves for their mistakes. Learn to take your errors lightly; you can care about being a better player without spoiling your own ability to have fun at it!
I've been playing the fiddle for just over 20 years now. I've been doing it professionally for 9 years and at the moment i'm concentrating on teaching and performing. My advice would be to get 10 lessons from a good teacher to build a solid foundation you can work on. Listen to lots of fiddle music and pick your favourite CD (Aly Bain's First Album?), then pick your favourite slow track on that CD; then practice your socks off until you can play the tune EXACTLY as it is on the CD - this will take lots of patience. Once you have mastered the slow tune, move up to a March and do the same. Then do the same with your favourite Jig, reel, strathspey, hornpipe etc ... Every fiddle player i know wanted to play reels and jigs when they first started getting lessons but it's so important to get a little advice from a good teacher and start slowly with lots of long bows. Then you can think about tackling the serious stuff !
I LOVE Clunk's advice (wish I had discovered thesession when I started as an adult 3 years ago!) but my biggest step was to actually get LESSONS and be shown how to hold/bow/fingers/bowingtchnique etc..
My teacher loves my enthusiasm and knows what I like to play, but we follow a set of techniques that are applicable to any music. I really started to improve when I got lessons.
Also I mix classical, folk sessions and playing my own style to a CD blaring out. I go to Bluegrass/classical/folk/ethnic festivals as much as possible and I record tunes and try to learn a variety of music styles - they all help me play folk music.
Michael
- freeing yourself from the suffocation of technique - I like that, lots.
And I take your point about diddley music and its place in the grand scheme.
However (to quote your good self!) I think that a player who has been playing for a long time might forget the pain of the early learner.
I ski way better than I fiddle, used to ski full time before I got old and mortgaged. When I ski now the skis go where I want them to go, don't evan think about it, actually not really sure what happens, it just does.
I think that I was trying to say the same thing as yourself - that to concern yourself with how hard it seems, is way less important than just relaxing and lettting the music flow out of your subconscious.
Like the first time skier trying to do a snowplow, they are so tense and worried about falling over, looking like a fool in front of the class, and feelling so completely seperate from the skis and thinkintg that this is way too hard should have gone to majorca instead, that they forget just to stand up, relax and slide.
now for long hesitation over the dreaded post button.............
Clunk you worry too much about your postings! They are fine and I have found everyones comments useful, interesting and encouraging...very pleased to be here. I like the comparison to skiing and wishing for a sunny holiday instead!
If you get lessons, which I totally recommend, find someone who understands the style you want to play in and don't let anyone tell you that you have to/it's better to learn classical first - if you wanted to play golf would you have tennis lessons?
Total Beginner!
Total Beginner!
I have just started playing the fiddle after wanting to learn as a child and failing the test you had to take at primary school for free lessons! Ive had 2 lessons in all, am learning the Kesh. Any general tips welcome....
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by Jessicamaryhall
Re: Total Beginner!
practice, practice, practice in the kitchen.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by cluaintarbh
Re: Total Beginner!
Listen, listen, listen.
However, you might not be ready to worry too much about learning actual playing styles just yet. It's good advice in the long run though.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by Johannes J
Re: Total Beginner!
Sit up straight, keep the fiddle straight out in front of you, don't "play it into the floor".
Keep the bow "off the black" i.e. between bridge and fingerboard.
Keep that wrist bent away from the neck of the fiddle! i.e. don't rest the neck on the heel of your hand.
Keep the bow vertical on the strings i.e. don't lean it towards or away from you. Better tone and it'll help avoid broken bowhairs.
Immerse yourself in the music, listen as much as you can. It takes time to gain an understanding of how it "should" sound.
Above all, practice every day, and have fun!
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by tradshark
Re: Total Beginner!
Learn the Kesh Jig in D as well as G.
What's the point? Well, it will help you to feel for tunes as intervals of notes and stop you getting in to the habbit of remembering them as patterns on the fingerboard
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by llig leahcim
Re: Total Beginner!
Hmm... Ilig just made me think of something there.
A lot of beginning fiddle players use strips of tape on the fingerboard to learn where the notes are. Do you do this?
You should, of course, do as your teacher says, but I personally don't recommend using strips of tape. By doing this, you're learning where the notes are visually, rather than aurally.
If you can learn to finger the correct note by how it sounds, it'll help develop your ear and sense of pitch. This might be trickier, but it will be better for you in the long run.
Also, it's never too early to get used to using a shoulder rest. If you ever want to play in positions, you'll need one.
Good luck with the Kesh. It's a good jig. Don't worry about learning it in different keys for the moment (that will come in time). Just concentrate on tone and timing.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by tradshark
Re: Total Beginner!
