jason kleinberg

Creative work takes time

Last weekend I finished a recording session with my old friend Joe Rut. Overall, it went well. We did six tunes in about two and a half days. Three of these are long form “fiddle raga” pieces, while the other three are shorter, more composed pieces. Here’s what I learned…   It’s hard to predict … Continued

What is a G clef? Is it the same as treble clef?

A FiddleHed named Malik asked “Can you explain for me what a G-Clef is?” The fancy scroll with a tail that appears at the beginning of fiddle music is called the treble clef. The other name for it is called “G clef” and if you look closely, it does look like a stylized G. Different instruments … Continued

Oh Resistance! Your power is strong, but I will keep going!

I’ve been reading The War of Art, which is about overcoming resistance in creative work. Though I’ve been making things my whole life, I still have to do battle with Resistance. For example, I’ve been writing and practicing tunes for an album with the working title “Fiddle Stories.” I’m exploring ways of re-inventing these tunes … Continued

A little lesson on Little Lift

The practice of Little Lift will help you to place your left-hand fingers on the fiddle with greater ease. It will also help you to play better in tune and faster. Further learning Continuously alternate between focus on purely physical practice and other things, like scales, tunes, and techniques. This will help you in Overcoming … Continued

Playing an online duet with Jong Madaliday

Super fun to play some back up fiddle with this amazing singer named @jongmadaliday from the Philippines who I found on TikTok 😻. I’m kind of a noob at this, so still totally amazed that with a little bit of effort I was able to collaborate with somebody on the other side of the planet. … Continued

Should I get my bow re-haired?

Have you been playing for a while and noticed that the hair on your bow has a case of “bed head” and isn’t quite falling into line anymore? Or maybe a bow was gifted to you, but the hair has more gaps than strands. It’s time to get it rehaired! Getting new hair on a … Continued

Fun with the FiddleHed Network

I just re-organize the main menu, and added some tabs for the FiddleHed community. Watch this short video for more detail.   You can now post audio, images and text directly to this feed. If you’d like to post video, first post video to YouTube and then post a link. Here’s a tutorial on that How … Continued

Mix Up Your Music Practice With Interleaving

Interleaving is alternating between different skills as you practice. Instead of pounding away at a difficult scale for an entire session, a difficult bowing in another session, and then a hard tune in still another session, alternate between each skill multiple times in a single session.   If you find you’re getting extremely frustrated doing … Continued

How to change the speed of a video

Did you know that you can change the speed of videos? Here’s how. Hover the cursor over the settings wheel. You’ll see a popup window. Click Playback speed.   You can choose a pre-set speed. I recommend starting with 0.75 for learning parts of fiddle tunes.   By clicking custom in the top right corner, … Continued

Bile ’em Down The Orange Blossom Special

Taking a practice break to mess around with adding the Orange Blossom special to an old-time tune called Bile ‘em Cabbage Down (translation: Please boil the cabbage 🥬 ). Here’s a lesson on the basic OBS pattern. You can be endlessly creative with simple melodies. Keep returning to them to learn and practice new things. They … Continued