For all you fiddlers, after getting to the stage of being able to play at session speed, what things do you choose to focus on to improve your playing? Sorry this is a bit broad, but I'm at that stage, and sort of wondering what sort of things others do at that stage, or if others play around with different parts of the fiddle or bow, and that sort of stuff to see how this or that affect or change the playing.
I experiment with everything - grip, left wrist, right wrist, bow arm,
shoulder position, stroke length, speed and pressure, distance from
finger board, changing the bowings around in a particular tune, scrunchy and non-scrunchy triplets, triplet on one note or 2
or 3, cutting with different fingers, rolls on the beat or later,
half rolls, "Donegal" rolls, big and little slides, vibrato, using dynamics,
using no dynamics, breaking tunes up into different phrases,
amount of swing, rhythmic distortions, melodic variation ...
...playing in the top, middle or bottom third of the bow - just to get
the feel of the different regions, playing with inside, outside
and flat hair, trying different bow hair tensions, playing with
fingers really close to the strings or farther away, trying different
amounts of finger pressure or different angles on rolls and cuts,
playing without a shoulder rest, playing with the fiddle body at
different amounts of rotation towards the E string, angling the
fiddle body in and out in relation to the midline of your body.
Something I haven't tried much, playing tunes in higher positions
on lower strings or in unusual keys or down an octave
Catherine, I don't know where you're at with your bowing, but freeing it up to the point where you can pretty much instantly play whatever sounds are in your head is a worthwhile goal. Explore every possibility--how many different ways can you bow a phrase? When it finally doesn't matter whether your bow is going up or down, single bowing notes or slurring, then you can more fully, freely loose your imagination on the tunes. There's several lifetimes of playing music from there on out.
The longer I've played fiddle, the more I'm persuaded that the bow is the instrument, and the fiddle is just the sound box.
Freeing up whatever sounds are in your head - great advice!
I get the free the bow thing - its kind of happened to me in the last couple of years - without really knowing why. Similarly, variation in the melody is slowly starting to happen also - again, not really sure how it just is.
On reflection, its probably because in my head whilst driving the car, doing the dishes, walking the dog ....... the tunes are always on the go, and they have melodic variations - it must all work on some kind of subconscious synaptic connection?
So my tuppence happorth would be to relax, not worry too much about it and to keep enjoying your playing, what happens in your head will happen - as long as you listen?
It's probably time to stop worrying about tunes, and start developing some personal style. Stop listening to tunes from any old source, pick one (or maybe two similar) fiddlers that you really like and listen to only that fiddler for a while. Play along and try to immitate his/her style, then try to play other tunes as you think he/she might.
When I first started taking lessons four years ago, my teacher told me that playing violin/fiddle is a continuing process of paying attention to finer and finer levels of detail. I find that's still true for me. This week it's been hitting the notes more cleanly and firmly to make them ring more and make the intonation more true. The last few months it's been bowing more clearly so I don't lose notes. Then I've been playing around with the style elements - the slides, the bowing choices, etc. This will probably continue forever.
The mental part of it has evolved, too. I'm trying to learn to clear my mind and focus faster, because distracted fiddle playing is sloppy fiddle playing. The focus thing is actually hard sometimes! (and I don't mean hard-core concentrating, staring down the neck kind of focus---more of getting to where I can think just about the tune, and not all the other things I have going on that day)
I started concentrating on tone and bowing AFTER getting myself settled in sessions as well. I regret it now. Why wasn't I trying to fix this stuff from the beginning?
Its a funny paradigm, and looks like a common thread for self teaching fiddlers. There is such a pull at the beginning as we sit through session after session to get "up to speed", then once that's done its like... pow....crap, the more I listen to myself the more I realize I need to fix A LOT! and to get those things fixed, Ive had to .... avoid sessions so I can slow down and really be able to hear myself! ARGH the irony.. old habits die hard. I agree with the many suggestions above, but just lament my own choices, and it looks like I might not be alone!
And so my two bits to add Im adding, are: record yourself, and slow down, simplify your bowing where ever possible, make conscious choices with bow directions to do that, clean note execution, and as you develop new habits teach yourself to recognize when you've slipped back into the old ones, then your challenge at the session, is riding that high wire on your new habits, correcting your old ones, which are bound to rear their ugly heads in the session environment.
Also practice slow. Once you are "fast" the runwaway train at sessions will pull you forward, no matter how you practice, so going slowly will help you practice relaxation, as well as staying on course with your new habits, many of which recommended by the posters above.
