17 Ways To Practice Jenny Lynn

In this lesson, I demonstrate 17 ways to practice the tune Jenny Lynn. This will make your sessions fun and productive. You’ll learn the tune at a deep level as you improve various aspects of your technique.

Before we get started, here are lessons I’ve made on this:

• Jenny Lynn – Basic
• Jenny Lynn – Round Peak Variation

Once you can play the basic version, you’ll be ready to learn these variations, which will only deepen your

Let’s go!

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1. Alternate between the scale and the tune
   • Add variation to the scale.
2. Looping smaller and larger sections
   • Learn more 👉 Practice Loops.
3. Chaining
   • Slowly build up a tune, note by note, phrase by phrase.
   • Play the first note, then the first two, then the first three.
     • Do this until you have you can play a larger piece.
   • Then do the same process for the next piece.
   • Then put pieces together.
   • If you already have learned to tune, you may want to start by changing phrases instead of notes.
   • In addition to moving in a forward direction, you can start at the end of the tune. This is called backwards chaining.
   • Learn more 👉 Backwards Chaining.
4. Pluck it in violin position
   • Plucking helps you to focus on the left hand.
   • Here’s a trick for rolling the bow into your hand so you can pluck (without setting down the bow) 👉 Going From Bowing to Plucking.
5. Tremolo
   • Introduction to Tremolo
6. Close your eyes while playing
   • In this way you focus more on the sound and feel of the music.
   • Only do this once you’ve learned the tune well
7. Work on consistent timing
   • Use an external beat: a metronome, play along track or drum machine.
   • Find a comfortable tempo and try to continuously play it with a beat.
   • This is a great thing to practice every time you play.
   • Learn more 👉  Practice journeys: Timing Workshop.
8. Work on speed
   • Once you can play at a consistent tempo, work on slowly speeding it up.
   • Find your slowest and fastest tempo.
   • You slowest tempo.
9. Dynamics
   • Play quietly with small light bows (whisper).
   • Play loud.
   • Quiet to loud (crescendo).
   • Loud to quiet (decrescendo).
10. Transpose down a fifth, from A to D Major
    • Same fingering, start G1-D0-2-1-0-1-2-0.
    • Use a D drone.
    • Learn more 👉 Joy To The World of Transposition!
11. Transpose down a whole step, from A to G Major
    • This is harder, because you’ll use completely different fingering.
    • G Major scale: G0-1-2-3-D0-1-2-3 | D3-A0-1-L2-3-E0-1-L2.
    • Here’s how it will begin: D0-3-A1-0-D3-A0-1-D3-A0-1-D3-1.
    • See if you can figure out the rest! You’ll need to deeply learn the original tune. But that’ll be fun!
    • Learn more 👉 Tunes Transposed to G Major.
12. Droning double stops
    • Play the open A string when playing E string notes.
    • When do you use double stops in a tune?
13. Alternate between singing and fiddling a phrase
    • Singing and Playing Practice
14. Strum and sing the melody
    • The easiest way to do it for this song is to just play and A chord throughout the entire tune.
    • Here’s how you play an A chord: G1D1A0E0
    • Learn more 👉 Chord Backup Central
15. Add slur two-separate two to groups of 4 eighth notes.
    • Learn more 👉 Slur Two-Separate Two Tune Exercises
16. Practice note-reading
    • Play the first without reading (learn it with tabs). Learn it well.
    • Then listen to it and look at the sheet music.
    • Then read and play at the same time
    • Keep repeating these steps.
    • Learn more here: Note-reading for Fiddlers course
17. Do it in a minor mode!
    • This is weird, but fun!
    • Play an A Aeolian scale: A0-1-L2-3-E0-L1-L2-3
    • When playing the tune, do the following substitutions:
      • D2 > DL2
      • A2 > AL2
      • E1 > EL1

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Practice creatively

With a creative mindset, you can play the same tune for hours on end practicing different things.

It may seem boring, but once you get into this kind of creative practice, you’ll find it to be incredibly fun.

If you discover a fun way to practice this or any tune, please let me know!

OK, go fiddle with it.