Thanks everyone thats great I will keep up the practice! Oh and I dont use tape I correct with my fingers have a pretty good sense of pitch so think this will help!
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by Jessicamaryhall
Re: Total Beginner!
Hi Jessica
Like you been learning fiddle, but for three years now. I will give you some tips that either have really helped me, or that I realised were really good tips when they were given but ignored them till I realised they actually were good advice!
Also please realise that I am not giving you advice as any kind of expert or authority on the fiddle, but as a fellow learner who is just a bit further down the road.
I have not climbed the steep hill, but i have found the beginning of the path. Okay grasshopper!
The fiddle should rest on the first nuckle of the left hand.
Arch your fingers over the strings like little hammers, tying not to lift them too far away from the strings.
Keep you nails short! saves replacing the strings and helps intonation.
The left hand should not grip the fiddle - you don't hold your fiddle up, you stand under it.
Let the weight of your bow arm come down through your arm on to the bow. Difficult to try and explain, but the key is to realise that the bow hand must be relaxed, but must not just glide over the strings with a feathery contact.
The bow moves across the strings not from the shoulder, but from the elbow and wrist.
The shoulder moves only to change strings.
SLUR! doesnt matter at first how, but try not to get into the habit of each note having its own bow each time.
Don't delay trying to vary and ornament your tunes, the longer you leave it the harder it will be.
DO try to ornament and vary your tunes, a tune is more than a row of notes.
The rythum of the tune is what makes it become more than a row of notes.
Can I explain the rythum ?- can't even spell it. Listen to it, absorb it, go to workshops and ask about it. try not to spend your life worrying about it.
The fiddle is difficult. Irish music is difficult. There will never be a time when you are completey the master of each.
Read that twice, say it out loud and then realise this -
The sooner you enjoy playing music on your fiddle the sooner your playing will improve, enjoy playing today realising that it will probably mean you will play better tomorow.
Get to as many sessions as you can - ask to record the tunes and listen to them on the way to work, at work, on the way home from work, whilst cooking the tea, sell the television and listen while eating your tea., before you go to sleep,while sleeping - you get the message!
Spend one whole lesson recording your teacher playing sets of tunes that you want to learn.
listen to that recording loads!
Realise that you WILL one day be able to play as fast as they play at the session.
Realise that the day will dawn when you realise you probably dont want to play tunes that fast.
Read the archive on this board, type in a word that you want to find out about eg pulse, drive roll etc and wonder at the knowledge that people have put into this site.
Dont take everything that is said here to heart. For example, the Kesh gets a lot of abuse on this site as a tune that noone likes and noone does or should play - ever. Now I took this to heart and at a session in a festival in Scotland which the White Heart Band were hosting ( great bunch of lads lovely music) they played all the old tunes, drowsy maggie, kesh, soldiers joy, masons apron etc.
Now I thought that they were taking the mickey - based on what I have read here, and when I meet the fiddler later on for a chat I couldn't get over how much he said he had enoyed playing in that session. They had been playing all the tunes that they thought every one would know so every one could play together.
What I am trying to say is that you should play tunes you like to play in the manner that you like to play them. BUT you must also repect the tunes that other people like to play and try to join them in the playing of their tunes in the way that they like to play them.
Umm, started out meaning to pop in a couple of tips and its turned into a lecture........
One last bit of advice -
Dont give up - dont think that another istrument would be easier, stick with the fiddle. The things that makes it difficult in the beginning are the same things that make it such an expressive lovely addictive thing to play in the future.
Oh and one more - if you get pain anywhere while playing, stop. Straight away. its tempting to think that the pain will go but you must not force your body to fit the fiddle. Wait till you can play with out pain and then practice often for short periods rather than long ones.
Hope that helps - and good luck!
stephan.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by clunk999
Re: Total Beginner!
Just read thru that and sorry it turned into chapter one of war and peace - the but about slurring should read more like
Get OUT of the habit, not INTO the habit of each note having its own bow stroke.
oops.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by clunk999
Re: Total Beginner!
Now read that again and it made sense the first time.
DOH.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by clunk999
Re: Total Beginner!
When I first started (as a middle-aged adult several years ago) one thing I found very helpful (in addition to all the other really good suggestions made) was to play in front of a mirror. It allowed me to see if I was keeping my bow straight across the strings, whether I was moving my elbow back and forth too much, whether my left wrist was straight, etc. It was important to me to build "muscle memory" and to do it correctly.
Good Luck!
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by ceoltoirbeth
Re: Total Beginner!
Not bad at all that. lots of lovely useful stuff. Well done clunk.
Best bits:
"Don't delay trying to vary and ornament your tunes, the longer you leave it the harder it will be."
and
"try not to get into the habit of each note having its own bow each time."
