Hello, I'm new here, I'm not sure if I am in the right area to ask this question but I'm learning a song from riverdance and the thing is I can play it and it sounds like it but it doesn't have the Irish fiddling feel to it. People keep telling me to loosen it up a bit but then it sounds like I'm playing all over the place so if you have ANY tips I'd be VERY happy to know'em. Thank you very much!
Cathleen, please give us some background about yourself -- how long have you played fiddle, do you have classical background, what other instruments and genres do you know, do you have a teacher, how familiar with Irish trad music are you...? This will help the folks here steer you on a productive path towards what you want.
If possible, get a teacher who is a good player of Irish tunes, even if you're an accomplished player in another idiom. Other than that:
Sounds like you're learning from the dots. If so, don't. Go and find some simpler tunes, in a local session somewhere, or on YouTube (try the Kelly family clip that has been posted here recently) or maybe, just maybe, CDs. The point being that it will help you to get the right sound if you practice right from the start by *listening* to the pukka Irish stuff.
Next, if, as it sounds (though I accept that this is just supposition) you are coming from a classical background, try, just as an exercise, using as small and light bow strokes as you possibly can. Really short - 2cm is plenty. Mix up the bowing - don't just do a bow per note. But, for a while, consciously keep those bows short. Keep trying until you start to sound like what you're listening to.
Relax your wrist. Completely. You need to be able to move the bow with your fingers and wrist alone, ie not with your arm. Later, you can re-learn how to use the arm in this kind of music.
Practice very very slowly. Really really really really REALLY slowly. Don't practice at speed AT ALL for at least a month.
Work on 4 to 5 tunes at a time, but never worry about the fact that you're playing them so slowly. Do this for a while, and it will stand you in good stead later.
Get along to Irish sessions, and just listen. Try to watch what decent fiddlers are doing and to listen to the effect what they're doing has on the music. At the end of the night, feel free to ask for a tip or two. But no more! Honestly, most people will be glad to help, to a point, but you don't want to risk being a nuisance.
Forget about tone - for now - and think about articulation. By which I mean how the notes are joined together, what it sounds like, how scratchy it is, what the ornaments are like, the fact that some notes are slurred and some are separate, in what seems at first to be random patterns. Listen to it all. You're unlikely to understand everything that you're listening to at first, but, if you keep listening, it will eventually sink in.
Finally, get as much advice as possible. Read all the advice you may get here, and sift it yourself to make sure it makes sense to you.
I hope I've not jumped straight in and assumed too much about where your own playing may be coming from. I think the above will work in any case.
The fact that you're recognizing that it doesn't sound right puts you ahead of alot of beginners already. Don't confine yourself to listening to fiddling either, I didn't fully "understand" the feeling of irish music until Id listened to a good number of pipers, fluters, boxers, banjoers, etc.
I am very familler with Irish music, I've listened to it my whole life....though this year will be my 6th year on violin and I've mostly played classical music and I do have a teacher but it summer break and I still have awhile before they start up again. I also play harp and piano and ALOT of songs I play are celtic but I've been playing violin the longest and for about a year I've been trying to get the irish fiddling down but.....i don't know I've never been happy with the way it sounds and where I live there really is no music life, so there is no one at all I can ask. My teacher alone has to travel pretty far to teach me and her other students. But even a simple Irish tune I can't get an irish reel out of it.
cathleen try lilting simple tunes till you have them learnt off and only then try them on the fiddle.the music is only a guide,listen to many different players play that same tune and listen most carefully for the phrases.....the seceret is not technique it is phrasing...good luck i am still trying to do it better
p.s. keep good tone production technique .all that wrist giggling and short bows is not how to make the fiddle sing out its wonderful vibrating voice,,,
That bit about lilting the tunes is spot on. James Kelly asks his fiddle students to lilt everything back to him--down to the rolls, triplets, and other twiddly bits. Point being, until you have the phrasing and timing of it all in your head, it won't likely come out on fiddle.