Nearly all the playing I do at home is at a crawl, playing the tunes so slowly that I can pay attention to the smallest detail and play, tinker, with it. It lets me get well inside the tune and find new ideas there. The more of this I do, the easier it is to play the same way at session speeds.
I like Kennedy's comments about the mental part, too. Ties right in with clunk's notion of the never ending soundtrack of tunes in your head. Here's the thing: *we play the tunes in our heads*; they just happen to come out on whatever instrument we're holding in our hands. Sure, in the early going, we focus on the technique of playing the instrument. But that's not playing music. Once you have the technical stuff in your fingers, you'll want to forget about it, press the "play" button in your mind, and follow the tune as it comes out. The technique takes care of itself. 30 years in to this music, the lesson I take home is that the actual playing is *all* in our minds. The fiddles and flutes and other twangy objects are just air molecule activators. Increasingly, neuroscience research supports this theory--studies show that imagining a tune (in detail, with feeling) fires up all the same neurons as does actually playing the tune on an instrument. Mental playing is very much just like physical playing.
I agree with skreech. Listen. And if you can do it, go to a workshop that one or two of your favorite fiddlers is doing. Then you can sit down with her/him, talk about what they're doing, try it out, and get some feedback. The other thing is just to relax and enjoy the moment. Its a great thing to be able to share tunes with your friends in a session and to experience the pleasure and the joy that brings. Unless you plan to quit in the near future, you probably have plenty of time for discovering all the technique you want. Good luck.
Zippy, yep, no matter what instrument you play (including vocal cords), the playing is all in the head. Learning to do *that* well will translate into better playing of your instrument.
Some examples of what Will was saying in his last post - Paddy Fahey, who would think up a tune while he was working in the fields, and then play it in the pub; Beethoven, who was completely stone-deaf in his later years and composed his greatest music without ever hearing a note of it; Elgar, who, although not deaf, would work out his music in his head whilst out walking on the Malvern Hills, and then write it down straight off and note-perfect when he returned home; the lady violist in the Royal Philharmonic, who became stone deaf in her 'teens but was still able to achieve and play at that level from "hearing" the music in her head and sensing the resonances in her instrument and bow; and, of course, Evelyn Glennie.
These skills can be learned, and the more you have the music in your head then the better the physical reality.
I just tried playing at the frog end of the bow, with the bow tilted towards me (hair on the side of the fingerboard). A very weird, different feeling, but cool to experiment.
Let go of it completely, and I do mean COMPLETELY. Forget the worry about bow and fingering and all the other stuff, and turn your attention elsewhere for a spell. Stop listening to other fiddlers and find some other instrument to mine inspiration from. As an idea ~ free reeds? Yes, stop thinking fiddle and use your kinship with that instrument to see if you can follow the lead and ways of something completely different. Better yet, if you've been obsessing over the usual reels and jigs, choose some tune forms that aren't your usual fare.
One really interesting way to go would be single row melodeons, but anglo concertinas will give you some of that too, and see if you can bow the belows changes, with a similar oomph, lift. Think of it as a picnic away from your usual obsession. You might do something mad like taking to slides and using just bellowed instruments for your inspiration ~ Johnny O'Leary, Jackie Daly, Jimmy Doyle, Denis Doody, etc. And just immerse yourself in a realm outside your usual single-mindedness. What you learn from such excursions can be priceless. The only thing that might stand in your way are any bricks, blocks, walls you might have built up with regards to things other than the fiddle.
Take a holiday from the fiddle, with the fiddle, but leaving most of the fussing and fiddle centric thinking behind. Have fun pretending your fiddle is something else.
It's like learning to think in another language but still using the same vocal chords you were born with, accent colouring aside. But that is definitely part of the charm too...
What a neat idea! Could you explain a bit more on bellows? Definitely using another instrument gives a totally different impression and approach to the music.
For me, it was the flute. After decades of fiddling, to pick up a flute and have my timing and rhythm and phrasing all depend on my breathing was a wake up call. Other than singing, playing flute may be the best choice to really put you in touch with how your body wants to phrase this music. Taught me tons about leaving stuff out (where to take a breath) and feeling the pulse of a tune (right in your gut, your diaphragm). Which transferred easily to fiddle.
Another thing to try I suppose is other genres. I've been focusing
on Irish Trad on fiddle. But occasionally I play with people who
do Contra dance music. They delve into just about anything.
It's a wakeup call when you try to play ragtime, bluegrass,
Scottish, Quebecois, American Trad, or music written
specifically for Contra. You find out your habitual bowing patterns
aren't sufficient and you're not used to some of the keys and
melodic patterns.