However:
The fiddle is really not that difficult. Yeah it's harder at first than tooting a tin whistle or twonking a banjo. But in the grand scheme of things, playing diddley music on the fiddle is really not the most demanding of hobbies. This is important. It frees up your ceativity and allows you to concentrate on the subtleties of the music, it allows you very quickly to escape the suffocation of technique.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by llig leahcim
Re: Total Beginner!
for the love of your family, put a clothes-peg on the bridge- this deadens the noise of screeching a little.
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by sandy mackay
Re: Total Beginner!
Good advice, Clunk. I'd like to add one thing to your comment about holding the fiddle up --- for the love of mike, o ye beginning fiddlers, don't don't DON'T elevate your left shoulder to hold the fiddle in place. I was taught to do this when I started playing, and at the tender age of 5 didn't realize there might be consequences to developing that sort of habitual bad posture. Now in my 40s I'm coping with an occluded nerve that causes severe unpredictable tremors in my left hand. I can barely play --- or type, hence my recent absence from the yellow board --- until the occlusion reverses. That's a long slow process (luckily the damage shows good signs of being reparable). I'll never know for sure, but I'd bet the old hitch in my shoulder contributed to the problem.
One other tip, Jessica --- for some reason fiddlers tend to be fairly rabid perfectionists, and to be hard on themselves for their mistakes. Learn to take your errors lightly; you can care about being a better player without spoiling your own ability to have fun at it!
# Posted on August 15th 2006 by sara g
Re: Total Beginner!
Hi,
I've been playing the fiddle for just over 20 years now. I've been doing it professionally for 9 years and at the moment i'm concentrating on teaching and performing. My advice would be to get 10 lessons from a good teacher to build a solid foundation you can work on. Listen to lots of fiddle music and pick your favourite CD (Aly Bain's First Album?), then pick your favourite slow track on that CD; then practice your socks off until you can play the tune EXACTLY as it is on the CD - this will take lots of patience. Once you have mastered the slow tune, move up to a March and do the same. Then do the same with your favourite Jig, reel, strathspey, hornpipe etc ... Every fiddle player i know wanted to play reels and jigs when they first started getting lessons but it's so important to get a little advice from a good teacher and start slowly with lots of long bows. Then you can think about tackling the serious stuff !
Good Luck!
Iain.
# Posted on August 16th 2006 by Iain Anderson
Re: Total Beginner!
I LOVE Clunk's advice (wish I had discovered thesession when I started as an adult 3 years ago!) but my biggest step was to actually get LESSONS and be shown how to hold/bow/fingers/bowingtchnique etc..
My teacher loves my enthusiasm and knows what I like to play, but we follow a set of techniques that are applicable to any music. I really started to improve when I got lessons.
Also I mix classical, folk sessions and playing my own style to a CD blaring out. I go to Bluegrass/classical/folk/ethnic festivals as much as possible and I record tunes and try to learn a variety of music styles - they all help me play folk music.
# Posted on August 16th 2006 by jinksy
Re: Total Beginner!
Michael
- freeing yourself from the suffocation of technique - I like that, lots.
And I take your point about diddley music and its place in the grand scheme.
However (to quote your good self!) I think that a player who has been playing for a long time might forget the pain of the early learner.
I ski way better than I fiddle, used to ski full time before I got old and mortgaged. When I ski now the skis go where I want them to go, don't evan think about it, actually not really sure what happens, it just does.
I think that I was trying to say the same thing as yourself - that to concern yourself with how hard it seems, is way less important than just relaxing and lettting the music flow out of your subconscious.
Like the first time skier trying to do a snowplow, they are so tense and worried about falling over, looking like a fool in front of the class, and feelling so completely seperate from the skis and thinkintg that this is way too hard should have gone to majorca instead, that they forget just to stand up, relax and slide.
now for long hesitation over the dreaded post button.............
# Posted on August 16th 2006 by clunk999
Re: Total Beginner!
Clunk you worry too much about your postings! They are fine and I have found everyones comments useful, interesting and encouraging...very pleased to be here. I like the comparison to skiing and wishing for a sunny holiday instead!
# Posted on August 16th 2006 by Jessicamaryhall
Re: Total Beginner!
If you get lessons, which I totally recommend, find someone who understands the style you want to play in and don't let anyone tell you that you have to/it's better to learn classical first - if you wanted to play golf would you have tennis lessons?
# Posted on August 17th 2006 by c.g.
Re: Total Beginner!
# Posted on August 19th 2006 by clunk999
Re: Total Beginner!
:} >: :@
# Posted on August 19th 2006 by clunk999
Re: Total Beginner!
;]
:}
# Posted on August 19th 2006 by clunk999
Re: Total Beginner!
Ah, thats how to do the smilies.
# Posted on August 19th 2006 by clunk999