How To Practice Music

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

 

 

How To Use Evernote To Practice Music

I use an app called Evernote to help me track when I practice. It allows me to take text notes, record myself, and embed images all on one page. I can easily keep track of stuff I’ve been practicing over the last month. In this lesson, I’ll show you how I use this cool app. … Continued

What did you have for dinner last night?

When learning something new, try this trick. Pause on that new or challenging thing and try to remember what you had for dinner last night. Really try to picture it. How much time did it take to prepare it? What time did you eat? When was the last time you had that meal? How did … Continued

Practice Loops

In a practice loop, you alternate between to areas of practice to improve a specific musical technique. Here are some examples: Alternate between a tune and its scale Alternate between listening and playing Fiddling with chords and melodies   For those of you who’ve followed and subscribed to FiddleHed, you know that looping is a … Continued

The Two-Minute Rule

How to establish a regular fiddle practice  Do you have trouble practicing on a daily basis? If so, the Two-Minute Rule may help you to establish this healthy habit. The term was coined by author James Clear in his book Atomic Habits. The basic idea: Make it easier to establish the habit by committing to … Continued

The Ultimate Beginner Pitfall

A FiddleHed named Dave wrote to me because he was struggling with the advanced version of Blackest Crow. In his email, it became clear that he hadn’t been playing very long. That version of the tune is challenging if you are new to the fiddle. It involves double stops, tricky triplets, slides and some fast … Continued

Why can’t I get a good sound on the fiddle?

People often write to me saying they struggle with getting a good sound. While playing something challenging, you may notice that it is sounding worse.  If you do notice, then take heart! You’re already on the way to sounding better. Now you just need to pause, simplify what you’re doing and connect with your basic … Continued

Don’t Give Up!

Did you know that everyone who has ever played the fiddle has felt doubt at one point or another? Every person who has tried to play an instrument (or to complete a challenging project) has thought, “I have so far to go. I don’t think I’m going to make it.”  Why do some people make … Continued

Joy To The World of Transposition!

Joy to the World is an amazing melody. It’s also a great tool for practicing transposition. That’s because the melody fits exactly within a one-octave range. In this lesson, I’m going to show you how to play it in all twelve keys! So the cool thing is, once you can play this in D major, … Continued

Dealing With Frustration

Lately, we’ve had a problem with the menus crashing on the site. We’ve tried all different fixes to no avail. Once we see the menus are down, we can reset them. So I guess it could be worse. But overall it’s a pretty major problem with the website that is still haunting us. In addition … Continued

Can you do too many double stops?

A FiddleHed named John wrote to me asking, “Can you do too many double stops?” I would answer with another question. Do you like the way it sounds with lots of double stops? If you love it, then keep it!  Keep in mind that the melody is not quite as clear when you add double stops. … Continued