Um, I hate to break it to you Hup, but "habitual bowing patterns" aren't sufficient for any sort of music.
I know what you mean, though. Still, it's usually tougher for old timey or bluegrass fiddlers coming to Irish music--they have to adapt to things like 9/8 time and the frequent shifting from downbeat to backbeat.
Yes winds, having to breath, which is also the same with bellows, especially single row, but also two row, incluidng B/C systems. You can pick that up listening well to flute and whistle players, just another angle on the directed listen and mimic suggestion given earlier. I'd make the same suggestion for any instrument, to step away from thinking fiddle and to listening to other instruments and letting them inspire and direct your bow. The same for wind players, and even for learning basic rhythmic identity by listening to a good percussionist or accompanist, to hear how they carry part of the identity of a tune forward ~ AND ~ both the well done and poorly done can inform the aware...
Another tact, along Hup's suggestion ~ play for dance, for dancers. Find opportunities to learn from the dance, to pick up that flow and identity and discipline. Any session would benefit from the steady tempo that can help you to develop. For beginners and developing musicians, having someone present who can keep the beat ~ is a blessing. All the older musicians, and many of the younger ones too, in Ireland, I was lucky to have shared music with, easily carried my bumbling forward wit their secure and steady hand on it all, and their patience and humour. Sessions too often sacrafice 'steady' and 'relaxed' with the erratic and manic.
Badly handled and out of control, unsteady, tempos can fluctuate within parts, across parts, from tune to tune, repetition to repetitioin, bar to bar, beat to beat... Speed can so easily lie to us, as crap playing quickly passes by and out of mind, and this can be part of its addictive charms. Slow down to catch those rough bits and lack of control, and take things regularly at a comfortable and steady pace. It will benefit your overall playing greatly. Try to introduce a few relaxed pace sets in your local session, and work hard to keep them there. That will show you the state of your session quite quickly, but benefit the more insecure players amongst you, help others besides yourself.
Speed is a novocaine, it dulls everything, including sense and senses. Sadly, it also has become rampant amongst some dance communities.
If you can't play a tune with lift and soul slowly, and well, with control, then you're not doing that when you rake through it fast. Speed is not an accomplishment if what you're dragging behind you is a macerated corpse, only given animation by being dragged quickly, jerkily and abusivly. Adrenalin rush aside, it's still lifeless cack...
Always the best choice ~ go to musicians you admire, whose playing inspires ~ and if the opportunity to learn from them direct comes along ~ do your damnedest to catch some time with them... For some that happens in trips to Ireland or closer at home and taking in concerts and workshops.
Best of luck. That you are 'aware' and have the passion to learn and improve, that's the best blessing you could have. It will take you far. Always leave feed that spark and keep the doors and windows open so there's oxygen to feed that passion.
& if you can, learn some dance, participate and enjoy the full community of tradition from all sides, the dance in the dance music too. For those open to it, one thing informs the other...
Interesting and worthwhile thread to read. Not being a fiddler I wont even try to add to advice here. Things like recording yourself and choosing your favourite two musicians/styles are defiantly peices of advice to be listened to. A decent recorder witha slow down/ pitch shift capability can further speed up the process. I use Tascam DR-07. It has totally changed the way I learn and play. Think audacity or transcribe software built into a high quality recorder.. When it comes o fiddle playing I like what that fella Neff does. Suits the Pipes. Cape Breton influences or something? tis good shteam
Re: speed. Here's a notion from a pretty capable fiddler (Itzahk Perlman): "The key to playing well and at tempo is to play slowly. Play so slow that *nothing* escapes your attention."
Being one who is always keenly aware of their own shortcomings, I don't think I'll ever have a lack of items to improve in my playing, but since it seems I'm at a similar level as the OP, I'll share what I'm working on. Lately I've been focusing a lot on the rhythm/timing in my playing - making sure I'm keeping a steady tempo, and trying to include the lift that is so distinctive to this music. For a while I tended to focus a lot on ornamentation, as that was one of the big attractions for me when I first started playing Irish music, but I realize now it's much more important to have a solid rhythm than being able to execute all the nice little diddleys. That's not to say my work on ornamentation was to no avail (in fact, I get more compliments on that aspect of my playing than any other part), but I now realize that the rhythm is what is most important.
I've also been working on my phrasing and trying to make the music sound more musical, instead of it just sounding like a bunch of notes strung together. The fiddle players I admire the most are known for having very lyrical styles and I aspire to being able to impart as much as feeling and emotion into the tunes as them.