But I'm not so sure about bow stroke length. The best fiddlers get good tone (or the tone they want) no matter how much or how little bow they use. A friend of mine who plays with the Ranier Symphony (and is also a brilliant fiddler) says his bow work and tone production really weren't top notch until he worked on the smallest of bow strokes. That's helped me too, though I still have miles to go.
Speaking of James Kelly, in a workshop this year he had us all do exercises with very little bow (like 1 inch). I think that would be a big change for someone with classical training. The key was to let the bow and the fiddle make the sound. He stressed relaxing and doing things the easiest way possible.
The Comhaltas site is a great place to see some super fiddling. Good luck Cathleen! There's nothing like this!
I'll tell you why I suggested that thing about the short bows, and making the fingers and wrist move the bow instead of the arm. I'd got one bit right at least - Cathleen is coming at this from a classical perspective. Normally, when you watch someone who's come from classical violin to Irish fiddle, the one thing that really gives them away is their over-use of the bow and this full, I would say, brash, tone they get. It's over the top. They use too much arm, and it just doesn't sound right.
And in this, I'm with Michael Gill and others (at least I think this is what he's said ...) - tone isn't the point in Irish diddley music. Yes, the best players have great tone, but it's completely different from the tone that a classical player would have. And you're not going to get it with those big sweeps of the arm that a classical player would have.
Many years ago, Johnny Cunningham told me how he was taught to play (I think he said it was his father who taught him, but i could be wrong there). He was made to bow with his arm around the back of a chair. That did two things (one of which is very Scottish) - it made him play with short bows, using his wrist and fingers, and it made him play in the upper half of the bow (that's the Scottish bit). Tommy Peoples does that - plays in the top half of the bow - as well. I'm not advocating that - I play more in the middle, but I am saying to look at the length of bow strokes used, and just how little arm is used in moving the bow.
Benhall - that is good advice. Couldnt have put it better myself. I also agree that you need a godd fiddle teacher, how far can you possibly live from trad music? Unless you live in Antarctica there is bound to be someone around who plays tunes, might be worthwhile starting a thread here regarding looking for a teacher in whatever area.
Also - and this may sound harsh, but I'm not meaning to but the fact that you are coming from a classical background imeans that you have to basically change your bowing compleletly to get the music to sound right in a trad sense. So teacher all the way.
I was told by a good fiddle teacher to "slur across strings" by "rocking the bow" (i.e., don't change bow direction when switching from one string to the next). It took a long time to get used to that, but it really helps make the phrasing sound more Irish. If you look at video clips of good Irish fiddlers, you will see that they do it pretty consistently.
Oh, and ditch the vibrato. That's a dead giveaway.
I'll chime in with the umpteenth recommendation for tiny bow strokes. Most of the time you can simply show the bow to the fiddle and it will still make noise. Flailing around with huge bow strokes takes more energy and time. Using the smallest bow strokes possible is the most economical way to play, it just makes logical sense, and by its' nature it imparts that traditional sound to it that we're looking for.
Wow thank you very much everyone, I've already learned and watched some great things. I guess one of the first things I'm going to start with is working on smaller bow strokes even in classical my teacher says I use too much bow anyway.
Tips to Irish fiddling
Tips to Irish fiddling
Hello, I'm new here, I'm not sure if I am in the right area to ask this question but I'm learning a song from riverdance and the thing is I can play it and it sounds like it but it doesn't have the Irish fiddling feel to it. People keep telling me to loosen it up a bit but then it sounds like I'm playing all over the place so if you have ANY tips I'd be VERY happy to know'em. Thank you very much!
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by CountessCathleen
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Just be careful from whom you take your tips....
(sorry, bit of an inside joke)
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Take lessons. You can't take lessons from an online discussion board, though...
