jason kleinberg

Old Town Road – Fiddle Cover

Pop song in G# Minor | Intermediate Here’s a fiddle cover of “Old Town Road,”a hip-hop country song by Little Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. It’s the debut performance by KittyFiddler, a strange new character roaming the hills and valleys of San Francisco. While bringing unexpected joy to casual passersby, KittyFiddler’s very presence has also incurred … Continued

I Can’t Fiddle Fast Enough!

“I can’t play it fast enough! How can I speed up this tune to the right speed? Will I EVER be able to do it?” Before we get into how to play faster, I want to ask you something. Why do you want to play fast?  “Because I heard a famous fiddler play it fast.” … Continued

Six Ways To Overcome Fiddle Frustration

A lot of you have told me that you’re frustrated because your current level of playing is nowhere near where you want to be. You want to be ripping mind-crunching solos like Mark O’Connor. But it seems like you’ll never get there. In this Fiddlosophy post, I’m going to suggest six ways to overcome fiddle … Continued

Danny Boy / Kesh Jig – Electric Fiddle Solo – liner notes

A fiddlehed named Suzanne attended a Diego’s Umbrella show in Fairfax, Ca. and took video of my “solo solo”. This is the part of the show where I create a live looping drone and then play melodies over that. For this version of the solo solo, I start with a G drone. I create this on … Continued

The Power Of Adding Variation

On The Endless Plateau So you’ve learned the fiddle and can now play a bunch of tunes. Do you feel like you’ve reached a plateau with your playing? Does it seem like you’re just going through the motions on a tune and it’s not sounding any better? Adding variations to scales and tunes is a … Continued

Practice Just To Practice

Why do you practice the fiddle? What do you hope to achieve? Do you want to be able to play a certain tune? Or do you want to be able to play with people? Do you see a vision of yourself doing something with music in the future? Before reading further, take a moment to … Continued

Practice Notes February 19, 2019

It’s been raining a lot in the Bay Area. It’s been nice. I’ve been hibernating, catching up on work, detoxing and practicing a lot ? Here are some notes I’ve taken from my practice in the last two months. It’s fairly longwinded so I’ll summarize briefly here, and then start blowing wind. (That sentence didn’t … Continued

Rights Of Man – Fiddle Raga

Here’s a fiddle raga performance of Rights Of Man.  Here is a downloadable mp3 for your listening pleasure (so you can listen to this while walking the dog, doing laundry or going to sleep at night):  Performance liner notes I’m playing a fiddle strung with viola strings tuned DADA. It’s similar to old-time “saw-mill” tuning, … Continued

The Surfing Fiddler

It’s humbling to learn something new. At the moment, I’m living in Bali for a month, updating FiddleHed.com and building a new course on improvisation. I’m also re-learning how to surf. Out on the ocean, it’s pretty clear that I’m a beginner. Struggling to paddle out, getting battered by oncoming waves, not gaining enough speed … Continued

Fiddle Around The World: Bali

Sometimes you just wake up and realize you’re somewhere else. Though I booked this trip to Bali a few months ago, I’ve been so busy with FiddleHed that I haven’t had time to plan anything or even look forward to it. The only thing I really did was book a flight. And now, I find myself … Continued