One other thing I tend to focus on a lot is the tone I'm producing with the bow. As others have pointed out in this thread and previous ones, many fiddle players tend to work first on getting up to session speed, and in consequence their tone tends to suffers greatly. Coming from a classical background, this wasn't as big an issue for me as it might be for others, but I'm still finding tons of subtleties that need improvement.
So in other words, I'm really trying to improve my playing on all fronts! There is of course other areas I have barely delved in to, such as melodic variation, but for now I'd prefer to be able to play a tune well, even if I end up being repetitive, rather than divide my attention to something of lesser importance.
I hope that is of some help to you. I would heartily agree with some of the excellent comments earlier in this thread, and will hopefully be able to apply them to my playing as well!
David, pardon me for thinking you as a young un', but I'm 51 myself and adolescence seems like a previous lifetime to me.
But that's an excellent post you've written, more self-aware than most people of any age, and with a sense of balance and patience well beyond your years. From the clips you've posted, and from your contributions here, I'd say that you're well on your way to a long happy life making the tunes dance.
I plyed for 10 years and ingrained plenty of bad habits,I am self taught and naively assumed that as I can play a couple of other instruments I would be able to become a decent fiddle player..After ten years playing on the street I got good enough to play with a pub band for a few years ,I did well at it especially accompanying songs but could never really play fast accurately, I was always blagging it to some extent. after I kept hitting the same walls technically I started to read about fiddle hold and technique and began to undo the bad habits, this worked wonders for playing slower stuff but I didnt really practise enough to develop and embed the skills to be able to play fast runs crossing strings in one bow etc. My wrist would collapse and my 3 and 4 lh fingers were not properly aligned with the strings.If I wanted to rock the gig I would have to play the whistle.
Anyway that particular band dissolved eventually, (as they always do) and I left the fiddle alone for a couple of years cos I was so ffrustrated.
recently I became inspired to pick up the fiddle and commenced studying books and websites again.The things I concentrted on were again left hand position and to some extent bow hold and action.
There was a moment went things just clicked and I found I could play scales and arpegs with much more ease.I am now playing almost every day and although I am by no means a fantastic fiddle player my journey has become one of enjoyment and noticeable development.
Why am I telling everyone this?
Because when you start fiddle you need to get the holds and finger mechanics started off on a good path,I wasted years thinking I would just get it by force of will and hours of playing.
Kato Havas' new approach to violin playing was what did it for me,together with looking at the ways violin teachers teach kids to conceptualize the crucial points The inner game of music is also a good book in my opinion and comes from a similair place in terms of ones attitude to playing.
Enjoy your journey ! the fiddle is a beautifull instrument to play,it gives so much back.
The thing you cant learn from books is the music itself and a sense of musicality,my problem was /is that I was/am more musical than my technique permitted.Ive seen a few fiddlers with great technique and who are accurate in terms of pitch and rhytmn but they dont really get the music, I reallty believe in playing from the heart, play like you mean it , like you could be dead tomorrow.
slow practise, development of tone by practising open string bowing,developing a sense of physical awareness, learning to relax and be fearless when playing,.This kind of thing helps me, and LISTEN .
Will, thank you so much for that comment; it really made my day! In return, thanks for your extensive contributions to this website which have been helpful to so many, including myself. I really appreciate how you care about helping out others on this site, versus just flaming on them for their ignorance. It's really a blessing to new folks like myself.
Ah, hush, montana man. You're a damn fine advisor, etc, and everyone here knows it. Plus you usually don't take the p*ss like old Dow. Now, if you think up some koans about the craic, I think the world would be complete, roshi-san.
Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Hi,
For all you fiddlers, after getting to the stage of being able to play at session speed, what things do you choose to focus on to improve your playing? Sorry this is a bit broad, but I'm at that stage, and sort of wondering what sort of things others do at that stage, or if others play around with different parts of the fiddle or bow, and that sort of stuff to see how this or that affect or change the playing.
Thanks.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by enirehtac
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
I experiment with everything - grip, left wrist, right wrist, bow arm,
shoulder position, stroke length, speed and pressure, distance from
finger board, changing the bowings around in a particular tune, scrunchy and non-scrunchy triplets, triplet on one note or 2
or 3, cutting with different fingers, rolls on the beat or later,
half rolls, "Donegal" rolls, big and little slides, vibrato, using dynamics,
using no dynamics, breaking tunes up into different phrases,
amount of swing, rhythmic distortions, melodic variation ...
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Hup
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
... double stops, drones, strings, rosin, changing fiddles, trying out
different bows in violin shops ...
