How To Practice Music

Fiddling with life and learning with the occasional dad joke thrown in…

 

 

Old Is The New New

Sometimes at fiddle jams I hear people say things like “I’m so sick of Kesh Jig. It’s totally been played out.” Maybe they just need a break from hearing and playing a particular melody. But tunes like Kesh Jig or Old Joe Clarke have been played a lot for a reason: they are great tunes. … Continued

Should I Find A Teacher?

If you want to get better at the fiddle or whatever skill you are learning, then you should find a good teacher if possible. A good teacher will: Point out your weaknesses and create exercises for you to work on those things. Get you to play slower. Correct your form. Motivate you to practice. Teach … Continued

Micro And Macro Practice Strategies

Forgive me if this title and post sounds like a phD thesis in mathematics! Don’t be put off. This is just a simple, systematic way for you to practice that will help you to work through hard parts of tunes. Here is a worksheet you can print and use to help you learn and utilize … Continued

Micro-practice vs. Macro-practice

Learning how to practice is the heart of the FiddleHed method. There are two complementary ways of working on music: micro-practice and macro-practice. Micro-practice is focusing, figuring things out and training your body what to do. Macro-practice is putting things together, letting go and just playing. In micro-practice we focus on the motion of our … Continued

Practice Challenge Insights

As a way to get people into the good habit of daily fiddle practice, I recently led the Fall Practice Challenge 2017, which I also participated in. There was a total of 105 “practicipants”. Pretty cool! I surveyed the folks who took part to better understand how it went and how it could be improved. … Continued

Learn Some Easy Tunes!

Easy, recognizable tunes are a great way to work on your tuning, timing and flow. If it’s a melody you know already, like London Bridges, then you can pick it up more quickly. Once you’ve learned and memorized it, you can focus all your attention on making it sound good. Try to get this simple … Continued

I Just Can’t Make It Sound Good Today!

Do you ever feel that way? Have you ever thought, “It sounded so much better yesterday! Why is it so much worse today?” I think this happens to everyone. And it is especially apparent for beginners. I’ve been playing for almost forty years, but there are still times when I play better or worse. So … Continued

Work At Your Edge

If you want to get better at the fiddle, you need to carefully work at the edge of your abilities. Strike a balance between easy and hard. Try to practice things that are in the “Goldlilocks zone” of difficulty: not too easy and not too hard. If a task is too easy you get bored. … Continued

Mistakes And Discoveries

For all my talk of playing every day and focusing your practice, I still fail to do these things at times, even after almost forty years of playing music. For instance, I set a practice challenge goal of an hour a day, and have stuck to it except for last Saturday. I spent the morning … Continued

Repeat A Thousand Times

Earl Scruggs wrote a banjo book and in it, he shows how to do an exercise and then says, “Repeat a thousand times”. It may sound funny (and it is) but it’s true. You may think you know something, but you can always go further. You may think you’ve practiced something enough and are ready … Continued