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by mcdevincabe
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Cathleen, please give us some background about yourself -- how long have you played fiddle, do you have classical background, what other instruments and genres do you know, do you have a teacher, how familiar with Irish trad music are you...? This will help the folks here steer you on a productive path towards what you want.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by crazy_fingerz
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Listen to some real Irish music - i.e. not Riverdance. And yes, get a teacher. The "Irish fiddling feel" will soon come.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Sincere advice:
If possible, get a teacher who is a good player of Irish tunes, even if you're an accomplished player in another idiom. Other than that:
Sounds like you're learning from the dots. If so, don't. Go and find some simpler tunes, in a local session somewhere, or on YouTube (try the Kelly family clip that has been posted here recently) or maybe, just maybe, CDs. The point being that it will help you to get the right sound if you practice right from the start by *listening* to the pukka Irish stuff.
Next, if, as it sounds (though I accept that this is just supposition) you are coming from a classical background, try, just as an exercise, using as small and light bow strokes as you possibly can. Really short - 2cm is plenty. Mix up the bowing - don't just do a bow per note. But, for a while, consciously keep those bows short. Keep trying until you start to sound like what you're listening to.
Relax your wrist. Completely. You need to be able to move the bow with your fingers and wrist alone, ie not with your arm. Later, you can re-learn how to use the arm in this kind of music.
Practice very very slowly. Really really really really REALLY slowly. Don't practice at speed AT ALL for at least a month.
Work on 4 to 5 tunes at a time, but never worry about the fact that you're playing them so slowly. Do this for a while, and it will stand you in good stead later.
Get along to Irish sessions, and just listen. Try to watch what decent fiddlers are doing and to listen to the effect what they're doing has on the music. At the end of the night, feel free to ask for a tip or two. But no more! Honestly, most people will be glad to help, to a point, but you don't want to risk being a nuisance.
Forget about tone - for now - and think about articulation. By which I mean how the notes are joined together, what it sounds like, how scratchy it is, what the ornaments are like, the fact that some notes are slurred and some are separate, in what seems at first to be random patterns. Listen to it all. You're unlikely to understand everything that you're listening to at first, but, if you keep listening, it will eventually sink in.
Finally, get as much advice as possible. Read all the advice you may get here, and sift it yourself to make sure it makes sense to you.
I hope I've not jumped straight in and assumed too much about where your own playing may be coming from. I think the above will work in any case.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Gosh! When I started that, mine was the first reponse!
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
"response"
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
You all are a bunch of assumers. That's why I started with questions rather than answers.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by crazy_fingerz
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
The fact that you're recognizing that it doesn't sound right puts you ahead of alot of beginners already. Don't confine yourself to listening to fiddling either, I didn't fully "understand" the feeling of irish music until Id listened to a good number of pipers, fluters, boxers, banjoers, etc.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by Splendid Isolation
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Even lilting can be great to hear as it really shows how the articulation is delivered!
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by Splendid Isolation
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Yeah, I knew I was making assumptions. I probably shouldn't have ... still interested to see if I was right, though ...
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
I am very familler with Irish music, I've listened to it my whole life....though this year will be my 6th year on violin and I've mostly played classical music and I do have a teacher but it summer break and I still have awhile before they start up again. I also play harp and piano and ALOT of songs I play are celtic but I've been playing violin the longest and for about a year I've been trying to get the irish fiddling down but.....i don't know I've never been happy with the way it sounds and where I live there really is no music life, so there is no one at all I can ask. My teacher alone has to travel pretty far to teach me and her other students. But even a simple Irish tune I can't get an irish reel out of it.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by CountessCathleen
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
You might take a look at:
http://comhaltas.ie/music/video/ and
http://uk.youtube.com/fiddle4u
And search YouTube for names like Tommy Peoples, Kevin Burke, Martin Hayes, Liz Carroll, Altan, Dervish... lots of good clips there.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by mickray
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
cathleen try lilting simple tunes till you have them learnt off and only then try them on the fiddle.the music is only a guide,listen to many different players play that same tune and listen most carefully for the phrases.....the seceret is not technique it is phrasing...good luck i am still trying to do it better
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by infiddle
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Invest in a very useful piece of software:
Amazing Slow Downer
http://www.ronimusic.com/
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by leoj
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Infiddle: I absolutely agree. Some of the best players haven't got much "technique" in the normal sense of the word, but have marvelous phrasing
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by Splendid Isolation
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
p.s. keep good tone production technique .all that wrist giggling and short bows is not how to make the fiddle sing out its wonderful vibrating voice,,,
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by infiddle
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
That bit about lilting the tunes is spot on. James Kelly asks his fiddle students to lilt everything back to him--down to the rolls, triplets, and other twiddly bits. Point being, until you have the phrasing and timing of it all in your head, it won't likely come out on fiddle.