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Hup
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
...playing in the top, middle or bottom third of the bow - just to get
the feel of the different regions, playing with inside, outside
and flat hair, trying different bow hair tensions, playing with
fingers really close to the strings or farther away, trying different
amounts of finger pressure or different angles on rolls and cuts,
playing without a shoulder rest, playing with the fiddle body at
different amounts of rotation towards the E string, angling the
fiddle body in and out in relation to the midline of your body.
Something I haven't tried much, playing tunes in higher positions
on lower strings or in unusual keys or down an octave
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Hup
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Sitting on different seats in different places in the room, in corners, facing walls, etc, near to/ far from various other instruments.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by gam
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Neat ideas ~ I can tell with just these I will have enough ideas to keep me busy for months, if not years.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by enirehtac
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Catherine, I don't know where you're at with your bowing, but freeing it up to the point where you can pretty much instantly play whatever sounds are in your head is a worthwhile goal. Explore every possibility--how many different ways can you bow a phrase? When it finally doesn't matter whether your bow is going up or down, single bowing notes or slurring, then you can more fully, freely loose your imagination on the tunes. There's several lifetimes of playing music from there on out.
The longer I've played fiddle, the more I'm persuaded that the bow is the instrument, and the fiddle is just the sound box.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Freeing up whatever sounds are in your head - great advice!
I get the free the bow thing - its kind of happened to me in the last couple of years - without really knowing why. Similarly, variation in the melody is slowly starting to happen also - again, not really sure how it just is.
On reflection, its probably because in my head whilst driving the car, doing the dishes, walking the dog ....... the tunes are always on the go, and they have melodic variations - it must all work on some kind of subconscious synaptic connection?
So my tuppence happorth would be to relax, not worry too much about it and to keep enjoying your playing, what happens in your head will happen - as long as you listen?
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by clunk999
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
It's probably time to stop worrying about tunes, and start developing some personal style. Stop listening to tunes from any old source, pick one (or maybe two similar) fiddlers that you really like and listen to only that fiddler for a while. Play along and try to immitate his/her style, then try to play other tunes as you think he/she might.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by skreech
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
When I first started taking lessons four years ago, my teacher told me that playing violin/fiddle is a continuing process of paying attention to finer and finer levels of detail. I find that's still true for me. This week it's been hitting the notes more cleanly and firmly to make them ring more and make the intonation more true. The last few months it's been bowing more clearly so I don't lose notes. Then I've been playing around with the style elements - the slides, the bowing choices, etc. This will probably continue forever.
The mental part of it has evolved, too. I'm trying to learn to clear my mind and focus faster, because distracted fiddle playing is sloppy fiddle playing. The focus thing is actually hard sometimes! (and I don't mean hard-core concentrating, staring down the neck kind of focus---more of getting to where I can think just about the tune, and not all the other things I have going on that day)
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by kennedy
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
I started concentrating on tone and bowing AFTER getting myself settled in sessions as well. I regret it now. Why wasn't I trying to fix this stuff from the beginning?
Its a funny paradigm, and looks like a common thread for self teaching fiddlers. There is such a pull at the beginning as we sit through session after session to get "up to speed", then once that's done its like... pow....crap, the more I listen to myself the more I realize I need to fix A LOT! and to get those things fixed, Ive had to .... avoid sessions so I can slow down and really be able to hear myself! ARGH the irony.. old habits die hard. I agree with the many suggestions above, but just lament my own choices, and it looks like I might not be alone!
And so my two bits to add Im adding, are: record yourself, and slow down, simplify your bowing where ever possible, make conscious choices with bow directions to do that, clean note execution, and as you develop new habits teach yourself to recognize when you've slipped back into the old ones, then your challenge at the session, is riding that high wire on your new habits, correcting your old ones, which are bound to rear their ugly heads in the session environment.
Also practice slow. Once you are "fast" the runwaway train at sessions will pull you forward, no matter how you practice, so going slowly will help you practice relaxation, as well as staying on course with your new habits, many of which recommended by the posters above.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by SandyBottoms
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
reading my own post should that be paradox rather than paradigm? Oh well. See? I need to slow down!
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by SandyBottoms
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Good post, SandyBottoms.
Nearly all the playing I do at home is at a crawl, playing the tunes so slowly that I can pay attention to the smallest detail and play, tinker, with it. It lets me get well inside the tune and find new ideas there. The more of this I do, the easier it is to play the same way at session speeds.
