There’s still time to enter the zoom lesson giveaway.
It ends on Monday at 12 pm PT. Six fiddle students will win a 30-minute online lesson with me. You have a decent chance of winning this since less than 200 people have entered so far. Follow the link below to the homepage for details.
A lot of you have said that you’d like some one-on-one feedback. In these giveaway lessons, I’ll be experimenting with ways to give you that feedback. If it seems to be a good idea, then perhaps I’ll bring on a FiddleHed tutor. The idea is that you could get a short fiddle lesson at a relatively affordable rate. Stay tuned for this…
Featured lessons
Reading Notes On The E string / In this lesson you’ll learn how to read the notes on the E string in an easy-to-understand way. This is part of the Note-Reading For Fiddlers course. Almost done with this. Thanks for all your feedback!
“I’m trying to learn stops while playing on two strings. I’m ok with playing D and A strings if the stops are on the A. Boy howdy, can’t say the same if the stops are on the D. Any advice on this? My fingers on the D are hitting the A and my ears hurt.”
Fiddlosophy
Renew With Review / I’ve been thinking about the process of review a lot recently. We take in so much information, but how much do we remember? When does it become knowledge? I think it’s important to curate things we want to maintain. A cliché that says the same thing: Use it or lose it.
So I re-posted this article on review. And I updated with links to newer articles that relate to it. And in a way, this process of re-posting is a way to review ideas we’ve absorbed and build on them. So when you review a tune, pay attention how it’s different. What new things can you apply? What new things can you learn from it?
Some strategies to help you review:
Fingerprinting
Review sets
Audiation
The main point: Keep track of tunes you’ve learned and review the ones you really care about.
Community
Here’s a clip from a zoom lesson with my student Dan on the Georgia Shuffle. Dan is one of the most inspiring students I’ve worked with. A few years ago he suffered a massive stroke. He lost motor control for much of the left side of his body. He was out of commission for a few years…
Slowly, slowly he fought his way back. When he started fiddle lessons again, he could barely move his fingers. He told me that he has to “will his fingers” to move. He literally has to expend a ton of brain energy trying to consciously move his fingers.
Dan sees fiddling as a key part of the rehabilitation process. It’s been a few years since he re-booted his fiddle practice, and I’m amazed at his progress. He’s now learning the low fourth finger, Lucy Farr’s, Done Gone along with the Georgia Shuffle, figure 8 bowing, and double stops. Every time I meet with him I’m impressed with his resilience. If he can overcome the stroke and play fiddle again, then I should be able to deal with my little problems!
I’d love to hear your story too…
Recommended listening
Willie and Paula Nelson reinvent this classic Creedence tune as a country song. A good song will hold up across different voices and styles…even in a Karaoke bar (ok, not always). But then again Willie Nelson could make anything sound good.