But I'm not so sure about bow stroke length. The best fiddlers get good tone (or the tone they want) no matter how much or how little bow they use. A friend of mine who plays with the Ranier Symphony (and is also a brilliant fiddler) says his bow work and tone production really weren't top notch until he worked on the smallest of bow strokes. That's helped me too, though I still have miles to go.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Speaking of James Kelly, in a workshop this year he had us all do exercises with very little bow (like 1 inch). I think that would be a big change for someone with classical training. The key was to let the bow and the fiddle make the sound. He stressed relaxing and doing things the easiest way possible.
The Comhaltas site is a great place to see some super fiddling. Good luck Cathleen! There's nothing like this!
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by nofrets
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
I'll tell you why I suggested that thing about the short bows, and making the fingers and wrist move the bow instead of the arm. I'd got one bit right at least - Cathleen is coming at this from a classical perspective. Normally, when you watch someone who's come from classical violin to Irish fiddle, the one thing that really gives them away is their over-use of the bow and this full, I would say, brash, tone they get. It's over the top. They use too much arm, and it just doesn't sound right.
And in this, I'm with Michael Gill and others (at least I think this is what he's said ...) - tone isn't the point in Irish diddley music. Yes, the best players have great tone, but it's completely different from the tone that a classical player would have. And you're not going to get it with those big sweeps of the arm that a classical player would have.
Many years ago, Johnny Cunningham told me how he was taught to play (I think he said it was his father who taught him, but i could be wrong there). He was made to bow with his arm around the back of a chair. That did two things (one of which is very Scottish) - it made him play with short bows, using his wrist and fingers, and it made him play in the upper half of the bow (that's the Scottish bit). Tommy Peoples does that - plays in the top half of the bow - as well. I'm not advocating that - I play more in the middle, but I am saying to look at the length of bow strokes used, and just how little arm is used in moving the bow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1gRDQEIiSM
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Benhall - that is good advice. Couldnt have put it better myself. I also agree that you need a godd fiddle teacher, how far can you possibly live from trad music? Unless you live in Antarctica there is bound to be someone around who plays tunes, might be worthwhile starting a thread here regarding looking for a teacher in whatever area.
Also - and this may sound harsh, but I'm not meaning to but the fact that you are coming from a classical background imeans that you have to basically change your bowing compleletly to get the music to sound right in a trad sense. So teacher all the way.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by bb
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
"You have to basically change your bowing completely"
Yes, yes, yes! Exactly.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
I was told by a good fiddle teacher to "slur across strings" by "rocking the bow" (i.e., don't change bow direction when switching from one string to the next). It took a long time to get used to that, but it really helps make the phrasing sound more Irish. If you look at video clips of good Irish fiddlers, you will see that they do it pretty consistently.
Oh, and ditch the vibrato. That's a dead giveaway.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by mickray
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
I'll chime in with the umpteenth recommendation for tiny bow strokes. Most of the time you can simply show the bow to the fiddle and it will still make noise. Flailing around with huge bow strokes takes more energy and time. Using the smallest bow strokes possible is the most economical way to play, it just makes logical sense, and by its' nature it imparts that traditional sound to it that we're looking for.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Tips to Irish fiddling
Wow thank you very much everyone, I've already learned and watched some great things. I guess one of the first things I'm going to start with is working on smaller bow strokes even in classical my teacher says I use too much bow anyway.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by CountessCathleen