I like Kennedy's comments about the mental part, too. Ties right in with clunk's notion of the never ending soundtrack of tunes in your head. Here's the thing: *we play the tunes in our heads*; they just happen to come out on whatever instrument we're holding in our hands. Sure, in the early going, we focus on the technique of playing the instrument. But that's not playing music. Once you have the technical stuff in your fingers, you'll want to forget about it, press the "play" button in your mind, and follow the tune as it comes out. The technique takes care of itself. 30 years in to this music, the lesson I take home is that the actual playing is *all* in our minds. The fiddles and flutes and other twangy objects are just air molecule activators. Increasingly, neuroscience research supports this theory--studies show that imagining a tune (in detail, with feeling) fires up all the same neurons as does actually playing the tune on an instrument. Mental playing is very much just like physical playing.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Well said SandyBottoms, confessions of a session addict eh? I won't ask about the handle...
I'm enjoying this thread along with a lovely single malt and a few tunes, both being savoured slooowly and with respect...
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
The mental part is not only a challenge for fiddlers. I think I spend as much time trying to control that as I do actually playing.
I am reading 'The Game of Music" now. It sounds like a universal challenge.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by zippydw
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
I agree with skreech. Listen. And if you can do it, go to a workshop that one or two of your favorite fiddlers is doing. Then you can sit down with her/him, talk about what they're doing, try it out, and get some feedback. The other thing is just to relax and enjoy the moment. Its a great thing to be able to share tunes with your friends in a session and to experience the pleasure and the joy that brings. Unless you plan to quit in the near future, you probably have plenty of time for discovering all the technique you want. Good luck.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by John Culhane
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Zippy, yep, no matter what instrument you play (including vocal cords), the playing is all in the head. Learning to do *that* well will translate into better playing of your instrument.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Some examples of what Will was saying in his last post - Paddy Fahey, who would think up a tune while he was working in the fields, and then play it in the pub; Beethoven, who was completely stone-deaf in his later years and composed his greatest music without ever hearing a note of it; Elgar, who, although not deaf, would work out his music in his head whilst out walking on the Malvern Hills, and then write it down straight off and note-perfect when he returned home; the lady violist in the Royal Philharmonic, who became stone deaf in her 'teens but was still able to achieve and play at that level from "hearing" the music in her head and sensing the resonances in her instrument and bow; and, of course, Evelyn Glennie.
These skills can be learned, and the more you have the music in your head then the better the physical reality.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
"The bow goes up. The bow goes down."
- Miss L quoting some famous fiddler at a workshop (Kevin Burke?)
Great thread!
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Yep, credit goes to Mr. Burke for that quip.
# Posted on April 16th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
I just tried playing at the frog end of the bow, with the bow tilted towards me (hair on the side of the fingerboard). A very weird, different feeling, but cool to experiment.
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by enirehtac
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Let go of it completely, and I do mean COMPLETELY. Forget the worry about bow and fingering and all the other stuff, and turn your attention elsewhere for a spell. Stop listening to other fiddlers and find some other instrument to mine inspiration from. As an idea ~ free reeds? Yes, stop thinking fiddle and use your kinship with that instrument to see if you can follow the lead and ways of something completely different. Better yet, if you've been obsessing over the usual reels and jigs, choose some tune forms that aren't your usual fare.
One really interesting way to go would be single row melodeons, but anglo concertinas will give you some of that too, and see if you can bow the belows changes, with a similar oomph, lift. Think of it as a picnic away from your usual obsession. You might do something mad like taking to slides and using just bellowed instruments for your inspiration ~ Johnny O'Leary, Jackie Daly, Jimmy Doyle, Denis Doody, etc. And just immerse yourself in a realm outside your usual single-mindedness. What you learn from such excursions can be priceless. The only thing that might stand in your way are any bricks, blocks, walls you might have built up with regards to things other than the fiddle.
Take a holiday from the fiddle, with the fiddle, but leaving most of the fussing and fiddle centric thinking behind. Have fun pretending your fiddle is something else.
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by ceolachan
It's like learning to think in another language but still using the same vocal chords you were born with, accent colouring aside. But that is definitely part of the charm too...
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
What a neat idea! Could you explain a bit more on bellows? Definitely using another instrument gives a totally different impression and approach to the music.
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by enirehtac
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
For me, it was the flute. After decades of fiddling, to pick up a flute and have my timing and rhythm and phrasing all depend on my breathing was a wake up call. Other than singing, playing flute may be the best choice to really put you in touch with how your body wants to phrase this music. Taught me tons about leaving stuff out (where to take a breath) and feeling the pulse of a tune (right in your gut, your diaphragm). Which transferred easily to fiddle.
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Another thing to try I suppose is other genres. I've been focusing
on Irish Trad on fiddle. But occasionally I play with people who
do Contra dance music. They delve into just about anything.
It's a wakeup call when you try to play ragtime, bluegrass,
Scottish, Quebecois, American Trad, or music written
specifically for Contra. You find out your habitual bowing patterns
aren't sufficient and you're not used to some of the keys and
melodic patterns.
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by Hup
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Um, I hate to break it to you Hup, but "habitual bowing patterns" aren't sufficient for any sort of music.
I know what you mean, though. Still, it's usually tougher for old timey or bluegrass fiddlers coming to Irish music--they have to adapt to things like 9/8 time and the frequent shifting from downbeat to backbeat.
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Just play better. Get an idea of how you want to play in your head and just do it
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by Lord Gordon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Yes winds, having to breath, which is also the same with bellows, especially single row, but also two row, incluidng B/C systems. You can pick that up listening well to flute and whistle players, just another angle on the directed listen and mimic suggestion given earlier. I'd make the same suggestion for any instrument, to step away from thinking fiddle and to listening to other instruments and letting them inspire and direct your bow. The same for wind players, and even for learning basic rhythmic identity by listening to a good percussionist or accompanist, to hear how they carry part of the identity of a tune forward ~ AND ~ both the well done and poorly done can inform the aware...
Another tact, along Hup's suggestion ~ play for dance, for dancers. Find opportunities to learn from the dance, to pick up that flow and identity and discipline. Any session would benefit from the steady tempo that can help you to develop. For beginners and developing musicians, having someone present who can keep the beat ~ is a blessing. All the older musicians, and many of the younger ones too, in Ireland, I was lucky to have shared music with, easily carried my bumbling forward wit their secure and steady hand on it all, and their patience and humour. Sessions too often sacrafice 'steady' and 'relaxed' with the erratic and manic.
Badly handled and out of control, unsteady, tempos can fluctuate within parts, across parts, from tune to tune, repetition to repetitioin, bar to bar, beat to beat... Speed can so easily lie to us, as crap playing quickly passes by and out of mind, and this can be part of its addictive charms. Slow down to catch those rough bits and lack of control, and take things regularly at a comfortable and steady pace. It will benefit your overall playing greatly. Try to introduce a few relaxed pace sets in your local session, and work hard to keep them there. That will show you the state of your session quite quickly, but benefit the more insecure players amongst you, help others besides yourself.
Speed is a novocaine, it dulls everything, including sense and senses. Sadly, it also has become rampant amongst some dance communities.
If you can't play a tune with lift and soul slowly, and well, with control, then you're not doing that when you rake through it fast. Speed is not an accomplishment if what you're dragging behind you is a macerated corpse, only given animation by being dragged quickly, jerkily and abusivly. Adrenalin rush aside, it's still lifeless cack...
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Always the best choice ~ go to musicians you admire, whose playing inspires ~ and if the opportunity to learn from them direct comes along ~ do your damnedest to catch some time with them... For some that happens in trips to Ireland or closer at home and taking in concerts and workshops.
Best of luck. That you are 'aware' and have the passion to learn and improve, that's the best blessing you could have. It will take you far. Always leave feed that spark and keep the doors and windows open so there's oxygen to feed that passion.
Best of luck ~ 'c'
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by ceolachan
& if you can, learn some dance, participate and enjoy the full community of tradition from all sides, the dance in the dance music too. For those open to it, one thing informs the other...
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Interesting and worthwhile thread to read. Not being a fiddler I wont even try to add to advice here. Things like recording yourself and choosing your favourite two musicians/styles are defiantly peices of advice to be listened to. A decent recorder witha slow down/ pitch shift capability can further speed up the process. I use Tascam DR-07. It has totally changed the way I learn and play. Think audacity or transcribe software built into a high quality recorder.. When it comes o fiddle playing I like what that fella Neff does. Suits the Pipes. Cape Breton influences or something? tis good shteam
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by Miss Mulligan
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
"C" it's good to see you with some stamina again.
Re: speed. Here's a notion from a pretty capable fiddler (Itzahk Perlman): "The key to playing well and at tempo is to play slowly. Play so slow that *nothing* escapes your attention."
# Posted on April 17th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Being one who is always keenly aware of their own shortcomings, I don't think I'll ever have a lack of items to improve in my playing, but since it seems I'm at a similar level as the OP, I'll share what I'm working on. Lately I've been focusing a lot on the rhythm/timing in my playing - making sure I'm keeping a steady tempo, and trying to include the lift that is so distinctive to this music. For a while I tended to focus a lot on ornamentation, as that was one of the big attractions for me when I first started playing Irish music, but I realize now it's much more important to have a solid rhythm than being able to execute all the nice little diddleys. That's not to say my work on ornamentation was to no avail (in fact, I get more compliments on that aspect of my playing than any other part), but I now realize that the rhythm is what is most important.
I've also been working on my phrasing and trying to make the music sound more musical, instead of it just sounding like a bunch of notes strung together. The fiddle players I admire the most are known for having very lyrical styles and I aspire to being able to impart as much as feeling and emotion into the tunes as them.
One other thing I tend to focus on a lot is the tone I'm producing with the bow. As others have pointed out in this thread and previous ones, many fiddle players tend to work first on getting up to session speed, and in consequence their tone tends to suffers greatly. Coming from a classical background, this wasn't as big an issue for me as it might be for others, but I'm still finding tons of subtleties that need improvement.
So in other words, I'm really trying to improve my playing on all fronts! There is of course other areas I have barely delved in to, such as melodic variation, but for now I'd prefer to be able to play a tune well, even if I end up being repetitive, rather than divide my attention to something of lesser importance.
I hope that is of some help to you. I would heartily agree with some of the excellent comments earlier in this thread, and will hopefully be able to apply them to my playing as well!
-- David
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by The David Dude
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
David, pardon me for thinking you as a young un', but I'm 51 myself and adolescence seems like a previous lifetime to me.
But that's an excellent post you've written, more self-aware than most people of any age, and with a sense of balance and patience well beyond your years. From the clips you've posted, and from your contributions here, I'd say that you're well on your way to a long happy life making the tunes dance.
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
The best fiddler I know explained it like this
"Wiggle the fingers on the left hand, waggle the wrist on the right hand."
It works for him.
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by minijackpot
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
I plyed for 10 years and ingrained plenty of bad habits,I am self taught and naively assumed that as I can play a couple of other instruments I would be able to become a decent fiddle player..After ten years playing on the street I got good enough to play with a pub band for a few years ,I did well at it especially accompanying songs but could never really play fast accurately, I was always blagging it to some extent. after I kept hitting the same walls technically I started to read about fiddle hold and technique and began to undo the bad habits, this worked wonders for playing slower stuff but I didnt really practise enough to develop and embed the skills to be able to play fast runs crossing strings in one bow etc. My wrist would collapse and my 3 and 4 lh fingers were not properly aligned with the strings.If I wanted to rock the gig I would have to play the whistle.
Anyway that particular band dissolved eventually, (as they always do) and I left the fiddle alone for a couple of years cos I was so ffrustrated.
recently I became inspired to pick up the fiddle and commenced studying books and websites again.The things I concentrted on were again left hand position and to some extent bow hold and action.
There was a moment went things just clicked and I found I could play scales and arpegs with much more ease.I am now playing almost every day and although I am by no means a fantastic fiddle player my journey has become one of enjoyment and noticeable development.
Why am I telling everyone this?
Because when you start fiddle you need to get the holds and finger mechanics started off on a good path,I wasted years thinking I would just get it by force of will and hours of playing.
Kato Havas' new approach to violin playing was what did it for me,together with looking at the ways violin teachers teach kids to conceptualize the crucial points The inner game of music is also a good book in my opinion and comes from a similair place in terms of ones attitude to playing.
Enjoy your journey ! the fiddle is a beautifull instrument to play,it gives so much back.
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by peter wsll
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
The thing you cant learn from books is the music itself and a sense of musicality,my problem was /is that I was/am more musical than my technique permitted.Ive seen a few fiddlers with great technique and who are accurate in terms of pitch and rhytmn but they dont really get the music, I reallty believe in playing from the heart, play like you mean it , like you could be dead tomorrow.
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by peter wsll
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
slow practise, development of tone by practising open string bowing,developing a sense of physical awareness, learning to relax and be fearless when playing,.This kind of thing helps me, and LISTEN .
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by peter wsll
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Will, thank you so much for that comment; it really made my day! In return, thanks for your extensive contributions to this website which have been helpful to so many, including myself. I really appreciate how you care about helping out others on this site, versus just flaming on them for their ignorance. It's really a blessing to new folks like myself.
All the best,
David
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by The David Dude
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
I'm simply passing along what other players passed along to me, including the notion that this music blooms from a spirit of generosity.
# Posted on April 18th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Improving Fiddle Playing Ideas
Ah, hush, montana man. You're a damn fine advisor, etc, and everyone here knows it. Plus you usually don't take the p*ss like old Dow. Now, if you think up some koans about the craic, I think the world would be complete, roshi-san.
# Posted on April 20th 2010 by Pádraig